Campaign
I love words. They nourish me more than food. As a child (and even now, as an adult) I read novel after novel, losing myself in the characters, the plot, and the effortless descriptions of good writers. If I could swallow the New York Times, I would. (There are also many other fantastic newspaper publications out there; I'm not partial.) The discovery of Google reader has been my biggest internet distraction to date. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but I'd rather the thousand words.
At the climax of The King's Speech, I held my breath with the rest of the packed audience and hoped to God that history was kind to King George VI.
Erica Chenoweth directs Wesleyan University's program on terrorism and insurgency research, which she established in 2008. Her work will be featured in the upcoming May issue of Sojourners magazine. Erica is doing innovative research on the strategic effectiveness of civil resistance and nonviolent revolution. Recently, she wrote a post at Monkey Cage on why traditional "peace and security" academic programs should include nonviolence and civil resistance tactics as part of their programs. "It is time for security studies to take nonviolent conflict seriously," writes Chenoweth, "and to incorporate such episodes and their dynamics into the canonical literature."
In a credit to both Republicans and Democrats, Congress just passed a measure that will avoid a government shutdown for at least the next two weeks. This means that there is still time to protect the poor and most vulnerable during the budget debate.
Growing up in the Bible belt in east Tennessee, I can remember an entire campaign built around "What Would Jesus Do?" There were WWJD bracelets, stickers, and T-shirts everywhere.
The current budget and deficit debate in America is now dominating the daily headlines. There is even talk of shutting down the government if the budget-cutters don't get their way.
Yesterday I received my email copy of ePistle, Evangelicals for Social Action’s weekly electronic communication. This article discussing the situation in the Ivory Coast and the former president Laurent Gbagbo immediately caught my attention:
“The Ivory Coast is on the brink of civil war, and chocolate companies could play a critical role in saving lives and bringing peace.