stillhaventfound.org

International Development:

1) Jeffrey Sachs on how aid can result in rapid victories against extreme poverty.

2) Niall Ferguson says colonialism didn’t cause Africa’s problems, and aid alone won’t fix them.

3) Nancy Birdsall, founding president of the Center for Global Development, on why globalization doesn’t lift all boats.

4) Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee on moving towards a new development economics.

5) Amartya Sen and his model for Third World growth.

Politics & Economics:

6) Muslims and multiculturalism: lessons from Canada.

7) Canada, the friendly stranger.

Progressive Christianity:

8) The Vatican warns of an Antichrist who is “pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist“.

9) The Christian Conservative agenda and a healthy pluralism of concerns within the body of Christ.

Others:

10) A philosopher, and economist and the leader of the Communist Party USA on “Can you be too rich?“

International Development:

1) Newsweek on famine insurance.

2) Globalization and Child Labor: The Cause Can Also be a Cure

3) John Lanchester reviews 5 books and reports on climate change in the London Review of Books.

4) Three obstacles to doing anything about climate change.

Politics & Economics:

5) Dinesh D’Souza on what’s wrong with the Right: part I, II, III & IV.

6) Corporate social responsibility works, and progressives shouldn’t abandon it.

7) The American welfare state is bigger than you think, and more unfair than you’d want.

Progressive Christianity:

8) Jars of Clay has little praise for Christian rock norms or Bush.

9) Pentecostal Church lures Latin Americans away from Catholicism - through modern marketing, prosperity and exorcisms.

Others:

10) The Seinfeld principle for advertising.

International Development:

1) Aid effectiveness is getting better even though it’s hard to prove.

2) How fair is Fairtrade?

3) The beyond organic movement.

4) The zero waste movement envisions a world without waste.

5) The benefits and costs of financial globalization. Also: The Boston Globe on Joseph Stiglitz and capital controls.

Politics & Economics:

6) The impact of academic bias when professors lean to the left.

7) Progressives have a right to be angry.

Progressive Christianity:

8) A review of U2 and Philosophy: How to Decipher an Atomic Band.

9) Where have all the prophets gone?

Others:

10) The pedagogical significance of American Idol.

In the vaunted small-group movement - which certainly has some good things going for it (probably earlier on, more than now) - people say, “Well, we take care of community by having small groups.” Well, those aren’t communities - those are people you like. And, you know, a community has to have people you don’t like in it. (Eugene Peterson, Radix Magazine, Volume 32:3)

Community is the place where the person you least want to live with always lives. (Henri Nouwen)

International Development:

1) Bono & Co’s Red campaign spends up to $100 million on marketing, while reaping only $18 million, so claims Advertising Age. A response in The Independent here. If shopping is not the solution to the world’s poverty, then maybe this is: Buy (Less). Give More.

2) Who should foot the bill on Climate Change: Rich or poor countries?

3) Radar on Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping.

Politics & Economics:

4) Twenty Myths about Markets.

5) The Post-Autistic Economics Review on the endogenous growth theory.

6) Responses to Paul Krugman on Milton Friedman.

Progressive Christianity:

7) In ages past, radical Christians sought to follow Christ in a whole-hearted and vividly countercultural way. Now, we have the new monasticism.

8) Jim Wallis thinks the Religious Right’s era is over.

9) Evangelical’s work in Africa criticized.

Others:

10) How to become vegetarian - and help save the environment - in six easy steps.

In one meeting, a 20-year-old came to the microphone and chided me for not taking literally the Bible’s promise about faith that can move mountains. I agreed I needed a larger dose of such childlike faith, yet at the same time, I could not dishonor the pain of suffering people by telling them their faith is somehow defective. From such souls, I learn that life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived. Prayer offers no ironclad guarantees, just the certain promise that we need not live that mystery alone. (Philip Yancey)

International Development:

1) Fairtrade is booming - but is it still a fair deal?

2) The validity of the concept of food miles.

3) How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic?

4) Foreign Policy: Why the World Isn’t Flat.

5) Spiegal Magazine: Does Communism Work After All?

Politics & Economics:

6) Prospect Magazine asks 100 writers and thinkers the following question: Left and right defined the 20th century. What’s next? Read their pessimistic responses.

7) RenewAmerica: The rise of conservatism and the decline of liberalism.

Progressive Christianity:

8) Progressive Christians: beware of the Constantinianism of the Left.

9) Dear Bible-Thumping, Fundamentalist Hypocrite.

Others:

10) People are inspired by those who make us feel bad about ourselves! See also here.