Ironic? The incoming president of the Christian Coalition of America resigns because his agenda of poverty, global warming and HIV/AIDS "might threaten their base or evaporate some of their support". This From the Washington Post:

The Rev. Joel Hunter, pastor of a nondenominational megachurch in Longwood, Fla., said he resigned as the coalition's incoming president because its board of directors disagreed with his plan to broaden the organization's agenda. In addition to opposing abortion and same-sex marriage, Hunter, 58, wanted to take on such issues as poverty, global warming and HIV/AIDS.

The fundamentalistic view is blinding. I often imagine G-d shaking his head and crying. If it isn't His will to help the poor and the sick, then I'm at a loss for words.

As we are a team of independent contractors, we must manage our time very carefully. We work very hard all day. That is why when I sleep I see Drupal, PHP, and talk to Fen about the future of the Internet (after the tubes). After careful consideration, I have decided to start charging for when I am asleep. I do my best work at that time, and I have found people like my ideas the most during that time. I can also fly, but I haven't figured out how to translate that into services I can share with CivicActions. You may think it's sad that I enjoy working while I sleep. But I am laughing all the way to the bank, and the CivicActions clients get SO much more value.

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Reports of the death of journalism

may have been exaggerated. Keith Olbermann delivered a presentation Wednesday on his MSNBC Program "Countdown" which transcended modern newscasting completely. It was, unambiguously, Murrow-like. I was transfixed, and if you haven't seen it, please click below and prepare to have your socks knocked off with pure unadulterated elocution. Democrats, wake up. This is the voice of the New American Evolution. Here's a great article about it: Richard Greene's HuffPo blog on the masterful message and the masterful messenger. Waaaaay to go Keith, and kudos to MSNBC for backing their man.

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Recently, I finally saw the movie "The Corporation" [ 1]. After seeing enough movies critical of modern life to not get too depressed, the movie did leave me with a somewhat balanced combination of fear and disgust. However, I realized there must be a way to improve on things. Yes. I am an optimist [2]. When I first studied sociology I learned that social structures can take people and make them into who they are. A prisoner and a prison guard [3] were normal people created by experience is one of the best known examples of institutions creating kinds of people. In relation to the movie, a central theme was that because corporations are legally considered human beings with all the same rights as flesh and bone human beings, and because corporate laws require profit, expansion, and self preservation, corporations [and therefore people] behave in a psychotic manner.

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CivicActions launched HightowerLowdown.org on Monday. This site follows on our launch, earlier this year, of JimHightower.com and last year's Hightower Roadmap, our first project with Hightower's team.

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William Greider argues in The Nation this week that the reigning political ideology has died, that the sea change is already upon us for a complete shift of the political landscape -- a chance that will be squandered if Democrats revert to giving in to corporatist expediencies. Progressives need a solid plan now, or else. See The Future is Now Some tidbits: "The economy exists to support society and people, not the other way around. Only government can liberate them from the harsh rule of the marketplace, the demands imposed by capital and corporations that stunt or stymie the full pursuit of life and liberty in this complex industrial society. This very wealthy country has the capacity to insure that all citizens, regardless of status or skills, have the essential needs to pursue secure, self-directed lives. This starts with the right to health, work, livable incomes and open-ended education, and to participate meaningfully in the decisions that govern their lives. The marketplace has no interest in providing these. It is actively destroying them.

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Giving Philanthropists the Power to See the World They Want to Create

The Problem: We live in a world which is literally awash in data and information that has swamped our systems of representing and understanding it, precisely at a moment in Human history when we most need to understand this information. The World Wide Web is a vast and remarkable resource, but viewing web pages a page at a time through a web browser fails to satisfy our need to get the “big picture” and takes waaaaaay too long to grok the fullness.

Similarly, we can gain access to enormous relational databases full of information – such as the databases of nonprofits who seek funding, and their financial characteristics and missions – but most of our views of this data take the form of incremental pages, spreadsheets or limited graphs which do not reveal the complexity of those rich relationships.

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