September 2011
7 posts
“To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
—
- Nelson Mandela (thanks to @Sojourner5)
Let’s use our freedom to advocate for the 27 million who don’t yet have it!
(via jamespedrick)
Remembering Derrion Albert →
urbanfaith.com
Taking some time to remember Derrion Albert, the Chicago honors student who was beaten to death on his way home from school two years ago today.
“The arts are never a mere copy of life. They are always a distillation of some aspect of reality. All artists use techniques of highlighting, omission, selectivity, exaggeration, arrangement and juxtaposition to heighten our perception of some aspect of life… The arts, in short, are based on a grand paradox. They are imaginary constructions that “distort” reality in order to increase our awareness of it. In the words of Pablo Picasso, “Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.”[4] Or as Samuel Johnson put it, works of fiction “are not mistaken for realities, but … bring realities to mind.”[5] The truth that the arts are particularly adept at capturing is enduring, elemental human experience.”
—Leland Ryken, from The Creative Arts (via kellyjhagen)
“And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
—2 Corinthians 12:9, KJV
Today is National Back to Church Sunday →
urbanfaith.com
What are your ideas on how to invite friends and family to church? What lessons have you learned from your experiences? What is the right way to share our Christian faith without being pushy or timid?
Visit the National Back to Church Sunday website and read the article on UrbanFaith.com by clicking the headline of this post.
Did you know that Rick Perry made over half a million dollars on a land sale in which the buyer was an arms dealer who supplied the perpetrators of the Rawandan Genocide? The Appraiser who over valued the land was given a post on UT board of regents by Perry.
No, I hadn’t heard about that, thanks for telling me about it. I looked it up and found these articles from The Dallas Morning News about Perry’s $1.5 million land sale to alleged arms dealer Alan Moffatt: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/state-politics/20100724-Murky-land-deals-mark-Gov-6084.ece
For those interested, here’s a quick excerpt about how this connects to the Rwandan genocide from the first article:
“In the 1990s, Moffatt owned Peak Aviation, a now-defunct company that the British government investigated in connection with arms shipments to Africa for use in the Rwandan genocide. The tribal conflict may have claimed about 800,000 lives.
Moffatt said in an interview that he met twice with British customs investigators but was never charged with a crime. He said the arms shipments that his company made to Africa were legitimate government-to-government deliveries.”
Of course, what isn’t mentioned is that the Rwandan government supplied the militia that executed the genocide, so this point is irrelevant. Putting weapons in the hands of the Interahamwe is not okay. (As an aside, the genocide was much more than a “tribal conflict,” which suggests that both sides were fighting each other, when in reality the genocide meant extremists Hutus were targeting Tutsis and the Hutu moderates who supported them.)
It looks like Perry appointed attorney Colleen McHugh to the UT board of regents after she appealed the appraisal (resulting in lower taxes for Perry). I think that’s slightly different than what you said (she was appealing to lower the value of the land for tax purposes). But is that what you were referring to, or did you mean something else?
This was in the media when The Dallas Morning News reported it in July 2010 but hasn’t really been discussed much since then, from what I can find. Anyone else find more information?
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