Faith And The City e.Newsletter
July 24, 2007
Volume 6, Issue 7
Greetings! Faith And The City offers the information below for your review. Use the associated links to learn more about each topic. For information on a wider range of public issues, visit our home page at http://www.faithandthecity.org.
Visit the new Faith And The City weblog – www.interfaithdialogueatlanta.org – and share your comments on the issues below and a range of others.
Faith And The City News
Luce Foundation awards $100,000 to extend original grant to Faith And The City Leadership Institute
Faith And The City e.Newsletter
July 23, 2007
The Faith And The City Leadership Institute announced today that it has been awarded a $100,000 grant by The Henry Luce Foundation. The funding extends a $300,000 grant awarded in 2005 to help fund the interfaith Institute’s first two annual classes. The current grant will provide substantial support for an Institute-initiated coalition, Fairness for Georgia Families, which is working to expand faith community involvement in living wage issues.
Read more
Global Issues
Do business and Islam mix? Ask him
By G. Pascal Zachary
New York Times
July 8, 2007
He is a moderate Muslim religious leader and a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. He is also a twice-married jet-setter. He has poured money into poorer, neglected parts of the world, often into businesses as basic as making fish nets, plastic bags and matches, while also teaming up with private-equity powerhouses like the Blackstone Group on a huge $750 million hydroelectric system in Uganda.
Read more
Jews losing our way? It's not the first time. And it's not just Jews.
Opinion by Rabbi Michael Lerner
Network of Spiritual Progressives/Tikkun
July 22, 2007 (email message)
The terrible truth is that the Jewish people once again risk being expelled from our land by even more cataclysmic violence than the last time, just as predicted by the prophets of old, unless we can substitute a strategy of generosity for the strategy of domination. There is no reason to disbelieve the Prophets’ (please read Isaiah, chapter one) vision is any less true today than when first uttered.
Read more
Economic Disparity
The richest of the rich, proud of a new Gilded Age
By Louis Uchitelle
New York Times
July 15, 2007
Other very wealthy men in the new Gilded Age talk of themselves as having a flair for business not unlike Derek Jeter's "unique talent" for baseball, as Leo J. Hindery Jr. put it. "I think there are people, including myself at certain times in my career," Mr. Hindery said, "who because of their uniqueness warrant whatever the market will bear."
Read more
Tax loopholes sweeten a deal for Blackstone
By David Cay Johnston
New York Times
July 13, 2007
The Blackstone Group, the big buyout firm, has devised a way for its partners to effectively avoid paying taxes on $3.7 billion, the bulk of what it raised last month from selling shares to the public. Although they will initially pay $553 million in taxes, the partners will get that back, and about $200 million more, from the government over the long term.
Read more
Social Environment
Affordable housing needs support
Editorial by Lyle V. Harris
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
July 6, 2007
The promise of decent, safe and affordable housing for every citizen is not a right enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. But the compassionate impulse to provide quality shelter for those desperately in need is deeply woven into our national character -- as well it should be.
Read more
Texas town, now divided, forged Bush's stand on immigration
By Jim Rutenberg
New York Times
June 24, 2007
Mr. Bush has pursued a goal of providing citizenship for the millions of illegal immigrants with rare attacks on his conservative supporters, who have derided his approach as tantamount to amnesty. There are various political motivations for Mr. Bush to push for his plan, including the rapid growth in the nation's Hispanic population, a voting group that he has long considered to be potentially Republican.
Read more
Young Americans are leaning left, new poll finds
By Adam Nagourney and Megan Thee
New York Times
June 27, 2007
Young Americans are more likely than the general public to favor a government-run universal health care insurance system, an open-door policy on immigration and the legalization of gay marriage, according to a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll. The poll also found that they are more likely to say the war in Iraq is heading to a successful conclusion.
Read more
The reality of race: Is the problem that white people don't know or don't care?
By Robert Jensen
AlterNet
July 14, 2007
"Study shows that white people are mean and uncaring." That would have been my headline for a recent story from Diverse: Issues in Higher Education [that] reported an Ohio State University study of white people's understanding of the black experience. Curiously, the psychologists who conducted the research spun the data in exactly the opposite direction, and the conflicting interpretations tell us much about race relations in the United States.
Read more
"I am both Muslim and Christian"
By Janet I. Tu
Seattle Times
June 17, 2007
Shortly after noon on Fridays, the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding ties on a black headscarf, preparing to pray with her Muslim group on First Hill. On Sunday mornings, Redding puts on the white collar of an Episcopal priest. She does both, she says, because she's Christian and Muslim.
Read more
Education
School diversity based on income segregates some
By Jonathan D. Glater and Alan Finder
New York Times
July 15, 2007
When San Francisco started trying to promote socioeconomic diversity in its public schools, officials hoped racial diversity would result as well. It has not worked out that way.
Read more
Faith and Politics
US Senate opens with Hindu prayer
By Aziz Haniffa
Rediff India Abroad
July 12, 2007
History was created in the United States Senate at 9.30 am on Thursday, when Rajan Zed, the Hindu chaplain of the Indian Association of Northern Nevada, opened the Senate with a Hindu prayer. A few Christian fundamentalists protested and began screaming, while holding the Bible aloft, "Lord Jesus, protect us from this abomination."
Read more
A tragic legacy: How a good vs. evil mentality destroyed the Bush presidency
Opinion by Glenn Greenwald
Salon
June 20, 2007
One of the principal dangers of vesting power in a leader who is convinced of his own righteousness – who believes that, by virtue of his ascension to political power, he has been called to a crusade against Evil – is that the moral imperative driving the mission will justify any and all means used to achieve it.
Read more
Health
Surgeon General sees 4-year term as compromised
By Gardiner Harris
New York Times
July 11, 20007
Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional panel Tuesday that top Bush administration officials repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.
Read more
Caution: Some soft drinks may seriously harm your health
By Martin Hickman
The Independent
May 27, 2007
A new health scare erupted over soft drinks last night amid evidence they may cause serious cell damage. Research from a British university suggests a common preservative found in drinks such as Fanta and Pepsi Max has the ability to switch off vital parts of DNA.
Read more
Events
Guidelines for Posting Events
Faith And The City posts brief event notices that must include a website address for additional information. Events should be concerned with faith, interfaith and public issues.
August 1: "An Interfaith Discussion on Religion in Art.” Faith Alliance of Metro Atlanta in conjunction with the Michael C. Carlos Museum of Emory University. FAMA membership meeting, panel discussion, and tour of the museum exhibit, “Cradle of Christianity: Jewish and Christian Treasures from the Holy Land.”
Read more
-----------------------------
ABOUT THIS ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER: The Faith And The City e.Newsletter is offered free of charge. It is designed primarily for members of the diverse community of faith throughout Atlanta's 20-county metropolitan region, but subscriptions are available to all.
To subscribe to this e.Newsletter, send an email to email_subscribe@faithandthecity.org.
To unsubscribe to this e.Newsletter, send an email to email_unsubscribe@faithandthecity.org.
To offer comments, send an email to feedback@faithandthecity.org.
To review our purpose and policy statements, go to http://www.faithandthecity.org/purpose
_and_policies.shtml.
Comments regarding content of the e.Newsletter or website may be directed to John Baker Brown Jr., editor, at jbrown@faithandthecity.org. Comments on technical aspects of the e.Newsletter or website may be directed to the webmaster at feedback@faithandthecity.org. For more about Faith And The City, visit http://www.faithandthecity.org/about/index.shtml.
|
