Waving or Drowning?

Albuquerque Follow-Up

Albuquerque.

See, I can still spell it without cutting and pasting.

Albuquerque. Yup. Still got it.

Anyway, the CAC is starting to compile resources and information from the conference here. Watch the space for more.

Show & Tell With Jesus! (Updated)

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of sharing once again with my friends at Cove Community Church. I recorded my talk because the some of the content was from my manuscript, and I wanted the chance to watch it, to see how it flowed, yada yada yada.

With the disclaimer that this will be 38 minutes of your life you'll never get back, please feel free to watch (it's in 2 parts) and fire me any feedback you might have. Thanks.

UPDATE: Part 2 is now unlocked. Sorry about that, and thanks for the emails!

Show & Tell With Jesus! (Part 1) from Mike Todd on Vimeo.
Show & Tell With Jesus! (Part 2) from Mike Todd on Vimeo.

Grow Up

"If your prayer is not enticing you outside your comfort zones, if your Christ is not an occasional 'threat', you probably need to do some growing up and learning to love."
(Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs)

No R? No I?!

Craig Damrauer is an artist who renders abstract concepts in the orderly form of equations. This one in particular caught my eye for some reason:

(h/t to Dan Pink.)

The Long, Long Line of B to E

I just finished reading The Art of Possibility, thanks to Robert's encouragement. It is fantastic. Naturally, I needed to check out Ben Zander at TED. This is from last year, and I can only hope that his presentation from this year will be up soon.

Where The Wild Things Are

I'm looking forward to this one:

Dead Aid II

As a follow-up to this post, I'm now awaiting the arrival of my copy of Dambisa Moyo's new book, Dead Aid.

Aid to Africa is a huge issue, and I want to expose myself to as many different points of view on the subject as I can. I do think Charlie Rose seemed to hit the nail on the head during the interview. He kept trying to bring up Moyo's clear Either/Or approach to the issue. But, she wasn't biting.

As far as I can tell (from the interview) Moyo makes a very clear distinction between NGO aid and government aid. I appreciate the distinction, and whole-heartedly agree that the NGO kind is better. But, I'm not willing, at least at this point, to rule out the necessity of government aid as well. Readers will know that I don't believe economics will save Africa. Capitalism won't either. The people of Africa will save Africa (and then they will turn around and save the west, but that's a discussion for another day.) I'm looking forward to reading the book.

In the mean time, the good folks at One.org have prepared a paper in response to Moyo's assertions. I'm going to read the book first, but I wanted to pass the link along to those of you who are interested in the subject.

Corporate Morality

Princeton's David Miller interviewed on PBS's Religion & Ethics Newsweekly:

Save the CBC

This is from the good people at Avaaz.org. I've signed, and you should too. If you need any encouragement I'll give you 2 names: Peter Mansbridge and George Stroumboulopoulos. These guys are the best in the business.

Canada’s media networks have all been slammed by the recession. But the government is reportedly considering bailouts for its friends at private companies CTV and CanWest, while forcing the CBC to drastically cut 800 staff and programming.

Our CBC is a national treasure, and a pillar of public-interest journalism in a country whose media is owned by a few large firms. We won’t hear an outcry from their media outlets, and the CBC is too principled to use its megaphone to make the case for itself. We are the only voice the CBC has.

We urgently need a massive public outcry to Save the CBC, click below to sign the petition. The government is weak and falling in the polls and enough outrage can make the difference. Parliamentarians have promised to deliver the petition directly in the House of Commons, and we'll even fly a plane and banner over Parliament Hill with the message! Sign now, and forward this email to everyone who might care about this:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_cbc

The number of signatures on the petition will be crucial to the effectiveness of the campaign, so let’s get everyone who cares about the CBC to sign.

The CBC is facing a budget shortfall that amounts to just $6 per Canadian, but its request to the government for a bridging loan to cover this was denied. The deep cuts the CBC is making will damage the organization across the board, and they will not be the last. If we don’t stand up for the CBC now, it stands to die a death by a thousand cuts. Harper’s minority government is politically vulnerable and falling in the polls – public outrage could turn the government around on this, but it has to happen now. Let's move quickly.

Comp

This one made me laugh, and then made me wince. I remember those heady days of not too long ago when "bonus structure" or "compensation package" formed the cornerstones of my vocabulary. If I had a dollar for every time I said the word "comp", well... never mind.

(Click the cell for the full strip)