December 3rd, 2007
Odds & Ends: 12/03/07
Two pieces in the New York Times caught my eye over the weekend, reminding me that I really need to spend more time reading the newspaper…
Feelin’ the Spirit
Samuel G. Freedman has written a nice profile of San Francisco’s St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church, which for those who don’t know is a real honest to goodness place for worshipping God, not a gimmick or a bunch of cranks. The idea, as I understand it, is simply that God literally speaks through music, especially music as intense, passionate and devout as Coltrane’s later work, making the saxophonist a bona-fide prophet and saint. Anyway, the article quickly summarizes the church’s history, good works and theology. I must admit that in all the time I’ve lived out here I’ve never paid these guys a visit—it must be my aversion to churches in general. But every time I read an article like this or see film of the place, it makes me want to go.
- “Sunday Religion, Inspired by Saturday Nights” (NYT, Dec 1, 2007)
Bootstrap Economics
Malawi, a rather obscure nation in Southern Africa, is the sort of place that only makes the news in America when there’s a famine or when a celebrity wants to adopt an orphan. But now there’s some good news for a change. The Times’ Celia W. Dugger reports that after a devastating food crisis in 2005, the country has turned itself around and is even feeding its neighbors. They did it by ignoring the “expert” advice of the World Bank, Britain and the United States, who told Malawi to abandon fertlizer subsidies (and with them any chance of self-sufficient farming). Instead, Malawi was pressured to follow a free-trade approach that would have left it perpetually on the knife’s edge. This is a fascinating and inspiring story of a nation rejecting the old, failed models of aid and lifting itself up by deciding “to follow what the West practiced, not what it preached.”
- “Ending Famine, Simply by Ignoring the Experts” (NYT, Dec 2, 2007)
Happy reading!
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Previous Comments...
Malawi is not obscure! It’s....uh....um....well.....OK, it’s obscure. But beautiful, very beautiful. And full of amazing people. Thanks for pointing this out. Great news.
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