by Dana Blankenhorn

The software you have on your PC determines what you can do with it. The software a campaign or political movement uses reflects what it can do.

The biggest mistake Howard Dean made in his 2004 campaign wasn’t his attacks on Gephardt, and it wasn’t the scream. It was his software’s failure to “scale the intimacy,” to give the 1 millionth, or 10 millionth, campaign participant the same features, and the same sense of belonging, given the 10th and 100th.

Wayne Baker, author of the new book America’s Crisis of Values, is quoted in a Detroit Free Press article as saying: “I believe that this culture war is a myth in this country… We think we’re divided — and we’re really not.” It’s a question I’ve been pondering: If the United States is united, if [...]

Ancestral Versus Original Sin:
An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy
V. Rev. Antony Hughes, M.Div.
St. Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Abstract

The differences between the doctrine of Ancestral Sin—as understood in the church of the first two centuries and the present-day Orthodox Church—and the doctrine of Original Sin—developed by Augustine and his heirs in the Western Christian traditions—is explored. The impact of these two formulations on pastoral practice is investigated. It is suggested that the doctrine of ancestral sin naturally leads to a focus on human death and Divine compassion as the inheritance from Adam, while the doctrine of original sin shifts the center of attention to human guilt and Divine wrath. It is further posited that the approach of the ancient church points to a more therapeutic than juridical approach to pastoral care and counseling.

I have created a new website where people can post the letters they write to their elected officials and encourage their officials to respond publicly on the site. I would ask each of you, when you write letters to your elected officials, please post them on the site and encourage your elected officials to respond there. Also, please read the letters that other people have written.

The website is http://opengov.smartcampaigns.com

In business, if one company can get inside its competitor’s innovation cycle, the more nimble will kill off the slower. The same is true in politics. The fact of the matter is that al Qaeda has gotten inside the West’s social contract, organizational, and conflict strategy innovation cycles. Naturally, al Qaeda is thus experiencing more success than we should wish.

The so-called developed Western nations will be less able to deal successfully with terrorism until they can get inside the terrorsists’ innovation cycles: political, organizational and technological.

The West, as political and cultural organizations, must, therefore, come to grips with some hard problems. I see seven difficult challenges as long as the West clings to old industrial era organizational models that:

Current liberal political visions are not strong enough to motivate the Liberal tribes to commit to a “long march” for a new political party. On a recent “The Daily Show”, by way of contrast, Richard [America's Right Turn] Viguerie decribed himself as a revolutionary Conservative, NOT a Republican, who was a member of a “Long March”. The revolutionary Conservatives are doing quite well today, as we know all too well. We Liberals, on the other hand, are not.

I don’t know why I’m optimistic.

But then again, I don’t know why everyone else is so pessimistic.

We didn’t win by enough to prevent the second theft of democracy. And the candidate of the Democratic Party didn’t do enough to prove theft, or protest theft, so theft it was and theft it is.

Then again given the tides of history it should not have been close.

People live longer today, so the generational tides take longer to shift than they once did. Yes, 2004 was 36 years after 1968. But the 2004 election was still dominated by the issues of 1968, by Vietnam, and demands for social change.

The whole campaign looked to the past, much as the pre-change elections of 1928 and 1964 looked to the past. They were re-runs that told no new story.

DriveDemocracy.org is working with the Clergy and Laity Network “to point out the hypocrisy of the President holding a lavish $40million inaugural party when our troops in Iraq are underfunded and literally millions of lives are at risk from the Tsunami.” [Link]

Jock Gill & Dewayne Hendricks

Bandwidth wants to be free. Our goal should be to create abundant and affordable bandwidth for everyone everywhere that enables all of us to do what we want, when we want, and where we want. Of course bandwidth will not be free, but it should at least be priced at a reasonable mark-up over costs:i.e. less than about $1.50 per incoming megabit per month.

The problem is that abundant and affordable bandwidth is a disruptive innovation that threatens three of the Industrial era’s fundamental value propositions.

1] The hub and spoke, or centralized broadcast, organizing principle;

2] Control of the Distribution channel;

3] Citizen as one-dimensional consumers;

The GOP/Bush propaganda machine has been spewing its latest mantra, this time about the supposed “social security crisis.” Laura Tyson in Business Week: After years of repeated warnings by conservative political thinkers, the word crisis has become the mental frame that shapes the way many Americans think about Social Security’s future. But as a recent [...]