Blog posts

By far the most personal offering so far, Barbara Omolade’s story of coming of age in the civil rights movement was concisely presented as today’s contribution to the January Series. Omolade is currently Calvin’s first Dean of Multicultural Affairs and a noted expert on minority involvement in US Higher Education. While the focus on the presentation was principally to chart the journey from youthful membership of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to her present position, Omolade also slipped in a thesis of ‘generational challenges.’ When asked a question about the success of the Civil Rights movement, Omolade argued that it had met its goals and achieved that generation’s challenge. Our task, she suggested was to identify the corollary challenges of today, and there was a hint that she sees that as extending some of the freedoms of civil rights globally. ...

Last month I tipped my virtual hat to the Yes Men, talking about how much I enjoy hearing reports about their brand of agitprop comedy. I was, therefore, delighted to discover that Grand Rapids Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts would be screening the 2003 documentary The Yes Men Movie. We managed to see it on Thursday night, accompanied by Kate and Nathan, and it was quite a ride. Following the group from their origins back in 1999, through their early stunts and up to their announcement of the closure of the WTO, it was a very personal telling of their story. The production quality was generally pretty low, with footage largely coming from handheld cameras which often had to be hidden from watchful security guards. Those coming into the film without an understanding of the ills of global trade that the Yes Men are trying to draw attention to won’t find all that much exposition, but I would guess it would still be both entertaining and thought provoking. ...

I’d been meaning to get back to Global Infusions with my laptop since I first noticed that they offer wifi access. Alongside a shop selling the fairly traded Ten Thousand Villages range of craft products and a selection of teas and health herbs, there is a tea/coffee bar and four tables, and the most multi-ethnic range of music of any of Grand Rapids’ coffee shops. The atmosphere is very relaxed. There’s a steady stream of people in and out this Saturday morning but few enough that the shoppers don’t distract those of us who are here to read or work. Two of the owners are running the place and there’s a good rapport between staff and customers. I hear that things have been going very well so far for the shop, which opened at the same time as various other outlets in the new East Hills development. They’re offering live music every other Friday night, as well as a range of poetry and other events. ...

It’s been several months since Netflix and Tivo announced their partnership, beginning to explore options for delivering films online, but it seems to have caused a recent flurry online. With online music distribution settling down a little since the launch of the iTunes music store and its many rivals, it’s natural that discussion should be shifting to video. Sharing of music online took off far more quickly than sharing of video footage, due largely to the considerable difference in file sizes. But with more and more people getting broadband connections and then the advent of BitTorrent, a protocol/software tool that completely changed the logistics of distributing large content online, things have begun to change. ...

Another highly anticipated January Series speaker, Frederica Mathewes Green left a chorus of lively debate behind her. Taking as her title " When Every Day is Casual Friday: Anxiety Hangs Over a Culture When Adults Act Like Children" she developed a thesis that the baby boomer generation, brought up by parents well used to hardship, generally developed a negative perception of adulthood and as a result have engendered a culture that doesn’t know how to be adult. ...

This interview with New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan (via NT Gateway) makes for interesting reading. Crossan is not a writer I often find myself in agreement with, but his comments are well worth consideration. I share Mark Goodacre’s amusement that “the major new stress in Crossan on Paul and early Christianity as anti- Roman Empire is that this brings Crossan closer to Wright than ever before, does it not?” I actually started writing some comments on this piece at the end of last year, but they got lost in the works, and I’m not sure I was reading the piece correctly anyway. But with no January Series lecture today, I returned to it and found something that resonated in the wake of Tuesday’s lecture. ...

In a former life, I completed an undergraduate physics degree. I only barely passed that degree, but complete it I did, thanks in large part to my dissertation titled “A Response To Postmodern Critiques of Physics: Towards a Narrative Understanding.” It may have been a pretentious title, but it seemed to sit better with my supervisor better than “The Physicist and the Fairytale” which was my preference. I hadn’t been to a physics lecture, or even read much about physics, since completing that degree. Brian Greene’s January Series lecture, " The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time & the Texture of Reality," broke my fast and I’m very glad I did. ...

Eugene Rivers’ contribution to the January Series, " Our New Post Civil Rights Reality: A Christian Perspective," came highly anticipated but turned out to be an exercise in hiding occasional good points in rhetoric and hyperbole. Rivers is involved in some fabulous projects to revitalise urban areas plagued with gang violence, broken homes, and crippling poverty. In the question and answer time that followed his brief sermon (I’m not sure I can really call it a lecture) he was able to outline some startling statistics of drops in homicide rates in Boston that he argued (with the backing of several studies) were the result of those programmes. His arguments for strong role models, for church groups to advocate on the behalf of those experiencing systemic injustice and to work with law enforcement to assist those who fall foul of law enforcement, and for the need for civil rights mindsets to enter a new paradigm were potent ones. ...

It seems Christian Music Makeover has competition…. Via titusonenine: Father James McCaskill, 31, has agreed to take part in a new fly-on-the-wall documentary about his attempts to boost the congregation of St Mary Magdalene in the former mining community of Lundwood, near Barnsley. Under the working title God Help Us, the cameras are already rolling, and even filmed the priest’s first service. The ailing congregation had already doubled to 17 — although that included his parents, visiting from North Carolina. ...

Paul Farmer introduced the second week of the January Series with a talk entitled " Pathologies of Power: Rethinking Health and Human Rights in the Global Era". Farmer works with Partners In Health seeking “to provide a preferential option for the poor in health care”. His primary work has been in Haiti and many of his examples were drawn from the successful community health programmes his team has initiated there, but also peppered with anecdotes from extensive travelling exploring the multi-faceted issues of healthcare. ...