Wednesday, March 26, 2008

And Now for Something Completely Different: Monks in Your Printer

What is the essence of social entrepreneurship? How about a group of monks who sell toner via a very successful web-based business, with a CEO who makes an annual salary of $0.00?

Want to learn more? Check out their wonderful story on the San Francisco Chronicle website.

Yet Another Ode to the Random


Adams Morgan Chair, originally uploaded by Chambo25.

Here is a random chair I discovered sitting beside a trash can outside an apartment building. It's not even like it was outside a restaurant where it might belong to a lazy bouncer or have been dragged from the outdoor seating space... how odd.

Powerful

So it's yet another interesting and, I'm sure, to many disheartening week in what Steven Colbert has dubbed Democralypse Now! How is it all striking you?

Have you seen the strange Barillary/Hillarack character The New Republic put on their cover (strange)?

Did you tune out long ago?

Here's a quote that struck me as coming from a balanced place that lies for the most part wonderfully outside the fray:


"The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is an outstanding church leader whom I have heard speak a number of times. He has served for decades as a profound voice for justice and inclusion in our society. He has been a vocal critic of the racism, sexism and homophobia which still tarnish the American dream. To evaluate his dynamic ministry on the basis of two or three sound bites does a grave injustice to Dr. Wright, the members of his congregation, and the African-American church which has been the spiritual refuge of a people that has suffered from discrimination, disadvantage, and violence. Dr. Wright, a member of an integrated denomination, has been an agent of racial reconciliation while proclaiming perceptions and truths uncomfortable for some white people to hear. Those of us who are white Americans would do well to listen carefully to Dr. Wright rather than to use a few of his quotes to polarize. This is a critical time in America's history as we seek to repent of our racism. No matter which candidates prevail, let us use this time to listen again to one another and not to distort one another's truth," - Dean J. Snyder, Foundry United Methodist Church, March 19, 2008. Snyder is Hillary Clinton's pastor, although I'm not sure how often she attends his church.

Many thanks to Andrew Sullivan's blog which collects many such wonderful tidbits.