Archive for August, 2008
CBN on CNN
Monday, August 25th, 2008This morning I note that CNN has brought into its Sunday morning Late Edition program a commentator from the Christian Broadcast Network to comment about politics and evangelical voters. This is the same CBN owned by Pat Robertson who declaimed that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for abortions in the U.S. and who, according to [...]
Ethiopia’s “New” Famine
Sunday, August 24th, 2008Ethiopia is enduring famine. USA Today calls it new. In fact, it’s only the most recent and severe. The images of malnourished, exhausted children and adults are, unfortunately, not new. We’ve seen them before and more importantly, Ethiopians have suffered through famines before.
This time the hunger seems more widespread and pervasive. But famine in Ethiopia [...]
How Starbucks Lost its Brand
Friday, August 15th, 2008I’ve been thinking about the demise of Starbucks for months, not just the fall in stock prices, nor the recent store closings, nor the ubiquitous shop on both sides of the street. I mean the loss of the brand relationship.
Starbucks is no longer the “third place.” The cachet is long gone, lost–maybe even killed–by erosion [...]
Wordle my Blog
Tuesday, August 5th, 2008I discovered Wordle, an online program that analyzes the words on a site and creates a cloud. Just for fun I ran Wordle on the Perspectives site and got this word cloud. Scroll over and click the image at left for an enlargement.
I don’t think it represents the whole site, just those words available from [...]
Somaliland Democracy
Saturday, August 2nd, 2008Would you vacation in Somalia? Given Somalia’s image (and reality) as an ungovernable failed state locked in perpetual violence, the answer is obvious.
But last week Peter Buttitigieg and Nathaniel Meyers report they walked through the market (it sounds like Berbera) and drove around in a battered pickup truck to see rock paintings in the desert [...]
Fuel Costs in West Africa and the Global Food Crisis
Friday, August 1st, 2008I wrote from Ivory Coast last week of the public strike against higher fuel costs. Abidjan, the country’s economic center, was shut down. Young people set up roadblocks and had to be dispersed by police.
An article this morning from Reuters offers a glimpse of the social impact of higher fuel prices. They are economically oppressive [...]
Lighting Africa
Friday, August 1st, 2008New technology could bring light to off-the-grid Africa according to Jonathan Marks at Critical Distance weblog.
Marks reports on a joint venture by the Dutch electronics multinational, Philips, the Netherlands Ministry of Overseas Development and selected African partners.
Marks says the effort will produce solar lighting kits for Sub-Saharan Africa.
He writes, “The aim of the agreement called [...]