"I'm what the world considers to be a phenomenally successful man. And I've failed much more than I've succeeded.
And each time I fail, I get my people together, and I say, "Where are we going?" And it starts to get better." - Calvin Trager

With Ya, my Ga tutor in Mallam
The Rev. Mike Kinman
Executive Director
Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation
Age: 38



Check out Forsyth School ...
where Robin teaches and
the boys attend.

Since you're already blowing time surfing,
why not do some cool stuff

  • Watch the Make Poverty History videos
  • Watch Sara McLachlan's "World on Fire" video
  • Take a seat at Oxfam America's Hunger Banquet
  • Look at the "Eight Ways to Change The World" photo exhibition
  • See how rich you are on the Global Rich List
  • Make a promise to do something cool -- and get people to do it with you
  • Use your computer to fight HIV/AIDS and other diseases

    While you're at it, do these things
  • Join the ONE Campaign to Make Poverty History
  • Join the Episcopal Public Policy Network
  • Join Amnesty International
  • Subscribe to Sojourners Online newsletter about faith, politics and culture
  • Sign the Micah Call and join other Christians in the fight against poverty
  • Subscribe to a great new magazine about women and children transforming our world

    People who show us What One Person Can Do
  • Liza Koerner (Teaching soccer and doing mission work in Costa Rica)
  • Erica Trapps (Raising money so Tanzanian children can go to school -- check out her photo gallery)

    What's happening in Sudan might
    surprise (and shock) you

  • Episcopal Diocese of Lui
  • South Sudanese Friends International
  • The Sudan Tribune
  • SudanReeves -- research, analysis and advocacy
  • Save Darfur
  • Darfur: a genocide we can stop

    For your daily fix on the irreverent...
  • Jesus of the Week
  • The Onion

    Interesting People Who Are Great To Read
  • Beth Maynard's excellent U2 sermons blog
  • Global Voices Online
  • Neha Viswanathan - poetry, commentary, humor, reflections

    Some interesting organizations and programs
  • Borgen Project - poverty reduction through political accountability
  • CARE
  • Center of Concern
  • DATA: Debt, AIDS and Trade in Africa (Bono's site)
  • El Circulo de Mujeres/Circle of Women
  • Engineering Ministries International
  • Episcopal Peace Fellowship
  • Episcopal Relief and Development
  • FreshMinistries
  • Global Campaign Against Poverty
  • Global Ministries
  • Global Work Ethic Fund -- Promoting philanthropy and fundraising in developing and transition countries.
  • Karen Emergency Relief Fund
  • Magdalene House
  • The M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence
  • Natural Capitalism
  • NetMarkAid - Humanitarian Entrepreneurs
  • North American Association for the Diaconate
  • Peace Child International
  • People Building Peace
  • Project Honduras
  • Results - Creating political will to end hunger
  • St. Paul's Institute
  • Stop Global AIDS
  • TakingITGlobal -- connecting youth for action in local and global communities
  • Tanzania Educational AIDS Mission
  • TEAR (Transformation, Empowerment, Advocacy, Relief) - An Australian Christian anti-poverty movement
  • Working For Change
  • Xigi.net -- an open-source tool to aid discovery in the capital markets that fund good.

    Some Episcopal churches and dioceses doing cool things
  • Companions of Swaziland - Diocese of Iowa's Companion Relationship
  • International Development Missions -- St. Paul's Church, Sparks, NV
  • The Malaria Villages Project - St. Paul's Church, West Whiteland, PA

    Must-read books and websites about them
  • What Can One Person Do: faith to heal a broken world -- Sabina Alkire & Edmund Newell
  • The End of Poverty -- Jeffrey Sachs

    Learn more about things you really should know more about
  • UN Millenium Development Goals
  • The Millennium Campaign
  • AIDS Matters - a resource for global AIDS professionals
  • Christian Aid's in-depth report: "Millennium Lottery: Who lives and who dies in an age of third world debt?"
  • Foreign Policy In Focus
  • Poverty Mapping
  • Solutions for a water-short world
  • Transparency International: The global coalition against corruption
  • UNICEF's State of The World's Children report 2005

    General cool and/or goofy stuff
  • Alicebot chat robot
  • Bono Quotes -- but what's really wild is that it's from a page on Boycottliberalism.com!
  • Buffy Slanguage
  • Big Bunny

    Useful web tools
  • Gcast - make your own podcast
  • Podzinger - podcast search engine
  • Orb - streaming digital media


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    Listed on Blogwise
  • Monday, May 10, 2004
    They say that what you mock
    Will surely overtake you
    And you become a monster
    So the monster will not break you

    I was reading David's blog (yes, David, I read your blog!) and he was writing about the prisoner abuses in Iraq and how it sickened him on so many levels. Really, how can you argue with that. There is nothing about it that isn't sickening.

    But there's a couple things about this.

    The quote above is from "Peace on Earth" by U2. What is happening with these prisoner abuses is that we have evidence of what, frankly, anybody who has been paying attention knows has been going on already. In the name of fighting people who are bent on committing atrocities against us, we commit atrocities of our own. We become the monster, so the monster will not break us.

    Except it doesn't work. The biggest problem with the prisoner abuses, and with the whole war, is not that we are killing people, maiming people and not respecting their human dignity -- though that stuff is really, really bad -- it's that it perpetuates a cycle that will continue to create more and more of the same until someone has the courage and the sanity to say "STOP!" "ENOUGH!"

    And it's already gone too far
    Who said that if you go in hard, you won't get hurt?
    Jesus, can you take the time
    To throw a drowning man a line?
    Peace on Earth

    Tell the ones who hear no sound
    Whose sons are living in the ground
    Peace on Earth
    No whos or whys
    No one cries, like a mother cries
    For peace on Earth
    She never got to say goodbye
    To see the colour in his eyes
    Now he's in the dirt
    Peace on Earth

    The problem isn't the abuses ... it's the idea that the abuses are wrong but somehow wars where children (combatant and noncombatant) die are OK. Really, the abuses shouldn't surprise us ... once a nation has already decided that war in the name of peace, that abuse in the name of safety, that these things are OK ... it's just a matter of where you draw the line when you wake up each morning -- and some mornings the line is drawn further out than others.

    But here's the thing, and here's the hope.

    Even though we act like some third-rate military dictatorship a lot of the time, we're not. And the difference is that these things are coming out, they're being made public and people are horrified by them and there is talk of prosecuting people and there is a common belief that this is wrong and this is not what we should be about.

    The hope is that people are good. And when good people see terrible truths, when they see wrongs committed, they want to make things right. People see the sickening pictures coming out of the prisons and they want it to stop, they want to make things right. That's why it's so important to let people see the flag-draped coffins coming off the airplanes. That's why it's so important that people see the devastation caused by our bombs to Iraqi civilians. That's why that Nightline program was so important. Because people are good ... and good people when exposed to the truth in ways so plain that they cannot ignore it will cry out for justice and true peace.

    America is the hope of the world. Not the American Empire of the neocons, but the idea of America. And that's what America really is. It's not a country ... it's an idea. And, thank God, the idea is far more powerful than the country. Because the country gets it wrong all the time. All men are created equal? That's an amazing idea. And even when we don't act that way (or forget that women are, too), we've got the idea to remind us who we are.

    I'm sickened by the pictures, too. But I want all of them to come out and I want them on every TV and in every newspaper. Not because I want heads to roll, but because the truth will set us free ... it really will. And the sooner we expose all things to the light, the sooner we will be many steps closer to peace on earth.

    |
    Mike at 5/10/2004 10:17:00 AM

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    Episcopalians for
    Global Reconciliation

    EGR is an organization resourcing a grassroots movement of spiritual transformation in the Episcopal Church to end extreme poverty on this planet.

    The structure for this movement is the Millennium Development Goals -- 8 goals committed to by all member nations of the UN and a unique partnership of governments and civil society to:

    *End extreme poverty
    *Achieve universal
    primary education

    *Promote gender equalty
    *Improve maternal health
    *Reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
    *Promote environmental sustainability
    *Build a global partnership for development

    EGR resources and connects the church to embrace what one person, one congregation, one diocese and one church can do to make this mission of global reconciliation happen.

    Want to find out more ... check our our website at www.e4gr.org.

    "Christ's example is being demeaned by the church if they ignore the new leprosy, which is AIDS. The church is the sleeping giant here. If it wakes up to what's really going on in the rest of the world, it has a real role to play. If it doesn't, it will be irrelevant."
    - Bono








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    What I'm Reading
    Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
    by Doris Kearns Goodwin