Urban Onramps

Report: Hundreds of WMDs found in Iraq. A key question now is, “Why didn’t the Bush administration release this information earlier?” Instapundit has info, and so does Captain’s Quarters. Somewhere in these posts (and many others) I came across the idea that the release of this information is timed to sway the UN as we prepare to actively confront Iran. That’s plausible reasoning to me. And now that this WMD info is out, let me re-iterate my belief that Osama died sometime in late 2001 or early 2002. I could be wrong, but that’s been my hunch since, well, since early 2002. As with this matter, time will tell.

Every summer we hire teenagers as part of our Harambee summer program. This summer we’ll have 12 working with us. Eight will work on site as grounds maintenance staff and tutors for the children’s day camp. Four will work out in the community. I’m excited about the outside jobs. They include Starbucks in Old Town Pasadena, the Fuller Seminary Admissions Office, and Ten Thousand Villages Fair Trade store on lower Lake Avenue (two will work there). Our teens really earn a real check, and participate in weekly bible studies (two of them) and college/career/life prep activities. It’s not cheap to run a program like this. The total summer budget is upwards of $5,000. We need your help to pull it off. Hit me back if you would like to talk about this more, or go here to give online. Thanks.

This is the new bible study book by E. Dwayne Cantrell, a pastor at Pasadena Church of God (where my wife Kafi and I are members). Cantrell will teach the Harambee Community Bible Study this summer as part of our Harambee Summer Program. I just ordered a copy of this book here. The Lulu.com revolution continues…

Brazil and Australia are about to kick off. Yes. Ghana beats Czech Republic! And Brian McBridge got smashed in the face. What a crazy ref, totally lost control of the game. But I believe - I believe the US can make it to the second round. It’s so hot here in LA. Something like eleventy bazillion degrees or 100 or something. My sister in Arizona emailed me a bunch of photos of her cat from her camera phone. For some reason, I like photos of cats. Or my family’s cats, at least. Maybe she should do a catblog. For Father’s Day I did not get the Video iPod I sought (the wife said she was gonna do it, then looked at the budget) - so I ended up with dvds of HBOs Entourage - not bad, I like that show. Plus Sam and Micah signed my father’s day card. Today our first work group of the summer arrives at Harambee, from South Albany Community Church up near Portland. Also, yesterday two of our summer interns joined us for dinner, one from North Carolina and the other from Minneapolis. It’s going to be a good summer.

Michael Ledeen over at National Review Online reads a whole lot into Mexico’s 3-1 victory over Iran. In particular, he says it’s a bad omen for the Iranian mullahs that a guy named Omar Bravo scored two goals to defeat the Iranians. “Omar” is the name of a hated enemy in Iranian history. That a guy named “Omar” defeated them, and that his last name, “Bravo,” serves as an exclamation point to that defeat, must send shudders through the (apparently) superstitious Mullahs. Whether prescient or just an exuberantly fanciful read (Ledeen is a leading Iran critic) remains to be seen. The World Cup seems to bring this sort of thing out of people.

England beat T&T, 2-0. Good for them. Sweden just finished off Paraguay on a nice combo headers goal. Chatted briefly with Pastor Chris Smith in St. Louis, doing urban ministry CCDA stuff. Saw CHRIS RICE at the DeVos office, we talked afterward, laughing and catching up. Chris and I were both editors at Urban Family magazine back when I first started at Harambee (in the early 90s; I edited UF before I met my beautiful wife). I heard this GREAT lecture on The Austrian School of Economics by this guy Jeff Tucker who does stuff at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Among other stimulating ideas, he said that Adam Smith - the author of The Wealth of Nations - got a bunch of stuff wrong, and some of Smith’s errors led directly to Marxism. There is capitalist theory that predates Smith, and much of it is in - drumroll - the Spanish language, written in monasteries in the 1600s. Fascinating stuff. Acton Institute has been involved in translating some of those Spanish works into English. I miss my wife and kidz. Chris Rice told me that he has not read all of my articles, and I told him I have not read his book. Friends can talk to each other like that.

I’m in the Promised Land, Michigan. Here for an Acton event. Flew through Cincy, thought of Joe Myers. It’s a bit more humid in GR than in LA. The sun goes down at 930am out here. Germany’s late goal was a beaut, eh? Michael Perkins, son of Derek and Karyn Perkins, is graduating tonight from the 8th grade. I gave him a card last night, since I missed the ceremony. My nephew Andres is also graduating from the 8th grade. Sam and I went to Burbank last night to see Andres and his parents. We all went to In N Out Burger - mmm. Tomorrow I run into Chris Rice (the racial reconciler, not the musician). We used to work together on Urban Family magazine back in the day.