A wunderkammer of discoveries, compiled by Comment and illuminated for our readers’ edification and entertainment. We do not necessarily endorse the external content below.
Christian faith informs the activism of exiled Cuban trade union leader Pedro Pablo Alvarez Ramos, who is briefing Canadian Members of Parliament today at the invitation of Minister Peter Kent. Please pray for greater freedoms for civil society in Cuba.
. . . Kiva.org co-founder and Comment author Jessica Jackley has a high-profile video on the website of the Globe & Mail this week. “Lending money and dignity” profiles Kiva’s difficult task of convincing people that their new, unproven way of helping others would work.
. . . Library lovers may appreciate the World Digital Library project, making available online, free and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other significant cultural materials.
. . . CIVA (Christians in the Visual Arts) will stage their biennial conference at Bethel University in Minneapolis, June 17-21, 2009. “While Christians have long-long debated the nature of their relationship to ‘culture,’ they have made relatively little progress in actually defining what this ‘culture‘ is. To state the obvious, our engagement with contemporary culture is complex, and the nature of this complexity is the central theme of the 2009 CIVA Biennial Conference.”
. . . Finally, Cardus has released the Spring 2009 edition of Cardus Policy in Public, focusing on crime and punishment. Cardus Senior Fellow Eleanor Clitheroe suggests our criminal system isn’t working, and argues for incorporating restorative justice principles. Timothy Egan, President of High Park Advocacy Association and a lawyer in Toronto, disagrees with Eleanor, suggesting courts should focus on objective justice, leaving the task of mercy to better-suited institutions. The issue also includes: a review of Thomas Farr’s World of Faith and Freedom; reader response to our previous CPIP on construction costs; and our signature feature, a survey of what Canadian think tanks across the spectrum are doing. Cardus’ mission is to renew North American’s social architecture, and this involvement in shaping policy is one way we rethink and research a healthy vision for political institutions.
