Downward Mobility

Upward mobility has long been an expectation in America. But now the skids are greased! Downward mobility is either a shared experience or a shared fear that glues together the otherwise diverse groups of us who comprise the 99%. 2008 and the continuing Recession have reacquainted thousands of us with moving downward economically in America.

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40 days, 40 years, 400 years and 4000 years

In Latin America, at least among the more devout Spanish speaking “mestizo” Catholic population, Cuaresma is a time of attending Mass more frequently, denying oneself red meat and having a slightly more religious consciousness leading one to think about the teachings of Jesus. For the indigenous populations, who in southern Mexico (and Guatemala for that matter) having adopted the religion of the Protestants partly in resistance to the imposition of the Roman Catholic church, tend not to give much importance to this discipline.

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Schizophrenic Super Bowl Ads

This year I was struck by two commercials, each selling American brands of automobiles, that when taken together might suggest a divided mind about how to sell cars and in a larger way, where America is and where she sees herself going.

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7,000,000,000 Humans on One Planet? How Does That Work?

It happened somewhere in October, 2011. A baby homo sapien was born and she or he became the seven billioneth member of that species alive at that moment. As recently as 1940, the year I was born, homo sapiens totaled a “mere” 2.3 billion. We tripled our numbers in my lifetime!

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Coming Face to Face on US-Mex Border, Ethical Business, and Sustainable Economics

Last year, 2011, the Jubilee Community grew nicely as a web presence via this website, Common Good podcasting, Facebook and YouTube. (Have you been part of it?) Now we want to get familiar face to face too. In January 2012, we’ve begun new venues for getting together in person.

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Lane Van Ham Book Presentation

For those of you in the San Diego area, you may like to join JEM and the Friends of Friendship Park on January 5th:

A Common Humanity: Ritual, Religion, and Immigrant Advocacy in Tucson, Arizona, released recently by the University of Arizona Press.

We’ll have Q&A time after Lane presents a few themes and stories from his book. His continuing work on the great creativity and innovation happening on the borders, along with the border’s impacts in our region, will make for an interesting evening together.

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Jubilee Coff-Tea Time: a Salon for the 99 Percent

We’re going to try something new here at JEM. Seeing how we’re in the “business” of helping people discover ideas for how to live with jubilee values in mind, we’ve used a growing range of digital channels to help spread our message. One of which has of course been The Common Good Podcast. But what about meeting up in person? We thought, what if we got a couple of them together for themed nights with compatible topics, and helped show how jubilee is already at work in the world?

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