Consequently, we've got a little more news than usual to report, some of which is rather significant:
• Yesterday Norman Kurland taped a segment for "Money America," a radio show out of Cambridge, Massachusetts, co-sponsored by Cambridge Credit Counseling Corp. and American International College (AIC). The topic was how the $600 billion stimulus will affect the economy — if at all. Naturally, Norm's responses brought in the Just Third Way. The hosts, Thomas Fox (Community Outreach Director for Cambridge Credit, a non-profit group that, well, counsels people about credit), and LaValle Smith (a Certified Credit Counselor), were very positive about Norm's talk, and (if properly encouraged) might be open to future guest spots if the subject warrants a discussion of how the Just Third Way fits in. The show will be broadcast on Sunday, November 14, 2010 at 7:00 pm EST on WAIC 91.9 FM (the AIC station), and on the internet on http://www.aic.edu/hot919. Please send this information around to your network(s). To listen on the internet, go to the link, click on "HOT91.9WAIC" right under "LISTEN NOW" and (if necessary) install "Microsoft Silverlight" in order to hear the broadcast. Spreading word of the show will not only help educate your friends (and enemies), but give the folks at "Money America" a little positive reinforcement. (That includes our overseas readers as well — you know who you are. Staying up until 3:00 am to hear Norm over the internet isn't that much of a burden. He's been up that late/early talking to people in the next time zone.)
Those are the happenings for this week, at least that we know about. If you have an accomplishment that you think should be listed, send us a note about it at mgreaney [at] cesj [dot] org, and we'll see that it gets into the next "issue." If you have a short (250-400 word) comment on a specific posting, please enter your comments in the blog — do not send them to us to post for you. All comments are moderated anyway, so we'll see it before it goes up.
• Norm's interview resulted from Michael Greaney responding to a question regarding the stimulus, sending a (relatively) brief e-mail about binary economics and the Just Third Way. It was only one of several e-mails sent out that day, but it was the only one that got a response. Door opening is clearly not for anyone who is easily discouraged. You have to remember that there are not all that many open minds out there, and you have to keep trying. Also, don't try to make the "sale" yourself. Just open the door for the CESJ core group.
• Early this week we got a question about the Social Justice Collaboratives. Are any new ones planned? Planned, yes. On the schedule, . . . no. The structure of the Collaboratives is such that CESJ cannot go it alone. We need a sponsoring organization to handle the logistics and administration. We'd like to cover topics such as getting away from the slavery of past savings, restoring the natural law as the basis of the money and credit system, the role of private property, economic personalism (the list is virtually endless), but we need other organizations that share an interest in a particular topic and that have the resources, especially support staff, to carry the project through. For example (just off the top of my head), one Collaborative might be sponsored by the Ancient Order of Hibernians on the subject, "Introducing the Just Third Way to Ireland, Programs and Politics," to discuss what to do, and how to get it to the attention of the floundering Irish government.
• We learned with great sadness of the death of Bob Woodman, a co-founder of CESJ, on November 4, 2010 in Cleveland, Ohio, at the age of 87. A strong supporter of the "four pillars of an economically just society" (too briefly, 1. A limited economic role for the State, 2. Free and open markets as the best determination of just wages, just prices, and just profits, 3. Restoration of the rights of private property, and 4. Widespread direct ownership of the means of production), Bob was a perennial gadfly to the complacent, never hesitating to take on causes on the basis of their justness, not popularity.
• In the "trivial news department," a CESJ in Detroit friend sent this link to liven our spirits . . . with spirits.
• "Renew America" columnist Matt C. Abbott reviewed Supporting Life in his column. Why haven't you?
• Michael D. Greaney, CPA, MBA (and CESJ's Director of Research) was quoted in an article by Brett Owens, "How to Strengthen the CPA/Attorney Relationship" on "Accounting Web." Note the subtle reference to Aristotelian ethics and natural law philosophy.
• Long-time CESJ member out in Kansas, Rudy Wrobel, sent the link to "Preventable Disasters" to Australian economist John Quiggan, author of Zombie Economics. To how many economists, door openers, friends, chance acquaintances, enemies, and presidents and prime ministers of Ireland and members of Dáil Éireann did you send it? (CESJ friend Chris O'Connor sent the substance of the posting to a former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, as well as submitting a review of Supporting Life
to the National Hibernian Digest.)
• Equity Expansion International, Inc., the consulting company founded to implement the principles of the Just Third Way as far as the law allows — and to improve legal systems when the law does not — has been approached by a group in one of the southern U.S. states to help right a decades-old wrong. During the Second World War, land was condemned and taken over by right of eminent domain to build an airstrip. The land was found to be unsuitable, but was not returned. Now developers are attempting to purchase the land from the federal government, but the surviving original owners and the heirs are trying to get ownership back. Individuals representing the original owners and heirs came across the Just Third Way and thought it sounded like the very program to redevelop the land once it is restored to its original owners. We will report progress — and names — when it becomes feasible to do so.
• As of this morning, we have had visitors from 57 different countries and 51 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past two months. Most visitors are from the United States, the UK, Canada, Brazil and the Netherlands. People in Venezuela, the United States, Belgium, Argentina and Finland spent the most average time on the blog. The most popular posting is "Keynesian Economics is Socialism Lite," followed by "Destroy All Monsters" in the "Halloween Horror Special" series, "Thomas Hobbes on Private Property," and two more "Halloween Horror Specials," "The Attack of the Zombie Bankers," and "The Invisible Men."
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