Getting away from the fantasy world of Wall Street and Washington, this week's happenings, while superficially sparse, are of much greater moment than the antics in the world of finance and politics:
• Due to the press of outside business, the monthly CESJ executive committee meeting was postponed until next week. Everyone in CESJ is a volunteer and receives no compensation for filling a position. Thus, when the immediate need of making a living intrudes on the work of civilization CESJ carries out, CESJ business must wait. Consider volunteering some of your time to the Global Justice Movement in general, and CESJ in particular, in order to broaden our resource base and expand the number of people we can rely on to fill critical roles in times like these when people are becoming stretched very thin as a result of a global economy that limps along without Capital Homesteading. Check out the volunteer opportunities and the application on the CESJ website.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.
• As noted, the CESJ monthly executive committee meeting has been moved to next week, Tuesday, November 24, 2009, from 10:00 am to 12:30 pm. If you wish to listen in on the discussions (direct participation is usually limited to the executive committee and board members), send an e-mail to CESJ at the contact information on the website and ask to be put on the list to receive the access code for the telephone conference.
• Due to the press of other business (see above), the final editing of Dr. Alamgir's book, Notes from a Prison: Bangladesh, has been delayed another week. This book is important not because of Dr. Alamgir's economic framework — as former Minister of Planning, he is an expert not in the Just Third Way, but in getting the most out of the admittedly flawed existing system in the most ethical manner possible — but because of the principles of social justice he exhibited in organizing and working for the common good, both while unjustly incarcerated and afterwards by working to call attention to flaws in social institutions. That is why CESJ is publishing the North American edition under a new imprint, "Social Justice Publications," not "Economic Justice Media."
• Because of the popularity of the recently-concluded blog series on "Personhood and the Ontology of Personalism" (the title suggested by Mr. Guy Stevenson of Iowa), the series will be turned into a monograph for republication in book form after editing and some expansion of the text. If you would like to receive a pre-publication copy in electronic format for review and comment when it is ready, please send CESJ an e-mail at the contact information on the CESJ website. The working title for the book is Common Ground: Personhood and the Ontology of Personalism. The idea of turning some of the blog series into short publications was suggested by Dawn K. Brohawn, CESJ's Director of Communications. If "Common Ground" is successful, we anticipate a significant number of new publications, first from among the large amount of material CESJ already has on hand, but later soliciting new works consistent with the principles of the Just Third Way as found in the economic justice principles developed by Louis Kelso and Mortimer Adler, and in the social doctrine of Pope Pius XI as analyzed by Rev. William J. Ferree, S.M., Ph.D., "America's greatest social philosopher."
• CESJ (and Equity Expansion International, Inc., a for-profit company with which many of the members of the CESJ core group are affiliated) now has a presence on "Linkedin." Earlier this week, at the suggestion of Mr. Steven Gajdosik, president of the Catholic Radio Association, Michael D. Greaney created a profile on the networking service and joined the "Catholic Radio Group" (not the "Catholic Radio Association Group," the confusingly-named not-for-industry-outsiders professional group).
• As of this morning, we have had visitors from 39 different countries and 45 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, Aruba, and Brazil. People in Aruba, Uganda, Argentina, the United States and the U.K. spent the most average time on the blog. As noted, the recent postings on personalism have generated a surprising amount of interest, suggesting that people are starting to wake up to the need for a new approach. The personalism articles are followed by "The Slavery of Past Savings," and "No One Can Breathe Against Their Will" — all on the same general topic of the essential dignity of the human person under God. The weekly news updates, still retain their usual readership, but far more visitors to the blog are looking at the postings on the natural moral law.
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