Friday, February 2, 2018

News from the Network, Vol. 11, No. 05



A great deal has been happening this past week, although everyone here at CESJ headquarters managed to miss the lunar eclipse of the “Blueblood Moon” despite having gotten up extra-early to see it.  A portion of the sky was overcast at a critical time. . . . Be that as it may, at least advances in the Just Third Way are not a “once in a blue moon” occurrence:

Mabel Kurland
Mabel Kurland, RIP.  We were all saddened to learn of the death early in the morning of January 31, 2018 of long-time CESJ friend and supporter, Mabel Kurland, a ten-year old miniature schnauzer whose humans, Daniel, Karen, and Joseph, are also friends of CESJ and the Just Third Way.  Mabel was a fairly frequent visitor to CESJ, and always had a friendly wag and a bark for everyone.  After suffering massive trauma as a puppy, Mabel went on to lead a full and productive life, affording recreation and companionship to other members of her family.  She will be greatly missed.  She is survived by her humans and her fellow dog, Benny.
The Centrist Project.  Norman Kurland has been having discussions with the people at “the Centrist Project” headquartered in Denver, Colorado.  The Project aims to reshape and reform the U.S. political system, not as a traditional third party, but as America’s first “Unparty.”  They characterize themselves as a twenty-first century grassroots organization dedicated to organizing Centrist Americans, supporting Centrist policies and encouraging more independent candidates to run for public office to put the United States ahead of any political faction in order to solve problems.  Their website would well be worth a visit.
Perth Herald Tribune.  There is a pilot project, ph-tribune.com, that is intended to present business news within the context of the Just Third Way and suggest solutions consistent with the principles of binary economics. The plan is that Ph-tribune.com will be a daily “newspaper” with a focus on business and human rights from a Just Third Way perspective.  While all the bugs have not yet been ironed out, the website might be worth a visit or two to see how things are developing.
International Interest in the Just Third Way.  There are currently two heads of state in the European Union, and one in Asia, with whom the ideas of CESJ are being shared.  Talks with these leaders are, of course, at different stages, and few details are available.  There is, however, serious consideration being given to organize a conference on the ideas of the Just Third Way under the aegis of one or more of these governments.  Further discussions are scheduled to place over the coming weeks.
Vatican Contacts?  A CESJ team member has been in touch with a high-level Vatican official currently in the United States.  Another Vatican official has expressed interest in furthering a relationship with CESJ.
Illinois and Investment.  Marc Levine, Chairman of the Illinois State Board of Investment, recently had a piece in the Wall Street Journal (“Why Illinois Got Out of the Hedges,” 02/01/18, A13), explaining why Illinois divested itself of holdings in hedge funds.  Basically, the reasoning was that having investments that nobody understood and that didn’t appear to represent ownership of actual assets was considered “inappropriate.”
Official Book Release.  TAN Books, the imprint of St. Benedicts Press that published Ten Battles Every Catholic Should Know, has arranged for an interview on a national radio hookup with the author, Michael D. Greaney, CESJ’s Director of Research.  Further details will be forthcoming in the event the interview comes off as planned.
Terence Powderly, Grand Master Workman
Red Star Over Bethlehem.  New research that has come to light has resulted in making some important “tweaks” to the text regarding the history of the development of the term “social justice” and explained previously confusing things about Terence Powderly and the Knights of Labor.  Newspaper articles from the 1830s and 1840s used “social justice” with meanings in many cases completely different from those of today, while accounts of the Knights of Labor explain how the organization grew so fast and yet collapsed so suddenly in the space of a decade.  Changes in the main text should be completed within the next couple of days, while editing continues on the Introduction and the Foreword.
"I'm so happy I signed up for Smile!"
Shop online and support CESJ’s work! Did you know that by making your purchases through the Amazon Smile program, Amazon will make a contribution to CESJ? Here’s how: First, go to https://smile.amazon.com/.  Next, sign in to your Amazon account.  (If you don’t have an account with Amazon, you can create one by clicking on the tiny little link below the “Sign in using our secure server” button.)  Once you have signed into your account, you need to select CESJ as your charity — and you have to be careful to do it exactly this way: in the space provided for “Or select your own charitable organization” type “Center for Economic and Social Justice Arlington.”  If you type anything else, you will either get no results or more than you want to sift through.  Once you’ve typed (or copied and pasted) “Center for Economic and Social Justice Arlington” into the space provided, hit “Select” — and you will be taken to the Amazon shopping site, all ready to go.
Blog Readership.  We have had visitors from 39 different countries and 49 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past week. Most visitors are from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India, and Peru.  The most popular postings this past week in descending order were, “The American Chesterton, XVII: Sheen v. Radical Catholicism,” “What is Social Justice?” “Panic on the Street,” “Raw Judicial Power, III: Slaughterhouse, 1873,” and “The Death of Reason, VII: A Little More Demonic Advice.”
Those are the happenings for this week, at least those 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, so we’ll see it before it goes up.
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