They say laughter is good for your health. Sometimes I think about that and worry because I’m so serious. I get amused easily, but I rarely laugh from deep down inside. Now I’ve found this video, which you’ve probably already seen it, but it doesn’t matter. I can watch this again and again, and it never fails. You can, too! Take a minute and have a laugh break with me.

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The Tuk Tuk is heading to the USA. Can you see the similarities?

The Tuk Tuk has been approved for road use in the USA by the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency. I think it’s a good thing. The Mitsubishi powered models for sale in the USA will be capable of driving cross-country, getting 55 MPG, and will carry from 3 to 12 passengers. Why not have an advertising campaign featuring a Tuk Tuk loaded with monks?

(h/t: Autoblog)

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The Secret to Successful Aid – William Easterly takes a break from being the premiere critic of misguided international aid efforts and offers some positive advice. I like this. I can’t say I’ve lived it out, but it fits what I’m learning.

One approach to a successful aid project just is to immerse yourself in the local community, put local people in charge who are themselves highly motivated, be adaptive and flexible to respond to whatever the local people think about how they can help themselves…be a Searcher and not a Planner.

Susan Boyle audition (must see) – This video is going to go super-viral, so I may as well recommend it early. Don’t miss it.

“If he rose at all it was as his body” – A poem about the resurrection by John Updike. Surprising.

A quote by Justin McLachlan (h/t Andrew Sullivan)

I started to wonder if the Christian battle lines drawn against culture were really lines at all, but fear of letting God be God, fear of taking him out of his packaging. Maybe there was more to faith than the subculture Christians have created. After all, I had just learned more about God sitting on a shadowy street talking to a destitute drug addict than I had in some 20 or so years in church.

I believe it now so one day it may be true – A thought provoking post about the nature of belief by Peter Rollins

I want to show that it is important to distance the idea of belief from an affirmation concerning the world that can be defended empirically. Indeed it is the idea that belief can be defended empirically that I argue actually eclipses the nature of belief itself. Instead belief must be understood as an affirmation concerning the nature of things that interacts with, but is not restricted to, facts. In short, beliefs are not placed into danger by being exposed as counter-factual….

A belief is thus an affirmation that can be fully asserted by a person at the same time as that person admits its absurdity and acknowledges their own doubt as to its veracity. Indeed this is often when belief is at its must luminous.

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It’s popular to talk about increasing international aid. People want to help, and we especially want to help the poorest of the poor. But what if the money we send sometimes hurts the ones we intend to help? What do we say when African experts say aid organizations thwart the poor and undermine efforts to hold corrupt governments accountable? Who will step in?

Aid watch is a new blog by William Easterly, the controversial author and aid critic. Go there for a sampling of opinion on What the Poor Say: Debates in Aid Evaluation.

If this piques your interest, read William Easterly’s important book, The White Man’s Burden. It is a must read to balance the calls to save the world by giving more and more money.  William Easterly is not against international aid. He wants aid organizations to be held accountable to produce positive results. He points out that NGO’s and their workers have their own self-interests (to grow as organizations, to receive more donations, to gain recognition, etc.). Their real “customers/clients” (who must be satisfied) are not the aid recipients but the rich donors (who “pay the bills”). Easterly’s well researched book (and now blog) make a convincing case that too much of the money we give is used ineffectively and too often with negative effects. It’s truly a disaster when the money we give to help does harm instead of good.

I also recommend these recent posts from Aid Watch:

A tale of two refrigerators – A story of how thousands of children in the Sudan died, and continue to die today, while the World Health Organization and Save The Children failed (due to beaurocracy, ineptitude, and one excuse after another) to deliver “free” malaria vaccinations.

Buzzwords in the aid industry – A revealing essay about buzzwords like “empowerment” and “participation” that have been thrown about since colonial times. The truth is that governments and NGO’s are unlikely to give up their power to truly empower anyone. Key quote:

One word that is extremely unpopular in aid documents but has great historical resonance on “power to the people” is “liberty.” Neither the 347 page World Bank 1998 “Participation Sourcebook” nor the 372-page World Bank 2006 “Empowerment in Practice” ever mentioned the word “liberty.” The poor cannot have liberty, but they can have lots of empowerment and participation and ownership and civil society. I’d rather have liberty myself.

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William Easterley has a new blog entitled Aid Watch. I’m hooked.

William Easterley is a straight shooter. I’m glad to have his book, The White Man’s Burden, on my shelf. The title may be off-putting, but this is a book that anyone interested in financing compassion ought to read. Everywhere people are calling for more international aid, as if doubling or tripling the amount given is the key to changing the world. But listen carefully and you’ll hear decent people asking simple questions like: Why give more money to the same recipients when trillions have already been spent with such dismal results? Could there be a better way? It’s not just middle-aged white men asking; the first time I heard these questions powerfully stated they were coming from a young African scholar (whose link I have long since misplaced).

To be clear, Easterley wants to see money given to help and empower people in need AND he wants it to be used in the best possible ways. Read the book and the blog. You may be ticked off, but you won’t be disappointed.

The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good

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