Wednesday, January 31, 2018

The sin of wealth inequality

This coming Sunday the Adult Forum will view Richard Wilkinson's TED Talk, "How income inequality harms societies." We watched this a few years ago, but it is worth another viewing. The data Wilkinson presents is based on his book, "The Spirit Level" which shows a multitude of correlations between income disparity within countries and the magnitude of those countries' social ills. It's an amazing set of data. Not too surprisingly, the United States has greater wealth inequality that any other nation, and the social ills to match. We'll speculate on how the recent tax bill will affect us.
Please join us. We'll be delighted to see you.

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Origins and persistence of poverty

This coming Sunday, January 28th we'll view and discuss a TEDTalk on poverty, given by Dr. Gary Haugen, author of "The Locust Effect." From the website: "Collective compassion has meant an overall decrease in global poverty since the 1980s, says civil rights lawyer Gary Haugen. Yet for all the world's aid money, there's a pervasive hidden problem keeping poverty alive. Haugen reveals the dark underlying cause we must recognize and act on now." Here's the link: Click here. Bryan Wyatt will be using Haugen's book for his sermons during the next two Sundays.
On a related note, this column by Angus Deaton (2015 Nobel laureate in Economics) recently appeared in the NY Times. It addresses the recent UN findings on poverty in America. As others have noted, it's worse than we think.

Please join us Sunday morning at 9:45 in Martin Hall. All are welcome. 

Catching up with what we've done.

I'm posting just to keep a record of what we've done in the Adult Forum
During the second half of December and the first half of January we most listened to and discussed end-of-the-year episodes from "The Daily", a podcast produced by the NY Times. These included:
Derek Black's recanting of white nationalism
Vandalism and forgiveness related to anti-Muslim sentiments, and
The loss of steel-workers' jobs in Indiana, featuring Shannon Mulcahy.

Last week, Jan 21 we hosted a guest speaker, Skipper Darlington IV who is the founding CEO of Africa ASAP (Aerial Surveillance Against Poaching) in Tanzania. This was a powerful, compelling and heartfelt presentation about an important and dangerous initiative to reduce the rate of elephant and rhino extinction. Many thanks to Skipper and to Cathe Crosley for making this happen. Africa ASAP's website is worth a look. http://www.africaasap.org/ 

As always, all are welcome and encourage to attend.