From the wires

From AFP:

Whites to be minority in U.S. by 2050

Immigration will drive the population of the United States sharply upward between now and 2050, and will push whites into a minority, projections by the Pew Research Center showed Monday.

More than 80 percent of the increase will be due to immigrants arriving in the country and their US-born children, who will make up nearly one in five Americans by 2050 compared with one in eight in 2005, it said.

Whites, who currently make up around two-thirds of the US population, will become a minority (47 percent) by 2050, the report said.

The Hispanic population, currently the largest minority group, will triple in size and double in percentage terms from 14 percent in 2005 to 29 percent in 2050, the report said.

The Asian population will roughly double in percentage terms, from five percent to nine percent, while the black population will remain static at around 13 percent.

I think we need a new word than "minority." The word is generally used to mean people who are numerically less, but also means people who are socially/politically less powerful. I imagine that the power part of the definition won't change, or will it? I also wonder what the mixed-race numbers will be, and what impact we mixed folks might have, if any. I was all for the change on the Census that let us check all races that apply, as I was tired of feeling like I was lying on every government form, but I'm also pretty concerned at the way the numbers of mixed-race people are used to de-power and divide racial groups. I also wonder if by 2050 the default for "American" will still mean "whiteperson," (ala Sam Huntington) or will we finally let that go and accept the diversity that this country is?

From Bloomberg:

Obama Drive Gets Inspiration From His White Mom Born in Kansas

Barack Obama's mother was most at home a world away from her Midwest roots, trekking the old Silk Road or arranging small loans for weavers in Indonesia.

" I'm so tired of seeing her described as just a white woman from Kansas,'' says Bronwen Solyom, 63, who first met Ann Dunham in the 1970s when they were graduate students in anthropology at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. "She
was much more than that.''

Her son, who may become the first black U.S.
president, displays a penchant for defying convention and forging his own path that those who knew Dunham well trace back to her arrival with her family in Hawaii after high school. Although the son has channeled the rebelliousness of
his early years, he remains impatient with customs, such as the political dictate that he should wait his turn for national office.

"She certainly gave us her open-mindedness and our desire to challenge ourselves with new vistas and perceptions,'' says Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama's half-sister from Dunham's second
marriage to an Indonesian businessman.

Too bad the headline writer wasn't paying attention to the actual point of the story -- Obama's mama wasn't just a whitelady from Kansas, she was a multifaceted, world-trekking, adventurous individual who apparently shook off labels like dust from her intrepid feet. Never mind about Barack, I'm inspired by his mom!

It's a small world

Ha!

Japanese town of Obama has a new hero

In the coastal city of Obama, about 300 miles northwest of Tokyo, some residents formed a support group called "Group that Supports Barack Obama Voluntarily" in early February. Of course, none of the group's original 18 members in this city,
with a population of a little more than 32,000, are qualified to cast a vote in the election.

View Larger Map

How I love the Internets!

Today's wisdom brought to you by the letter ñ

Taken at the CCAMYN guest house for migrants in Altar, México. CCAMYN is staffed and supported by volunteers, with the blessing and prayers of its Catholic community, which prays for migrants daily. At CCAMYN, migrants preparing to make the dangerous journey across the U.S. desert borders are given information on what to expect when they cross, food, a few days shelter, and clothing. They are told about the dangers in the desert, of the coyotes, of the exploitation they might come across. Workers take information and data from migrants on human rights abuses and criminal acts. And families of migrants who have lost touch with their loved ones often turn to CCAMYN to help track their last known movements.

Translated: "If we don't think differently, nothing will change."

Business leaders in Oklahoma are calling for the repeal of the House Bill 1804, which has been called the harshest anti-illegal immigration legislation in the country. These business leaders cite negative economic impacts on the communities -- essentially employers are not able to find workers, retailers are not able to find buyers for their stuff.

I hate to agree with Randy Terrill, the author of the bill, but I believe he has something there when he says, "The moral dilemma for them is that they are defending the functional equivalent of modern-day slavery."

An economic argument is the least firm foundation on which to build opposition to this law. This is old thinking.

We need new thinking. We need to start putting value on human lives that isn't economic. Where do we start?

Truly inclusive?

It occurred to me the other day that the problem with "inclusive" thinking is the sure certainty that the other person who isn't of the inclusivist's faith tradition is welcome in the inclusivist's afterlife, but the inclusivist doesn't necessarily conceive of the fact that the she is might be welcome in the other person's afterlife.

Do we truly respect another person's faith or the person himself if we carry around the assumption that our worldview is the right one? Is toleration the same as respect?

I will admit, my christian agnosticism/apatheism leads me to be pretty suspicious that it comes down to Jesus alone at the end (Why not Buddha? Why not Odin?), and I'll also admit that I'll claim christianity simply out of sheer laziness: Seeing as that's the religion that most influenced my worldframe, I've decided to work with that instead of going out to find another one. But I also find myself a little excited that maybe just maybe it's Buddha's compassion that saves me instead of God's. I'm good with that, too. Not very "Christian" of me, but I reserve the right to redefine what christian means for me.

Of course that makes me wonder where we draw the line between faith and blindness, between skepticism and over-thinking-it.

Yes We Can

Will.I. Am, on why he recorded Yes We Can:

When you are truly inspired..
magic happens...
incredible things happen...
love happens..
(and with that combination)

"love, and inspiration"

change happens...

"change for the better"
Inspiration breeds change...

"Positive change"...

no one on this planet is truly experienced to handle the obstacles we face today...
Terror, fear, lies, agendas, politics, money, all the above...
It's all scary...

Martin Luther King didn't have experience to lead...
Kennedy didn't have experience to lead...
Susan B. Anthony...
Nelson Mandela...
Rosa Parks...
Gandhi...
Anne Frank...
and everyone else who has had a hand in molding the freedoms we have and take for granted today...

no one truly has experience to deal with the world today...

they just need "desire, strength, courage ability, and passion" to change...
and to stand for something even when people say it's not possible...

Opio Toure

Former Oklahoma state legislator Opio Toure died today.

Opio was an amazing man, one of the most genuine people I've ever had the privilege to know. I met him the first time about twelve years ago when I was a cub reporter in Muskogee, covering his visit to some group or another, and being utterly stupid about how to spell his name, but he patiently spelled it out again and again for me.

We met again a little more than three years ago, at the airport in Istanbul, Turkey. We were part of a tour group traveling through holy sites in Turkey for an interfaith education trip. Opio joined us late, and I introduced myself by mentioning that previous incident. Of course, he didn't remember me, but during our 10 days abroad, we talked a lot and got to know each other. He told me about his grandsons, whom he spent time with every week. He encouraged me in my studies and told me that I needed to go to seminary. And he followed through; he called the admissions office of my seminary, told them to call me, and then did. And the rest, as they say, is history. And I am in seminary because of him.

What amazed me about Opio was his presence, his utter inability to ever know a stranger or an enemy. In his time in the legislature, he believed in being bipartisan, of crossing lines to do the right thing. In Turkey, he borrowed the tiny Turkish phrasebook I had brought along and learned all the words he'd need to know to get around: hello, thank you, grandpa, grandkids, tea. Unable to join the group for the most strenuous activities like scaling hillsides to visit one fabled place or another, he would sit down with some tea, pull out pictures of his family and share himself with others and invite them to share themselves. I remember thinking I wanted to be like Opio when I grew up.

I knew last month that he was in the hospital, but I put off visiting. I planned to drop him a card, but I forgot. It never occurred to me that Opio wouldn't be here. Sick as he was, he was one of the most vital people I've ever known.

Thank you, Opio, for bringing me to seminary, for being a light to drew people and showed the way. I wont' forget you again.

"A carpenter, worked a miracle, his name was J.C. ..."

(Prizes to the person who knows from which animated TV show I grabbed the line that is this post's title.)

When I was about five or six, I remember standing in the Safeway with my mom, sounding out the big words on the bright orange posters hanging from the windows. "Mommy," I asked, "What's inflation mean?"

She answered, "It's when prices go up, and it's Jimmy Carter's fault."

(Mom, you should know, voted for Reagan when she became a naturalized U.S. citizen about four years later, and a framed picture of the Great Communicator hung in our den for as long as we lived in that house. She probably still has it, I haven't checked.)

Despite my upbringing, I always liked Carter, probably because we pronounced nuclear the same way (nuke-u-lar), but a few years ago I read his book, Our Endangered Values, and ended up being a huge fan of his. Between that, his work with Habitat for Humanity, the Carter Center's dedication to mediating peace and ensuring fair and democratic elections worldwide just puts him over the top for me. You go, J.C.!

And now, he's taking on his biggest challenge: Baptists.

(Carter) has spearheaded the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant, an unprecedented three-day gathering of more than 10,000 Baptists that began Wednesday (Jan. 30).

"It's hard to find an example of a Baptist layperson who has done more to put feet to his faith than President Carter," said Mercer University President Bill Underwood, who started planning the Atlanta gathering with Carter two years
ago.

"I don't think there's anyone in the world who could have brought this diverse array of Baptists together ... other than President Carter because he is so respected for the work that he has done."

The former president continues to teach Sunday school about 35 or 40 times a year at his Maranatha Baptist Church, a small congregation near his home in Plains, Ga., which supports the mission programs of both the Southern Baptist Convention and the more moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

"Whenever a Sunday comes and I'm in Plains, then I teach," he said in an interview.

On Wednesday, in an emotional moment, Carter said the celebration was "the most momentous event" in his religious life and urged a renewed focus on the key aspects of Baptist faith, including salvation and unity.

"Unfortunately, the arguments and even the animosities that exist among Christians are like a cancer that is metastasizing within the body of Christ," he said.

Bruce Prescott with Oklahoma Mainstream Baptists is blogging from the Celebration of New Baptist Covenant, and you can keep up with it here.