The Hill Country

From the trip Laura and I made a few weeks ago . . . it was very dry out in Central Texas, but Spring was in the air, nonetheless.

An apt metaphor

A picture of the AIG Building, a towering presence to the west of downtown Houston. I can see it from my office window. This week it was buried in the fog . . . see more pictures here.

In other blog-postings related to economic matters, I find the Planet Money discussion about the AIG bonuses to be especially lucid at a time when a pitchfork populism rages.

Lenten Thoughts

It's been awhile since posting. I read this in David Chappell's A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow, and I thought I would share.

It comes from an Easter greeting written by Bayard Rustin in 1952:

"Everyone saw Jesus as a lot of trouble, but even crucifixion could not get rid of Him. 'Easter in every age . . . recalls the imminence of the impossible victory, the power of the impotent weak.' Rustin took the opportunity to note that Jesus' followers 'need to be reminded that Easter is the reality, and that the awesome structures of pomp and power are in the process of disintegration at the moment of their greatest strength.' He was surely aware that he was echoing the Prophets' scorn for human institutions. But he could not have known that he was prophetically anticipating a key phrase in a new prophet's greatest speech: 'Easter is the symbol of hope resurrected out of a tomb of hopelessness.'"