Christ is Love in Action

A good example (in my opinion).

http://www.christianity.ca/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=5096

The Art of Protest

Sixth street is a corridor in San Francisco's South of Market Area (SOMA), where the city tries to contain much of it's homeless and poverty-related problems. Local residents are often heard asking the city to please apply the same standards of law-enforcement here as they do in the swankier neigbourhoods. But they don't. So drug usage and pimping and other activities are allowed to go on here - within certain limits anyway, so that the rest of the neighborhoods can be kept "cleaner." Sounds a little like the mess Vancouver created with its east end of Hastings.

Anyway, our mission outpost 'church' / activity center was smack in the middle of the 6th street corridor. And down the block at the corner of Howard, we saw this building that has been converted to a protest-work of art. I forget the exact story, but Lynn Kopec has supplied it:

The original building had a fire in it in the 80's and had to be closed down. The owner did not want to do the repairs, so did not re-open the doors. As the homeless problem increased, he was asked to reopen the hotel and allow people to live there. He said no and actually was quoted as saying "why don't they just move the homeless, they can be homeless in Idaho". As a result, several people broke into the hotel and created the "work of art" using furniture etc from the hotel. The owner has allowed it to stay that way, but it still remains empty.

It's unique and artful way to express a point!

Fwd: Great Comebacks

I'm not pro or anti Bush, but just because I hear an imbalance of Anti-Bush remarks, I thought I'd post these to help balance the scale.  I personally like the third one (which isn't about bush-bashing at all).

When in England at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of 'empire building' by George Bush.  He answered by saying, 'Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.'
It became very quiet in the room.
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Then there was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break one of the French engineers came back into the room saying 'Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?'
A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: 'Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck.. We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?'
Once again, dead silence.
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A U.S. Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included Admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian and French Navies. At a cocktail reception, he found himself standing with a large group of Officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks but a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English.' He then asked, 'Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?'
Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied 'Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German.
You could have heard a pin drop