A movie to make
Drive. Drive. Drive. Drive. Drive. Drive. Drive.
Eat. Sip. Woo woo. Damn!

Hehe, thought you might like to meet our mascots for this crazy tour!

Meet St. Otto, the patron saint of parking, air freshener. Meet Harriet, our Garmin GPS navigator -we pretty much do whatever she tells us to do in her lovely Australian accent

Last but not least, our PAPA Fest mascot Gnome Chomsky. He was a favorite at our little tent community known as The Ranch. So instead of leaving him at Plow Creek, we thought it’d be great to have Gnome Chomsky & his “hello my name is” sign join us on the trip–sort of like the little gnome in Amelie

See ya on the road,
~jamie

June 18th we left Kensington, Phila and headed west to PAPA fest in Tiskilwa, IL. A team of 4 armed with only (i had inserted the inventory of all we brought but the list was extremely too and so here we take a pause and in our imaginations we create a time lapse shot of us loading. aaand scene.) we hit the road after some creative packing, and a conversation with Harriet (our able GPS), and a blessing from Gnome Chomsky (our navigational guide of spirit and intention) we headed west.

Along the way we stopped for coffee and food and water and to take photos of this beautiful land and oh, in Ohio a state trooper. Yeah, I got a ticket! What!?

After switching drivers and hours of doing the exact speed limit, on Wednesday about midnight we pulled into the tiny town of Tiskilwa, population 800.

Enjoy some photos we acquired along the way.

Hey family,

Holy crap this trip is so much fun! Driving 11,000 miles is a great way to meet amazing folks using faith as their fuel to lead remarkable lives and take action for what they believe in. I’m truly inspired by the people we’ve met so far and can’t wait to meet more! Let us know if you know of ordinary radicals that might be heading to any of the J4P events, we’d love to get ‘em in front of a camera and hear what they’re up to.

In other great news, I wanted to give you a heads up that our follow travelers in the Jesus For President veggie bus are blogging while on the road as well.

Check em out at: http://jesusforpresident.org/blog –we’ll be cross posting a bunch, but there’ll be great stuff there directly from Chris & Shane’s perspectives.

According to the New York Times, the Obama camp has some close connections to the ethanol industry. They claim that:

Mr. Obama is running as a reformer who is seeking to reduce the influence of special interests. But like any other politician, he has powerful constituencies that help shape his views. And when it comes to domestic ethanol, almost all of which is made from corn, he also has advisers and prominent supporters with close ties to the industry at a time when energy policy is a point of sharp contrast between the parties and their presidential candidates.

The article goes on to talk about the ways Obama is connected to the industry. Which was a lot of names, most I found hard to keep track of. Noteworthy to me however, what each candidate about the issue of ethanol.

Mr. Obama argued that embracing ethanol “ultimately helps our national security, because right now we’re sending billions of dollars to some of the most hostile nations on earth.” America’s oil dependence, he added, “makes it more difficult for us to shape a foreign policy that is intelligent and is creating security for the long term.”
Ethanol is one area in which Mr. Obama strongly disagrees with his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain of Arizona. While both presidential candidates emphasize the need for the United States to achieve “energy security” while also slowing down the carbon emissions that are believed to contribute to global warming, they offer sharply different visions of the role that ethanol, which can be made from a variety of organic materials, should play in those efforts.

Mr. McCain advocates eliminating the multibillion-dollar annual government subsidies that domestic ethanol has long enjoyed. As a free trade advocate, he also opposes the 54-cent-a-gallon tariff that the United States slaps on imports of ethanol made from sugar cane, which packs more of an energy punch than corn-based ethanol and is cheaper to produce.

You can read more about how they differ in the article itself. My understanding is that Barack Obama wants to use US based corn in order to create the ethanol, whereas John McCain would like to import sugar cane ethanol from third world countries.

Both of their ideas have ups and downs. In McCain’s case, the up is that sugar cane is actually more efficient. It takes less energy to produce, yielding 8 units of energy from every 1 unit used to create it. On the downside though, his plan does not reduce our dependence on foreign countries. It also relies on the idea of free market. An ideal that has done nothing to improve the situation of those in the Global South, but rather creates and perpetuates oppression, through sweatshops, environmental degradation and other monstrosities. And frankly, I am not willing to trust that the free market will begin to conduct itself in a just way now.

Obama’s plan, helps keep American jobs, and reduces our dependence on foreign oil. It also reduces the food supply, as the corn which was at one time was grown for food, will now be grown for gas. And in a world that is already suffering from a food crisis, I cannot help but to ask if perhaps, we do not have our priorities straight.

Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of the 7-alarm fire that consumed an entire block of Kensington. The Simple Way has been working hard trying to get justice for their neighbors. But still, a year later and the city has yet to rectify this situation. Below is the press release, and videos about the fire and its aftermath.

7-alarm fire destroyed an entire block of Kensington, residents still face tens of thousands of dollars worth of fines from the City.

On June 20, 2007 an abandoned, city-owned, factory caught fire and burned down an entire block of Kensington, forcing evacuation of over 100 families and leaving 400 others without power of families as it ripped through the 3200 block of H Street.  Dozens of homes were damaged and destroyed, cars exploded, a neighborhood in turmoil.  Now, one year later, those families are being told they owe the City of Philadelphia money.

Victims of the fire were sent notices from the City of Philadelphia’s Licenses and Inspections Office saying the charred ruins that remained of their homes was an “eminent danger” to the neighborhood.  This is all after the neglected City property caught fire for the third time that year and consumed their homes.  The lot where the factory used to stand, along with the dirt block where there homes once sat, is now filled with broken glass, tires and trash, a scar on what was once a vibrant block of North Philadelphia.

One of the buildings lost in the fire was a community center belonging to The Simple Way, an influential nonprofit organization that has been serving in the neighborhood for over 10 years (along with the home of Simple Way founder and best-selling author Shane Claiborne).  As people heard of the crisis, financial gifts came in from around the world and The Simple Way has worked with a neighborhood coalition over the past year to help families stabilize as they rise from the ashes.  The fire garnered national attention (links are on the website http://thesimpleway.org/fire_index.html, and now their petition to the city has thousands of signatures.  Despite pleas to all major players, and a visit from Mayor Nutter himself (video footage on the website), the City of Philadelphia they are having a hard time not going to court over this.

“Despite being advised to declare a class-action lawsuit,  we are doing everything we can to invite the new Mayor and administration to do what’s right.  All we are asking is that the City forgive the fines that have been imposed on victims of the fire so that we can continue to rebuild our neighborhood.  It’s an easy opportunity to shine in an ugly situation.”  — Shane Claiborne (author, resident and fire victim)

“We have been told by sympathetic folks in nearly every department in the City that this situation is embarrassing and shameful on the part of the City.  But at the end of the day, one year later, we still face tens of thousands of dollars in fines.”  (Darin Peterson, Exectuive Director of The Simple Way)

Hey All!
The first trailer is officially done. So take a look and see what’s to come!

I just finished watching an hour question and answer panel on religion and progressive politics in 2008. Although, the presentation of the material is slightly dry, the content itself is chalked full of wonderful observations, ideas, and commentary about this new movement in Christianity; a movement that wants “to work together to make sure that everybody’s needs in society are met.”

I encourage anyone who has the time to watch the panel discussion yourself, as I am sure it will give you more insights into this great social shift. Most note-worthy to me was Jennifer Butlers comments about the religious right:

“It was interesting to see the Huckabee campaign, actually, because Huckabee is this Republican candidate who has a bit of a broader agenda as an evangelical. And then recently, he weighed in on the Jeremiah Wright controversy in the Obama campaign. He said, “You know, sometimes people have chips on their shoulder. They get angry about things. If I had seen what Jeremiah Wright had seen, I might have the chip on my shoulder as well. In fact, I would have a bigger chip on my shoulder.”

Recently two Christian Right figures, Harry Jackson and Tony Perkins, came out with a book about how evangelicals need to broaden their agenda. And I find that very interesting, both of those examples, because I think it says something about the ability of people of faith also to broaden even a conservative agenda and a Republican agenda.”

I have not at all been following how the religious right might be playing into this movement of Ordinary Radicals. But after watching discussion I decided to look into Jackson and Perkins’ new book. Although I have not read it, I found it interesting that they are trying to “advocate building upon the pro-life, pro-family issues that have been the mainstay of the religious Right. They intend to expand the religious Right’s influence into immigration policy, poverty and social justice, racial reconciliation, and global warming.” All things that I have considered concerns of the ‘Progressive Christian Left”. And although I do not know where the right stands on such issues the fact that they are talking about more than just abortion and homosexuality is… well just not what I expected from the religious right. As such I think I am going to pick up Jackson and Perkins’ book, just so perhaps my prejudice against the religious right can be broken down a bit.

Sorry it has been a while since I last updated the blog. I am not going to lie, blog post usually take me a while… hours to be more exact…actually, depending on how I feel about the subject, I have been known to take days. So the reason you haven’t heard from me in a while is really quite simple, I have not had the time.

But today I was thinking, part of the purpose of this blog is to let you all know about the movie production stuff. Thus, I thought I would give you a short update about why I haven’t had time to write.

Last week we were in Mississippi interviewing John Perkins. I am not sure how many of you are familiar with him. If you are not, and care about racial reconciliation or community development you should surely check him out.

We were only in Mississippi for a day… left at 3am on Wednesday and arrived back at 4am Thursday. To say the least it was one hell of a day, but worth it to be able to spend time with Dr. Perkins. He really is quite a remarkable man and I think that my time spent with him will have lasting impacts on my life.

The next few days were spent recovering from that trip and gearing up for our next one to Princeton, NJ where the Envision Conference was being held. In all honesty, I was bummed that we covering this conference because I wanted nothing more than to be fully immersed within it. The whole weekend was about Faith, Politics and the Future. There were a lot of interesting voices speaking out on the subject, bringing with them a great diversity in opinion.

I wish I had more time to share with you all everything I learned, and tell you all about the awesome people we meant over the weekend. Since I don’t I will tell you about the two highlights. One of them was driving back and forth to the conference with Chris Haw (co-author of Jesus for President). Chris is a man filled with wisdom and knowledge, and it was a great privilege to spend time picking his brain. We talked about faith and politics, the church’s addiction to power, and how to create systemic change… oh yeah and how cool the Amish are. If any of you are debating whether or not you should go to the Jesus for President tour let me end that debate for you right now, you should. Really, don’t miss the opportunity to listen to Chris speak, if it doesn’t change your life it will certainly make you smarter.

My other highlight was time spent with two aboriginal folks named Terry LeBlanc and Ray Alderd. They shared with me thoughts on Christianity from their Native worldview. And also got me thinking further about racial reconciliation and how to go about that… so maybe I will write more on that topic later.Right now though, I need to finish gearing up for an interview with Jim Wallis later this week. And then after that we are off on the tour! Oh man life is crazy busy right now!

Oh yeah, and we also got a new intern here at the shop named Chris, and so you can expect to read some blogs from him for a while as well.

Hey all,

Hanging out at the Envision 08′ conference.  Seems there’s a lil’ bit of controversy, but still seems a mighty good group of people talking the good talk.  Here’s a clip of Shane from a few hours ago that I thought you might enjoy.

~jamie