I've moved.

From this day forward, this blog will not be updated. I've moved to http://larameekidd.com/ which is a blog that I share with Susannah. All of the posts from Generating Output are there, and I will be continuing to post there.

20,199 and counting

As of yesterday, we passed the halfway point for our signature collecting goal reaching 20,199 collected. There's about a month left in the campaign to collect the second half and, while things do look good, that's still along way to go and the second half will be harder.

BoingBoing reader comment

Today, I'm turning up in BoingBoing alerting Xeni to a photo of Chewbacca throwing out the first pitch at Fenway Park. This was a real missed opportunity, I think. Had I blogged about it and provided a link back to me, I could have gotten 10,000 hits or something like that.

Inspired and a little bit worried

Last Thursday, the GBIO kicked off its healthcare campaign in conjunction with the Affordable Care Today! Coallition. I've been making a special note of mentions of the health care system recently. It seems to be very much on the minds of people of faith, as I came across at least two blog entries about health care in the past couple weeks. The most interesting article that I've read is one from the New Yorker (through boingboing) written by professional genius Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell shreds the Bush administration's attempts to cure our health care woes and, most interestingly for me, talks a bit about the pressing need for affordable dental care.

With health care on the minds of a lot of people across the country, it's good to see the GBIO getting involved in this. MassACT is hoping to get a question about affordable health care on the ballot for 2006 in an attempt to put pressure on the state legislature to do something before then. It's a good plan and my biggest complaint with it may be that it doesn't go far enough, but that's really a quibble at this point. And it does include adding dental care to MassHealth.

100,000 signatures need to be collected and GBIO has committed to collecting 40,000, the largest chunk of any of the partner institutions. The title for this blog entry comes from some inspirational words offered by Rabbi Jonah Pesner on Thursday night, who noted that we should all feel inspired for taking on the problem of health care... and a little bit worried because 100,000 signatures is a lot. Two people at the meeting committed to collecting 500 signatures. Most of the crowd (of about 200) pledged to collect at least 50. We'll have plenty more people out working but any way you do the math, this still isn't a cake walk.

This Saturday, I spent a couple hours at a tropical foods store in Roxbury. With two other people we managed to collect about 80 signatures. Quite a few people said no or ignored us. Many were very enthusiastic. At least one woman said that, at first, she thought that I was going to ask her to vote for Bush and she was going to have to say no. But since I was collecting signatures for affordable health care, she gladly signed. The truth is that collecting signatures is hard and, as I discovered today, I lack the courage to do it on my own. I'm not sure that I will be able to collect as many signatures as I pledged (100). I'm inspired, but a little bit worried.

Letter on Jim Wallis

Last Friday, Salon.com ran an article called Getting Religion about Jim Wallis and the Democratic party. Of course, this topic was right up my alley, so I sent them a letter which they published. I thought the article was more than a little too hard on Wallis (which I hope was evident in my letter) but the article hit on something that has been bothering me quite a bit for the past few months--that what was once prophetic criticism of the powers that be was turning into political strategy for the Democratic party. Reading quickly through the rest of the letters, it seems like there are quite a few people ready to jump to Jim Wallis's defense and at least some who think he's up to no good at all. So, I'm happy to add my more balanced voice to the fray.

As a side note: it's interesting to see how Salon edited my letter. Nothing major was changed, but the definitely cleaned it up a little here and there.

Health Care - Globe Op-Ed

Rev. Hamilton of Roxbury Presbyterian Church had an op-ed piece in the Globe today (written with Rabbi Jonah Pesner) comparing Governor Romney's health care plan to a junky car. Barely mentioned in the article is the ballot initiative being planned by MassACT and supported by the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, but this is clearly part of the run-up for that. Training sessions are already underway for those who will be gathering signatures for the ballot initiative (I'll be going to one tomorrow) and a kickoff event is planned for September 22. Hopefully we'll be seeing more press coverage then.

Oppression breeds...

From boston.com: A Muslim fast-food restaurant in France. This is very interesting coming out of country that prides itself on its secularism. One might argue that if that if the French government didn't spend so much energy trying to make Muslims feel unwelcome in public life, they wouldn't need to start their own fast food chains. This really comes out of the article too. You definitely get the sense that Muslims in France feel discriminated against and are looking for places that can help them maintain their cultural identity. More power to them.