"Seek the Welfare of the City" at Seattle Pacfic Univeristy

Seek the Welfare of the City

EFFECTIVE RESPONSES TO POVERTY & HUMAN NEED

October 18 and 19, 2010, 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Upper Gwinn, Seattle Pacific University
Free and Open to the Public

Across America, many struggle in the face of financial hardship, broken families, and violent neighborhoods. What can we do in response to these needs? How can we effectively answer the call to “seek the welfare of the city”? 

Loving our neighbors means taking the time to understand the problems they face and how best to address them. Good intentions aren’t enough.
 Seek the Welfare of the City is a two-night college campus event that will equip participants to respond effectively to needs in their community and beyond.
 Featured Speakers Include:

 Monday, October 18: Discovery Institute’s Dr. Jay Richards
Jay W. Richards, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow and Research Director at Discovery Institute, author of Money, Greed and God, and a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
Panel Discussion: What Do Effective Solutions Look Like?
Moderator: Jennifer Marshall, The Heritage Foundation  
Capitalism: Dr. John West, Vice President of Public Policy & Legal Affairs of the Center for Science & Culture, Discovery Institute
City Zoning and Welfare Reform: Dr. Caleb Henry, Assistant Professor, Seattle Pacific University
Urban Renewal: Dr. Eric Jacobsen, Senior Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Tacoma

 Tuesday, October 19: President of the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, Bob Woodson
Robert L. Woodson, Sr., is founder and president of the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise (CNE), a nonprofit organization that supports neighborhood-based initiatives to reduce crime, restore families, and create economic enterprise.

Panel Discussion: Who’s Responsible? Family, Church, and Community Overcoming Social Breakdown
Moderator: Jennifer Marshall, The Heritage Foundation  
What Can the Church and Community Do?  Trent England, Director of the Citizenship & Governance Center, Evergreen Freedom Foundation
What Can Marriage and Family Do?  Jeff Kemp, Founder, Stronger Families

This event is free and open to the public.  For more information, contact Diane Mannina at Diane.Mannina@heritage.org. 

Can Government Create Wealth?

Check out more videos at Getfree.TV

Dori Monson : The Boomerang Generation

Living back home with you parents? Working at a minimum wage job after Spending 30K+ on college. Thats Change i can believe in! If you think doesn't sound to good Obama's coming into town this Thursday to the University of Washington  to inspire more people to support more "real change". Register at the link provided to attend the event (Link) Registration is available at the door.

The Success of Failure

Failure is not an options they say. I have heard that in education, I've heard it in sports. "We have to win, failure is not a option". Sadly my team didn't win state, and i never got straight A's so failure was an option. Failure is not an option only when there is no other alternative or the outcome of failure is unthinkable. "We have to defeat Nazi German, failure is not an option", "I have to get this job to pay my rent, failure is not an option."" I have to save my child from a burning building, failure is not an option"...The list of examples can go on forever. In order for failure not to be a option you literally have to have your back to a cliff or have the prospect of failure being so horrible that it inspires you to greatness. With that truth made clear, in America is failure an option?

Is failure an option in High school? Most Definitely!! When the WASL ( Washington Assessment of Student Learning) became a graduation requirement over 30% didn't pass the required sections, so they lowered the standards to have more people pass. The power of failure! The same was true of our senior project, it was a "pass or fail", there was almost no way to failure even if you didn't do it they would find "alternative projects for the student to do" to "pass".   

Sadly in American failure can be a better option then success. As many prospective and current college students know, the majority of scholarships go to really rich or poor individuals. If your middle class your not rich enough to have the income to be able to spend addition money on your son daughter for special classes or hobbies that can bring with them opportunities for college scholarships. If your poor there are a whole world of scholarships open for you, because of the choices of your parents. I'm not saying that you shouldn't have scholarships for the poor, but you shouldn't create incentives for people not to save or be reasonable with what they have. I came from a mid to upper low income bracket growing up. My parents are teachers, and for most of my life i had one stay at home parent. I wasn't rich or poor but because my parents saved to much i didn't qualify for scholarships but i still could really afford to go to college. I picked up jobs in college and during the summer to pay for my school because i had no other options.

For a lot of people in my generation government money and welfare programs pay for a lot of services and life styles of those who don't really need it. I have friends that are 19 that are on welfare, but they don't want to get a job because they could lose their welfare money. I know college students that spend all there money on beer and liquor but get food stamps. The power of failure!, Why save when others will front the bill!

Even TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) has provisions for debt forgiveness, so if you spent too much money and couldn't pay it back don't worry Obama has your back . Some of the biggest problems we face as a nation are because of this mind set, why transcend over adversity, if your guaranteed mediocrity?

Information Wars: Media Bias in America

If you have ever been interviewed by the newspaper or been quoted for an article, what happened and what is reported can often be extremely different. The Washington Post came out with a article about the Bias in American mainstream media. ( Article) The article talks about how news programs like MSNBC & FOX have a very one sided form of news reporting and how there report to a very specific political group. With the media taking sides, its no surprise that the political candidates are also so polarized. Because of the political bias, candidates and officials have been using non-common modes of marketing to get their political agenda across. Obama went on the View, the Tonight Show, and on MTV to get his message across about health care reform. If the president is going to those channels for better exposure, what does that tell you about our news programs, If you have get on a  talk show to get the news out.

With new media forms such as blogging and twitter, creditable news is hard to come by. When some people in the media see "fact" as malleable and relative, it surprises me that those people could be given the job of giving us the news. This sad true is easily seen on college campuses across the nation with the students newspapers. Through my travels i have yet to see a truly neutral student paper. It seems that the nations future journalist are following the journalist method  that you have a story and you have to go find sources, instead of reporting on whats going on. Having run a political club on my campus i have only been approached by the student journalists only to be miss quoted or attached by the paper. If they can't miss quote me they don't quote me. This trend you can see on a national level with mainstream shows. They only bring an elected official on for an interview to support their views not to understand the person in question. With studies out that show that more people get there news from comedy shows then news shows, makes you wonder about the future of the American press.
   

Can't Buy Me Love or Can I?

"Say you dont need no diamond ring and I'll be satisfied 

Tell me that you want the things money just cant buy 

I dont care much for money, money cant buy me love" Can't Buy Be Love-The Beatles 

The Beatles had it right you can't buy love and you can't buy happiness. Ironically some people in the government believe that you can. Raising taxes, new regulations, and more government control over business....that's going to make life better right? With the election coming to a close in less then a month you will hear a lot of theories about how to best fix our nations problems and thus our lives problems. Tax and spend or cut back and save, are about the only options out there. So the question arises which is better? Which one will bring about a better end and a happier America? Well one group believes that if you take away our money then give less of it back to us we will be happier and the economy will be better. The other believe that if we have more and can spend more we will be happier and the economy will do better. 

I have always felt that when i worked for my money and i got to keep more of it that i felt more content and was happier. The money didn't give me happiness, but the fact that i could keep more of the fruits of my labor made me happy. The current growth of government directly combats that idea. It seems with taxes such as the Income Tax, people think that if you take money away from one group and give it to another, then they will be happy. But that would only work if money could "buy" you happiness or as the Beatles said love. As we know it cant, so taxing one group to benefit the other doesn't work very well. So when it come times to vote in the weeks ahead give that a thought.

I hope the government doesn't find a way to tax the things money just cant buy....

State Income Tax: Getfree.tv

A New Video From the Get Free Team. Learn more about the income tax that we will be able to vote on in Washington State come November. Check out their website at (getfree.tv) for a list of their other great videos.