One:

We have talked briefly about fasting on this blog, but never in depth. This February 24th, I am going to participate in a Thirty-Hour-Famine. This amounts more to a hunger strike than a fast, which implies a more spiritual journey. I will be going thirty hours without food in order to raise money for Worldvision activities in Uganda. I am once again calling upon my friends and family to donate to this cause by the date above. Checks can be made to WorldVision for any amount. I will say that I will cut a check for five dollars more than the largest check I get from any of you.

Two: Recently, I have been reading some essays by John Ruskin. Oddly enough, I searched out one of his essays, because Gandhi mentioned it having changed his life (come to find out, so did Proust, Tolstoy, and William Morris). The essay is called “Unto This Last”. It is a four part, medium length essay expounding on the inherent problems of England’s capitalist economy. I have read things by John Berger challenging the notions of capitalism as well, but Ruskin’s is more direct, more reasoned, and oddly more contemporary. It is written in high Victorian language, which is beautiful and difficult to understand. Ruskin is rapidly becoming one of my favorite historical essayists. Many economists after Ruskin have felt compelled to answer to his charges in this essay.

Three: Shoot. I forgot what number three was.