We are witnessing the emergence of something profound: Humans, historically divided by geography, culture and creed, are beginning to connect and collaborate on a scale never seen before. The driving force behind this creative wave are digital tools and networks that allow new forms of collaboration and knowledge creation.

What starts out as social networking is evolving into social production. We’ve witnessed how self-organizing groups, leveraging social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Wikipedia, have launched revolutions throughout the Arab world and created the most important reference work in the English language in less than 10 years.

In spite of all the potential to innovate surrounding blogs, forums, wikis and social networks, there are legions of detractors. And no institution is more skeptical about the benefits of social media than education. But there are also few institutions that have more to gain from social media.

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Kevin Schombert, a student with Down Syndrome, was crowned homecoming king this weekend at Urbana High School in Frederick County.

Schombert is a manager for the school’s basketball team and a huge sports fan.

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While the overall U.S. economy seems to be stuck in neutral, there are a few bright spots. One of them is charitable giving to the arts, which was up more than 5 percent last year.

But a new study cautions that much of that support serves audiences that are wealthier and whiter than the country as a whole.

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The American phoenix is slowly rising again. Within five years or so, the US will be well on its way to self-sufficiency in fuel and energy. Manufacturing will have closed the labour gap with China in a clutch of key industries. The current account might even be in surplus.

Assumptions that the Great Republic must inevitably spiral into economic and strategic decline – so like the chatter of the late 1980s, when Japan was in vogue – will seem wildly off the mark by then.
Telegraph readers already know about the “shale gas revolution” that has turned America into the world’s number one producer of natural gas, ahead of Russia….

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Ask the parishioners of Grace Episcopal Church about disappointment and they will tell you how it was turned on its head. They will tell you about small gestures and generous spirits. They will share a legend in the making, a story to be told generations from now, to grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

They will tell you about the day the Earth cracked, a building closed and the people of the church were forced to find sanctuary elsewhere, how a great disappointment turned into a reward that transcended church walls and breached religious and racial ideologies.

The Rev. Canon J. Michael A. Wright, rector of Grace, took note of the symbolism. “Our walls are in need of repair, and what we’ve discovered is that other walls have come down.”

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Today our two dioceses made history. Never before have two dioceses in the Episcopal Church “junctioned” together. So, today we begin a new journey to create a new Diocese in northern Wisconsin.
Bishop Russ and I will meet face to face next week to begin to outline our next steps. Following that meeting I will meet on Wednesday with our (Eau Claire) LIFT task force to futher develop these initiatives.
Then on the Friday before the week end of our November 4-5 Hudson Convention, I will meet with the Diocesan leadership (Standing Committee, Executive Committee and Trustees).

Those meetings will set the stage for our Annual Convention in Hudson, where we will begin to move into the next steps for creating a new Diocese. We will have 13 months to continue on as separate Dioceses, then on January 1, 2013 we will become a NEW Diocese with a new name and with a new sense of identity. All of this will also require validation from our July 2012 General Convention, and our national Executive Council.

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Nashotah House is one of two orthodox Episcopal seminaries in the country, and the only one of 11 that shapes students in the Anglo-Catholic tradition that emphasizes the church’s Catholic, rather than Protestant, history and culture.

Students come, they say, for any number of reasons: the classical education, with its emphasis on Hebrew and Greek languages; the quasi-monastic culture; the sense of community; the focus on prayer and liturgy.

“This just matches more with my piety,” said Forrest Tucker, 31, a father of four and one on the way, who lives with his family in married-student housing on campus.

“You get into the spiritual rhythm of life here, and it becomes a very important part of your life,” he said.

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Check it out–a terrific resource.

Have compassion, O Lord, upon all who are careless about eternal things and are living without thee and without hope. Send to them the light of thy Holy Spirit to teach them their great need, and in thy tender mercy bring them to the knowledge of thy love, through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord.

In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet to Zerub’babel the son of She-al’ti-el, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehoz’adak, the high priest, “Thus says the LORD of hosts: This people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the LORD.” Then the word of the LORD came by Haggai the prophet, “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?

–Haggai 1:1-4

Just when the eurozone governments thought it could not get worse for Europe’s single currency, it did.

Shell-shocked EU finance ministers meeting in Brussels on Saturday were already reeling from the worst Franco-German rift for over 20 years and a fractious failure to resolve the problems that have brought Greece, and the euro, close to the brink.

But then a new bombshell hit as a joint report by the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that, without a default, the Greek debt crisis alone could swallow the eurozone’s entire €440 billion bailout fund – leaving nothing to spare to help the affected banks of Italy, Spain or France….

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EU ministers were wrangling on Saturday over bolstering their banks, with some officials saying broad agreement was nearing but others warning that Spain, Italy and Portugal were objecting because of concerns over the costs involved.

“There is 24 against three – Italy, Spain and Portugal,” said one euro zone diplomat. “They think it’s too expensive. They don’t want to pay it.”

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The Bishop of the Koforidua Diocese of the Anglican Church, Right Reverend Francis Benjamin Quashie, appealed to the GMA and the Fair Wages and Salary Commission to be flexible in their positions, and rather meet to enable them to reach amicable settlement of their differences.

Rt. Rev. Quashie made the appeal when he celebrated mass at the Out Patients Department of the Koforidua Regional Hospital on Tuesday, to mark St. Luke’s Day.

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