Ray’s post pointed to something that’s been bugging me about Jim Wallis’ “What Would Jesus Cut?” campaign. As with the “What Would Jesus Drive?” campaign (“Transportation is a moral issue.” What isn’t these days?), Wallis’ campaign assumes the moral high ground by appropriating the Holy Name of Jesus Christ to advance his highly politicized, partisan advocacy. Jesus becomes an advertising slogan. And what is implicit here is that those who oppose Wallis are somehow at odds with the Gospel of Christ; those who agree with him are on Christ’s side and especially as it concerns “the least of these.”

Read more on Taking His Name in Vain: What Would Jesus Cut?…

Today is Malaria Awareness Day. Today’s edition of Zondervan>To the Point has a plethora of related links (look under “Extra Points”).

Be sure to also check out Acton’s award-winning ad campaign, which focuses in part on impacting malaria.

Read more on Malaria Awareness Day…

Our series on the year in review continues with the third fourth of 2006:

July

“Isn’t the Cold War Over?” David Michael Phelps

I’ve got an idea for a new sitcom. Titled, Hugo and Vladi, it details the zany adventures of two world leaders, one of whom (played by David Hyde Pierce) struggles to upkeep his image of a friendly, modern European diplomat while his goofball brother-in-law (played by George Lopez) keeps screwing it up for him by spouting off vitriolic Soviet rhetoric and threatening all of Western civilization with his agressive (but loveable) arms sales and seizures of private oil companies….

Read more on 2006 in Review, 3rd Quarter…

This week, University of Chicago faculty members Richard A. Posner and Gary S. Becker discuss and debate the relationship between DDT and the fight against malaria on their blog.

As a self-proclaimed “strong environmentalist” who supports “the ban on using DDT as a herbicide,” Posner writes first about the contemporary decline in genetic diversity due in large part to the rate of species extinction. (Posner has issued a correction: “Unforgivably, I referred to DDT as a ‘herbicide.’ It is, of course, a pesticide. A herbicide is used to destroy weeds and other plants.” Presumably enough DDT would kill plants, and also presumably Posner would oppose such a use. But even so, Posner’s clarification is duly noted.)

Read more on Becker and Posner on DDT…

Africans are hailing a major shift in policy at the World Health Organization: A recommendation for the limited, indoor use of DDT to control malaria.

The fight against the disease, which is a leading cause of death in the developing world, has been hobbled by a long running campaign by environmentalists to ban the insecticide, a campaign that resulted in millions of needless deaths.

Read more on DDT Breakthrough at the WHO…

“Scientists have discovered a way to help stop the spread of malaria by genetically altering a bacterium that infects about 80 percent of the world’s insects. Malaria is primarily transmitted through mosquito bites and kills more than a million people every year.”

Read more on GM Bacteria and Malaria…

At least, the title of this post is typical of the mantra against the practices of drug pharmaceutical companies, according to Peter W. Huber’s “Of Pills and Profits: In Defense of Big Pharma,” in Commentary magazine (HT: Arts & Letters Daily).

Read more on ‘We get Viagra. They get malaria.’…

Acton Impact ad raising awareness of the malaria epidemic.

An article in today’s New York Times, “Push for New Tactics as War on Malaria Falters,” coincides nicely with Acton’s newest ad campaign (see the back cover of the July 1 issue of World). The article attacks government mismanagement of allocated funds in the global fight against malaria. Celia Dugger, the author, writes:

Read more on Let Us Spray: Fighting Malaria…

Kofi Akosah in Accra, Ghana, writes in the latest Campaign for Fighting Diseases newsletter about the prospects for the use of DDT in fighting malaria in his home country. He first describes the devastation that the disease wreaks: “More than 17 million of Ghana’s 20 million people are infected by malaria every year, costing the nation a colossal 850 million cedis (US$94 million) for treatment alone.”

Read more on Mulling over Malaria…

The Kill Malarial Mosquitoes NOW! coalition announced today that Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has endorsed the campaign to use DDT as a primary weapon in the fight to control and eliminate malaria. The coalition wants 2/3 of world’s malaria control funds to be spent on DDT, or any more cost-effective insecticide, plus artemisia-based combination therapies (ACTs).

Read more on Abp. Tutu Supports Use of DDT to Fight Malaria…