[...]always a big fan of linking to bloggers that I love but don’t get a lot of link love from[...]……

I'm glad you like the charities I support. Yes, they are Catholic, and so am I, which is where I first heard of them. St. Labre is more than just a school, they're also a surrogate family for many of the children, where parent's are incapacitated by drugs, poverty and alcoholism. I'm firmly in the 'teach a man to fish and he eats for a life time' camp, and education is the most effective method for breaking the cycle of poverty.

And Food For The Poor does emergency relief work, but they also do a lot more. I can never remember the 30 letter word for their program, but the idea is they provide materials, tools and know how, and the locals provide everything else. If they can do it themselves, they will do it, or it won't get done. They don't do subsidies. I read on one project in Guatemala, where they grew excellent coffee, but had no way to get it to market. So they helped them build and set up a coffee bean processing and mail order business. Dependency breeds contempt, self reliance breeds self esteem.

I like your ideas about prod-democracy in Africa. It's the only way they will ever become self reliant. If you haven't read Naton Sharansky's book on democracy, I highly recommend it. He's of the same thoughts.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_0_19?url=search...

And thanks for the debate, I look forward to more!

Enjoy!

I don't have the space to explain to you what an oligopoly is, and why a Free Market is preferable to the concentrated controlled product that you receive from the six companies that control the TV shows, music, movies that you consume.

But, attidtudes like yours play well into the hands of the Mussolini-like Corporatist who is now the President of the United States, and his allies.

The world of entertainment, like most everything else in American society, has become coarse, vulgar, rude, and ill-mannered. You can't tie all that around the necks of the homosexuals. It is universal. And more's the pity.

In short, I do not give two hoots in hell who owns what.

I am pretty darn broadminded. I also have not watched this sort of program in, oh, about 35 years. I also seldom even turn my set on except to watch rented films or films I have harvested with the DVR that comes with my cable service.