Jim Wallis's new book, God's Politics (HarperCollins, 2005) is a must-read for all Americans who espouse the Christian faith. I suspect that many Christians, especially that group that supported Mr. Bush in this past election, will find Mr. Wallis's thesis as challenging as this reviewer did himself. In powerful and moving examples and arguments from the Old and New Testaments, Mr. Wallis presents us with a vision of "prophetic politics," as he calls his idea, firmly rooted in the authority of the Old Testament prophets and their role(s) in society and that of Jesus himself. This book is very powerful, sometimes startling and most certainly will move you to ponder and reflect upon your own values -- today's most overused word -- and convictions.

It is also highly recommended for paganistic "secular humanists" like this reviewer because it provides a panoply of solutions, based on Christian doctrine, to the social justice, foreign policy and ecological issues many of us claim to champion. That these solutions are based on Christian doctrine affords us the opportunity to better understand a group of people that has recently been called everything from inscrutable to dogmatically intolerant in the mainstream media following the results of the last U.S. election.

Wallis makes no bones about calling we secularists to account. He also has a few words for instruction for the Christian Right, the mainstream American media and the President of the United States.

All of the foregoing traits are appropriate for a book with the subtitle "Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It."

That is not to say that there are not flaws in some of his sociological analysis, his grasp of political reality or his theology, in our view. A few of these will be addressed during the course of this review; my major quibbles will be presented at its conclusion. ..." READ MORE

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Media Editor BRAD BALFOUR with Jamie Foxx:

With the incredible buzz about "Ray," comedian Jamie Foxx's work in the Ray Charles bio pic is being hailed as a shoo-in for the best actor Oscar. And that's no joke; this former Texan has made the transition from TV funny man ("In Living Color"/"The Jamie Foxx Show") and comedy star ("Booty Call") to a serious actor tackling hard-hitting, complex roles such as the taxi driver in "Collateral" or Bundini Brown in "Ali." Yet this 30-something actor continues to defy expectations as he talks about tour plans, future films and his own comedy festival.

G21: Has it been hard to convince Hollywood that you have dramatic chops?

JAMIE FOXX: I never factor Hollywood into anything. I'm a black actor, so I can't really [worry about] what Hollywood thinks. I've got do my thing. My jokes have to be funny. Whatever I do has to be great. When I first got on "In Living Color" it was not like I thought it was going to be. If you weren't on time -- if you got there at 10:01 -- you had to explain that one minute. Keenan Ivory Wayans was like, "The reason I'm on you so tough is because when you're mediocre you're not going to make it as an African-American actor, actress, comedian or singer. You've got to be top of the line all the time." I ran into Keenan at the Comedy Awards and he's still echoing the same thing. He said, "You're doing what I told you to do. Try to stay at the top of your game." So I never worry [about convincing Hollywood of anything]. You've got to blaze your own trail. It's like how hip-hop pulls everything. Fortune 500 companies are calling Puffy: "What do we do? How do we sell this project?" It's that mentality that we all have as young cats out there in Hollywood. You're never going to convince anybody. The only thing you can do is stay true to the art. I'll drop another name, a white man, Lorne Michaels, from "Saturday Night Live." I was asking him, "How come people fall off?" He said, "Jamie, they don't fall off. It's the projects that they choose. If you choose the right projects you don't have to worry about anything as long as you do that." ... " READ MORE


THE G21 AFRICA TRILOGY IN THIS EDITION WAS MEANT TO BE OUR BLACK HISTORY MONTH CENTERPIECE. BON APPETIT!:

Queenstown, SOUTH AFRICA - I made the error of suggesting to my friend that I feel I'm standing at the crossroads of my life. I was referring to the fact that I'm tired of being single yet I view married life to be an ill-con[ceived] romantic ideal with too many flaws. He said I was always hamstrung by irreconcilable conflicts and went on to quote from an article I once wrote for the Mail and Guardian [South Africa, 7 August, 2003- Ed.], "Inside the mind of a single guy." He then suggested I try my "post-everything weary selfí on the wonders of what he called free love. This is the article:

I associate my failure to get married with my sense of being an outcast in societies I'm naturally attracted to. When we were young my friends predicted I'd be the first down the aisle. They're now all married except myself.

I'm more in my element in a lively multi-ethnic and multicultural community. I love cosmopolitan living (without necessar[ill]y subscribing to the frenetic culture of drugs and sexual ambivalence and the rest of the mores that pass for enlightenment in our age). Yet I feel most differential around it.

My natural impulse to please, to provoke confidence, to make up for things I've done wrong, and my sense of gratitude should endear me to the fairer sex according to the book. I've also been told there's a serious sweetness and honest willingness about me that inspires confidence among ladies. But all that has amounted to little more than a series of monogamous relationships so far.

I love in others their liberty. The sense of independence is the first thing I'm attracted to. Yet in my lover it is this liberty I wish to subjugate. I want to shatter and dissolve to my own likeness the form of what has attracted me. Yet I do not want it to be anything but itself.

... READ MORE

Nairobi, KENYA - To all those who had their fingers crossed for me, you may uncross them. Thank you all for your prayers and wishes. I returned from South Africa around ten days ago and have been frantically catching up with work deadlines in-between going to the mosque for the ten days of Muharram.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Last time I wrote I was chasing my identity card from the NSSF buildings.

Overcoming final hurdles

A few days after I wrote to g21, I went to their offices over lunch hour and the secretary for the Boss was preparing some wedding fliers for a friend of hers for that weekend and neither her computer nor her printer were working. I saw an opportunity and offered to prepare the fliers for her.

At 2:30 pm I left her office with her document on diskette, and left behind my ID receipt number. She promised to come by at 4:00pm with a print out that would enable me to begin processing my Certificate of Good Conduct at the CID Headquarters. She arrived early, at 3:30 p.m., and when I handed over around 50 copies of the wedding flier, she handed over, not a computer print out, but my ID card -- brand, spanking new, with sharp green edges ... and the worst picture of myself that I have ever seen! (I wonder if everyone looks terrible with a green shine to their skin.) ... READ MORE