Dreams do come true

I bought a bottle of wine in Paris 10 years ago, and decided not to open it until the day I went to work for the Carter Center. Today was that day.

The Carter Center last week retained me as a freelance (aka contract) writer-copy editor. Anyone who knows me well knows this is the culmination of a long-held dream. Working with the Carter Center was the hidden agenda of my move to Georgia in 2006.

I am so grateful to God for working this out, and to the many of you who supported me and my dream over the years through your prayers and encouragement.

My first article for the center was published on its blog today. (If you wish to read it in the context of the blog, click on the headline. That would be good for traffic too. Just saying.)

Carter Center Pursues Lasting Peace in the Sudans

By The Carter Center

The geographic lines dividing Sudan and South Sudan “are completely blurry, so we focus on the lines that connect us,” Professor Jok Madut Jok, undersecretary in South Sudan’s Ministry of Culture, said during a “Conversations at The Carter Center” on October 15.

Disputes over borders, an oil pipeline and access to resources persist in Sudan and South Sudan, which separated into distinct republics in 2011 after decades of civil war. But The Carter Center, which helped broker the 2005 peace agreement, has never stopped guiding the parties toward harmonious coexistence.

At the October 15 event, Jok and the Republic of Sudan’s Ambassador Nureldin Satti sat side by side, often calling one another “brother.”

Sudan is “a rainbow nation, a microcosm of Africa,” Satti said. The civil war and subsequent division was “a failure,” he said, but “Sudan is one people in two countries. … We belong to each other.”

Time marches upward

© Heike Jestram

You know what you almost never see anymore?

Wooden ladders.

For thousands of years, wooden ladders were the best technology available for getting from the ground to the top of a wall. There were very few convenient, affordable options, and wooden ladders were easy to make out of readily available materials.

But then someone figured out how to make stuff out of aluminum, and someone later figured out how to do that cheaply, and someone later yet figured out a really good design for a ladder made of aluminum.

Unlike wooden ladders, aluminum ladders don't rot, don't break easily, and are lightweight for carrying and storage.

Consumers recognized the benefits of aluminum over wood and spent their money accordingly. And the next thing you know -- no more wooden ladders.

Sure, we still love the idea and the aesthetic of a wooden ladder -- I mean, come on, look at that picture above -- but the vast majority of consumers would choose aluminum over wood every time (if wood were even a real option). The technology is simply better, and those who insisted on sticking with the old technology fell behind and went out of business or became boutique operations.

You know what else you almost never see anymore?