The National Poverty News Roundup

Hello to everyone out there in the blogosphere who's interested in poverty-related issues. My name is Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, and I'm going to be doing a weekly (or as close to weekly as I can manage) post here giving a roundup of the past week's national poverty news. By "national poverty news" I basically mean national news stories, plus blog commentary and discussion, about the character of poverty -- particularly urban poverty -- in the contemporary era, about the causes of poverty, and about efforts to combat it or ameloriate its effects. I mean these posts to serve as a news aggregator, and do not plan to use them to offer my own analysis; this is more of a space to call attention to some of the issues and items I found particularly striking from the past week.

My qualifications for this endeavor? Although I am an Associate Professor of International Relations at American University, I will not pretend to be an academic expert on poverty issues. I post and podcast as "PTJ" on subjects more germane to my professional specialization -- identity, public rhetoric, International Relations Theory, the philosophy of science and its implications for research methodology -- at other places. My interest in blogging about poverty issues here stems from a concern to do something for the great organization whose blog this is, and also from a desire to lift up stories about those people and organizations out there who are trying to do something for "the least of these" during this national and global economic downturn.

For the time being, I plan to post weekly roundups on Tuesday each week. My self-imposed restriction is that they will be no more than three paragraphs long, and will be chock-full of links to interesting stories and discussions from around the 'Net. Hopefully these roundups will serve as a useful compilation of news and notes for our readers. Feel free to send any feedback on this feature to me directly -- nationalpoverty (at) gmail (dot) com -- or comment on this or any of the other posts labeled "National Poverty Roundup."