What happened to you, Mr. President?

formerly compassionate?

Is starbucks evil?

I can't get my head around this question. It seems like some people think that starbucks is a bad guy because it's ... contributing to globalization? Not doing enough (or much of anything) to fix up the imbalance between the lifestyles and incomes of the people who ultimately buy the coffee, and the people who actually grow it? Spends more time and dollars on advertising and so forth to make people *think* they are being corporately earthwise, responsible, just, green, ... what have you, than they do actually *doing* those things?

Any of you know about this stuff? I always ask for fair trade coffee when I am at a starbucks. But you do have to ask for it. And if you buy drip, like me, then you have to get the french press. Is fair trade really fair trade anyway? Or is it still bad, but not *as* bad as that which is *not* certified fair trade?

Is there a reasonably clear, reasonably fair primer on this stuff somewhere?

God in a Foxhole?

I wrote this post for the other blog I co-host, Justiceandcompassion.com. I'm closing comments on this post and inviting you to post any comments you have over there. =)

Newsweek ran an insightful article this last week about how the war in Iraq is causing some U.S. soldiers to lose their Christian faith. The piece centers on the story of army chaplain Roger Benimoff, who shared with Newsweek the personal journal he kept through two deployments in Iraq and his current service as a chaplain at Walter Reed Medical Center. Roger has gone through what sounds like quite a wrenching of his faith, as he had to perform more memorial services than regular chapel services. He saw that the reality of war forced many soldiers to reevaluate the faith they had embraced back in the relative wealth and security of the United States.

Some quotes:

[He] begins his time in Iraq brimming with faith and a sense of devotion that carries him into a second tour. "My heart is filled with prayer and God is giving me a discerning spirit," he writes at the start of that later deployment. "The spiritual battle I am engaged in is a minute-by-minute war." He is "on fire for God."Countless soldiers—not just chaplains—have struggled with how to reconcile a God of love with a God who allows the terror of conflict. For centuries theologians and philosophers have grappled with ideas of "just war": thou shalt not kill, but under certain conditions—to prevent wider bloodshed and suffering—slaughter by armies is acceptable.

The "Great Moral Issues of Our Time"?

So there appears to be a bit of a foofoorah brewing on the internet around a recent letter written by James Dobson and his friends from the religious right to the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE)

In the letter, Dobson and co. criticized Rich Cizik, an NAE leader, for focusing on global warming as a moral issue. They said

"More importantly, we have observed that Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time, notably the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children."

Now Jim Wallis of Sojourners has challenged Mr. Dobson to a public debate on "What are the great moral issues of our time for evangelical christians?"
What do think? Are ...

1.The sanctity of human life
2.The integrity of marriage, and
3.The teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children

... the top three great moral issues of our time? Or could perhaps ...

4.16,000 children die of starvation every day
5.What the U.S. government has called "genocide" in Darfur
6.800,000 people, (including 14,000 into the U.S.) being trafficked every year

... be equally or even more pressing moral issues?

Indeed, if, as NOAA suggests, global warming may lead to increasing occurrence of highly destructive category 5 storms (i.e., more Katrina like events--more people dying, more internally dispaced persons, etc.), then doesn't that make global warming a great moral issue?

Justice and Compassion.com

Rachel and I are hosting a newly launched blog over at Off the Map called Justiceandcompassion.com. It's already quite an interesting conversation. I'd love for you to join us over there. Today's post is about the good news in Liberia--long awaited good news!

Yesterday the U.S. State Department released their 2006 Report on Human Rights, detailing human rights violations in 193 countries.

So can anybody explain to me why the United States isn't one of the countries reported on? I just don't get that.

Friday Video

The Lord's Resistance Army: therapy for former child soldiers.

(warning--this might be difficult for some to watch. Compared to what is actually happening, in Northern Uganda, it's fairly gentle, but that's relative)

By the way, aren't African people physically beautiful? I hope it's not racist for me to say so. But especially ever since hanging out for a while in West Africa, I've had this sense of envy about that--wishing I were that beautiful.

Pray for Uganda

A nearly miraculous 6 month ceasefire between the Lord's Resistance Army and the government of Uganda is set to exprie Wednesday, February 28th (that is, today). This is enormously heartbreaking, as it means that a situation has been *so* bad for so long for so many children, and which looked to be getting better, may now be getting worse again.

Read more

62% of children living in displaced persons camp in Northern Uganda are victims of sexual abuse (The Monitor)
At least 66,000 children are thought to have been forcibly recruited into the Lord's Resistance Army (AllAfrica.com)

If I think about this too much, I start crying.

See also World Vision's Synopsis
See also Invisible Children
See also Juba Talks

Does god hate africa more than he hates the rest of us?

Friday Video and Invitation

Megan and I went to see Amazing Grace today, and IMO it was a really great movie. So here's the trailer. And I want to invite you to see the movie this next week. Then join us to discuss it starting next Friday on the brand spanking new Off-The-Map Blog which Rachel and I are hosting starting in March, JusticeandCompassion.com You can find movie times near you here

Let me just also say that the fact that Wiblerforce's efforts led to the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire doesn't mean that slavery ended. In fact, there are 27 million slaves in the world today. To learn more, and how we can help, you can start at Free The Slaves.

correction on Firestone, and the Pledge of Allegiance

Two posts ago, I suggested not buying firestone tires as a response to firestone's abuse of their employees in Liberia. Upon further reflections, this may not be the best course of action.

Perhaps not buying the tires will deprive these worker's of even the infinitesimally meager wages they earn. Perhaps the better thing is, buy whatever tyres you would otherwise buy, and *if* they are bridgestone firestone--be aware of this issue, and be vocal about it to the company as one of the their valued customers. That way we don't deprive the worker's in Liberia of their wages by driving Firestone out of business. Maybe there is hope for change from the inside. Hmmmm....

Today the American Pledge of Allegiance was mentioned in a CNN report (which I saw on YouTube) on atheists in America. One religious journal editor claimed that atheists are partly to blame for their bad image in this country, because of things they do like ... suing to have the words "One nation under God" removed from the pledge of allegiance.
For those not from this country, my understanding is that most schoolchildren in this country are led in 'the pledge of allegiance to the american flag' every school day. I certainly said it regularly in school as a child.
I now find this very very strange. Why are children being taught to ritualistically pledge their allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands? I don't get that. I don't want my daughters making such a pledge. It seems eminently un Christian and jingoistic and insular and a bit scary. And yet it is seen as so normal to so many americans. Even at the preschool classes at a really big mainstream eastside church called Westminster Chapel in bellevue, the children were putting their little hands over their hearts and saying this pledge. I don't get that.
For Americans: Does the pledge seem normal to you? If you are a Christian, does it seem reconcilable with Christianity? why or why not?
For non, half, or some other proportion Americans: Is there something like this in other countries? How does it strike you?

Bridgestone/Firestone and Liberia

I learned today that my ex employer, also largest tyre and rubber company in the world, Bridgestone/Firestone, is in some public relations trouble for the slave like conditions under which their workers eke out a living on their enormous rubber plantations in Liberia, one of the world's Least Developed Countries. This was fascinating to me on three counts: I used to work for Firestone, I'm interested in social justice and related issues, and I once hung out for a week with a bunch of rubber plantation workers and their families in rural Liberia.

So my suggestion for the time being is: next time you have to buy tires (see, now I've used both the Commonwealth and the American Spellings in this post. Very mulitcultural of me), don't buy from firestone or Bridgestone, and don't buy tyres manufactured by firestone/bridgestone.

I have more proactive ideas about this issue in my idea mill and shall post about them soonish.

By the way, totally as an aside, it was fascinating to learn firsthand where the rubber in our tires actually comes from, and to see it being harvested from the rubber trees. I have at least a couple good stories I shall share over the next coupla days about the lovely people I met there in Liberia.

victim vs. perpetrator

I went to The Kindling's Muse live radio program yesterday with my friends Chris and Laurel. They had a panel discussion of various stories pulled from yesterday's New York Times chosen by Dick Staub, the host. It was fun. I really like Dick's insights and commentary, and I also really like Bill Hogg's insightful comments (there's a little redundancy for you, to make up for the recent oxymoron). One question Dick asked, which I'd like to ask here, was

1. Is peace in the Middle East possible?

Bill Hogg pointed out the magnificent irony of George Bush's repeated use, in his recent Iraq Policy (non) Update Speech, of the phrase "peace in the Middle East". I responded to this question with a question of my own during the "questions from the audience" segment. I shall ask that here as well:

2. Can question "Is peace in the Middle East possible" be rephrased as:

3. "Is it possible for me, for us, to choose to be the victim rather than the perpetrator?"?

Question three, I guess, feeds into the whole area of nonviolence. Is it possible for us to respond to the perpetrator with love? Is it possible to overcome violence with more violence? For me the answer to question three is generally "no". I am too often the perpetrator. I can see that as I mature, this is less often true--more often than before I can answer "yes" to question three. However, I still far too often must answer "no". And if the answer to question two is "yes", then I guess from my perspective the answer to question one is (by implication) also more often than not "no".

What are your answers?

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Tomorrow (already today for most of the world), Monday the 15th of January, is Martin Luther King Jr. day in the United States. I think Dr. King was pretty kewl, and if being a christian means being a bit like him, overall, it makes being a christian a bit less unattractive.

Two quotes from Dr. King

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

"The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood."

about Saddam

The Vatican joined Human Rights Watch today in calling for clemency for Saddam, saying that executing him would simply be responding to crime with more crime. I suspect there's not really much chance this will have any effect, and that come jan 31 2007, saddam hussein will be dead.

As I understand it, average evangelicals believe he will experience "eternal conscious torment" in hell. George Macdonald would argue that he'll eventually repent and get out of hell. I haven't read Brian Mclaren's latest book, but it is my understanding that he would argue against the eternal consious torment position.

I wonder what the average Muslim belief is as to Saddam's experiences after death?

I honestly wonder how *anyone* can ascribe to the eternal consious suffering position and at the same time claim to experience communion and love for and with and from god.

thoughts?

Stop the execution of Saddam Hussein!

Human Rights Watch today called for Iraq to reverse it's decision to execute Saddam Hussien (scheduled to be implemented in less than a month). Rick Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch, was quoted as saying

Imposing the death penalty, indefensible in any case, is especially wrong after such unfair proceedings. That a judicial decision was first announced by Iraq’s national security advisor underlines the political interference that marred Saddam Hussein’s trial.

This seems to me to be a case where Christians could try to take steps to stop something which their founder also stopped at least once! Jesus words about the death penalty, if I remember correctly, run along the lines of the idea that we should only execute someone if we ourselves are free of guilt.

Moreover, would you want to be executed after a mockery of a trial like the one Mr. Hussein underwent?

Your thoughts?

monkfish, calvary fellowship, and HHJJ

(a monkfish)
I had a lovely time at ThursdayPM/Monkfish Abbey. I felt very … safe, and understood, and … familiar. Brilliant. Like the fact that such a time/place exists makes me lean toward believing in god and that she loves me.

(Calvary)

On the other hand … I’ve made a committment to do something service oriented every week for these 7 weeks while my family is gone–kind of an attempt on my part to stay out of trouble. So today I went with my excellent friend Walter to help out at the monthly … thing where guys from the church get together and go out and do service for people in the community. Oh–it’s a thing that they do at Calvary Fellowship in Mountlake Terrace.

I almost cried when Andy told us about the family we were going to help today–they have a one year old who has cancer. So about 10 of us went over to their house and just did a bunch of odd things that needed doing to try to help out. It was fun kind of working and talking with the guys.

The senior pastor, Wayne, was along, and he was a reaonably kewl guy, but he did try at least 4 times in our conversation to convince me to come to some event at their church. So that didn’t feel very … excellent. I find it especially … unfortunate since just now looking up their web site I see they have this almost at the top of their main page

Secondly, by being friendly, but without being annoyingly aggressive. Some people want to check out a church without being “cornered”, and we respect that.

I didn’t even want to check out their church–I said right up front “I don’t go to church”. Now I feel like maybe I was somehow wrongly taking advantage of the opportunity they provided for me to fulfill my service task for this week while failing to allow for the implied associated … aggresive invitations. Or maybe I’m excessively sensitive. Hmmmm….

(some) christians make me nervous. Like again, on Calvary Fellowship web site, in the “our purpose” section, right at the top they say

Our purpose at Calvary Fellowship is to glorify God by pointing people to Jesus Christ, Who alone is sufficient for our every need.

Now not only is it monga wierd to capitilize pronouns referring to god, it also strikes me as very very strange to say of anything or anyone “who alone is sufficient for every need”. What does that mean exaclty? Because it seems to me that in order to say something like that, you either have to seriously wrest the word “sufficient”, or else you have to be brain dead (I mean as in a human vegetable–oh dear–I don’t mean to be crude–Eliza could help me out here–I mean literally completely cut off from almost all sensory experience or even consciousness) so you don’t see or feel the gargantuan enormitude of the need.
(I seem to have climbed onto a soap box. I’m stepping down now)

I think this might be related to HHJJ…

My year round wish list

My list of all the things I want during this season of the feast of the incarnation, and anytime.

1. I want to never again do any of the things after the doing of which I hate myself.
2. I want my granddad to be prosecuted for his crimes, and I want all my aunts, uncles, mum, and my nana to be emotionally healthy enough to testify against him in court.
3. I want my mum to be cured of cancer. Permanently.
4. I want God to come to me in a dream, like he did with Solomon, and say "okay, what do you want me to do for you?" and I want my answer to be something a good deal better than "How about a new porsche?". (and, by the way, also better than solomon's stupid ass answer)
5. I want my dad to be cured of heart disease, diabetes, chronic pain, and ... food addiction.
6. I want a fucking vaccine for malaria, and I want to see it made available to everyone who needs it.
7. I want Jeffrey Sachs to agree to be drafted to run for president of the United States.
8. I want the other 791 people on the list of the world's billionaires to follow the example of the first two people on this list, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, and use their (obviously) high intelligence levels to figure out how to best give away enormous chunks of their wealth.


What's on your wish list?

Stateless persons and misuse of words

Somehow I found this featured story at English Wikipedia heartening, in that at least America is not the only nation committing evil in these ways (now there's a great example of Benjamin's evil twisted logic!). It seems that Australia's high court decided that Al-Kateb, a "stateless" person, could legally be "detained" indefinitely. Two thoughts:

1. I wonder how much of the crap I complain about would go right out the window if I were to be more generally aware of the number and present reality of people who are currently "stateless". Just try to get your head around what this adjective means. In fact, if anyone has any further information and/or knows of any way we can help such people/get involved, please let me know. I'd love to add a link to my A.M.C. section about this subject.

2. How do we get away with using a word that seems so very gentle--"detain"--to talk about something so awful? I guess the same way that Christians use "communion", "eucharist", or "the Lord's Supper" to talk about a cannibalistic feast. Our language as human beings seems to me to be often tilted in such a way as to avoid the unpleasant/horrific realities of the the things we are talking about.

Enchanting Justice!

Recently finished John Grisham's new book, The Innocent Man. It was riveting, as is usual for Mr. Grisham's legal thrillers. And fascinatingly, unlike his previous courtroom novels, this one is entirely a true story! The best thing about the story, in my opinion, is the overwhelmingly enchanting justice. "Enchanting Justice--what the *(@?^ is that?", you may ask. Well, I don't want to spoil the book for you. But there are *real* bad guys, who really hurt innocent people, and not only do they get their comeuppance big time in the story. They also get to have their names and their evil exposed in a book whose author sold 60 million copies of his books in the 1990's--that is to say, this book will probably hit #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list and hang out there for a while, and perhaps 10 million people are going to know all about the evil that the bad guys in this story did, and their real names, and where they live, and where they work! I find that enchanting--completely magical.

In answer to the question...

'What are we doing to maintain this (economic) disparity (between the poor and the rest of us)', there's this story this week out of (where else) the United States of America. We are going to spend U.S.$1.2 billion to build a fence between the United States and Mexico. That's almost half the U.S.$3 billion we need to control malaria worldwide for one year, that is,to prevent half of 2.7 million deaths and 2 billion infections ((3/1.2)*2.7 million = 1.08 million) mostly in children under 5 years of age in Africa

In other words we've made the following choice for our U.S.$1.2 Billion:

1. Prevent 750,000 children under 5 from dying
2. Build a fence to help maintain our lofty economic status in the world.

(consider this my uplifting thought for the day)

(for a more even mix of actual uplifting and depressing news, see the executive summary of the 2006 state of the future report

world population and calculus

If you click on the photo above, you can see a larger version!. conversely, see the original here at Evidence of Evil. Today I was attempting to work on Calculus while sitting in front of the computer. I had the legitimate excuse for this that I own only a digital copy of both the textbook and the complete solutions manual for the course (as I am awaiting the hard copy textbook to arrive via snail mail). Alas, a problem involving population growth, with, of course, attached graph, distracted me. Off I went to compare the graph in my textbook to the graphs provided by the U.N. and the U.S. and then of course I got sucked in by all the associated paraphanelia. But do you find this disturbing? So 1.2 billion of us live in more developed countries (hereafter MDC), while 5.3 billion of us live in less developed countries (hereafter LDC). Moreover, we in the MDC have .4 births per second among a population of 1.2 billion, while the LDC have 4 (10 times as many!) births per second among a population of at 5.4 billion (only 3.5 times as many) which means that their birth rate per capita is 3 times greater, which means that while we get to continue to wallow in our excessive wealth, they get to continue to fall further into their opressive poverty, if you look at it in terms of resources per capita (if you assume zero sum, which is a rather huge assumption). Still with me?
How about infant deaths per second. We have .003, while they have .2, a rate 66 times greater, and even adjusted for population size, still 20 times greater (for you math whizzes, yes I'm making a lot of largish approximations). That means that for every 1 infant that dies here, 66 die in the developing world.
What steps are we taking to maintain this gargantuan and evil disparity? I think Dr. Paul Farmer would say that whatever the steps are, they are steps that are very institutionalized. The world is set up in such a way that this disparity gets maintained, and as members of the world, we either go along with it, or we are actively fighting it. Hmmmmmm.