All posts by ariah

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A Modest Proposal: Watch Out Guys

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A while back I had a brief reunion with some close friends and the controversial topic of abortion came up. Sparing the details, it prompted me to find this amazing piece of writing (in my opinion) that flips some of the thinking on it’s head and gets us to at least start to try and consider things from different angles then we have in the past.

The article below is written by Katha Pollitt and this is my first introduction to her. It was written in 1995 but is relevant to today’s debates as well I think. My wife first read it in her Bio-medical Ethics class at Wheaton College in a great book of essays (I might post others). Anyways, it’s been titled a number of things, here it was called A Modest Proposal. Please read it below, or click the links to read it larger, but do come back and discuss.

Read this document on Scribd: Modest Proposal
News and Politics

When We Don’t Know Each Other

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I little while ago I talked about one of the things I think we should all do, know your neighbors. I think it might be necessary to add a qualifying statment to that: that we need to meet, know and build relationships with people that our different then us (and I don’t just mean different gender). Get to know people who differ in their political views, their religious background, their culture, ethnicity, race. There are obvious reasons for this, it shouldn’t take too much convincing. However, the reason it’s been on my mind lately as because of some recent tragic stories I’ve come across.

The first happened in my own neighborhood. A SWAT Team entered a house on a ‘no-knock’ raid based on information that a gang member lived there.

But minutes after a SWAT team entered the house about 12:30 a.m., things went awry. The homeowner, a father of six, thinking the intruders were burglars, fired at them through a bedroom wall. He hit two officers, one in the back and one in the head, but both were uninjured because they were wearing protective armor. Police shot back, but did not hit him.

The tragedy: The police had the wrong house.

As an aside, this is one reason I believe firmly that we need to address the disparities in the police force (less then 20% of the police in Minneapolis are people of color). The real tragedy to me is that we don’t really know our neighbors. When that happens, police end up following individual obscure tips and endangering a family (they weren’t even the same ethnicity as the person they where looking for). The story becomes only more disturbing when those police where recently awarded for their bravery in the situation.

The second story is even more tragic.

Just hours before he was savagely attacked by a pack of thugs here, a Toronto man had complained to police he was being harassed and accused of being a rapist.

When a 17-year-old girl later confronted him on a downtown street and made similar allegations, the man was attacked by as many as six youths and young men who stabbed him twice in the chest, once in the back, hit him with a piece of lumber and, according to a witness, “beat the crap out of him.”

The 42-year-old Toronto man is black. His attackers are white.

But Deputy Chief Bill Sornberger of Owen Sound police said the Wednesday night attack wasn’t racially motivated.

“He was absolutely innocent, simply in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Sornberger told the Star. “He was a victim of mistaken identity.”

Again, there are many facts about the story that are disturbing, but the tragedy to me again is that we don’t know each other. Stereotypes, racism, injustice, profiling, and more, I believe are all perpetuated in large part because we are unwilling or apathetic to meeting our neighbors.

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“Made In The USA” Doesn’t Guarantee Ethics

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From the NYT:

It was one of the worst sweatshops that state inspectors have visited in years, they said, sometimes requiring its 100 employees to work seven days a week, sometimes for months in a row.

The factory, in Queens — which made women’s apparel for Banana Republic, the Gap, Macy’s, Urban Apparel and Victoria’s Secret — handed out instructions to its workers telling them to give false answers about working conditions when government inspectors visited.

Wage violations were so widespread, state labor officials said at a news conference on Wednesday, that the factory, Jin Shun, cheated its workers of $5.3 million. The case made by the State Labor Department against Jin Shun is one of the biggest involving back pay that it has ever brought.

According to state officials, most employees, virtually all of them Chinese immigrants, were paid just $250 when they worked their typical 66-hour, six-day weeks, amounting to $3.79 an hour, far below the state’s $7.15-an-hour minimum wage. They received more when they were required to work seven-day weeks.

I’ve heard a lot of response to conversations as it relates to sweatshops, which might be summed up nicely in this comment on the story:

Hey man, if those workers were silly/desperate enough to accept the job, more… err, less power to them.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m all for supporting sweatshops. People in China need jobs, too, and I love paying the same price for goods that were cheaply made.

Let me try and address these briefly, one at a time…

  1. “silly/desperate enough to accept the job” – This argument comes from the perspective that we all have complete freedom and an abundance of options in this country. Therefore, if we decide to work in deplorable conditions, then it’s our own fault.
    Besides being cold-hearted, this is a ridiculous argument when you try to apply it consistently. Would you say the same thing to an abused spouse who stays in the relationship? To a molested child? For a number of reasons: injustice, mistreatment, desperation, psychological trauma, lack of access to resource and more, many people do not have complete autonomy.
  2. “People in China need jobs too” – This statement is made with the presumption that if sweatshops where not available to provide work things would be far worse in China and other countries then with sweatshops. Besides the fact that that is not necessarily the case, it miss the point. Simply because the hypothetical alternative is even more grime, that does not excuse unjust and unethical treatment in the current situation. (by the way the above story is about a sweatshop in Queens NY)
  3. “goods that were cheaply made” – I’m not quite sure of the original commenters intent, but the argument is made on a pure economics level that this is no more then financial transactions, which is how we tend to think of our purchasing. We simply look at price tags and make decisions accordingly. In turn this affects the whole economic system as supply and demand align to provide us with the price we would pay for Gap jeans or VS bra. Where economics falls short is in it’s ability to account for and consider human rights and the implications sweatshops and unethical work conditions have on our society as a whole.

My goal isn’t to try and provide a definitive argument against sweatshops, but to simply encourage you to think and reflect on the impact situations like this sweatshop in the USA have on us. In the USA we have standards for working conditions, ethical standards that must be legally followed (one reason I’m extremely grateful to live in the USA). We as a society have made decision about what is fair and what isn’t, what is humane and what is unjust, and we’ve agreed to follow those regardless of what might be suggested otherwise. A situation of mistreatment in factories in our country should alarm us, because it is a reflection of our ability to uphold the standards, freedoms and liberties we believe in. That’s why stories like this are important, and why we should be conscience of where we shop and what we support with our dollars.

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Book Review: Oh Sh*#! It’s Jesus! by Steve Hughes

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One of the books I read recently as an Ooze Select Blogger was titled, Oh Shit! It’s Jesus!, written by a guy named Steve Hughes. It is a short self-published book that is basically Hughes explanation of the faith.

As you can tell from the title Hughes attempts to take a rather ‘radical’ and shocking approach to presenting his perspective on following Jesus. The chapter titles also lean this direction: What the Hell?, What the Hell, and I don’t Want to Be a Christian, to name a few. Hughes retells stories from the gospels in paraphrased story and more modern day contexts.

What I liked up Steve’s book is it’s the kind of thing I think every person should sit down and write some point about their belief system (Christian and otherwise). It’s basically an insightful perspective of his belief system that would be great for him to pass on to friends. And it’s not necessarily personal story either, so if others feel it’s worthwhile they could pass it on as well. Writings have the ability to articulate thoughts and ideas that don’t often come up in common conversation, and could be a great reference point for further conversation. In that way, for the author and others he knows I think this book can have great value. However, the book on a whole didn’t strike me as being all that radical. I remember being told in my college writing class by my writing professor that I set readers up for a seven course meal with my intro and then I only gave them dessert. Meaning my actual writing didn’t live up to the expectations the intro gave. It was hard words to hear, but there was some truth to it, and I wonder if that might be the case for this book as well. The title and chapter headings made me expect a more radical perspective on Jesus then I read. It sort of felt like it was the same thing I’ve been heard before, simply repackaged.

It was a decent read and I liked Hughes honest approach at a fresh perspective. He definitely had a specific audience in mind, one fed up with church and christians, and he did a good job being intentional in trying to answer their (hypothetical) questions. It’s hard work to write a book and he sat down and did it, for that I applaud him.

Being Dad

Dance Like No One’s Watching

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Siyaya
Tonight we went to see a dance group from South Africa at a venue just down the street from our house. It was beautiful and fun, and our daughter danced and clapped and babbled right along to the music.

It was a great concert, energetic and loud, but it was in an auditorium and the majority of people simply sat and observed. I was no exception, besides moving around a little in my seat for my daughters entertainment, I basically sat through the concert. I needed inspiration, and I found it in a elderly woman a few rows in front of us.

Every so often the woman would get out of her seat and walk to the back of the small auditorium. About the third time it struck me to look back, and I saw her dancing along to the music. She wasn’t trying to make a spectacle or perform for any reason, she simply felt like dancing.

There is something powerful about being able to inspire people to dance, and there is power in being able to throw off our social hindrances and truly let ourselves enjoy and move to music. I hope my daughter saw that woman dancing and that it will reminder her she doesn’t have to stop enjoying the rhythm and feeling the freedom of the movement.

If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution!
-Emma Goldman

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Going Green: Is It For You or The Earth? Really?

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So, we all know “Being Green” is the in thing these days. Seems like every business under the sun is doing some marketing to let consumers know that they’re ‘green.’ And we individually are jumping on board as well, in ways we can prove our greeness. Honda had a hybrid car out for a while that didn’t sell well at all, the reason, it didn’t look distinct (like a Prius). You see, people who drive hybrid’s want you to know they are driving a hybrid. A lot of what we do, quite honestly, is to bolster our own image. Going Green is often more about me, then the earth.

And because it’s more about me and my image, consumerism continues to thrive. Everyone who wants to be ‘green’ goes out and by reusable grocery bags. We find out plastic is bad so everyone buys stainless steal water bottles. We buy organic, new t-shirts with catchy slogans on them. And sometimes we make drastic changes and change the location we buy coffee at to the local organic shop rather then the big box. But, in all of this, we are continuing to buy, buy and buy some more. We are buying new things that still need to be manufactured, shipped, packaged and sold, when we might not have needed to buy anything at all. We have not changed our consumption habits, simply tailored them to a specific style, a ‘green’ style (which doesn’t seem any better at times then someone whose style is that they enjoy the color pink).

I’m not trying to be overly critical (Though maybe I am), I just think we need a challenge to the ‘green’ trends we are seeing everywhere. And here is my challenge. If your desire to Go Green is really about the earth and not about you, then band your altruism and energy conservation together and help your neighbor at the same time as you help the planet. Instead of spending thousands on a hybrid, which is better for the environment, but not necessarily ton’s better (for the cost) then your current car (unless it’s an SUV, then maybe), try this experiment.

From what I’ve heard, CFL bulbs are pretty much the most cost-efficient, energy-saving switch a person can make. They not only save you money in the short run (electric bills) and the long-run (bulb replacement), but I think per dollar spent they have one of the biggest energy savings/conservations (sorry I don’t have a stat to link to), and everyone needs light bulbs. So, buy a bunch of CFL bulbs in bulk (ebay is good for this). Put them all in a little red wagon and go walking down your street. Knock on your neighbors door and offer to trade them three cfl’s for three of their incandescent bulbs (You can use them for the few places you can’t switch to cfl, or let them keep them, or try these). If that seems like too much work, you can send me some money via paypal and I’ll do it in my own neighborhood. It’s a much better use of your ‘green’ dollars then some of the more consumeristic trendy ‘green’ decisions.

(photo credit)

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Print Made Us More Individualistic

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A quote from The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture:

In a predominantly oral culture, one in which communication is based on face-to-face oral speech, there is no means for storing information or knowledge outside of the mind. As a result, once knowledge is obtained, the culture depends upon the community to both retain and repeat that knowledge. With the introduction of writing, people are affordedthe  luxury to learn and think in isolation without the threat of losing those thoughts. As writing becomes the dominant communication system, people no longer need the community to retain teachings, traditions, or identity. As a result, they spend greater amounts of time reflecting in private. This increased isolation creates a newempahsis on individualism. Prior to the written word, a person’s identity was completely bound to the tribe; the notion of the individual didn’t exist. Because writing introduced the notion of the autonomous self, printing obliterated tribal bonds and profoundly amplified individualism. -p.53

First of all I think that brief paragraph is brilliant insight into our culture as a whole. I don’t know all the implications it has for us but it does, at the least, make us aware of some of the steps that have created the individualism that exist within our society.

Now that we know where we are, and we are aware of how print has brought us there, I’m curious about how we can return to building tribal and communal bonds. Do they exist in any capacity in our current society? Is technology further separating us?

What I Read

Book Review: God For President, By Lisa Venable

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by Lisa Venable

This might be cheating but I’ll do it anyways. I read God For President (not to be confused with Jesus For President), by Lisa Venable. I was actually assigned it for the Twin Cities Daily Planet, which I’ve been writing for recently, and Lisa is a local author. So, I read it and reviewed it here: Pious parable parses presidential politics (long title, I didn’t think up). I’ll even give you the intro here:

Recent political events have shown us that Americans are open to more than just the status quo. Minnesota elected the first Muslim to Congress, the Democratic primaries saw a woman and an African-American competing to be the presidential nominee, and environmental concerns have shown up on the political and corporate radar. With all this progress, the storyline in Minneapolis author Lisa Venable’s new book might not be all that far-fetched. The title? God For President: A Parable About the Power of Love.

In Venable’s novel, God becomes incarnate as Mary Love, a mysterious woman who shows up out of nowhere and makes a run for the Oval Office. The story follows Sarah Rose, a young but disillusioned activist who’s all but given up on the political system until Love shows up and reignites Rose’s passion.

Now, your already halfway through the review, so you might as well go and finish reading at the Daily Planet.

That’s pretty much my book review, but I’ll give you a couple further thoughts on the book. It is not at all an exclusively Christian book, or any other religious subscription (besides thiest). However, as someone who believes in the God of the Bible and Jesus as God in the flesh, I thought this book was a pretty radical modern day parable of what a more modern contextualized Jesus might look like to some degree. What’s unfortunate is that stories like these have to be fictional parables rather then common real-life examples.