All posts by ariah

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AriahFine.com Launched!

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Okay, nothing really special there except a bio of sorts.
I realized I was sending a lot of emails and newly interacting with people in my new home of Minneapolis, and rather then having my blog in my signature which could cover any number of random topics on a given day, I needed to have more of a ‘resume-portfolio-this is me’ type of site. And of course, no one else in the world has picked up ariahfine.com yet so now it’s all mine.

Thought I’d mention it so you could browse over and give me your thoughts and/or opinions on it. It’s meant to be quite simple, focusing on the areas I’m most interested in: Writing, Community Organizing, and Web Consulting.

I’m also trying to figure out how to, or if I should, link that to this blog, etc. Any professional opinions on that?

Hop over to ariahfine.com and then hop back and give me your thoughts.

What I Read

The Ooze Select Blogger List

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The Ooze Select Blogger
I asked Michael from The Ooze if it would be okay if I went ahead and made some badges and tried to put together a semi-official list of those who are part of the Ooze Select Blogger group. This will hopefully allow people to read a variety of reviews on the materials that we are sent. Basically the list of blogs below are bloggers who were selected by The Ooze to receive books from publishers and authors to review and blog about (obviously in hopes of creating interest and buzz around their particular book).

I wasn’t given an official list, so we’ll let the Blogosphere do it’s magic and allow those who are Select bloggers to discover this post, comment below so I can add you, and steal the Select Blogger Badge below.

I’m starting the list with the first ten select bloggers I can find via a google blog search. There are 50 out there so try and find your way over and I’ll add to the list as you comment.

The Ooze Select Blogger List (In no particular order):

  1. Rev. Todd
  2. Consuming Worship
  3. Blake Huggins
  4. Trying to Follow
  5. Recliner Ramblings
  6. Some Strange Ideas
  7. Solar Crash
  8. Todd Littleton
  9. Julie Clawson
  10. Calacirian
  11. Notes From Off Center
  12. Keeping Feet
  13. Swinging From The Vine
  14. Intercession City
  15. Gavin
  16. Blind Beggar
  17. Sally’s Journey
  18. With/out God
  19. Sensual Jesus
  20. What Canst Thou Say?
  21. Into The Subversion
  22. Some Strange Ideas
  23. Kingdom Grace
  24. Jonathan Merritt
  25. The Journey
  26. And More to come….

A note to select bloggers: If you are planning on tagging or categorizing your Ooze Book reviews in some fashion, please post the url to that category or tag page on your blog rather then just the blog url itself. I figure ‘select’ bloggers ought to be web-savvy enough to get the badge on their own page, but let me know if you need help. (I would appreciate it if you would copy the image to your own server).

Ooze Select Blogger Badge

Featured, News and Politics

The Failing Experiment: A brief thought on July 4th

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About four years ago I was reading the paper in a small town in Minnesota. I read an article by Congressman Mark Kennedy entitled: “The Great Experiment” which discussed the sacrifices many soldiers had made to make this country what it is today. I felt the need to reply in this letter to the editor that you see below. I’ve left it unedited, but I’ll include further thoughts at the end. Surprisingly, the local paper published my letter the following week:

The Failing Experiment
I want to first of all thank Congressman Mark Kennedy for his article concerning this country’s “Independence Day.” There is certainly room for celebration and many of the historical facts he pointed out are worth noting and esteeming. Unfortunately I fear Congressman Kennedy missed out on the whole picture of the American Experiment and I feel the need to complete, or at least add to his summary.
It is true our Experiment has succeeded because of sacrifice, but whose sacrifice? Let us not forget the genocide of the Native Americans – from whom we took and still keep this land. They sacrificed many lives to our “Manifest Destiny.” Even today the effects of this sacrifice are felt and if you dare look, they are still seen. Our brothers and sisters of the human race live on small, infertile plots of land that we’ve forced them to, and the effects of injustice for hundreds of years can be seen clearly today. The Native Americans sacrificed.
Let us remember that the fourth of July is Independence for only part of the citizens of this country. It wasn’t until December 1865 that the denial of freedom (slavery) was abolished by law in this country. And we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that this is a reality today. It takes only a brief look at the statistics to see that even since the Civil Rights movement of the sixties, we are still discriminating against people because of their skin (look up red-lining, the education system, and the demographic layout of most cities). It was on the backs of our brothers and sisters of the human race from Africa that this country began to thrive. It was their sacrifice for which they currently still have never reaped full benefits.
They sacrificed as soldiers too, Africans, Mexicans, Japanese, Native Americans – only to return to a “free” nation where they were discriminated against and treated as less than human. Remember the sacrifice of the American citizens of Japanese decent forced into Internment camps in the Desert. Remember the replacement of slaves with sharecropping and cheap labor from Mexico which we discriminate against yet desperately “need” in order to keep our way of living “affordable” for us.
There are many more groups that have been sacrificed to this American Experiment, but only one more I will note in this summary. They are half the population and for years have fed, clothed, cleaned, and cared for generations of American men. Women, they celebrate their independence on August 26, 1920 when the law at least extended to them the vote. They, like these many other groups, are still fighting for the freedom we will celebrate July 4th.
Celebrate your freedom on Sunday, but open your eyes to reality. Freedom even in America is only for the privileged, unless we choose to make it for everybody. Freedom will never come at the barrel of a gun. It will take sacrifice, sacrifice from you and me, not our lives, but our love. Will you sacrifice with love for that freedom you so enjoy to be extended to all people?

There is probably much more to say on this Independence day about the current state of affairs in our country, but I’ll leave that mostly to your own reflection. Let me only remind you that we celebrate this day while Guantanamo remains operational, are nations attempt to spread “freedom” is showing tragic and horrific results, and racism, sexism and much discrimination still lies unaddressed in our society.

Celebrate the 4th, but please do so with these words in mind.

photo credit

News and Politics

The Danger of doing Good: Forming Stereotypes

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(photo credit [photo not of me])
Here’s my basic premise: The person whose only interaction with people of a different cultural/ethnic group is in a serving/charity capacity is likely to form stereotypes about that group based on that limited and extremely isolated interaction.

I myself went to a fairly large, suburban, predominately white church during my formative high school years. I went on three “missions” trips while attending there to: Mexico, South Dakota and D.C. On each trip we worked with a different ethnic group: Hispanics in Mexico, Native Peoples in South Dakota, and African-American’s in D.C. Now, Madison, where I grew up, is fairly diverse, so I had the good fortune of those not being my only interactions with other races, but they were some of the most significant interactions I had had with anyone of Hispanic or Native origin.

When I went to College I met and discovered a large number of other students had had similar “missions” trip experience. Some had even gone to countries in Africa and Asia. However, my more shocking discovery was the number of students who had come from far more ethnically homogenous (read: mostly White) cities, towns and neighborhoods then even I did. In addition, it seemed that in those homogenous neighborhoods, the rare interaction with a person of a different ethnicity typically involved that person in a serving capacity. Even our college campus, Wheaton College, was an example of this. The number of students and facility from multi-cultural backgrounds had been growing, but a large amount of white students primary interaction with different ethnicities was the cafeteria workers.

Now, couple those brief interactions with the limited portrayal of ethnic minorities in the media (again, often overly portrayed in historically oppressed or currently oppressed roles), and then we send them on “mission” trips. This might sound harsh, but I think the feeling behind many of those trips is the chance to “go help those poor unfortunate people.” The combination of all of these interactions creates, I believe, a strong stereotype of other cultures, and not only are they stereotypes, but the are dangers in that the person doesn’t seem them as stereotypes, but as fact, since they have by and large proved true in their interactions.

This is just one of the reason I think so much structural racism still exist in our country. It’s why efforts like affirmative action are necessary and why many voices are still needed to speak up against unjustice and prejudice, yes even racist, treatment.

Money & Stewardship

The Kenyan Crisis Cost Me $12.60: My First Defaulted Kiva Loan

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Since joining Kiva, a website allowing users to provide micro-loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries, my family and I have made over 20 loans ranging from $25 to $75. Though we considered it a donation, the idea of it being a loan, and the fact that I can pull out my money after the loan has been repaid has definitely shaped my perspective on it to being considered more of an “investment” in doing good.

You can imagine my disappointment then when I found out that one of the loans had defaulted before repayment. It wasn’t terrible, just $12.60 that I didn’t get back in the loan repayment, but I still wanted to find out what happened.

The entrepreneur we lent to was a 60 year old woman named Joyce who used the $125 loan she was given to purchase additional animal feed in an effort to boost her cows milk supply and bolster her monthly income. She received the loan and managed to pay it back monthly through out the year, but according to the Kiva records, stopped just $20 short of repayment. It turns out the problem with the repayment came not from Joyce, but from WEEC, the field partner organization in charge of the loan. There is no further information on Joyce, I pray her cows are healthy and well fed, but here is what I found out about WEEC:

“WEEC is currently experiencing significant operational difficulties that have caused all active WEEC loans to default. It is important to note that in many cases the entrepreneur repaid the loan to WEEC in full and did benefit from your loan. However, WEEC has experienced operational problems caused by a number of factors, including the unexpected death of WEEC’s founder and Executive Director, poor management of funds, and economic and political unrest in Kenya. Together, these factors produced a situation where Kiva is unable to get a 100% clear account of your specific loan and recover your full loan amount from WEEC.” (read more here)

You, like I, might have heard some of the news regarding Kenya over the past few months. I even have a friend who works with Opportunity International in Kenya, so the news was even more personal then most international news. However, it still felt miles away, distanced, and surreal, just like nearly everything else I read about.

Now this might seem silly, but the defaulted loan and the $12.60 I lost in my Kiva investments, it made the world seem a little smaller. The situation in Kenya a little more real. I pray Joyce is okay, and that other entrepreneurs like her where not negatively affected by the unrest or the loan defaults. As for me, I’m going to keep investing, whether for false motives or true, I hope my vested interest will bring me closer to other people around the globe.

P.S. The $25 we loaned through comment love was fully repaid. I’ve reloaned it again, thanks for your support.

Being Dad

Happy Birthday Adyra (And Mommy!)

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Momma and Adyra

One year ago today my beautiful wife, after a trying labor, gave birth to our equally beautiful baby girl. Today we celebrate their health and our happiness for a joyous first year and look forward to many, many more to come.

Adyra, I am so proud of the strong girl you are growing to be. You bring such a joy to my life and have taught me so much in our short time together. I enjoy every moment we have together and am so eager to see you grow and become the woman God intends for you to be.

Mindy, I am so happy to have the opportunity to parent next to you. When I could only stand by and encourage, you carried our daughter to full term (and yes, nine days over due), gave birth to a healthy little girl (at 9 lbs she wasn’t so little), and have nursed her to a beautiful and healthy one year old. I can’t wait for the years ahead as we stand together and raise her to be a strong and splendid woman.

Money & Stewardship

No Sweat Shoes Might Not Be As Sweat Free As They Claim

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No Sweat crossed out

This is terribly disappointing and shocking information, but it points to the need for us to be critical shoppers and not passive consumers when it comes to all things, even those that claim to be “Fair” or “Green.”

I’ve written about No Sweat before and found them to be an impressive company overall. They made a switch a few years back to start offering products made overseas, but they put in some stringent measures to ensure fair labor practices including outside independent auditors. And they even put the reports on their site. “Brilliant!” I had thought, a new standard in the efforts to be conscious consumers. However, I neglected to even take a look at one of the reports.

Here, courtesy of adbusters browsing, is some of what those reports contain:

Question 2: Have you ever had a bad experience at work, like forced labor or underpayment of wages?

[The numbers indicate number of employees responding, and not percentages]
Yes: 39
No: 11

Question 6: If you add up your wages, wage supplements (food, Lebaran bonus), and your level of satisfaction at work, do you think you are paid fairly?
Yes: 8
No: 42

Question 10: What is the most accurate description of your experience at work?
Positive and friendly: 6
Fair – no complaints: 7
Unpleasant (pressured to work faster or disrespectful treatment from supervisors): 37

Q: So, are these Sweatshop free shoes, or another example of Greenwashing?

Blog

When Marketing Is Unethical: Casinos

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photo credit: https://tryingtofollow.com/wp-content/linkedimages/upload/static.flickr.com/7/6057988_527d238c09_m.jpgWho knows if this will become a regular series, but I’ve definitely ran across enough stories to keep it going if I wanted to. This recent one is about a Casino being fined $800,000 for sending marketing material to recovering gambling addicts who had voluntarily signed-up to be banned from all casinos. In other words, the casino was enticing addicts to gamble even after they asked to be excluded.

From the Chicago Tribune (ht. AAA)

The Illinois Gaming Board on Monday fined Hollywood Casino in Aurora $800,000 and suspended three managers for sending promotional materials to problem gamblers who asked to be banned from casinos in the state.

It’s the largest fine the board has ever levied for such an infraction….

The voluntary program allows problem gamblers to cut off their access to state casinos. The exclusion includes promotional materials intended to entice customers to visit.

Ethical? What do you think?