Category Archives: Blog

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Today is Keane Fine’s Birthday

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I wish the internet worked at my house. Today it is not, and that means this Birthday wishes for my brother will be short and sweet. My brother is creative genius. By far one of the most creative people I’ve ever met.  I love him and have grown to appreciate him much more now then I did when I was an immature teenager.

My brother is an inspiration to me, and now (for a limited time) he can be to you too. Keane recently started taking his notebooks and scanning them in to put online. They are brilliant and hilarious, and often beautiful. Here’s the two step process to wishing Keane a true happy birthday:

  1. Link to Pocket Ponderings on your blog. Seriously, do this now. Just mention it at the bottom of the post your write today. Keane just started this project and it needs a credibility jump start in the blogosphere so get linking.
  2. Subscribe to keane’s blog. I think he just has RSS options up right now, but there will be more. At least browse around and give it a look and be sure to check back for email or rss subscriptions in the future.
  3. Leave Keane a Happy Birthday Greeting in the comments.

Happy Birthday Bro, I love you.

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Q Conference: A Qool Idea

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My friend, Aaron Linne, went to this conference and has been blogging his notes about it for the last few weeks over on his blog, Life of Linne. I just thought the concept of the conference was pretty cool and worth repeating in other fields. I for example go to conferences and trainings each year as part of the requirements of on going training for my job. It’s a good thing to continue your education and training in any field, but if that’s the case we should have good quality conferences around. I have to admit most of the conferences I’ve gone to for work have been sub-par. The concept of the Q Conference seems cool to me. So I thought I’d just give a run down of it as I understood it.

Basically it’s a church conference for the leaders of the leaders (the elite if you will). The goal was to have an intimate setting, not a numbers, but a quality thing. I forget how many people they invited but the goal is to keep it small. Then they had about 20 different speakers. The kicker is that each person who presented only presented for 18 minutes. They had 18 minutes to boil down everything they wanted to convey into the meat and into an amount others could comprehend. I think that’s a great idea. There are far too many all day and multiple hour conferences and trainings that leave you with too much information to remember when you leave, and to vague an understanding to even be valuable. And then the speakers hung around so everyone could chat and talk and digest the stuff they’d been discussing all day.

That’s really about it. I just thought it was a brilliantly simple and cool way to format a conference and something that is worth repeating. Maybe I should write and give a 18 minute schpiel on everything I think is essential to be passed on to others. In an ambitious moment I thought it would be cool to create this kind of conference for people in my field. I think it’d be a really neat and fun thing to do and truly impacting to the youth that we serve. Well, speaking of, I’m off to another conference this week, here’s hoping it’s a good one.

Anyways, for those that are interested here’s a link to Aaron’s notes on the Q Conference.

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Flash Back: Sexist Assumptions At Relevant Mag

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I just posted a few weeks ago a bunch of the articles I’d written for Relevant magazine. Not saying this had anything to do with my lack of writing in the following year, but my post concerning Relevant’s new women’s mag, Radiant, got some interesting attention.

Basically I posted this advertisement from Relevant’s website:

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And I wrote about the trouble with the assumption behind “It’s Our Turn Now.”

Radiant Magazine as you can see from the site is geared towards women. What’s so terrible about a magazine geared specifically towards women? Nothing; the terrible thing is that it implies, that Relevant was/is geared toward men. I am not saying Relevant was, or is, a men’s magazine, I’m saying their choice of wording implies that it was.

Take a look at the ad for Radiant on Relevant’s homepage. It says, “It’s Our Turn Now.” Does this mean that Relevant was the “men’s” turn? Clearly the approach towards this new magazine does reveal that assumption (just like so much of our culture). Why wasn’t Relevant a level place for men and women? Why can’t guy’s learn to take turns in the same place, rather then forcing women to go off on their own to have a voice?

If Relevant is a magazine for 20-something males it should say MALES outright. Personally, I don’t think they had any intent for Relevant to be a ‘male’ mag, it’s their choice of wording that hint at the sort of assumption that ‘normal’ or ‘regular’ means male or oriented towards men.

Conversation ensued, including comments from Anna and Kyle of Relevant. Go ahead and hop over to the original post and comment, there’s a handful of people still subscribed, we might stir up some new and interesting conversation.

Comment Here. 

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Month One of Comment Love: $29.00

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Well, the first month of comment love has come to a close with a grand total of $29. The goal of comment love is to encourage conversation about the topics discussed on the site by ‘incentivizing’ every comment with a donation to a charity. This month’s comment love money will be going to Kiva, which was Jamie’s choice (our top commenter this month). I’m gonna let her pick out the person to donate too and then I’ll post a link, picture and bio to the person we donated too and you can check in on the loan progress and the impact your comments have made.

I’m going to continue the Comment Love project. We’ll donate somewhere else next month (I’ve got babies on the mind so maybe something related to babies would be good). This coming month it’s up to you to raise the bar and comment a little more so we can make an even bigger impact in the world around us.

Continue the conversation.

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A Visual Introduction to Nashville: Sans Houses

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I highly recommend everyone who lives in Nashville join the Homeless Power Project’s newsletter and attend their events. I also recommend joining us for Food Not Bombs or just going to downtown and taking an opportunity to meet those who hang out in the park across from the library. However, for those who don’t currently think they have the time, Sans Houses is a beautiful introduction to the Homeless Community of Nashville.

Frenchpress takes pictures and voice records many of the homeless community throughout Nashville. Her work is beautiful, and so I think you should stop reading here and go and meet the Nashville Community, Sans Houses.

Sans Houses

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Racial Differences in Traffic Stops

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Rachel at Ally Work gave some commentary on a real interesting report on Traffic Stop statistics that came out recently.

When you combine the data, the result do show greater scrutiny of people of color by police officers.  However, that scrutiny doesn’t always occur in the ways that we expect.  With the traffic stops, the greater scrutiny comes after the stop is made.  The data on stop and frisks need a more thorough analysis that has a national level sample and more methodological sophistication before we can make find how and why racial disparities occur.

Visit the post for further break down of the statistics and a good over view of the Bureau of Justices statistics.

I really think clearly laid out statistics like this need to be made regularly available to the public. I’m not sure why they always come out in a hard to read manner and it’s not part of the Bureau or Department of the government to actually make the statistics clear to the public. I think it would be a powerful thing for the Bureau of Justice to put out this report, have their statisticians and others analyze it and make a forward statement about how in some areas there is nothing unusual about the traffic stop statistics, but in others there is clearly still racial discrimination going on and here is what the Bureau is going to do about it. Anyways, here’s a brief break down of some of the statistics linked from an AP article on Ally Work:

Black, Hispanic and white motorists were equally likely to be pulled over by police — between 8 percent and 9 percent of each group. The slight decline in blacks pulled over — from 9.2 percent in 2002 to 8.1 percent in 2005 — was not statistically significant, Durose said, and could be the result of random differences.

The racial disparities showed up after that point:

_Blacks (9.5 percent) and Hispanics (8.8 percent) were much more likely to be searched than whites (3.6 percent). There were slight but statistically insignificant declines compared with the 2002 report in the percentages of blacks and Hispanics searched.

_Blacks (4.5 percent) were more than twice as likely as whites (2.1 percent) to be arrested. Hispanic drivers were arrested 3.1 percent of the time.

Among all police-public contacts, force was used 1.6 percent of the time. But blacks (4.4 percent) and Hispanics (2.3 percent) were more likely than whites (1.2 percent) to be subjected to force or the threat of force by police officers.

People interviewed described police hitting, kicking, pushing, grabbing, pointing a gun or spraying pepper spray at them or threatening to do so. More than four of five felt the force used was excessive, but there were no statistically significant racial disparities among the people who felt that way.

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Jena Six: Racism Still Exist In The South

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UPDATE (7/28/09): Two years later, here is the results of the Jena Six trial. Mostly a victory.

Updated:  New post on the Jena Six

We’ve talked about stories of racism and police abuse in the past, so this shouldn’t be a revelation for any of the regular readers around here. However, stories like this, when they are specific, need to be noted, brought up, spoken out against, and made aware to a larger community.

In Jena, Louisiana, a town of 3,000, 85% white, 12% black, the disgusting injustice of a still racially charged society is receiving some attention from the national and international community. Six black youth from Jena are facing attempted second-degree murder charges from a fight with a white student from their school who himself is being charged with possession of a firearm in a ‘firearm-free zone.’ In a city were racism clearly still exist, a school yard fight turned into murder charges seems like the troubling injustice many in this country have worked hard to overcome.

Megaphonic, who pointed out this story to me, writes:

someone is teaching these kids that this type of behaviour is acceptable. either directly or by their inaction, the adults in this community are giving them the go ahead to hang nooses in trees and beat the s*** out of kids because they are of a different race. the school board should have expelled the kids who hung the nooses… that’s a hate crime. federal offense. the principal was fully correct to call for their expulsion.

How does this continue to happen, and how can communities fight it? how can we, as nashvillians, keep this from happening? how can we as southerners (even nominal ones like me) fight the stereotypes that history has left us?

My suggestion was that churches need to be gathering together and discussing how to address the injustice of racism, and not pretend it disappeared along with MLK. My other thought, maybe a dumb one, was to start a facebook group. update: looks like someone already beat me to it, join this Facebook Group, Jena Six: The World is Now Watching. Any other ideas?

UPDATE: Just wanted to add some links from the blogosphere to help you stay on top of things that are happening with the Jena Six…

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Where I do My Grocery Shopping

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This is actually a repost of something I wrote last year, but I figured it fit appropriately on a Monday (CRM). This has changed a little since we live in a community and I don’t actually do much of the shopping, but I think it’s still pertinent to most people. I’ll probably elaborate on CSA’s and other things more at some point soon. From February of 2006:

When it comes to most of my purchasing, price is a major factor. In the same way that I wouldn’t go pick the most expensive designer jeans and assume they are the best, ethically and quality, I don’t go for the most expensive groceries and consider it ethical. Currently, we (my wife and I) do our main shopping at ALDI. I’ve tried as much as possible to find out more about the ethics of ALDI’s and compare it to other grocer’s but never with much luck. I did recently find out that ALDI’s is owned by the same company that owns Trader Joe’s from whom there is a little more information. I also occasionally shop at Kroger. Kroger as a company has done some fairly unethical stuff in the past, as far as worker right’s in their stores, and for about 6 months we joined in a boycott of their stores. From what I know the strike and boycott was a victory and some good agreements where made. ALDI’s is Extremely reasonably priced, but the savings are mostly in how they run the store, not in short changing their workers and producers (From what I can tell).
If you shop at a place like Kroger or other major retail chain you’ll also encounter having to choose what brand products to buy. It’ll take you a little while to read through, but I’d highly recommend reading the notes at ResponsibleShopper.org about FOOD brands. The goal is not for you to read all the bad stuff and lament ever eating again, but rather for you to become more aware and educated about some of the situations stores have been in. Like I suggested in a Fair Trade article I wrote, I would suggest picking one product (coffee, chocolate, tea) and choosing to buy it ONLY Fair Trade.
In addition, I personally know I want to shop at the local Farmer’s Market more. Nashville has a year-round Farmer’s market that carries plenty of produce, and I would recommend anyone I know to shop there first. Also, if you could become part of a CSA (Community Shared Agriculture) I would encourage you doing that. We were part of a local CSA in the fall and plan to continue come spring time. Basically each week we would get a bin of food. Always a dozen eggs and a whole chicken, and then an assortment of fruits and vegetables. We had to learn how to cook new items and discovered many different peppers and squashes. I would HIGHLY recommend you get involved in a CSA if you can find one.
Last but not least, for you radical few out there, I would recommend you find a local Food Not Bombs group, hang out, and learn a little bit about the art of dumpster diving.

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What Is Essential to the Gospel?

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This is more question time for the readers then me giving answers.

In a discussion at the house the other day, and a couple email conversations with some readers, I’ve started to rethink what topics, facts, concepts, etc. are essential to the Gospel.

There’s all kinds of cliches and sayings about the gospel: “Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words.” There’s all kinds of things we spend far too much time talking about and others we simply neglect. So, take a minute to think about this. I’m wondering, if someone were to come up to you and ask you write now, “What is the Gospel of Jesus Christ?”

What would you say?

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Flash Back: Why I don’t Shop At Walmart

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Below, in it’s entirety, is something I wrote a while back about why I don’t shop at Walmart. With all the CRM posts and everything I felt this was probably a pretty appropriate time to post this up again and hopefully garner further discussion on it. If your going to link to the article, please link to the original, Why I don’t Shop At Walmart:

This topic always draws a lot of feedback. The thing is from the moment someone starts to talk, or write, you usually have a good idea what side of the fence they are on (it’s the same as when you listen to someone talk about Kanye West’s statements and racism). I fear-and I’m speaking about myself too-that too often we are choosing what side of the fence we want to be on, and then just finding evidence to back it up. Maybe it’s cause you had a bunch of liberal friends, or you hung out with the grunge crowd, some external pressure just decided for you that you hated Walmart, and since then you’ve found all kinds of reasons why this is true. For others it’s their republican upbringing, their support of “Christian” values, or their love of low prices that swayed their decision and now they’ve found all kinds of reasons to support that choice. Honestly, I probably fall into one of those categories, but give me a minute to share with you why I personally avoid Walmart.

At some point in my movement towards maturity, I recognized the significance of personal responsibility. I realized that with any situation, regardless of the reasons behind it or circumstances concerning it, my involvement (or passive silence) would show my support for it. If something is against the rules, and I say nothing about it, I show my support for it. If my government, of which I am a part, makes a decision and I say nothing about it, I support it. I need to take responsibility for those things. If I am ever confronted on those things (and I have this strange feeling I might be), I will not be able to pass blame like Adam did, I will be held accountable for my decisions.

I’ve definitely made poor decisions in the past. I remember being in high school and seeing a sign posted above a drinking fountain in the hallway. Walmart and Sweatshops was the topic, and I passed it by without a second thought. Interesting that I can remember that now, but it had no bearing on me then. For a number of years I had been aware of this, and I did nothing.

At some point later, maybe after I had been exposed to some facts, seen some video, and been confronted a few more times, I realized that important lesson on personal responsibility. Suddenly, the weight of the responsibility was heavy on me. I never went through a research project of weighing the Pros and Cons of Walmart. To be honest most of this debate about whether Walmart is good or bad seems to miss the point for me. I’m not saying it doesn’t have significance, but it gets us into a balance game, and I’m not interested in that.

This is the one fact that disturbs me. Close your eyes. Think about the shirt you are wearing. Trace it back through the store you bought it from, back past being packaged, past being shipped, and to the place it was stitched and sewn together. I’m terrified when I do that and I see a small child, dirty and weary from 18 hours a day of labor, looking into my eyes and awaiting an explanation. What will I say to that little girl? What does taking responsibility mean for me there?

I cannot in good conscience buy from a store where I am aware that that is where the items came from. Does Walmart employ sweatshops? I’m not sure, but I’ve heard evidence of it, and the mere possibility scares me. Do other Stores employ sweatshops? Probably many other stores do, and as I become aware of them, my purchasing decisions and opportunities will become more and more difficult; But that in NO way allows me to disregard my responsibility. Do ALL stores employ sweatshops? I do not believe so. I know of a number of fair trade clothing stores whose goal and focus is to be sweatshop free.

I’m not advocating a boycott; I don’t know enough about economics, etc to make a strong decision on that. I do think that when a company like Walmart is in the news for bad practices, it should affect our spending habits. When Martha Stewart goes to jail our continued purchases send the message that we don’t care about her breaking the law. When we read that Coca-Cola has been polluting the water in India, our continued purchasing sends the message that we do not care. I long for someone with much more brilliance then I to come along and give me a plan for making choices and organizing in a way that will affect change for the good. Are you that person?

I leave you with this. As a friend, I want to admonish you. I am aware of some facts that might or might not be true about Walmart. Please stop shopping there until you have examined the facts.

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