coming to Marion this weekend

If you want to connect, give me a call / e-mail.

who said it? .092. U.S. family planning policy

Since the beginning of this decade, population policy has been hijacked by shortsighted ideology. Leaders of the U.S. religious right have called for ending U.S. support for family planning. While that has not happened entirely, the Bush administration has slashed aid to the UN Population Fund and recommended large cuts in direct U.S. funding of family planning services. It’s hard to think of a single more misguided policy; it runs directly against American interests in the reduction of conflict and terror, as well as against the support of economic development and environmental sustainability more generally…

The common claim, for example, that fertility declines will not occur in the Islamic world is belied by the experience in Iran after the 1979 Iranian revolution… The Total Fertility Rate [births per women] average 6.6 during 1980-1985. Yet soon afterward, the attitude of the political and religious leadership reverted to family planning, and this time with far more energy and cultural legitimacy than before. The TFR actually plummeted from 6.6 in 1980-1985 to an astounding 2.1 by 2000-2005. … It is ironic that the Bush administration’s attitudes toward family planning are in many ways more fundamentalist than Iran’s.

- Jeffrey Sachs, Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet  (2008)

Sachs has an interesting perspective - the first economist I've encountered that wasn't ardently libertarian (Tom Friedman is another). I guess I was encouraged to see that you can study market mechanisms while still caring about poverty, the environment, and social justice. This need not be a contradiction.

The uproar among religious conservatives in regards to family planning is probably about abortion, which to me seems silly to encourage if your point is to preserve the planet for... your children and grandchildren (who you just aborted). That said, there are economic and cultural benefits (aside from environmental) from giving women control of their fertility with contraceptives (& education). Across (almost?) every culture, women desire to have less children than they would in a pre-modern setting. Educating and empowering women (it's hard to go to school when you have 6 kids) is one of the major ways to end poverty. All that said, we much guard against the narcissistic, anti-child culture that has enveloped Europe. Such cultures will drink their own poison and necessarily go the way of the dodo. And also, guard against racism and xenophobia when talking about population (U.S./Mexican relations, or U.S./Arab). Below is a video that plays on such fears of a Muslim takeover of the Euro-American Western world.

Anyway, Sachs takes pleasure in the little jabs at Bush, just as others now get to jab Obama. Silly economists.

Commissioned for service with Word Made Flesh Bolivia

Last weekend, Becky and I were commissioned for service with WMF Bolivia. Above is a staff picture of all the Fleshies in Omaha. I still can't believe it... we're staff! Of course, we haven't done a thing yet and haven't even started our contract.

It was a brief time, but filled with good food, new friends, prayers of commitment, and a few tears as well. A time of dying, and a time of hope and new possibilities.

We each received a necklace bearing the Cross of San Damiano, the icon that St. Francis was praying before when God called him to rebuild His Church. St. Francis is an inspiration for many of us, although I'm sure our commitment pales in comparison to his.

I'm trying to hug as many trees as possible before we move to the harsh altiplano. This I-80 rest area pine was the best climbing tree I've ever seen. Irresistibly, I ran straight to it. I don't think the boy in me will ever leave.

public school failure

[insert rant about failing public schools]

Is 25 really that old, or am I just a fuddy-duddy? I'm already old enough to complain about "young kids these days" (and truth be told, I've never sent a txt msg). Substitute teaching can really bring out the worst in me. I'm ready to go back to paddles, school uniforms, etc.

Not all public schools are failing but so many are, and it's heartbreaking to not have hope (seeing kids should be all about hope). Maybe it's no different than 10 years ago when I was in an average, rural middle school. I guess we had pot and teen sex there too. Most of us came around eventually, and one or two ODed. But I had a family that loved me, provided learning opportunities, and never worried about putting food on the table. So many kids do not have that. Many of you may not have been in a dysfunctional inner-city classroom. You should sub one day there before you pass judgment.

I've also subbed in a suburban charter school, and it was a walk in the park (as subbing goes). A clean, new building, no kids with cell phones, parents that showed up at school, an attitude of respect towards adults and peers. You can enroll your kid by lottery (hundreds are waiting to get in), but of course you have to provide your own transportation (no buses) and be socially connected to these types of opportunities thus disadvantaged kids are not well represented here (though I was surprised at the % of minorities there). There is nothing wrong with prosperity - this is what I wish every kid could grow up with! I just wish it was available to more than the Dutch kids.

How can we get the incentives right? How to provide the right balance of market forces (or at least some type of incentives) with the concept of enhancing the public good (education is socialized with a private sector off-shoot)? Good schools draw even better kids who drop from the failing schools, which grow worse. Vicious cycle is about right. Families are in disarray (don't blame the gays: 98% of the time the parents are straight).

It won't be me there in the schools, but I'm glad some people are keeping up the fight. That gives me hope. As I read over the class list this morning, I felt like I was teaching in Mexico (school was about 85% Latino): Armando, Luis, Angel, Alma ("spirit"). I saw precious young lives- black hair, brown skin, ear-to-ear smiles, a few pieces of bling, and plenty of energy. I wanted to tell them not to give up. I wanted to play a pick-up game with them on the street. I wanted to validate their culture, their families, their language - their identity as children of God. I wanted to show them what they could learn from the Dutchies, and what Pakistanis could learn from them (and so forth). After all, there are folks today (a teacher in the charter school & my former boss at a restaurant) who still call people "colored".

George Carlin on "saving the planet"

This is interesting and somehow strangely refreshing perspective (some points) on environmentalism by comedian George Carlin, at least to me, who's been reading/thinking/blogging a ton about environmental issues for the last few years. In the end, however, his overarching philosophy seems to be nihilism and I'm not impressed by that. Nor any of the other clips I watched.

Warning: he has no qualms about using very vulgar language, this clip included.

Truth comes from the strangest places:
"And the greatest arrogance of all: "save the planet". What? Are these f---ing people kidding me? Save the planet? We don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one other. I'm getting tired of that s---."

I gave mouth-to-mouth this morning

Or rather, "I gave (my opinion on urban chickenry on) Mouth-to-Mouth, (a local AM radio show) this morning."

I had just spent two hours sitting in a tree, waiting for a deer to offer up it's body as a living sacrifice for me (well, a dead sacrifice). No takers today. I instead hunted acorn squash at a rural farm market on the way home and was much more successful. I caught a whole basket for just $6. The radio was turned to AM 1300 (my project on understanding right-wing trash radio is quickly coming to a close, and you certainly can't pick up NPR out here).

The issue at hand was urban chicken-keeping. It's a big deal, apparently, and a big fight between local governments, ardent chicken-raisers, and "concerned" neighbors. City government gave a deadline to the Beerhorst family of Grand Rapids (Eastown area) to get rid of their five egg-laying hens. No farm animals allowed, says the law. Well, they ain't chicken and are certainly not going to go down without a peep. Their online radio poll says 53% are in favor of urban chickenry, however, the e-mails and call-ins were mostly anti-chicken. It should be noted that their immediate neighbors are not against their chickens, but somehow they were "discovered". I said something like this:

"I just moved here a few months ago and I'm a little surprised at the response b/c most people here seem to be the Rush Limbaugh type - limited government and everything. So why are they so ardently in favor of using government to go after these chickens?


The first responsibility in a household is to put food on the table. Keeping chickens is a good way of doing this, quite literally. There is a lot of concern these days about the environment, food safety, and certainly folks are struggling economically in Michigan. I think we need to open up this issue and craft reasonable laws. It's not like they're keeping hundreds of birds on a small plot."

I wanted to also say something about community and neighborliness in the vein of Wendell Berry (we had just completed a 4-Sunday evening class on Wendell's ideas at church) but of course I'm not that elegant on the spot. In fact, I said something much better to the call screener.

Anyway, I'm not an anarchist. And even if I was, I'm sure I'd float some "guiding principles" to my anarchist friends, which would soon become "firm recommendations", and eventually "laws". Good laws maintain the common good and help us love our neighbors, or at least reduce the temptation to be foul. But I, like any human, follow some rules stringently and thumb my nose (?) to others.

The Beerhorst's also have a Facebook page. Latest update from mama B:
"I got a call this morning from James Hurt the Director for Neighborhood Improvement for the City of Grand Rapids and he said our Notice of Inspection for the Chicken Complaint has been cancelled. They will not come out and Inspect to see if our chickens are gone. They are anticipating a "Policy change coming forward"(!)"

Cue Freebird.



This video was made by the family's 15 year-old daugher (one of six, which they homeschool). Certainly enough to soften the heart of any old cock.

why I make a bad capital-ist

I walked into Wal-Mart and saw one of those 4 ft plastic, inflatable punching towers, the kind that pop back up at you after you hit them. $3. I got really upset at how cheap it was.

When in New York, drink like the French

A friend of mine works for a big shipping company, the kind that send tons of freight to and fro across the globe. I got a tour of his office too - pretty interesting industry. He sent me this recent release by The World Shipping Council (a trade group for big ships) entitled "The Liner Shipping Industry and Carbon Emissions Policy."

"Q: Does international maritime shipping of goods produce more CO2 emissions than transporting locally produced goods because of the long transportation distances involved?

Generally, the answer is no. Because maritime shipping is the most carbon efficient form of transportation, shipping goods across the ocean often results in fewer carbon emissions than transporting such goods domestically...

The wine industry recently examined this issue and found that a bottle of French wine served in a New York restaurant will have a lower carbon transportation footprint than a bottle of California wine served in that restaurant.* A whitepaper released for the Transport Intelligence Europe Conference states that researchers evaluating this issue for the World Economic Forum “found that the entire container voyage from China to Europe is equaled in CO2 emissions by about 200 kilometers of long‐haul trucking in Europe."**

*American Association of Wine Economists, “Red, White, and Green: The Cost of Carbon in the Global Wine Trade,” AAWE Working Paper #9, Victor Ginsburgh, Oct. 2007. Available at: http://www.wine-economics.org/workingpapers/AAWE_WP09.pdf
**12 http://www.ticonferences.com/gds_europe/whitepapers/Nearshoring_Beat_Simon.pdf

FAKE Chamber of Commerce meeting re: climate change legislation (cue awkward turtle)

This is just too funny... the hilarity gets going when the real Chamber of Commerce rep stands up at 1:03. Apparently even some of the reporters were fakes:

(link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYGcIhNGSIY)

NPR and Grist have both covered the story of how The Yes Men successfully pulled off this trick. This comes after a slew of high-profile companies have left the Chamber over it's non-support of currently proposed climate change legislation.

But by the time the Chamber reacted, it was too late. Reuters had already filed a story based on a fake press release. The news appeared on several websites and was announced on live television; an anchor for the Fox Business Network retracted the news within seconds of reporting it. Reuters quickly issued a correction (National Post)

who said it? .091. why we're gasping for air

We have been arguing about the origin of species while an unprecedented extinction of species occurs on our watch; we’ve been fighting endlessly (and unproductively) about unborn children while achieving precious little for the already-born children in Darfur or Congo or Malawi or downtown Cincinnati. These stale expressions of bad faith have left many of us gasping for the fresh air of good faith.

-Brian McLaren in a 2007 article "Christianity as a Global Threat"