Justice

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Organic Cotton T-shirts

I love my new organic cotton T-shirts from Anvil. Most cotton in the world is farmed in impoverished countries by children (as young as 3yrs old) with scarred fingers for 12-15hr days in scorching heat, at the expense of their schooling and their futures. F*ck that Abercrombie and Old Navy garbage. Also cotton accounts for about half of the industrial chemicals sprayed on the earth. We’re wearing a significant amount of the pesticides that have likely been banned in our own country, handled by toddlers that work like convicts at hard labour.

Most (probably not all) organic cotton clothing makers use responsible labor, packaging, and dyes. Anvil t-shirts impress me. No pesticides or chemicals used to make these. They have great stitching, are incredibly soft, and come in some great colors. I like the charcoal and chocolate, with black being simply my favorite. At about $6 plus shipping at amazon.com, it’s a good value, if you wear t-shirts. I also prefer not to wear advertisements for someone else’s logo or brand – I’m not a billboard – so blank is great.

On the other hand, with limited funds, I’m not above cruising the Goodwill for $1 cast-offs. I don’t like the origin, but wearing them can be cathartic. Anyway, these Anvils are lovely. I’m wearing one now.

Earthwise ’supercharged’ Electric Mower

I like my reel mower, but it’s one heck of a lot of work. I don’t much like the smog-belching alternatives. So this week I got an Earthwise electric mower. Ace Hardware has them on sale for $180. These things are powerful and do a fantastic job of mulching. 5-minute setup time out of the box and there’s no gasoline, no oil to change, no spark plug to foul, and no filter to keep clean.

I got the corded version. I’ve used a vacuum cleaner before and, besides, I’d used a corded Black and Decker electric mower some three decades ago. They were awfully weak then. But these new electrics have 12-amps, and that’s enough power to tackle my bermuda grass with ease. I mowed the entire lawn one-handed (they’re light, too). Just whip the cord to one side and mow away from the outlet, and you’re good. They do make a cordless one for $100 more, but I’m against multiplying lithium batteries, if I don’t have to. Same reason I don’t drive a hybrid.

Anyway, I’m happy to report that the thing is quiet enough that I can have a conversation while mowing. My dog doesn’t hide from it – he plays on the lawn while I cut it. And I didn’t breathe any nasty fumes. The ACE version has the bag, but I only care about mulching. Amazon.com stocks various models (click the image), and they ship free.

Onlookers worry about the power and the quality of cut. I personally hate lawns and don’t care that much – mine was here when I bought the house. But the cut and power were just like any other mower I’ve used – except this one actually mulched better. Given that I could have paid $20 less for a gas mower and had to keep gas, oil, and plugs in it (there goes my $20), plus always be cleaning the filter, breathing the fumes, etc – and the build on those is only good (these days) for about 2years max – I think this is an excellent purchase.

Let Your People Vote

My own state requires that employers provide 2hrs off to vote, but some employers are saying they can’t comply, because they can’t afford to lose the coverage. Bullshit. If that’s the case, they can’t afford other national holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving. “I can’t afford it” is another way of saying “it’s not high among my priorities.”

On top of that, 2hrs may not be enough, given the lines in poorer neighborhoods (like the lines at the post office, they’re longer the farther you get from the cul de sac). And again, while a salaried worker or a desk worker may be able to be flexible, make up the time, or whatever, a poor hourly worker may have to leave the lines without voting just to get back to work on time, or risk getting written up or fired.

Votes, like so much else, belong to the everyone but the poor.

Personally, I don’t vote. I’m not interested in US politics, except as an external, cultural phenomenon. But depriving the poor of a vote, while the middle class, with “nicer” jobs or “Joe the plumber” self-employment can do their civic duty, is obscene. If you’re an employer, however small, and you’re thinking like Mr. “Can’t afford it”, I’ll say this to you: If you’ve got any ethical and moral sense – hell, if you’re worried about them faking the time, and you’ve got any sense – you’ll drive your people to the polls if they want to go.

It’s fundamentally contrary to the American legal and political system, and to ethics and morality, to deprive the poor of a vote in this society, and businesses that reap the rewards of existing in it should be shamed, boycotted, spat upon, and driven out, who do not provide adequate and reasonable means to ensure all their employees may vote.

If they really don’t want to vote, our system provides for that too. More power to them. But if they do, and you’re holding them back, you’ve blasphemed against the thing from which you draw your existence and your own livelihood, and may it turn on you and devour you accordingly.

The poor are one of the chief reasons, ends, and meanings of work. To relieve, uphold, and sustain the poor is the singular priviledge and responsibility of those who receive the blessings of prosperity. This is, perhaps, never more clearly played out than on election day on which, at least ostensibly, the poor are allowed to determine their destiny. Work ensures this, and work must defend and protect this.

We Did It!

My brothers need $600.

We’ve got almost half of the $1000 needed to fund their orphanage food program. If ten people give $60, they’re funded! I first got involved with direct giving because of the New Futures Orphanage. I was scouring the net, looking for a way to reach the poor directly on limited funds, when I came across the [ blog ] run by volunteers at New Futures and knew that I had to help.

Recently, the landlord sold the orphanage out from under the children, who had to be taken to a new location that doesn’t have electricity. So they need to raise money to get 12volt

battery-powered lighting installed, buy toilets, and invest in chickens, fish, and plants as sustainable sources of food, instead of living only on rice from small donations trickling in. The project has established a funding goal of $1000, and we’re almost half of the way there. I’m asking you to help. Take the cost of a night out, or a new video game, or a month of cable TV, and give directly to them for this need. Please.

When the floods come…

…be their Ark. The Oxfam Emergency Fund: Donate to help victims of the Myanmar Cyclone. Those who are least like us, who are not our people, who are most distant from our daily cares, are our strangers. Love is tested not by it’s application to those who are most like us, but to those most estranged.

What’s the difference between a week and a year?

If this week 40 people would give $25 each to New Futures Orphanage, instead of that same amount spread out over a year’s time, the children could buy chickens, fish, plants, and other sustainable food sources that would last over a long time, and wouldn’t have to eat the small increments of money coming in, while they’re waiting, so that they have no future. If 20 of us could give $50 this week, instead of spread out over a year, they could eat all year, instead of just on the weeks that someone gives.

Choose a child from the orphanage photo below, hold him or her in your mind, and picture what eating all year long might do for his mind, his health, and his opportunities. Now picture him wondering every day if there will be rice today. It’s easy to do the right thing: give directly, so 100% of the funds go to the orphanage, which is run by volunteers, take it as a tax deduction (they email you a receipt automatically), and you break even, but their lives are changed. Christ reward you according to you charity. — Daniel

I’m asking for your help.

I first got involved with direct giving to the poor because of the New Futures Orphanage. I was scouring the net, looking for just, real, and direct ways to impact the lives of the poor, with small funds. I came across a [ blog ] kept by an English teacher backpacking through Cambodia.

She’d come upon an orphanage there that needed volunteers to teach some English to the children. Teachers would come through, and some would stay a while and do this, and she was captivated and decided to stay for much longer. I was captivated too, and I looked, and they needed $900 in small gifts – that’s all they were asking for last year, and it was being given in small gifts ($25, $35, $45 at a time) through [ givemeaning.org ] a site that serves as the vehicle for giving directly to such small charities.

They finally met their fundraising goal, which was used to provide some basic things to the orphanage, like cinder block walls and a roof to enclose the toilet. I read the updates from Claire, who was giving her time there. She reported on how the children were doing, their improving skills, what this means for their future. I read what the children thought about their situation, and their hopes for their futures; each one is an individual. I knew I had to help.

The poor are Christ to us. They are the icon, the image. They are the means by which we are saved, by being filled with love. Apart from them, I know I at least cannot be saved. They are the ones of whom Christ said, “inasmuch as you have done with your riches to the least of these, who are my brothers, you have so done to me in my impoverishment”.

Recently, the landlord sold the orphanage and the children had to be taken to a facility that doesn’t have electricity. So they need to raise money to get 12volt battery-powered lighting installed and survive with the soaring food costs. The project has established a funding goal of $1000. I’m asking you to help me help them. Take the cost of a night out, or a new video game, or a month of cable TV, and give directly to them, for this need.

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Will you help? Please?

They are [ here ].

Direct Giving defined: Give in reality, not in theory. Give to people, not to ideas.

The Mines of Ghana are God’s Vineyards

Note: This letter was sent by way of participation in an Oxfam Campaign and borrows content from a sermon by Sociologist Anthony Campolo on corporate responsibility.

Golden Star Resources Ltd.
10901 W. Toller Drive, Suite 300
Littleton, Colorado
80127-6312 U.S.A.

Dear Mr. Tom Mair,

I read the reports from Oxfam (who is like the Mother Theresa of global care and relief agencies), and like a lot of people, I don’t know how to get through to you. We live in a time when people do not believe there will be an accounting for what we do, for how we live our lives. We live in a time when people believe that the lives of one set of families must be improved by exploiting another set of families – in short, we live according to the most primitive ethos with the most advanced technology. We’re savages with computers.

I am asking you to consider the following words, which no doubt you’ve heard before:

There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He improved the land, and strengthened the land, and he gave it into the trust of some men to keep in good faith as honorable stewards of the land. When it was time to harvest the good rewards from the land, he sent his servant to the tenants to collect his share. But they seized the servant, beat him, and sent him back empty-handed. So the landowner sent another servant, and they hit this one on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent another servant and that one they killed. He sent many others, and some of them they beat and some of them they killed. Finally, he sent his own son, whom he loved, thinking “They did not respect my servants, but they will respect my son”. But the tenants had a meeting and decided, “This is the heir. If we kill him, the land will be ours to do as we please.” So they took him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to these stewards when he comes? (more…)

Don’t Forget

Please do not stop praying for Kenya. The poor, involved in microbusiness there, have been decimated. It’s easy to suggest that somehow it’s their fault, but it isn’t. It’s not your fault when armed gangs burn your tents and shacks to the ground, with everything you have, and kill people all around you. Below is a photo of Eunice Cherotich, someone I care about there, and a photo of Kenya in the aftermath.

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