Speaking of China
How about starting a re-education program about China? See this from Slate about two seventy year old women scheduled to go to work camps for requesting a protest permit too many times.
Boycotting the Olympics
Why the world has chosen to reward China with the international attention of the Olympics is one of the outrages of the year. This is the first time an authoritarian government has hosted the games. While the Chinese government is guilty of systematic human rights violations including religious oppression, mandatory abortions, economic rape of its most vulnerable citizen in the countryside, and gross disregard for the environment the international media is lavishing upbeat attention. Transnational corporations are seeing the Olympics as another opportunity to sell their products via glitzy ads while ignoring mass silencing of free speech. As this NPR report indicates global companies like Nike and Coca-Cola see human rights as the problem of governments not marketers. Even NBC News is seeing its journalism compromised by a too close relationship with the Olympic committee. Hear this report from NPR. With a heavy investment in the games, NBC is apparently reluctant to embarrass the Chinese. If those who have freedom of speech sell it for profit, who will be left to speak out? I think I will leave the television off.
The importance of girls
My friend Jennifer Goodson alerted me to this site. I think it’s a powerful illustration of the interdependence of all people and why 600 million girls matter.
Dangerous motherhood
Read this story in The New York Times by medical missionary Sue Makin. This is one story, among many, that highlights the sad fact that childbirth is still a dangerous process for many women in the world.
It’s about time!
I haven’t been blogging lately because frankly the media noise has been so loud that it’s hard to figure out what’s important and what’s just noise. Well, I think this is important. After years in office this is the strongest statement by US Secretary of State Rice regarding violence against women worldwide. Here is another article about how rape is used as a weapon of war. Maybe with only few months left Rice feels like she can afford to speak up in a significant way.
Multiplying bread
I’m in shock over the price of food. This week I paid over $7 for a gallon of organic milk. The increase in food prices is a global crisis, which I am afraid will outlast the mortgage crisis. See this article about a recent UN report. High food prices aren’t due to our inability to produce enough food. It’s because good land is being turned from growing wheat, barley, and hay to corn for the production of innocent sounding biofuel. We are burning our land in our cars! Global markets are addicted to fuel and the price is more hunger.This strikes me as a problem of food justice, and I consider it immoral to use good productive land for fuel.
When I was a child, my parents would pray before they went to the grocery store so God would stretch their food dollar to last all week. I was never hungry. Yet, I was left with an awareness when I go to the grocery store that not everybody can afford that $12 roast. Higher food prices mean that for the first time many of us will take the bread multiplication miracles of Jesus seriously. Where might we see the need for such a miracle and what is our part in it?
Bikini or hijab
The Turkish Parliament has lifted the ban on the headscarf on university campuses, but this has not resolved the issue for them or for us. See the buzz on Broadsheet. The hijab raises the question of where does social freedom end and oppression begin? The contrast between Western and devoted Muslim women could not be more stark. It’s become more common in American cities to see women wearing the hijab. Sometimes it’s more than a scarf. It can include long dresses, sleeves, and a rather plain appearance. My American feminist inspired sensibilities cringe a little by the sight of a woman feeling compelled by either religion, or culture to take on the hijab. While many of these women will assure me that this is a free choice, I find it difficult to believe.
On the other hand, recently I was at an upscale mall when a department store decided that parading bikini clad young women offering the latest in designer fragrances would be a good marketing move. I was offended. What makes retailers think that a middle aged woman would be inspired to spend money by the sight of bikini clad young bodies? If I had talked to the models they would assure me that they too had made a choice in how their bodies would be seen. In a liberal society, freedom of expression and religion demand that I accept both the hijab and the bikini as a legitimate choice.
What is going on? In both cases the female body carries a great deal of social meaning. We don’t have an equivalent issue regarding male bodies. Men feel neither compelled to cover, or display their bodies in public. Both cultural situations see female sexuality as potentially disruptive. One culture chooses to bring that disruption under control, whether it’s the woman’s, or the community’s choice, is debatable. The other chooses to tell women that they can control the meaning of their bodies for their own benefit. Neither tell the whole story that no individual can escape the larger social meanings in which they live. The question remains. What constitutes freedom when women’s bodies are continually viewed as disruptive? Regardless of whether we attribute the situation to the society, or the individual, the answer will fall short short if one is not willing to consider a more elemental spiritual source.
The girl gap
Here is a Time magazine story about girls in Afghanistan. Only 30% of eligible girls are enrolled in school. This is due to social and economic factors. Why does this matter?
“The stakes for Afghan society are high. Every social and economic index shows that countries with a higher percentage of women with a high school education also have better overall health, a more functional democracy and increased economic performance. “
The education of girls matter because any hope for global peace needs them to be educated. Educated women train their children and create a more educated society with all its resultant benefits. Afghanistan will not emerge from its poverty and political precarious position unless women can fully participate. Education makes that possible.
Don’t have a cow; give a cow
I have been thinking about how to best comment on the wild spending spree our society goes into at this time of year. I could point out the cultural belief that we can shop our way to happiness, the loss of meaning in the Christmas season, or how a green consumer is an oxymoron. In some way all these observations sound too familiar. Today, I got my Heifer International shopping catalog. Instead of selling me something to impress a friend, it challenges me to give a cow to a woman, a child, or a displaced man. It’s a simple idea. Provide people in underdeveloped parts of the world the chance to make a living and feed their families through a gift of livestock. What really brought it over the top for me was this:
“In most of the developing world, it is women who have the primary responsibility for feeding their families. The task of harvesting and preparing food, finding water, cooking and even tending to family farms are primarily the obligations of women…in fact, it is estimated that in Africa, women are responsible for 80-90 percent of the total food production. Yet women own just one percent of the world’s land.”
Additionally, I’m a believer in localism. That’s the idea that what works best is what is closest to the people. For us living off big-box stores, livestock is the furtherest thing from our minds. To many people in the world a cow, a sheep, or even a hive of bees can mean the difference between starvation or abundance. Think about giving the gift of God’s abundance. It’s a great way to support micro-enterprise and acknowledge God’s greatest gift.
Eating to change the world
Here is an interview at Salon.com with Alice Waters, food advocate and chef. Waters advocates organic, locally grown, slow food as a way to better health, earth care, and stronger communities. In my early years, my mother would take me to the farmer’s market in Buenos Aires. She went often, and would take hours every day to cook meals completely from scratch. This was the slowest food possible for an urban dweller. While I agree with Waters that how we eat matters more than just for maintaining health, I also believe that the structures of our cities discourage eating the way she suggest. Never mind how we work. My farmer’s market in Dallas is ten miles away, requiring a car trip plus difficult parking. Besides I don’t know how local these vegetable stands are. Some of the “farmers” looked like they have never pulled a weed.
In order to eat locally, we need multiple farmer’s markets in neighborhoods. If not, they function more like tourist spots. The most promising trend is grocery stores who have begun carrying locally grown seasonal items. That’s the only way large number of people will change the way they eat. Otherwise, locally grown fresh food remains the luxury of the urban elite.