8 Resources for Good Living and Giving in 2012

New Year's Resolutions for conscious consumption, giving, generosity, focusing on what matters? If so, check out this quick list on a new site I'm developing - Building a Better World: The Pedagogy and Practice of Global Service-Learning. It's a site to go along with a book I'm completing with Richard Kiely, Christopher Boettcher, and Jessica Friedrichs - all good old friends.


We'd love your feedback on the site and whether you find the links useful before we go 'totally live' with it. This new site will let me blog on all things global service-learning over there - and go off about good clean livin', politics, travel, and pick-up trucks full of social justice, here.

Please take a look at the 8 Resources for Good Living and Giving in 2012 and - via comments there, personal email, or comments here, let me know how you like the site.

The US Government I Want, in One Picture

Dear Representatives: 

I still believe in a better America. I recognize our success have come through cooperation and collaboration. I feel our possibility and potential are too often drowned out in contemporary debate. So here's the America I stand for, in just a few lines, as part of my Open Letter that includes pragmatic policy examples demonstrating how this America is possible and restating why it's important (#1, #2). 

All of these desires are economically viable and numerous examples exist to back up that assertion. I'll continue to add those examples. Until then, back to work that pays the bills.

*********************************************************************************************************************

If you agree with the sentiments expressed above and in the overview, please re-tweet, re-post, or email the content to others. If you disagree or have thoughts to add, please add those thoughts below in the comments section. If you'd like to be notified of future posts, simply put your email address in the box on the right. 


Most importantly, if you agree and would like to share this content with your representatives, please do so! You can confirm your representatives' identities and contact information at Project Vote Smart. Thanks for reading. And, regular readers - I realize I'm a bit behind on responding to a couple good points or questions. I'll return to that following this project. Thanks for your patience. 

*********************************************************************************************************************

Here's the text on the flag above with links to more explanation and resources: 

I want a government that values people more than profit.

I want a government that shows vision and leadership for a better future.

I want a government that protects the environment. 

I want a government strong enough to regulate business and ensure that capitalism is society's servant rather than its master. 

I want a government that will ensure all citizens have access to good education, health care, and strong work opportunities. 

I want representatives who understand nuance, democratic debate, and the valuable role government has played in US History.

Open Letter to My Representatives, Part 2: More and More Disposable Goods from Faraway Places is not American Excellence

It's long past time that our government leaders stopped telling us that working longer and longer hours for more and more disposable goods made in far away places is going to make us happy, improve our society, or build a better country. This is recognized on the right (Crunchy Cons by Rod Dreher), on the left (Annie Leonard's Story of Stuff Book and excellent short film) and by social commentators variously claimed by the left and right (Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom, & Community). 

What does government have to do with this? Two things: moral leadership and smart policies. Rightly or wrongly, our leaders have profound power to influence our sense of appropriate national behavior, whether that's by telling us to shop more after 9/11 or grow vegetables in our backyards during WWII. Someone in our government ought to have the courage to stand up and say what those left and right commentators linked above are saying: we should be more deliberate about how we live our lives and ensure our values better reflect family, friends, and community - rather than worshiping the pursuit of profit and stuff as the ultimate endgame and organizing ideal.

We know that happiness has stronger correlation with social interaction and economic security than it does with higher incomes and longer commutes (For a wonderful portrayal of this, see Buettner's Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who've Lived the Longest). Thanks to civic efforts in Albert Lea, Minnesota, we also know that these kinds of insights can be put into action through citizen and community choices to have more sidewalk space and connect education with contemporary health concerns. That's just the tip of the iceberg in respect to how government policy can affect our everyday experience of how much social interaction we're likely to have, whether we're sure the foods we're consuming are healthy, and what we believe the appropriate balance of saving, investment, work, and family is.

It's not that government should tell us exactly what to do. It is that government makes choices about what kind of incentives we all face and what sort of behaviors the policy environment encourages. This is illustrated all too well with the massive increase in American debt beginning with banking and finance industry deregulation in the 1980s. When banks and credit card companies are permitted to charge higher and higher interest, they become more and more unscrupulous in their efforts to encourage people to spend more than they have. When the government continuously says 'buy, buy, buy,' eases interests rates, and de-regulates multiple forms of lending, it should be no surprise that consumers buy buy buy - and sometimes, wrongly, unfortunately, and with some fault of their own too, they buy buy buy well beyond their means.

Government creates environments where behaviors are more or less likely. Leaders should encourage people to become their best selves. Our government has done a rotten job of encouraging people to live within their means, consider questions of value and meaning for themselves and their communities, and continue to chart a path toward a better future.

I believe in a better America.

**********************************************************************************
If you agree with the sentiments expressed above and in the overview, please re-tweet, re-post, or email the content to others. If you disagree or have thoughts to add, please add those thoughts below in the comments section. If you'd like to be notified of future posts, simply put your email address in the box on the right. 


Most importantly, if you agree and would like to share this content with your representatives, please do so! You can confirm your representatives' identities and contact information at Project Vote Smart. Thanks for reading. And, regular readers - I realize I'm a bit behind on responding to a couple good points or questions. I'll return to that following this project. Thanks for your patience. 

Open Letter to My Representatives, Part 1: Basic Needs, Children, Human Dignity

Dear Representative:

We can’t have a democracy when citizens are so frustrated that they give up on politics. We can have a democracy when we agree to work together, when we set down civil rules of engagement, follow them fairly, and agree to work in good faith toward a common vision. I’m writing this letter to you in that good faith – because I feel that my values and the values I share with many friends and family members are often drowned out in the yelling, editorializing, and grandstanding that pass for debate today. I still believe in the possibility and potential of the United States of America, and until further notice these are the values I find most important in our democratic experiment. Yesterday, I provided an overview of the three values below, along with several additional commitments. 

I want to be clear: I’m not just complaining here – and I’m definitely not dreaming up hopelessly utopian possibilities. I’ll share what I believe, and also back up my ideas with strong data. Many of my values are expressed in today’s politics as contradictory or mutually exclusive. For example, I believe in business; I believe in capitalism; I believe in universal health care; I believe in protecting the environment. These are absolutely not contradictory positions, and I’ll explain why.  

I believe in the power of ensuring everyone has access to food, shelter, and basic health care.

These inputs - food, shelter, basic health care - affirm fundamental human dignity and provide a person with the foundation necessary to work and to work well. There are strong economic reasons for supporting each person's access to these basics. Better health care leads to better productivity on the job. The National Poverty Center estimates children raised in dire poverty cost the nation more than $500 billion in foregone earnings, poor health, and other challenges.

These children, who are born full of potential yet who in the study I link to above are connected to severe economic costs for our nation, most frequently live with parents who work hard and try to do well by them. But our current low minimum wages, high costs of health care, and high costs of childcare do not leave parents in a situation that allows them to look after their children well, which brings me to my next point.    

I believe that all parents should have time to raise their children, spend time with their loved ones, and see their children flourish as they grow into adults.

I'm not looking for miracles, what I am looking for is smart policy interventions and moral leadership. In terms of policy I'm talking about social programs that support adults' ability to find work that pays well enough to allow them to still have some time with their children. Related policy interventions, for example, include:

• affordable educational programs that allow adults to re-train as the economy shifts, so they can secure well-remunerated work; 
• once again, health care, so that adults actually can switch sectors or take entrepreneurial risks as the economy shifts; 
• increases in the minimum wage, which has consistently lost real value since the late 1970s. 

I know there are numerous critics of the minimum wage, who suggest that increases in the minimum are bad for the economy. If that were definitively true, however, we would see the worst state economies in the United States in Washington and Oregon, which have the first and second highest minimums in the US. We do not, of course, see that. Furthermore, our collective reluctance to invest seriously in worker re-training programs coupled with avoidance of good remuneration for American workers willing to develop new skills has led to a situation in which over 25 percent of US imports come from nations with higher wages and living standards than our own (See Schwartz, The Future of Democratic Equality, p117, working there primarily with data from Eamonn Fingleton, "Unsustainable," in The American Prospect).

If the plain facts of Washington and Oregon's economies don't clarify the value of the minimum wage; if getting more than 25 percent of our imports from nations with higher wages and living standards doesn't demonstrate the importance of good training programs and health care to promote mobility across sectors; and if the data on the economic value of health care and getting children out of poverty is not persuasive for you, then I default to what really drives my beliefs mentioned above: I believe in fundamental human dignity and equal moral worth.  

That is, I agree with the sentiment expressed variously by Churchill, Truman, Pope John Paul II, and many others but seemingly originating in Matthew 25:41-46. A society will be judged by how it treats its members who are facing the greatest challenges. Are we helping those who are hungry, thirsty, in need of shelter, imprisoned, or sick? Supporting every individual's right to flourish through education and meeting basic needs happens to make boatloads of economic sense, but fortunately for us - and more importantly - it is also the right thing to do.

For today, this is all I have time to share. Like many Americans, I juggle a few work and family commitments, but we all have civic commitments too - and I'm trying to meet mine. I'll continue this letter this week. For now, when you vote, when you face lobbyists, when you write laws, please remember that not all of us are in the room. And many, many, many Americans do strongly support  efforts to meet basic needs, move wages high enough to allow parents to support and spend time with children, and make other policy choices that reflect a thorough commitment to common human dignity.

Thank you for your time. In the days that come I'll expand on the value of moral leadership; why our principles of democratic government are better than China's; the value of business, capitalism, government, and nuance; environmental protections, and the valuable experiment in appreciating diversity that is the United States. Again, thanks for taking the time to hear my perspective. If you have any response, I'd love to read and/or share it.

**********************************************************************************
If you agree with the sentiments expressed above and in the overview, please re-tweet, re-post, or email the content to others. If you disagree or have thoughts to add, please add those thoughts below in the comments section. If you'd like to be notified of future posts, simply put your email address in the box on the right. Most importantly, if you agree and would like to share this content with your representatives, please do so! You can confirm your representatives' identities and contact information at Project Vote Smart. Thanks for reading. And, regular readers - I realize I'm a bit behind on responding to a couple good points or questions. I'll return to that following this project. Thanks for your patience. 

Open Letter to My Representatives: Overview, Building a Better America

Dear Representatives: 

I still believe in the possibility and potential of the United States of America. These are the values I find most important in our democratic experiment.

I believe in ensuring everyone has access to work, education, food, shelter, and basic health care.

I believe that all parents should have time to raise their children, spend time with their loved ones, and see their children flourish as they grow into adults.

I believe in fundamental human dignity and equal moral worth. 

I believe in our principles of government – because in principle each individual is to have a voice.

I believe our leaders ought to provide vision and moral leadership. 

I believe in business and capitalism - and I believe they should be leveraged to serve society's broader interests.

I believe in protecting the environment. 

I believe in the importance, legitimacy, and profound value in a professionalized armed forces – and I believe we should use them far less frequently.

I believe in acceptance, diversity, learning from others, and humility.

I believe in government.

I believe in progressive taxation. The more I play, the more I pay.

I believe we sink or swim together.

I believe in nuance.

I believe you can do better. I believe we can all do better.

This list results from me sitting down Sunday morning to accomplish something I've wanted to do for years: write a standing letter to my government representatives, so that they know the values that matter to me (and so many of my friends and neighbors) - values that are often lost in the yelling and diatribes that pass for debate in the United States. Six hours later, I found myself still writing.

One of the challenges with our current political standstill seems to be that we want everything delivered in tidy, concise, neat packages. Yet our country, our communities, and the globalized world we live in are complex, complicated, and continuously evolving places. We have values that are sometimes contradictory, even if they are ultimately compatible. It takes time to explain and to understand, but we don't typically allow for that.

I have stated the values I want to share, but I'm also going to embrace this complexity - and deliver the letter in phases. I'll expand on each of these values commitments in the days that follow (#1, #2, #3), and use hard data and clear examples to demonstrate how these commitments are not Utopian thinking, but clearly pragmatic and possible. Thanks for reading and please let me know if there are things you'd like to add! We'll discuss it. This IS going to my representatives!

**********************************************************************************
If you agree with the sentiments expressed above, please re-tweet, re-post, or email the content to others. If you disagree or have thoughts to add, please add those thoughts below in the comments section. If you'd like to be notified of future posts, simply put your email address in the box on the right. Most importantly, if you agree and would like to share this content with your representatives, please do so!

You can confirm your representatives' identities and contact information at Project Vote Smart. Thanks for reading. And, regular readers - I realize I'm a bit behind on responding to a couple good points or questions. I'll return to that following this project. Thanks for your patience.

Wicked Good Surf and The Triumph of Peacemakers: El Salvador

Excellent roads leading to incredible beach towns with unbeatable waves: that’s today's El Salvador. We stayed in Playa Tunco, where the pounding Pacific lulled us to sleep every night, surfers woke early to catch waves before siesta-ing much of the day, and culinary offerings ran an impressive gamut from street tortillas and tamales to shrimp or lobster in well-developed curry coconut sauces.

We got here because of a cheap flight deal on Travelzoo, promising to put us within forty minutes of some of the world’s best waves. I Googled a bit, I bought a Frommer's Nicaragua and El Salvador (Frommer's Complete Guides), and I checked in with the State Department and CDC about safety issues. Despite the various assurances of a beautiful country with substantial safety for tourists, the dominant El Salvador in our minds was still the El Salvador of the assassinated Archbishop Oscar Romero, the raped and murdered Maryknoll nuns, and a dreadful civil war settled rather recently through the 1992 Peace Accords.

We de-planed near 9pm and were literally whisked through customs. We walked into the humid night and saw our driver waiting with an “Eric Hartman” sign. I’d made arrangements with a beach hostel I found online – they ensured a $40 taxi trip from the airport to our first hostel that night in Playa Tunco, the Qi-X Surfcamp. On the drive to Qi-X we began to realize how distant our historic El Salvador was from our contemporary experience: we drove smoothly over perfectly maintained roads. The street signs were frequently posted and easy to understand, the traffic was amicable near the airport, and as soon as we left the city the night was completely calm.

Qi-X, unfortunately, was unimpressive. The room was only $25, but it was extremely small and the hostel was not on the beach. The next day we walked down the coast, checked out some additional hotels and hostels, had an excellent breakfast on a rocky point overlooking the Pacific, and found our home for the week at the lovely $35 a night Hotel Tortuga, where we had ample space, a private bathroom, and, most importantly, a second-story window opening immediately to the beach and Pacific Ocean beneath us. 

Suddenly, only a day out from the frenetic pace of Philadelphia and Thanksgiving rushes in the states, our only concerns were where to eat each day and how long we would read in between dips in the ocean or pool. Our food was consistently good. We settled into a pattern of spacing grilled meats with pupusas, tortillas, and ceviches. Food prices were lower than in the states, but reflected our location to become pricier than local food: ceviche dishes would go for $5 - $8 and my generous (and scrumptious) lunch of a 6 oz. steak, a sausage, beans and rice, a tomato salad, an avocado slice, and a potato, was $6.

And there we stayed. We relaxed. I took a surfing lesson, standing up a couple times. Six-foot waves were commonplace. Shannon took some photos (promising to share a few here once we're home). And we pondered the great distance between the El Salvador of today and the country of rights abuses and Reagan-era CIA proxy-wars that I sometimes use as a (bad) example in my human rights classes. How that distance was closed became the subject of our inquiry as we journeyed to San Salvador and visited the Centro Oscar Romero, traveled to the mountain town of Suchito and hit other sites. And today's El Salvador will be the subject of my next blog post. For now, an excerpt from Monsignor Romero's homilies:

“Peace is not the absence of war. Peace is not an equilibrium of two opposing forces in a struggle. Peace above all is not reached by repressing until death those who are not allowed to speak… True peace is based on justice and equality.” (August 14th, 1977)

Happy Thanksgiving, America!

Conservative, liberal, occupier, tea partier – it’s time to take a break and be thankful. I wrote the editorial below two years ago from Bolivia, before our politics reached their current impasse. I believe the main thesis still holds. That is, despite the historical inaccuracies and current political debates, Thanksgiving’s function of getting us to pause and consider the things for which we should be thankful – is extremely important. I’m thankful for my family, my friends, my health, and the rights that came along with the place I was born. Here’s the original Post-Gazette editorial, reprinted in its entirety. 

If you agree with the sentiments below, please forward and re-post. If you have additional sentiments you'd like to add, please do so in the comments section below. Thanks for reading and commenting.   

American blessings: Thank you for democracy, diversity, safe water and pancakes

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia -- A friend from Singapore once told me that if he ever got the chance to visit the United States he wanted to have an American breakfast at a truck stop at 4 a.m. He managed to gather into one wish unique aspects of American life -- waffles for breakfast, work around the clock (where else are there so many 24-hour truck stops and diners?) and wide-open spaces.
As I celebrate Thanksgiving this year with a group of American students and their host families in Bolivia, I'm taking a moment to consider what we all should be thankful for in the United States of America.

Water

The vast majority of Americans can drink tap water in their homes. This is a daily miracle. Nearly one billion people around the world (that's more than three times the U.S. population) do not have access to safe water. And most people who do have safe water do not have it flowing into their homes.

Public education

The effort to provide high-quality public education is nearly as old as the country, although not everyone has benefited equally from a system that remains subject to continuous debate. And it should provoke argument -- education can make or break a country. Still, the message is clear: Countries that invest in their people flourish economically and are more likely to support democracy and respect individual freedoms.

Work ethic

People work hard just about everywhere. My first impression of Africa was that everyone was moving crops, hauling water, selling, buying or otherwise exerting themselves. But our culture values work to the point that we've produced an entire genre of self-help literature aimed at curing workaholism. Hard work yields dividends; see "Contemporary China."

Democracy

Our system of government protects individual rights, checks government power and encourages fair play. James Madison addressed the issue in "The Federalist Papers": "If men were angels, no government would be necessary ..." We've enabled human freedoms to the fullest extent possible while acknowledging human limitations. I see too much corruption in my work around the world. It's helpful to remember that good behavior is built with institutional effort over time. We need reminders of this from time to time, too, as money does infect our politics and abuses regularly crop up in the private sector. See "Financial Crisis."

Open spaces

Stop reading. Go west. Breathe in Dwight D. Eisenhower's unique achievement -- the American interstate system. Zip past fields of sunflowers in Kansas. Grab a six-pack and hang out with rural Nebraska kids as they float up and down on the backs of oil pumpjacks, drinking and talking about eight-man-football as the sun drops below the plains. Then, somewhere in the soaring Rockies, throw a tent and sleeping bags into the back of a pickup and drive a full day over dirt roads deep into one of our national forests to camp.

Diversity

America has created an imperfect but highly accomplished multicultural democracy to an extent unmatched elsewhere and unparalleled in history. This is a beautiful thing. Strong societies are adept at incorporating and adapting ideas from other cultures. America becomes more diverse and therefore more dynamic every single day.

Volunteer military

The United States military is the strongest ever known. One reason is that our service men and women enlist voluntarily. War is horrible, profoundly complicated and, as it should be, often controversial. But never should we fail to honor the men and women who volunteer to keep us safe and serve at the direction of our elected officials.

Pancakes, etc.

For a country so rich in history, we're poor in unique culinary traditions. But sweet, syrup-topped, simple and affordable pancakes and waffles -- these are ours. Burgers made with ground beef, which for some inexplicable reason are hard to recreate elsewhere, are American magic. And, of course, in multicultural America one can find fine foods and culinary traditions from almost any corner of the world, anytime.

Philanthropy

The governments of other developed countries spend a greater portion of their budgets on social welfare at home and abroad. But Americans give from their own pockets in a way that is unmatched elsewhere. Individual involvement has led to the creation of thousands of small and mid-size nonprofit organizations like the one I direct. While smallish organizations cannot address all issues for everyone, they can be responsive to the real lives and concerns of the people they serve.

Ideals

American ideals are tied up with the notion that we always can do better. We continue to build a better society. We work to redress the excesses of past generations. Now, for instance, we seek to make our society more environmentally sustainable. We continue to work toward expanding individual human freedoms in our own country and around the world.

For these things and much more, we Americans should be profoundly thankful. Throughout history, few peoples have had the opportunity to experience long lives. Few peoples have had the opportunity to debate the pros and cons of their would-be leaders in advance of free and fair elections. Few peoples have been able to hop on a motorcycle and cruise across a continent on well-manicured roads, stopping at truck stops at any hour of the day or night to find good food and fast service.

I am thankful to be an American in the world today. We have a lot of problems. We have a lot of disagreements. We create injustices. We mess up and fail.

But on Thanksgiving Day, pause. Be thankful for the broad contours of this American reality. Tomorrow we can get back to work.

Social Justice Song Treasure Trove - Vote for Your Favorite & Contribute!

Folk, rock, rap, hip-hop: in common we have compelling artists with beautiful messages. As we move closer to America's Thanksgiving Holiday, everybody deserves a moment for great music and visions of a better tomorrow. That's what we have below (along with some rage, some specific complaints, and some vague concerns). Take a moment to 

1. listen, 
2. vote (below) for your favorite social justice song, and 
3. add song suggestions in the comments section (I'll then post your suggestions). 

You can vote for as many or as few of these songs as you like. Please share, forward, post, and tweet to get far-flung-friends involved in this contest, conversation, and vote!

Stand by Me, by Playing for Change

Peace Train, by Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam)

 Waiting for the Great Leap Forward, by Billy Bragg

Fight the Power, by Public Enemy

This Land is Your Land (Springsteen's version)

AND Born in the USA by The Boss, again Mr. Springsteen

I hear them all by Old Crow Medicine Show

I wish I knew how (it would feel to be free) by Nina Simone

 I wish I knew how (it would feel to be free) by The Lighthouse Family

One by U2 with Mary J. Blige 

One by Johnny Cash

The General, by Dispatch

Kurt Vile, Puppet to the Man

Dylan's Hard Rain

If you Miss Me from the Back of the Bus, by SNCC Freedom Singer Reunion

If I had a Hammer, by Peter, Paul, and Mary 

Judy Collins & Pete Seeger, Turn, Turn, Turn

Sam Cooke, A Change is Gonna Come

Billie Holiday, Strange Fruit

Joe Hill, by Joan Baez

Where is the Love? by The Black Eyed Peas

Fast Car by Tracy Chapman

Redemption Song by Bob Marley

BB King Why I Sing the Blues

Array of Incredible Artists doing We Shall Overcome at Pete Seeger's 90th Birthday Party

Pete Seeger (90+) and several others do We Shall Overcome at Occupy Wall Street

American Ruse, by The MC5

White Riot, by The Clash

What's So Funny about Peace, Love, and Understanding, by Nick Lowe

What's So Funny about Peace, Love, and Understanding, by Elvis Costello

What's So Funny about Peace, Love, and Understanding, by Springsteen and Friends

I Asked When, by Brett Dennen

Ain't No Reason, Brett Dennen

F**k Da Police, by NWA

They Schools, by Dead Prez

Man in Black, by Johnny Cash

Get Involved, by Freddie McGregor

Big Man, by Antibalas

I'll Take You There, by The Staple Singers

Imagine, John Lennon

Freedom Day, by Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln

Pride in the Name of Love, U2

The Decline, by NOFX

Uprising, by Muse

Crime to be Broke in America, by Spearhead

And songs related to social justice that I just can't stand: 

• John Mayer's Waiting on the World to Change (and an explanation as to why that's the case). 

Please add additional suggestions here. I'll post them and add them to the list below (for votes) as well. Please broaden the conversation by re-posting, re-tweeting, or forwarding. You deserve a break for great music! 

International Arm Chair Travel - Living the Dream Vicariously

Across the Americas, around the world, continuous motion, living, and learning through travel. Ongoing movement is tantalizing - and it can be informative and liberating. Pico Iyer captures it beautifully in Why We Travel:


So travel, at heart, is just a quick way to keeping our minds mobile and awake. As Santayana, the heir to Emerson and Thoreau with whom I began, wrote, “There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar; it keeps the mind nimble; it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor.” Romantic poets inaugurated an era of travel because they were the great apostles of open eyes. Buddhist monks are often vagabonds, in part because they believe in wakefulness. And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed.  


I've had the good fortune to meet with and learn from many, many continuous travelers over the past decade. Some of these individuals keep great websites, tweet regularly, and stay up to date on their storytelling via photos and video. I'm going to share a few favorites here, and would love to hear about others engaged in ceaseless international travel, which so many people do rightfully feel is part of building peace by pieces (when done conscientiously and considerately).

I have to begin with two wonderful individuals I bumped into first in Cochabamba, Bolivia and later in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (randomly, and yes, that's amazing). They are Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott, a traveling couple who continue to post at UncorneredMarket.com. They proclaim themselves driven by curiosity and guided by respect - and they're currently in Iran!

Dan and Audrey have developed substantial engaging content in their last 1800 days on the road. Check them out. 

Additionally, you likely have seen this video (Where the Hell is Matt?) below many times already, but it must be mentioned in this blog post. And YouTube only records 40 million+ views of it, so many more billions have yet to see it. Take a quick, inspiring look: 

And in this adventurous spirit, a few guys from Australia made three very short and compelling (1 minute each) films. Move: 

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Learn:

LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

And Eat:

EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Please let me know if you have any favorites of this kind (please share!), please remember Amizade is a great way to engage in ethical short-term international volunteering and service, and please - through videos, books,  blogs, or going yourself - keep finding ways to live your dreams!

Everyday (Global) Justice, Served up with Tantalizing Travel – and Motorcycles

How do we work for global justice every day, from our lives at home – where we deal with bills and friends and life's daily distractions? I’ve pulled together a few resources here that help with global giving, connect us international armchair travelers with engaging inspiration, and remind me that my favorite forms of transportation have two wheels.

Justice from Home:

We have clear evidence that we can make a huge difference from home. And fortunately there are numerous resources available for those who insist – as so many of us do – that each human life, everywhere around the world, is equally valuable.

Here are just a few among many important resources. First, there’s Peter Singer’s The Life You Can Save book, website, and pledge.  It’s pretty simple: people are dying unnecessarily early, suffering through preventable diseases, and frequently deprived of educational tools and opportunities. We know how to change this. We know what has worked. We have records of success. We do not have enough funding.

Small, regular donations from those of us (regular people) who have disposable income will continue to change lives and ensure human freedoms. It’s astonishing. The value, each month, of two beers, two Starbucks coffees, or one big burrito from a fast food joint – can literally save not just a life, but lives. (For a longer discussion of how things work on the ground in developing countries, see my post on Millennium Development Goals from Tanzania). Here’s the short film from Singer. It's totally worth the three minutes. 

Second, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn wrote one of the most important books I’ve ever read, Half the Sky. It chronicles women’s experiences, challenges, and successes around the world. The individual narratives are powerful – and the data point that 100 million women are missing around the world (due to explicitly violent and more subtle discrimination against girls) is painfully valid and overwhelming (this data comes from world-renowned economist Amartya Sen). Everyone should read their book – and then take actions that follow from it. Kristof and WuDunn assembled numerous links to important, effective organizations advancing women’s rights around the world. Women and girls rights, without doubt, constitute one of the most important issues of our time. Give to any one of those organizations and know that you are making an important difference. Here's the book in one minute and eleven seconds. It's a beautiful clip.
    

Third, John Prendergast and company are taking “never again” as seriously as possible with their effort to completely stop genocide and crimes against humanity through the Enough Project. What’s amazing about The Enough Project is they always tie their campaigns to actions we can take. What’s more, they have clearly demonstrated how raising our voices and making deliberate ethical purchases have helped stop murderous regimes in the past. Take three minutes to watch this video, then follow their suggestions for letting companies know that we want conflict-free electronics.   

Fourth, and related to the Enough Project’s efforts, we can practice systematic conscious consumption. Corporations give us many nice things: as consumers, as employees, and as beneficiaries of positive unintended effects of product developments. But some corporations behave better than others. And all corporations respond to significant consumer pressure (It happened with slave-grown sugar and prohibition; it happened with bus boycotts during the civil rights movement; and it happened with diamond boycotts as part of ending apartheid in South Africa). Resources for advancing conscious consumption include:

• The British organization Ethical Consumer, which catalogues the impacts of your purchases across a wide variety of products. 
• Tree Hugger is also a great site, particularly in respect to the environment. 
• And the movie and movement Call and Response has developed a systematic accounting of each of our (it hurts to write it) "slavery footprints," which is an estimate of the extent to which slave labor is involved in the production of your products. Their estimate is based on data from the US Department of State, Freedom House, Transparency International, and other reliable organizations. The Call and Response trailer provides some quick data on and context for the current, real global problem of slave labor (that exists in the US in large numbers too):  

Fifth, we can be part of or support ethical international connections. This is a favorite of mine, and I think it’s actualized best through an organization where I sit on the Board of Directors, Amizade Global Service-Learning. Amizade connects community-driven development projects with volunteers from around the world. There are a few things that make Amizade stand out:

1. It is deeply committed to community-driven principles, and has been since its inception in Brazil in 1994. 
2. In a field increasingly distorted by private sector travel groups interested in making a quick buck off of something they call service-learning, Amizade is a nonprofit organization with clear ethical commitments, and 
3. Amizade has given substantial time and effort to developing programming that encourages all of its volunteers, students, participants, and community members to think about and act on what it means to be a global citizen long past the end of a brief volunteer experience. 

You can support Amizade by volunteering with them, organizing a group volunteer experience, or by giving this week, when every gift is matched at a 100% match rate (until Nov. 7, 2011)! Also, if you commit to giving $10 or more per month, there's an additional, one-time match of $50! Please consider giving to simultaneously advance community-driven development (this means water systems in Tanzania, classrooms in Bolivia, and much more) AND develop peace by pieces, by connecting people across cultures.

Here are two inspirational minutes on Amizade below (great clip!). But don't let that distract you. You've read this far. Take action. Give to one (at least one) of these important initiatives today. You get the most bang for your buck with Amizade this week (because of the match through the link above), but - more importantly - give somewhere. We're building a better world.

Where, you may ask, is the inspirational international arm chair travel and mention of motorcycles? It turns out this will be  a series. Those posts will come soon.

Please share your additional resources by responding below or sending them my way otherwise. And if you agree that supporting these efforts is important, please re-post, re-tweet, or otherwise share! Thanks for reading!