3 Cheers For “Draconian Justice”

So, this article woke me from my cyber nap:  Saudi court upholds child rapist crucifixion ruling. WARNING: Reading about this guy’s crimes is enough to wake anybody from any kind of sleep.

Honestly, as a father of 4, I can’t help but think hip hip hooray for this instance of Saudi justice.  That’s a brutal confession, I know.  But if someone did that to my 3yo, a post de-cap crucifixion would be a merciful out, as far as I’m concerned.

Take Courage

Sigh.

Olivia Takes a Look at Bolivia

A recent exploration of the Bloggernacle* brought me to a site called LDS Cooperative, and one of the posts there caught my eye: “Can you be a Mormon and Wealthy?” by Kate Kelly. 

The principles recounted in this essay truly inspired me, and after reading it several times, I resolved to giving more and giving more often.  I would encourage everyone to give it a read and think about ways to help those in need.  (Hey that rhymes.  Sweet.)

Continuing my exploration, I also found at LDS Cooperative a link to Kiva.org, an excellent non-profit, person-to-person microcredit organization.  With my desire to help others rekindled, I signed up (for free of course) and began looking over all of the profiles of people who are looking for a leg up.  I found the experience both humbling and invigorating.

Kiva is a very bare-bones website.  There’s no-over-the-top marketing compelling people to lend, Sally Struthers doesn’t jump out of the screen and cry all over you until you pull your wallet out.  It’s really just a basic interface that lets you make loans from your Paypal account to people all over the world who are trying to build up their businesses – farmers, tailors, merchants, construction workers, mechanics, etc. – each with a very basic profile of their situation and needs.  There’s no return on investment at Kiva, and there’s no guarantee of repayment either (although repayment rates are generally above 99%).  But read Kate’s essay and you will understand that ROI should not be the goal, and that’s fine by me.

So, for family night last week, we sat down with the kids and looked over a huge map of the world.  We talked about living conditions in various places and some of the basic reasons why some countries are very poor.  We then dialed up Kiva and looked over some of the profiles from South America, Africa, East Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe, etc..  And when the kids made their choices we marked on the map the countries where our loans were going.  Olivia chose a tailor in Bolivia who needed money to buy a new sewing machine to keep her business running and Audrey chose some ladies in Uganda who want to open a clothing store. 

The lesson was very simple: we should always be looking for opportunities to help others, be they across the world or right next door.  This was a very good experience for all of us and I am looking forward to continuing it for years to come. 

jph3

* FYI – ‘Bloggernacle’ is a term that refers to the many LDS-themed bloggs out there.  But beware, some are good, some are not.

Guess the Mystery Meat: Mr. Ed Would Not Approve

My recent business trip to Japan included one mysterious meal after another.  I, of course, took many pictures of each dish, mainly for insurance purposes.

So, how about this: An awesome* prize goes to the commenter who guesses the type of meat featured in this picture.  Hint: Each piece is raw, and it all came from the same animal.

* = Just to clarify, ’awesome’ in this post actually means ‘totally lame’. 

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Congratulations to Carol and Emily for both correctly guessing the Mystery Meat.  Yes, it’s true: Horse is the correct answer.  

This particular group dinner consisted of no fewer than 10 courses of horse (there’s a play on words in there somewhere) prepared in various ways: Raw (as seen in the picture, well, er, um both pictures, I guess), boiled, BBQed, over rice, etc.  The raw stuff was a bit challenging, particularly the neck fat – eeek.  But, it was an interesting experience.

Carol & Emily, for your prize, I am attaching this fantastic picture of Mr. Ed Surfing.  Sweet!

Musings of a Modern-day Mormon . . . Moderate??

I’m all about online quizzes these days for some reason.  Last time it was religion, this time politics, next time . . . who knows.  Anyway, for anyone remotely interested in politics, please visit ThePoliticalCompass.org and have a go at their online test.  Of all the rate-yourself-on-the-political-spectrum quizzes out there, this one gave me pause for a couple of reasons:

1.  This quiz rates political views on a two-dimensional* scale, as opposed to the standard left/right only spectrum.  Specifically, the X-Axis represents your economic** position, and the Y-Axis represents your social** position.  It then maps the results on the X/Y grid and allows you to compare your location to (their interpretation of) various world leaders, politicians, economists, etc.

2.  As you can see below, the results place me almost dead on center of both spectrums.  Wh-wh-what?!?!?  (Aren’t all Mormons supposed to be right-wing whackos?)  Sheesh, talk about an identity crisis.

 

Anyway, my official coordinates are (note the decimal places): Economic Left/Right: 0.75 and Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.51.  In other words, I am just barely a fraction to the right of center, and even less of a fraction above center . . . which is shocking to this card-carrying Republican, to say the least. 

For the record, I know the common responses to this silly little exercise are probably the correct responses (who cares about labeling, it’s the issues that matter, etc).  But suppose for a second this is an accurate and meaningful way to compare some elements of human ideology.  My questions, then, would be: Is it ok to use the M-Word when describing oneself??  Can I grant myself permission to be a M-m-m-moderate?!?!?  Or, should I stick to my conservative guns (pun intended) come heck or high-water?  And more importantly, is it possible to be truly informed and passionate about a social or economic issue whist maintaining a position in the center?

It’s that last question that has me really scratching my bald head.  Is it possible to be passionate and moderate at the same time?  Or does information and/or passion tend to move one toward the outskirts of the spectra over time?

To be honest, I’m not sure.  I’m going to noodle on this for a while, and I’d appreciate your thoughts . . .

Cheers,
jph3

*  FYI – The authors of this website are clearly not physicists, as they describe the “categories of ‘right’ and ‘left’” as a one- (not two-) dimensional scale.  But in their terms, a ‘Dimension’ refers to a political spectrum, not a plane of time and space.  So, to them, a grid with an X and Y axis is two- (not three-) dimensional. 

** Be sure to read the analysis and other explanatory info on the site to understand their definitions.  The FAQs are helpful as well.