So it looks like I will be founding a club at BU next year! With Nourish International, a student organization that works with hunger and international poverty and development. The idea of the organization is that each school year, students from each chapter can hold events on their campus to raise hunger awareness and raise money towards travelling and completing a real development project in a poor area during the summer. They've done some great things in the past, including a library and greenhouse in Guatemala, chicken coops in Tanzania, and other sustainable development projects in Central/South America, Africa, and South Asia, all working with regional organizations and student members to make a lasting impact. With 15 chapters being added next year and a plan to add up to 30 more soon, it's a dynamic organization and should be a great club.
So, check out their website for more information, here: http://www.nourishinternational.org
If you want to be involved in the club, let me know! I'm still looking for anyone interested in being an officer, and am going to need members to help with lunches, poker tournaments, and other cool and innovative fund raising around BU. Also real work with development and travel opportunities for a good cause and rewarding experience? FYB. fuck yeah, boss.
Stay tuned for updates as the group progresses.
-Eddie
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Personality
Personality- “the dynamic character that constitutes and animates the individual person and makes his/her experience of life unique”
American College Dictionary
Professor Hawkins wrote this on the board today, and it's kept me thinking:
We are dynamic, animated, and unique individuals.
Each of us experience life in our own ways, from the material world to all possibility and the subtle nuance that brings it meaning.
Personality is a reflection of who we are and how we interact with our world. So why not keep an upbeat spin on things? Shape and develop your personality and world outlook as you want to be-- self-confidence is reaffirming and contagious.
"No amount of outside support can substitute for a quiet but determined passion for living life, every moment of it, as if it really mattered, knowing how easy it is to miss large swaths of it to unconsciousness and automaticity and to our deep conditioning. Practice mindfulness as if your life depended on it-- it does." Arriving at Your Own Door, 61.
-Eddie
American College Dictionary
Professor Hawkins wrote this on the board today, and it's kept me thinking:
We are dynamic, animated, and unique individuals.
Each of us experience life in our own ways, from the material world to all possibility and the subtle nuance that brings it meaning.
Personality is a reflection of who we are and how we interact with our world. So why not keep an upbeat spin on things? Shape and develop your personality and world outlook as you want to be-- self-confidence is reaffirming and contagious.
"No amount of outside support can substitute for a quiet but determined passion for living life, every moment of it, as if it really mattered, knowing how easy it is to miss large swaths of it to unconsciousness and automaticity and to our deep conditioning. Practice mindfulness as if your life depended on it-- it does." Arriving at Your Own Door, 61.
-Eddie
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Food and Famine
It's not often that food is mentioned in the news. The production of food is something we as Americans obviously don't think too hard on, which may be how we have ended up marginalizing farming to the poor and uneducated, outsourcing and mechanizing its production whenever possible. As our poor quality food kills millions by heart disease and obesity, we usually just shove it down.
But recently, the market is in turmoil. A dramatic fall in the world supply of grain (corn, wheat, soy), an increase in the cost of fuels required to produce them, and increasing demands from China and other rapidly developing countries means that price has skyrocketed for basic crops, meat and cooking oils. While we see this in the higher price of goldfish crackers (now over $2 a bag...), guess who loses again. “The urban poor, rural landless, and small and marginal farmers stand to lose the most from the upset.” (NYT 1/19/08) While in America an average family only spends 1/10 of its budget on food, in poor countries this fraction can be more than half. While American farmers are doing quite well from the change, rural small farmers can no longer afford the fertilizer or seeds to plant more, and can't get good credit to cover their needs.
When the destitute poor are starving, they riot. What started out as an American biofuel policy blunder has shown all of the current shortcomings of the system. With the heavily distorted trade we've made with tariffs, subsidies, and power imbalances since the Green Revolution, our system is falling apart. Now, food has been mentioned on the front page of the New York Times 4 days in a row, claims the front page of this week's Economist, and is the cause of political upheaval in almost 33 countries... The issue is bringing light to the facts: factory farming is not sustainable, actively destructive to the soil and water, dependent on water and cheap fossil fuel inputs, and requires large technology investments to be viable.
And it's hard to believe there's an alternative system coming that will solve it all...
Issue overview:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/19/business/worldbusiness/19palmoil.html?_r=2&emc=eta1&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11049284&errm=bf&bredirected=1
And the alternative:
http://www.organic-center.org/science.comment.php
Keep your eyes out for developments.
-Eddie
But recently, the market is in turmoil. A dramatic fall in the world supply of grain (corn, wheat, soy), an increase in the cost of fuels required to produce them, and increasing demands from China and other rapidly developing countries means that price has skyrocketed for basic crops, meat and cooking oils. While we see this in the higher price of goldfish crackers (now over $2 a bag...), guess who loses again. “The urban poor, rural landless, and small and marginal farmers stand to lose the most from the upset.” (NYT 1/19/08) While in America an average family only spends 1/10 of its budget on food, in poor countries this fraction can be more than half. While American farmers are doing quite well from the change, rural small farmers can no longer afford the fertilizer or seeds to plant more, and can't get good credit to cover their needs.
When the destitute poor are starving, they riot. What started out as an American biofuel policy blunder has shown all of the current shortcomings of the system. With the heavily distorted trade we've made with tariffs, subsidies, and power imbalances since the Green Revolution, our system is falling apart. Now, food has been mentioned on the front page of the New York Times 4 days in a row, claims the front page of this week's Economist, and is the cause of political upheaval in almost 33 countries... The issue is bringing light to the facts: factory farming is not sustainable, actively destructive to the soil and water, dependent on water and cheap fossil fuel inputs, and requires large technology investments to be viable.
And it's hard to believe there's an alternative system coming that will solve it all...
Issue overview:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/19/business/worldbusiness/19palmoil.html?_r=2&emc=eta1&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11049284&errm=bf&bredirected=1
And the alternative:
http://www.organic-center.org/science.comment.php
Keep your eyes out for developments.
-Eddie
Friday, April 18, 2008
The need for another
When words and spontaneous thoughts can't quite express--
I feel like so many students are afraid of a relationship, because there isn't actually the time. With 16 credits of classes, exams and papers to think about, and a plethora of extracurriculars and Boston events demanding time, I often find myself working 7:30-late night. I look back on the blur and just wanting some to take some time off from people (every night from 12-1 is music or Zen or big thinking hour). Last semester, the burnout took time out of classes and friends... it's fucking hard to stay focused and on top of things as it is! Give me some time to think and reassess my priorities, to be alone in the mob around me and I'll stay sane.
But what if, instead of two lives inextricably connected, a college relationship could be two people in sync running parallel? To be self-dependent and involved in your own life, but there's someone there at night to remind you on how fucking awesome the world is! From my experiences with it, I feel like most hopelessness, depression, and defeat are from lack of feedback and lack of perspective. There's always an alternative, let her either enlighten me or hold me close. There's always a relaxed place to be in the mind underneath the turmoil, let her take me there. There's always meaning to it-- but can only be through others.
Some people see getting involved as filling a hole. Find another half-content person and we can make out and hold hands and feel better about ourselves. Overlook the flaws, give up some part of ourselves, and not look at other people any more. Couples are formed, stressed, and broken this way. Is it possible that two complete personalities can complement each other? Is it possible to not have power imbalance and stressful points by being two mutualyl reaffirming adults? I don't know, heh. I like to think so, or would like to try my hand until I see what it's about.
There's something beautiful there, I know it. The bible tells me so (if I have some time later I'll dig out some quotes, some Jesus for your souls). My faith tells me so. Society tells me so. Male, female, family. Give and take, subject/object, learning from one another, to know and accept.
Maybe. Anyway, it's something I've been thinking a lot about recently. Maybe you will now too.
-Eddie
I feel like so many students are afraid of a relationship, because there isn't actually the time. With 16 credits of classes, exams and papers to think about, and a plethora of extracurriculars and Boston events demanding time, I often find myself working 7:30-late night. I look back on the blur and just wanting some to take some time off from people (every night from 12-1 is music or Zen or big thinking hour). Last semester, the burnout took time out of classes and friends... it's fucking hard to stay focused and on top of things as it is! Give me some time to think and reassess my priorities, to be alone in the mob around me and I'll stay sane.
But what if, instead of two lives inextricably connected, a college relationship could be two people in sync running parallel? To be self-dependent and involved in your own life, but there's someone there at night to remind you on how fucking awesome the world is! From my experiences with it, I feel like most hopelessness, depression, and defeat are from lack of feedback and lack of perspective. There's always an alternative, let her either enlighten me or hold me close. There's always a relaxed place to be in the mind underneath the turmoil, let her take me there. There's always meaning to it-- but can only be through others.
Some people see getting involved as filling a hole. Find another half-content person and we can make out and hold hands and feel better about ourselves. Overlook the flaws, give up some part of ourselves, and not look at other people any more. Couples are formed, stressed, and broken this way. Is it possible that two complete personalities can complement each other? Is it possible to not have power imbalance and stressful points by being two mutualyl reaffirming adults? I don't know, heh. I like to think so, or would like to try my hand until I see what it's about.
There's something beautiful there, I know it. The bible tells me so (if I have some time later I'll dig out some quotes, some Jesus for your souls). My faith tells me so. Society tells me so. Male, female, family. Give and take, subject/object, learning from one another, to know and accept.
Maybe. Anyway, it's something I've been thinking a lot about recently. Maybe you will now too.
-Eddie
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