Notes from the trenches....

Well, it looks like Annette has pulled ahead today (12 to 11), so I'll need to step it up!! But I've been out learning about worthwhile causes:

On Tuesday, I attended a "Slow Food Summit" at the local library, all about the benefits of slow food (as opposed to fast food). The movement started in Italy back when the first McDonald's arrived, and has spread around the world. The main emphasis, and one that is particularly important with the current cost of fuel, is to eat food grown locally as much as possible. The panel said that if you have a choice between organic food from 3,000 miles away or locally-grown food from around the corner, the local food is the best choice, even if they did use Round-up to kill the weeds (although it would be good to convince people to try more natural methods of pest control!) For more information about the slow food movement and how to buy locally in your little corner of the world, go here.

One of the panelists at the summit was James Spencer from Grow Alabama, a local food co-op. By joining, I will not only be guaranteed wonderful, locally-grown fresh produce, but I'll be doing my part to help local farmers and the state economy. (A little, anyway. For ways to REALLY help this State, check out my previous post about the Constitution). I can't wait to get my first veggie basket!!

I think it's great that so many people are taking a step back and realizing how good it is to buy local food when possible. Another panelist was Edwin Marty from Jones Valley Urban Farm, a downtown farm that not only provides organic produce to many of the local restaurants, but also provides educational opportunities for children and youth in downtown Birmingham.

Yesterday, I attended the second meeting of the Baptist Church of the Covenant class to raise awareness about the state of the Alabama Constitution. If you haven't watched the movie, It's a Thick Book, I highly recommend it. It's funny and educational, and highlights why we so desperately need reform in this state. But even if you're not from Alabama, I think it's interesting to learn more about taxation (our tax code is embedded in the constitution) and about how to tax in a way that is equitable across different levels of income. I don't like giving up my money any more than the next person, especially since I enjoy eating and having a roof over my head, etc.; but if it means creating a better and healthier community in which I can live, and if it means providing basic goods and services to me and to my family, I am all for it.

Another embarrassing note...

Voters here in the lovely (truly!) State of Alabama decided in 2004 to keep language in the constitution of Alabama that requires the segregation of white and colored children in public schools. It isn't enforced, but you would think that we'd have the wherewithall to repeal it in the 21st Century.

And you would be wrong.

Alabama needs a new constitution

1 John 3: 17-18 (NIV)

"17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has
no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18 Dear children, let us not
love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."

The 1901 Alabama Constitution does not serve the needs of the people in this state. If we just ignore the fact that it was created for the express purpose of disenfranchising African American and poor voters, we are still left with an unwieldy, inefficient, monstrous document. It is by far the longest constitution in the world, primarily because of the excessive number of amendments created to speak to such important points of law as whether or not to allow Bingo games in Madison County. Further, it is almost impossible to get anything done in the 3 months the legislature meets every year, because of the ridiculous hoops they are left to jump through for any and everything they'd like to pass. State legislators are so busy discussing amendments related to individual localities, they don't have time to worry about the pressing needs of the state as a whole.

But the most egregious feature of this constitution is the unjust taxation. Susan Pace Hamill discovered that Alabama has the most regressive tax code in the country, and wrote passionately about the need to reform it, decrying it as immoral and unjust. For further information, check here, here and here.

For more information about reforming the constitution, go to the Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform website. There, you also have the opportunity to see a 45-minute movie created by a graduate of Homewood High School, Lewis Lehe. The movie, "It's a Thick Book" is available for free on the website, or for a donation if you would like a copy of the DVD to show to friends and family, or anyone you think might be interested.

So, it's time for a change. If you live in Alabama, please go to the Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform website and sign the petition for a new constititution; then talk to your friends, your family, your legislators, and anyone who will listen.

If you are at all curious about what the Bible has to say about oppressing the poor, you can check out the following Scripture references: Isaiah 3:5; Proverbs 14:31; 28:3, 6; 21:21; Zechariah 8:10; Job 5:15-16; Psalm 9:19; James 2:5-6; Luke 6:20-21, 24-25; Luke 1:53; Luke 4:18; Leviticus 19:9-10; Deuteronomy 15:7, 10-1; Psalm 82:3-4; Proverbs 29:7; Isaiah 58:6-7; Matthew 5:42; Luke 3:11; 1 John 3:17-18; Matthew 25:35, 40.

church and classroom

Would the people pushing to keep Alabama schoolchildren from learning about Evolution be pleased to know they're on the same side as Islamic fundamentalist educators in Kuwait? Not about evolution, exactly, but about the need to "protect" religion and "protect" God by keeping those in their care [those they want to control] ignorant of anything that may upset the apple-cart. God is big enough to deal with us using our brains .. the brains s/he gave us, if you buy into that sort of thing ... to their full capacity. And maybe, as Rosemary Pennington quoted South Park's Stan as saying, "Couldn't evolution be the answer to how and not the answer to why?"

In the Klezmatics song "I ain't afraid", they say: "I ain't afraid of your churches, I ain't afraid of your temples, I ain't afraid of your schools, I'm afraid of what you do in the name of your God." By fostering ignorance in our own society, and allowing others to foster (and applaud) ignorance in theirs, we perpetuate fear, we perpetuate danger, and we perpetuate needless death.

In his recent op-ed piece, Thomas Friedman quoted Mamoun Fandy, who put it like this: "Nobody in the Arab world
'has the guts to say that what is happening in Iraq is wrong — that killing schoolkids is wrong,' said Mamoun Fandy, director of the Middle East program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. 'People somehow think that killing Iraqis is good because it will stick it to the Americans, so Arabs are undermining the American project in Iraq by killing themselves.'”

Friedman was just looking at the situation in Iraq, and at the case of suicide bombers and their exploits. But Americans who applaud anything an American President does, just because he's American and a Christian, or who will blithely accept any behaviour by our administration, because "we're the good guys" are just as bad. There is no time for us to remain stuck in an "us v. them", "rah, rah we're the greatest" high school mentality.