by Roxanne -

Buy Local – Support Your Community

People often ask me, “What can I do?” when thinking about the global depression, foreclosuregate, political gridlock, corporate greed or the environment. One answer is easy and simple: buy local.

This is a very strategic choice. Buying local keeps jobs in your community, it keeps your hard-earned money in your community and it supports small business owners in your community. It also eliminates shipping charges when you buy food or products from the immediate surrounding area where you live. Be strategic with your money. Use your purchasing power in a way that supports your own best interests.

We try to buy local whenever we can and we encourage every organization that we are involved with to do the same, whether it is a political group, church group or book club.

We use “Community Sponsored Agriculture” (CSA) for our vegetables, fruit and cheese. The portions are large so we split with another family. Usually a weekly delivery is to a location in your neighborhood. Farmers’ Markets can work just as well. No shipping cost or time since everything is grown nearby. This means everything lasts TWICE AS LONG in the refrigerator. It allows us to eat seasonally from April to January. You can check out CSA’s and Farmers’ Markets in Minnesota at Minnesota Grown. It’s also a good site to check for apple & berry picking along with local honey, wines and artisan cheeses.

Grocery stores we use are Cub, Byerly’s or Kowalski’s – again local businesses. Cub, especially notes “local” on product signs in their produce departments. Unfortunately only Kowalski’s carries FAIR TRADE coffee, so we go there when we need to buy coffee – an expensive item. Happily, FAIR TRADE coffee is often the less expensive choice.

MidTown Global Market on Lake Street in Minneapolis allows us to purchase gifts, cards, cheeses, olives, soaps and other items from baby start-up businesses. Most products you find there will be FAIR TRADE – so especially important to us. Global Market is a wonderful incubator for neighboring entrepreneurs and ethnic businesses owned by new immigrants. Walking through Global Market is a “United Nations” experience in itself and well worth the trip.

United Noodles on 24th Street just off Minnehaha Ave. in Mpls. is by far the largest Japanese grocery store I have ever been in. If you have never seen 40+ lineal feet of every kind of rice and noodles imaginable – plan a visit. Their produce department rivals any I’ve seen in Europe for display, color and quality. But do watch labels – there are often locally made options so you can avoid buying items shipped all the way from Japan (ouch!).

Over the years we’ve found many locally owned, ethnic restaurants. Owners are quick to help guests choose menu items they may like, with little or a lot of spice. They are delighted to serve large parties and remember you – you are important to their business.

We don’t eat out very often, but when we do here are local (Eagan) restaurants we give our business to – Hoban Korean Restaurant, Classic Saigon and Magic Thai Cafe for Vietnamese, Sambol for Indian cuisine (great chai tea), Pardon My French, Ansari’s Mediterranean Grill and El Loro Mexican Restaurant. Lunch, dinners, take-out and large group visits are consistently good. Prices are reasonable for all and we are supporting locally owned, small businesses. Most of these restaurants use local produce for freshness too, an added bonus. Perfect!

Dunn Brothers Coffee, is a local coffee roaster and coffee chain with a location on Diffley east of Lexington that uses FAIR TRADE coffee – so we like them too. Ring Mountain Creamery makes their own authentic Italian gelato on the premises and you will taste the difference, even while you watch them make it. Both Dunn Bros. and Ring Mountain are excellent places to meet for book clubs, and group meetings of 10-20. Ring Mountain even has a meeting area separate from the main seating area that can be reserved in advance – no charge.

We try to use SuperAmerica and Holiday for gasoline since they are local distributors – which eases the pain very slightly.

Check Buy Local MN.com. when you are ready to make a purchase. Chances are there is a local provider.

What about you? How do you vote with your dollars? What local businesses do you like to support? Leave a comment and let us know.

You may also like Healthy Food is a Luxury for the Rich, What Can You and I Do? and Truth or Consquences.

 

 

by Roxanne -

Human Poverty Index – U.S. Rank

How do you think the United States ranks in the Human Poverty Index compared to the other top industrialized nations?

If you said “badly” – then yes, you are correct.

The United States ranks NEAR THE BOTTOM (17 of 19) in the Human Poverty Index (2008) based on the key indicators of life expectancy, literacy, unemployment and population below 50% of median income (%).

Bet you didn’t know that did you?

But these numbers are from 2008. Since then we’ve had the depression/housing crash and many more have joined the ranks of the poor.

The poor are mostly women and children. So poor women and children in the U.S. would be better off living in almost any other industrialized nation OTHER THAN the United States.

Think about that for awhile.

by Roxanne -

Charity and Justice

Photo CA Air Resources Board

Many people are unclear regarding what is charity and what is justice. In fact, the boundary isn’t always black and white. There are gray areas. But generally, charity provides immediate aid for suffering, while justice works to end the underlying causes.

Here’s a biblical example often used to explain the idea of biblical justice, right relationshps or making things right. Moses didn’t ask Pharaoh to give the Israelites better working conditions, shorter hours and health care. Instead, Moses asked to end their entire economic system of slavery. He asked for justice. “Let my people go!” Moses’ request was to end the underlying system of slavery that caused the suffering.

A good example for us today is hunger. Donating food to the food shelf or volunteering at Feed My Starving Children is charity. We could donate food forever and there would still be hunger in the world because the root causes of hunger wouldn’t have been eliminated. On the other hand, Justice is working with organizations like Mary’s Pence or Bread for the World to end the underlying causes of hunger.

We need both and we each need to do both. Charity provides immediate results. This alleviates immediate suffering while motivating us to continue to work for justice, the changing of laws and systems. Justice takes longer and requires the coordinated efforts of many. It can be discouraging because we don’t see immediate results – but it is even more necessary for ending suffering and bringing peace to the world.

Becoming truly human requires real freedom. Stated another way, as long as we are held captive by that which prevents us from choosing in our own best interests (i.e. working for the good of all) we are not truly free.

Justice begins with education. The bible is replete with examples of people escaping injustice in the dominant culture. Exodus and the Exile are two well known examples of stories that work as metaphors for our own spiritual journey to freedom, but also serve as models for real world oppression.

Jesus too, freed people from physical and spiritual oppression or afflictions. But he also told many parables about how the world could be different, more just, about the in-breaking of the reign of God or the Kingdom (e.g. Matt 8:18-23, 20:1-16, 22:2-14 ). These parables helped others to become empowered to escape the actual oppression of families, tribes and the dominant culture of his time.

Scripture scholar Marcus Borg explained this idea of the bible as a collection of stories about justice and freedom in a talk he gave in April 2011, at Westminster Forum entitled “Speaking Christian.”

We cannot be truly free until we are no longer held captive by unjust ideas, patterns and practices of our dominant culture.

Click on the links above. Learn more. Share what you learn.

“If you want peace, work for justice” Pope Paul VI.

You may also like Question the Culture, Power of Framing and Myth of Objective Reporting.

by Roxanne -

Inequality Hurts the Rich Too

Here’s an excellent article by Yves Smith detailing why, “Income Inequality is Bad for Rich People” that is worth your time to read.

The reverse is also true. Social justice with progressive taxation is good for poor and rich alike – for the same reasons. Everyone benefits from an educated, healthy society with good infrastructure and public safety nets.

Here’s an excerpt:

But even more important is that high levels of income inequality exert a toll on all, particularly on health. Would you trade a shorter lifespan for a much higher level of wealth? Most people would say no, yet that is precisely the effect that the redesigning of economic arrangements to serve the needs at the very top is producing. Highly unequal societies are unhealthy for their members, even members of the highest strata. Not only do these societies score worse on all sorts of indicators of social well-being, but they exert a toll even on the rich. Not only do the plutocrats have less fun, but a number of studies have found that income inequality lowers the life expectancy even of the rich.

Although those who can afford it may feel that they can use their wealth to insulate themselves – that insulation is not very pleasant either. Smith writes:

You might argue: Why do these results matter to rich people, who can live in gated compounds? If you’ve visited some rich areas in Latin America, particularly when times generally are bad, marksmen on the roofs of houses are a norm. Living in fear of your physical safety is not a pretty existence.

Education, knowledge and compassion about the reality and existence of others is the way forward.

You may also like Are We So Different?, How Extreme Inequality Destroys the Economy and Demanding Social Justice.

by Roxanne -

Demanding Social Justice

Recently people in Israel, and elsewhere too, are beginning to see that the purpose of the economy is to serve human beings, not the other way around. Human beings create the economy and we can change it.

Nearly 300,000 people have demonstrated in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel demanding change. Here’s an excerpt from an article in the Jerusalem Post, August 7, 2011

Itzik Shmuli, head of the National Union of Israeli Students, rebuked assertions that the movement has become partisan or overly politicized.

“We aren’t asking for a change of personnel in the government or a change in the coalition in the parliament that was elected by the people. We are young people who are demanding a change in the cruel economic policies. We are demanding a personal economy over one that tramples, we are demanding an economy that takes into consideration the suffering of people and not one that only crunches numbers,” Shmuli said.

“We want a more correct balance between the free market and the human economy. We are demanding serious attention to closing social gaps and for a more far-reaching answer to be given to the basic needs of the citizens of the country, in particular the country’s weakest citizens.”

Read more about Israeli’s demands for justice – NOT charity, here. When will we demand the same for people here in the U.S.?

You may also like Greeks Resist Public Bank Bailout, Cry of the Poor and How Extreme Inequality Destroys the Economy.