Um, two more. ... this time re: slavery and fair trade.

1. Article on Cadbury's recent move to increase its fair trade cocoa commitment, now extending into its Australia, Canada, and New Zealand markets.

Get a load of this paragraph:

"Cadbury’s move’s expected to quadruple Ghana’s fair trade cocoa sales. Of course, if you live in the U.S., you may be wondering why Cadbury bars here aren’t going to be getting the fair trade certification mark. The reason: Hersheys. Explains the Labor Rights Forum blog: 'In the US, Hershey owns the license to produce most Cadbury chocolate here and unlike many companies, Hershey has not committed to any certification programs to improve working conditions for cocoa farmers.'"

Read the article in context here.

2. Check out this trailer for a new documentary coming out Sept 15 in NYC... Hopefully it makes it onto the big screen out on the West Coast, too.

two quick articles that I find exciting today.

1. The Gloves Come Off Against Western Theology... Short article quoting a podcast from Eastern Orthodox thinker Clark Carlton, with some food for thought re: how we Westerners think about God.

follows this up with some thoughts; my favorite quote from them follows:

Postmodernism, in its approach to any academic study, including theology, is often lambasted as cutting out the foundation of Truth with a big huge capital T. More accurately, what postmodernism in the West or theology as usual in the East does is infuse humility into spiritual and theological conversations. What modernist theology does in it's insistence that everything can be proven 100% true given enough propositions, logical arguments, and scientific reasoning is to refuse to be humble concerning the nature of humanity and language. For what its worth, there is great irony in the arguments of Piper or Carson who so adamently insist on the depravity of humankind while at the same time putting forth that we can know all things absolutely. Those two ideas cannot exist together.

2. A New Day at Rolling Hills Baptist Church in Fayetteville, GA... This seems really cool!.... a church selling its property in order to become more truly missional.

Where is the fight on chocolate now?--> Target on Nestle's chest.

Here is a list of the recent progress made in the STOPTHETRAFFIK campaign against slave labor currently used in harvesting over 35% of the world's cocoa beans. (Can be found on their website here.)


WHAT WE'VE ACHIEVED SO FAR
Six weeks after launching STOP THE TRAFFIK's March on Mars campaign, Mars made an announcement.

They have promised to make their GLOBAL product range traffik free by 2020, starting with Galaxy bars in the UK and Ireland next year.

Mars are giving us a short term commitment with Galaxy bars while we keep asking for evidence of long term, global change.
STOP THE TRAFFIK chocolate campaign developments:

* July 2008:
Verkade committed to 100% fairtrade cocoa and sugar in their chocolate bars in Netherlands from autumn 2008
* February 2009:
Swiss Noir committed to fairtrade cocoa in their chocolate bars in Netherlands from March 2009
* March 2009:
Cadbury committed to fairtrade Dairy Milk in the UK and Ireland from autumn 2009
* April 2009:
Mars committed to Rainforest Alliance cocoa in Galaxy bars in the UK and Ireland from 2010 and across their whole product range globally by 2020

STOP THE TRAFFIK congratulates Verkade, Swiss Noir, Cadbury and MARS.

By continuing to call upon chocolate manufacturers to only use Fairly Traded cocoa in their products and by only buying Fair Trade chocolate ourselves, we can create a world in which chocolate doesn't leave a bitter after taste.



Great progress has been made!... but the chocolate industries' LONG history of broken promises is well documented...

Read a fact sheet PDF here about this.

Read the "short-and-sweet" version here.



Note that Nestle'... the world's largest food company, one of the major chocolate suppliers.... is not listed as making ANY progress here.

Not surprising, given Nestle's ATROCIOUS human rights record over the years... their negligence in the past and present has led to millions of deaths and human rights violations.

Nestle got in big trouble in the 1970s and 80s for pushing formula in the developing world when they KNEW it was directly causing malnutrition in infants... this website shows that even though Nestle was punished, they have not improved much at all. (scroll half-way down to see a list of their human rights violations.)

Nestle has been the subject of boycott and documentary, and (possibly as a result) they have an extensive section on their website committed to "current issues." (Found here.)

Look for a mention of forced and child labor. Go ahead, look for it.

That's because it's not there.

I even downloaded Nestle's "Around the Globe" PDF, to see if they make any mention of their harvesting practices at all. This was all I could find, on page 40 of the PDF:

We source our agricultural raw materials – principally
milk, coffee, cocoa, cereals, vegetables, fruit, herbs,
sugar and spices – either through trade channels or
directly from farmers.
Although we don’t have control over the farms, we
support sustainability in the supply of agricultural raw
materials and agricultural best practices. To put these
words into action, we have over 800 of our own
agronomists, technical advisers and field technicians.
Their job is to provide technical assistance to more than
400,000 farmers throughout the world to improve their
production quality, as well as their output and efficiency....


It goes on to emphasize how these "specialists" have helped farmers create better yields of coffee and milk, thus, according to them, Nestle is "contribut(ing) to improving their standard of living." (caption on page 40).

What a snow job. Better yield doesn't mean better pay, if you're only paying farmers peanuts in the first place. It just means that you end up with more coffee and milk to sell.

And they don't mention cocoa there.... except in the one highlighted instance.... and is sure to emphasize soon after that "we don't have control over the farms."

Um, sure you do. You buy from them. You can refuse to purchase cocoa harvested by slave labor. Mars, Verkade, and other companies have begun to do this (in part); you can too.

The annoying part to me was, as I read this corporate statement, how much Nestle claims to be a "human" company, how much they claim to care about employees and the people who use their products....

To misquote Shakespeare: Methinks they doth protest too much.




Everyone, click HERE to download a letter provided by STOPTHETRAFFIK to send to Nestle.

To email them, go to this web address (send enough to crash it!):

Their US address is: 800 North Brand Blvd. Glendale, CA91203

Here's a "child-friendly" version.

If you get a response, use THIS template for a second letter.


THEN--- STOP BUYING ALL NESTLE PRODUCTS. That means Nestle, Cherrios, Shredded Wheat, Enviga, Gerber, Nespresso, Nescafe, Nestea, KitKat, Dreyers Ice Cream, Friskies, Purina, Coffemate, LeanCuisine, Stouffers, Carnation, and Alcon.

Holy and Ridiculous.

In the last two years as a new youth pastor, I have developed a saying: "Youth ministry is a mixture of the holy and the ridiculous." If you're a youth or volunteer at New Life, you've heard me say it, undoubtedly.

In that spirit, I offer you today my findings based on a 5 minute perusal of Facebook...

A 'holy' video: a short clip of Empowering Lives: Ilula's Children's Home in west Kenya, where I spent three weeks in the summer of '05 that absolutely changed my life.

A 'ridiculous' video: ummm... well, you'll just have to watch. :)

Video on Ubuntu

the concept of Ubuntu, articulated by a selection of Zulu/South African community members, set to hauntingly beautiful music.

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

TV bites.

My wife and I sat down to watch TV together last night for the first time in months. That's partially due to the fact that we've been insanely busy for the past few months and took a day off yesterday, so we had more time. It's also due to us primarily watching DVDs and online streams of TV shows and movies...

(Together this year we've watched a lot of Gilmore Girls, The West Wing, and M.A.S.H. We stream the Vicar of Dibley off of Netflix, too... btw, BBC power, baby! Love the girl power and the irreverence.)

We used to have shows that we watched together... like Pushing Daisies, for one. While Amy and I have different tastes when it comes to humor (I could watch Monty Python and Family Guy till I laugh myself sick; she considers it drivel...), we agree basically on what makes a TV show/series good:

Strong, nuanced character development.

Snappy, witty writing.

(and, it helps if the show addresses/comments on real-world issues... although it can do so without an overt agenda.)

So back to last night... Thursday night used to be the creme de la creme of TV-watching nights. The pinnacle for which every comedy show reached, especially NBC.

Now? It's Parks and Recreation.

AWFUL... just AWFUL. Sleeping (w/o dreaming) would have been more entertaining. Hee Haw reruns would have been more humorous. Amy Poehler (who I've never found very funny anyway) was particularly drab, in a role that basically did nothing but try to copy the Office, and it did so badly.

It wasn't just NBC. In our disgust we flipped around to other channels, trying to find something of worth... and found a drama with inane dialogue and with only sexual content driving the plot, a reality show with NO content, and another bad comedy. Thursday night, and NOTHING to watch.

Meanwhile, networks cancel shows like Pushing Daisies, and Arrested Development.

I know that ratings and advertisers control the airwaves, but the networks should have some power, too, and networks should know that earning viewers is like starting a movement, and movements take time to build momentum. M.A.S.H. ran for 11 seasons and is considered one of the most successful sitcoms in history, yet was a ratings dud its first year. Seinfeld struggled in the early years. In fact, VERY few shows, drama or comedy, that ended up successful, started immediately that way. I don't think the Office did either!... but the Office was innovative to the American market; nothing like it had ever been done before (and become popular)... that was part of its appeal (the mock-interview format, Steve Carrell's character that drove the show's humor, etc.)

But instead of having the same "let's try something new" attitude, the approach is always "let's imitate what works," or "let's interject as much superfluous drama / shock-value into the show as possible to gain viewers." Hence Parks and Rec's bad attempt to copy the Office. As long as the goal is for shows to "become successful NOW," this will stay the same... but in the meantime, the shows with actual CONTENT get flushed.

(Meanwhile, NBC, you're in last place in ratings. Maybe there's a connection?)



Reality TV has increased the problem-- for most of them, ALL of the allure for these shows(e.g. Big Brother, the Bachelor, etc.) is in the clashing of borderline personalities and in the overt sexual content. NO need for writing; just get people to fight and shack up as much as possible.

There are exceptions (30 Rock in my opinion is still going strong; J.J. Abrams and Aaron Sorkin's shows are good typically).... but the trend is definitely downward in quality, and has been so for years. Now it's up to Youtube to be our primary entertainment.

We need a cultural Renaissance; a resurrection of the television medium. We need writers to step up to the plate and deliver original material, and for networks to stop playing Russian roulette with their new shows, to show some foresight and ability to judge what is the "real deal" from the putrescence. (E.g., Pushing Daisies? Good! Parks and Rec, BOO!!)

For now Amy and I will remain content with the purchasing/Netflixing of DVDs, of old shows, the few good shows out now, the BBC, and the internet.

Finding the right Seminary, according to Mouw (not to b confused w Mao)

"The Chairman," as I like to call him, has written a helpful guide for anyone looking for the right seminary fit.