Urban Onramps

A round-up of schtuff:

• While I was out of town, there was a Pasadena/Altadena bloggers meet up. Here’s a pic and brief report. I’ll try to attend the next one.
• The latest on the teen shooting from a couple weeks back: Huel slaying motive revealed, City orders teen club not to reopen, Charles Thomas, Jr.: Re: The death of Ebony Huel, and Andre Coleman’s “Message to Black Pasadena.”
• President Bush and Vietnam: “President Bush has shown that he is up to speed on the latest historical discoveries on Vietnam. Those who are inclined to disagree should first get up to speed themselves.”
• This is an interesting local blog: Pasadena Pundit
• We got robbed at Harambee a couple nights ago. Thieves broke into the most secure thing we have and stole the children’s computer lab. It’s a mobile lab and they hit it hard. Very sad and frustrating.
• We are having a girl. Kafi is pregnant, and she went for an ultrasound yesterday. So God willing we will have a boy and two girls come January.
• Three words: Pastrami. Burrito. 8am.

(You know, Fernando, I wanted to track you down. But I’ve literally got 55 minutes between planes.) I’m on my way home from the World Vision Triennial. Just flew a 3.5 hour flight from Singapore to Hong Kong. About to board my flight from Hong Kong back to LAX. It’s 1245pm on Thursday, though I think this blogpost date will say 945pm on Wednesday. I’m looking forward to being home with Kafi, Sam, Micah, and others. It was a good trip. So many different Christians with so many different contexts from which they practice the gospel - that was the best part. I bought Charles Mann’s book 1491 at the bookstore and I’m reading it now. It’s excellent. Gives the lie to the phrase “nothing new under the sun.” Yesterday I had nice conversations with lots of friends, talking a lot of this Protest and Invest rap. I never got a burger in Asia. I can wait til home (you might think I’m gonna head straight to In N Out, but I’ll go to FatBurger if I’m able). I heard it’s been super hot at home. As long as it’s dry…

Those are the two temperatures here in Singapore. It’s either hot and humid as a sauna (when you go outdoors) or as cold and frosty as a meat locker (when you are inside the hotel). I’ve been here with a World Vision global gathering. I’m a non-voting delegate, invited because I’m a member of the United States board of World Vision. It’s actually been slightly overwhelming to be here. It’s a place full of people who are not just Christians, not just seeking to do God’s will, and not just working in exotic places. These folks are the front lines of creating something out of nothing, so to speak. WV is not just about relief, but about developing people and helping them to positively influence their situations and contexts. That’s a lot harder than we imagine. I was in a meeting yesterday, talking about Islam, with folks from Afghanistan, Mali, Palestine, Malaysia, Indonesia, Chechnya, and Australia (yes, Australia). Seven places and seven unique contexts in which WV staff relate to the Muslim community. In the center of this discussion, and all of our discussions, is what Jesus said are the greatest commandments: “Love the Lord your God… and love your neighbor as you love yourself. On these two commandments hang all of the law and the prophets.” Heavy, as the aging boomers say. I’m glad to be here, though missing home and my beautiful wife and my children.

Jim Wallis is here. He is a plenary keynoter. He had some good stuff to say. I have significant concerns about the solutions and worldview put forward by Jim and Sojourners (they do a lot of protest talk that tends to alienate those who are woolly about investment and need to be wooed, not badgered, to the protest side). We got to talking together as we rode a water taxi to the Asian Civilizations Museum. Some of you know that I have a rap I call “Protest and Invest” where I say that Christians need to teach youth and the poor to be effective at both protesting and investing, and I say that Christian urban ministers are very weak at teaching about investment. Jim emphasizes the protest side of things, and I think I’ve spent a lot of time in this decade rattling the drum on the investment side, so I’m thinking about Jim’s rap and finding lots of important pieces to fill out the protest side of my rap. You gotta have both. Here’s my original Protest and Invest article from 2004 (it appeared in PRISM magazine)

More on illegal immigration, following on the heels of this post below: Megan McArdle:

One particular consideration I think is underdiscussed is the fact that much of the labor illegal immigrants provide substitutes for women’s home labor. And I don’t just mean nannies for rich women. I mean cleaning services, and food processing, and dry cleaning, and grocery delivery, and all the other things that make it possible for large numbers of women to work outside the home. In an ideal world, of course, women and men would take equal responsibility for the household. But in the less than ideal world that we actually inhabit, an increase in the price of those services would probably mean that fewer women would find it cost-effective to work outside the home.

Jordon remembered something I said. I’d vote for you if I could, bro.

My calls to the US using Skype have totaled 43 minutes. The cost? One dollar, forty-four cents. International calls! Man!

Associated Press: Help Wanted Ads Go Unanswered in West:

John Francis, who owns the McDonald’s in Sidney, Mont., said he tried advertising in the local newspaper and even offered up to $10 an hour to compete with higher-paying oil field jobs. Yet the only calls were from other business owners upset they would have to raise wages, too. Of course, Francis’ current employees also wanted a pay hike.

“I don’t know what the answer is,” Francis said. “There’s just nobody around that wants to work.”

The article doesn’t even mention the word “immigration.” (Well, not by name.) But read it and you will get a picture of what things might be like once the government follows through on this immigration crackdown thing. There has been a big debate on the concept of “jobs Americans won’t do,” but up to now it’s been pretty theoretical. Well, from now on, it won’t be.

(Mickey Kaus has a funny take on this - scroll down - he suspects that the Bush Administration may be trying to accelerate the pain of not fixing the immigration problem.)

A couple weeks back Kafi and I were in Palm Springs. We got lunch at a Wendys. I told Kafi, “This is the future.” In the future, there will be many more older people, given that we are all (on average) living longer. We’ll be living off of retirement pensions and/or small jobs (I saw a bunch of retiree-aged people working at the Palm Springs Lowes Hardware). Behind the counters at the fast food restaurants, manning the service positions at the department stores, etc. are teenagers. They are nice kids. They are not immigrants, and Latinos are not the majority of these fast food works. Though the teens our nice and courteous, they don’t have the ganas, desire, hunger, interest in doing their job so that all the details gets covered. Imagine busy-old-Rudy changing your toilet seat: “Hold your horses, I’ll get around to it, just chill out. I’ve gotta answer these emails, take this call, quell this rebellion, then I’ll get to you.” The service economy is going to be manned by people who are not in the least burdened about giving you the service you think you deserve.

Lately I’ve been waiting to see signs at Jack-in-the-Box with starting salaries of $11 per hour plus benefits. I haven’t seen any. But I’m telling you, I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets to that point. And if it does, is that such a bad thing? For everyone who is concerned about a living wage, well, 11 plus benefits is a step in the right direction. Except the cost will be passed on to the consumer. That 2 Tacos for 99 Cents item will likely cease to exist.

I could be wrong about what I’m saying here. But I have a hunch that we as a nation - all of us, regardless of our position on illegal immigration - are going to wish that we figured out this Mexican immigration thing a lot better and a lot quicker.

UPDATE: Unmistakable signs of a very tight labor market over at the blog of Harvard professor George Borjas

I’m in Singapore, attending a World Vision global council, and 15 hours ahead of whatever the timestamp on this post says. I’ve been using Skype Credit to call home, cheap, I tell ya, cheap! Outside it’s always warm/hot and humid/muggy. Inside it’s nice and cool, sometimes cold. As P.J. O’Rourke says about Hong Kong, there are two temperatures here: sauna and meat locker. The council lasts four days, then I return home. The flying time was 14.5 hours from LA to Hong Kong, then 3.5 hours from H.K. to Singapore. The record for flying distance (at least what I’ve heard so far) is these two men from Haiti to who flew from Port-au-Prince to New York to Vancouver to Hong Kong to Singapore. They said they’ve been flying for two days. On the TV here they show live English Premier Leauge Soccer games, something I don’t get at home. Kafi is home with the kids, and she’s been assisted by Grandma Muslimah. (We plan these sorts of things ahead of time. It would be a nightmare if Kafi had to be with the kids alone, plus preparing to open the new school year at Harambee Prep.) Rodney Olsen, by the way, is a friend in Australia who has a radio show. Nick Rowe is a friend in South Africa who is just all around awesome, and also teaches at one of the universities there on reconciliation - think about the game you bring when you come from the USA and teach reconciliation to South African Christians. But Nick was groomed in Boston, which may explain some of his credibility. I heard from Max Torres that John Perkins spoke at a DeVos Reunion event this morning (Saturday morning) in Grand Rapids. JP rocked the place in a good way, Max says. That’s cool. John Perkins is 76 or 77 years old and still making it happen.

It’s a whole bunch of people getting MacBook laptops. Noel Castellanos and DJ Chuang are the newest additions to the family. I’m still chugging along on my G4 Powerbook which JUST WON’T BREAK DOWN. Believe me, I cheer, every time it does something strange. I don’t feel justified going for a new MacBook unless the old one is dead and buried. But apparently I got the Energizer BunnyMac.

Y que?

I’m turning to these people for help: iPodSickBay: Water Immersion

I’m here at the White House, old exec bldg, attending a school choice roundtable sponsored by the faith based office. About 130 people. Great information. The packet is a summary of school choice activities across the country. Increased school choice funds are proposed in the draft for the No Child Left Behind authorization. I flew the red eye. I haven’t eaten, but I did get a cofee at the Caribou across the street.

Because they think Hamas is siphoning off the cash:

On Sunday, the European Union stopped funding fuel for the power plant that produces electricity for at least 700,000 Gazans. On Monday, it said the payments would not resume because it had information that Hamas was “diverting” electricity revenues.

“We are ready to resume our support to the Gaza power plant within hours once we receive the appropriate assurances that all the funds will be exclusively used for the benefit of the Gaza population,” the European Commission — the EU’s executive branch — said in a statement.

The debate over DDT is over. There’s scientific consensus. Anyone who disagrees is a DDT denialist and a mouthpiece for Big Mosquito.

Just wondering…

Since things in the Windoze world seem to be so complicated…

London’s The Observer: Andrew Anthony: The Day Reality Hit Home:

A few weeks before that incident, my stepdaughter was set upon in a busy high street by a gang of teenagers in an unprovoked attack. Scores of adults looked on and not one of them did or said anything to help. When she described how grown-up faces turned away from her as kicks and punches flew, I could only conclude that everyone was waiting. They were waiting for society to change, for it to become less unfair, with more equitable wealth distribution, so that street violence would miraculously disappear. They were waiting for schools to improve, and more youth centres to be built, and better housing. Or they were waiting for the police, the police who ought to be everywhere at all times but who should also maintain a low profile. Or perhaps they were just waiting for somebody else, anybody but themselves.

In my case it was the International Fireworks Show, sometime in 1998 or 97. 10-12 young white males were beating the snot out of 2 small, dark-skinned boys. At least a thousand people were walking away from the lake’s edge, the fireworks show having just concluded. No one intervened to stop the pummeling, not until I and another woman (our host) ran into the melee. The woman cursed at the top of her lungs, full of rage, yelling at the boys to stop. I ran and dove onto one of the boys being beaten. I reasoned that the attackers would see that I was not involved and relent. Instead I got kicked - hard - in the face, just above my lip. But between that woman and me, the mob spirit broke. Then the police sauntered up, pushing their bikes, and asked if there was a problem.

Novelist Anne Rice explains why she is pro-life and endorsing Hillary for President (note: I am registered with no political party). As I read this missive I thought, “This is very Emergent of Anne Rice.”