Kiva Project Update: Our third loan

Hey Cromrades,

I didn’t hear much from you with regard to our Kiva project, so I donated all the money to Invisible Children.

Joking.

But I didn’t have time to go through the Kiva.org website and really closely scrutinize the projects, so I just picked a couple at semi-random. This is why I need y’all to help me out here – to make sure our money goes to the best source.

At any rate, here’s where it went this month:

Unyenyekevu Group – DR Congo

Kavira is an entrepreneur and head of the Unyenyekevu business group. She is 55 years old, married and the mother of 10 children, who are all in school. Her husband is a mechanic.  Kavira sells second hand handbags. She has been involved in small-scale business of this type for four years. This is her 11th loan from Hekima, and will enable her to buy one sack of bags, among other things.

Kavira would like to see her children grow up in comfort, expand her business and buy another plot of land to leave to her children. She would like to thank Hekima for its work helping poor women who are excluded from traditional banking.

Ayen Thon – South Sudan

Ayen lives in Bor. She sells charcoal and has been in business for three years. She is 30 years old, married, and has no children. Ayen heard about BRAC South Sudan from a credit officer and this is her third loan from BRAC.

She has requested a loan of 1,500 SDG in order to purchase charcoal. She will use her extra income from this loan to build a house in future.

$25 has gone to each of these projects. I picked them because a) African, b) women, c) business. My selection criteria, I’m afraid, are not much fancier than that.

Because of the tendency for these loans to get funded fairly quickly, I’d suggest that if you’re interested in providing input into these loans, wait until I announce the next round (i.e., in a month’s time). I do hope you will chime in with where these funds are going, because I am bound to overlook something, and I consider this our money – at least until we have enough to spend on something I really want then I’m leaving you suckers in the dust from my G4.

For the month of October (the first month this site went live), we made $46.38, and loaned $50.
For the month of November, we made $65.81, and loaned $50.
For the month of December, we made $44.76, and loaned $50

Total amount loaned so far: $150
Total loan funds repaid: $2.50
Fund balance: $5.57

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Kiva Project: Update, and third donation

Hey Cromrades, I was slacking a bit last month and did not make any contributions to our Kiva project. I’ve since taken the liberty and the initiative, and picked two loans for us to support:

John from Kenya

John, 39 years old, is a mixed crop farmer. He is married to Susan, also a farmer, and they are blessed with two children. He has farmed for the past ten years, earning 7,000 KES a month, and uses his income to support his family. John is applying for a third loan after repaying his previous two loans successfully. He will use the 43,000 KES to buy fertilizer and seedlings for his farm. With the anticipated profits from his farm he will educate his children. His hopes and dreams are to buy a piece of land and build rental houses.

Flor De Quinua Group

The Communal Bank “Flor de Quinua” (Quinoa Flower) is starting its second loan cycle with Pro Mujer as part of the Juan Pablo II Community Center. This group consists of eight members and is led by a Board of Directors headed by Sra. Pascuala. The members of this Communal Bank engage in various businesses in order to get ahead such as selling shoes, knitting sweaters, selling toasted foods, washing cars, making crafts from plaster, selling woven articles, and knitting blankets.

Sra. Pascuala says that she started working Pro Mujer one year ago and joined the organization upon receiving an invitation from a member. She currently has a business producing crafts out of plaster (stucco) where she has worked for some time. Pascuala learned this trade from her son-in-law. The loan she is receiving now will be used to increase her capital for purchasing stucco that she acquires from the distribution shops. She will later sell the products she makes in her community. Working in this manner enables her to generate income to support her family. Pascuala is separated from her spouse and has three children.

Both of these projects were loaned $25.

Also, pay for December came in, so it’s time once again for you to help me spend our money. You’ll notice that $2.50 from the first loan was paid back, so that’s back in the pot. Please take some time and poke around the Kiva.org website, and make a recommendation. I’ll make a decision for 2 loans and announce it on Friday.

For the month of October (the first month this site went live), we made $46.38, and loaned $50.
For the month of November, we made $65.81, and loaned $50.
For the month of December, we made $44.76

Total amount loaned so far: $100
Total loan funds repaid: $2.50
Fund balance: $55.57

Let’s keep it rolling, folks!

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The “tone” thread

I used the word ‘idiots’ once in my previous post, and now I am being upbraided for defending bigoted language used to assault gay activists. This morning’s post was not in any way about the use of nasty language, but in the interest of giving tone trolls a place to vent, I am creating this thread.

I am not an advocate of using language to belittle or demean an opponent instead of expressing a legitimate position. I think I increase my credibility as a rhetorician when I represent the opposing side fairly and accurately, and then tear hir a new asshole. That said, I am also of the mind that “if the shoe fits”, then it’s fair game. If the opposing side can be demonstrated to believe in things that have no rational justification, I do not shy away from the word ‘deluded’. If the opposing side wishes to restrict the rights of other people based on an attitude borne of privilege, I will let fly with the word ‘bigot’. If someone’s argument is founded in poor logic, shopworn memes, and invalid evidence, I am not going to feel bad about calling it (and occasionally them, but not usually) ‘stupid’.

There are those who refuse (I can only assume) to distinguish between content and style. They believe that what you say and how you say it are equally important. I think someone needs to find the zombie of Marshall McLuhan and double-tap it in the head. I am from the school of George Orwell, where words are a mechanism by which we exchange ideas, and that futzing over style can be an impediment to comprehension. I do not accept the oft-asserted notion that one must be ‘civil’ in order to be an effective communicator. I have delved into this idea at some length.

This should not be (although it undoubtedly will be) read as a statement that everyone should feel free to use whatever language they like at all times. Words have meanings, and they have consequences. When conversation devolves into an exercise in slinging barbs without making points, then discussion has ceased. However, a judiciously-placed insult can act as the sprinkles on top of a well-built ice cream sundae of an argument. When I show you the multitude of ways in which you are incorrect, and cap it off with “you boob”, that is a justified flourish. It is not me ‘losing the argument’ because I ‘stooped’ to using ‘ad hominem’. It is you failing to address the <i>content</i> of my argument and instead tap-dancing on the pinhead of tone as an attempt to deflect how thoroughly you’ve been eviscerated.

There are many who are aching to have this conversation, and although I find it the height of tedium, I’d rather it happened here rather than on a post that has nothing to do with name-calling at all. Have at it.

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Good news week

For some reason, or perhaps for no reason, my ‘news item’ file is overflowing with good news this week. So in honour of that, I’m going to highlight happy stories. Well, happy for me. Sad for the forces of stupid. So… um… enjoy that.

Ask Crommunist Anything

Many of you may not know that I am fairly active on Reddit. I discovered r/atheism just over a year ago and began branching out to other subreddits shortly after that. For all the (mostly justified) criticism that r/atheism garners, it is a wonderful place for atheists who can’t be part of a physical community. There is a lesser-known subreddit called r/blackatheism that aggregates content relevant to black atheists. One of the moderators suggested that I post an AMA (Ask Me Anything – an open-ended opportunity to ask questions and have them answered).

So I did.

I don’t know if any of you have questions that you’d like to ask me about being a black atheist, about blogging, about personal stuff in my life, or whatever. If you do, head on over to the linked AMA and submit your question.

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Temporarily suspending Empowered Health coverage

So I have been, happily, let down by the Vancouver Sun. I was relatively sure that their “Empowered Health” series was going to be chock full of ample fodder for my skeptical scalpel, but so far it is simply “diet and exercise” repeated ad infinitum, mixed with a few exercises in lazy journalism. As a result, I am going to suspend my weekly examination of the stories, since it makes for boring blogging (and I’m sure boring reading too).

New neighbours

You may have seen in the hubub yesterday that we’ve added Brianne Bilyeu (a.k.a. Biodork) to our little collective here. We have another new face, Libby Anne of Lovejoy Feminism whose site at FTB went live today.

Go say hello!

…

Seriously. What are you still doing here? GO!

…

Oh, I know what you want. Okay, just this once:

It’s a party!

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Hey look over here!

Life is seriously cutting into my ability to read blogs. It’s becoming a serious problem. I’m starting to get Pharyngula withdrawal shakes (it’s been over a week). If someone wants to work for me as my personal assistant, that’d be cool.

Anyway, I interrupt our regularly-scheduled blogcast to bring you this important message from Hank Fox:

What if there was a Book of Good Living?

Picture it as a collection of wisdom from people all over the world.

It would be all the stuff you should probably do, and the stuff you probably shouldn’t do, and the way you do it all, in order to live a good life. The way you treat people. The things you do in the course of a day. The broad-based forethought that goes into each life, all the lessons your parents, or their parents, or the people a thousand generations back, learned from the mistakes and hard knocks in their own lives.

Always look both ways before you cross the street. When two workmen meet in a narrow doorway, the one with the heavier load has the right of way. Any architect designing a building for use by large numbers of the public – a stadium or theatre, for instance – should include twice as many bathroom stalls for women as for men. On a hot day, your dog likes ice water just as much as you do. If you eat a little bit less, and exercise a little bit more, you’ll lose weight – no diets, books or courses needed.

Go read Hank, he has good ideas and is a hell of a guy.

Also, the guys over at The Atheist Experience are displaying more stomach and courage than I can claim, by delving into the Bog of Eternal Stench that is Men’s Rights Activist forums and The Amazing Atheist: [Read more…]