{"id":879,"date":"2009-01-30T15:29:27","date_gmt":"2009-01-30T15:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/voteforjoe.com\/wheresjoe\/?p=315"},"modified":"2009-01-30T15:29:27","modified_gmt":"2009-01-30T15:29:27","slug":"13009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=879","title":{"rendered":"1\/30\/09"},"content":{"rendered":"

I mentioned at the beginning of this week that I talked with Augi Pacetti who is a youth minister at St. Ignatius High School here in Cleveland. \u00a0 Several of his students and another teacher have been doing The Great Garbage Challenge<\/strong><\/em> \u00a0 this week. \u00a0 Each has been carrying around a big, black plastic bag and depositing all the waste they generate during the week in it. \u00a0 The idea is to make people really<\/em> conscious about how much waste we Americans generate. \u00a0 Hint: a lot<\/em>. \u00a0 \u00a0Those participating met at St. Ignatius’s Chapel today and Mr. Pacetti \u00a0led a prayer asking God to help us “live more simply.” \u00a0 I then picked up a copy of the New York Times<\/em>… \u00a0 \u00a0A front page article noted that President Obama “branded Wall Street bankers ‘shameful’ for giving themselves nearly $20 billion in bonuses as the economy was deteriorating…” \u00a0 It is my belief, many of us have a tendency to point to the far end of a continuum, in order to take the focus off, well, our own ‘shameful’ behavior. \u00a0 That is, instead of focusing on the bankers, why don’t we focus on, oh I don’t know, let’s say: people in Nigeria… Last night I was reading about Nigeria. \u00a0 It is the most populated country in Africa, and the poorest. \u00a0 The average annual income is $1,400 and a majority of the people live in cobbled together shacks with no power or clean water. \u00a0 It’s so<\/em> \u00a0 bad that the delta region of Nigeria is now “teeming with angry, frustrated people” who are starting to get behind the rebel group \u00a0MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) to fight a government that, they claim, is corrupt. \u00a0 And violence is erupting everywhere… \u00a0 Ok, let’s connect the social justice dots in all this: \u00a0 President Obama \u00a0is saying the Wall Street bankers are ‘shameful.’ \u00a0 And I agree. \u00a0 But \u00a0what about a person who knows millions of people in Nigeria (Uganda, Biafra, Haitti…) are \u00a0living in hovels, while they live in a $225,000 home in Illinois — and now even a bigger one in D.C.? \u00a0 And then, what about all us others in America? \u00a0 The Nigerians have no power. \u00a0 We use power like it was going out of style. \u00a0 The Nigerians live on a meager one or two meals a day, if that. \u00a0 \u00a0Most of us \u00a0live on three full meals a day, and all kinds of non-nutritional junk food for snacks inbetween. \u00a0 Our homes, even the modest, one-story ones here, are like mansions<\/em> \u00a0 compared to the Nigerians… \u00a0 Shameful? \u00a0 Well, sure! \u00a0 \u00a0We could avert \u00a0more and more \u00a0bloodshed in Nigeria, starving children, disease… by simply cutting back on our food, our energy use and housesharing to halve expenses — then pump the money into these Third World places. \u00a0 That we don’t (in a much more prolific way) is a ‘shame…’ \u00a0 God, help us to “live more simply.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I mentioned at the beginning of this week that I talked with Augi Pacetti who is a youth minister at St. Ignatius High School here in Cleveland. \u00a0 Several of his students and another teacher have been doing The Great …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}