MikeHickerson.com

Before coming to work for InterVarsity, I reviewed charities for the Better Business Bureau. The BBB has one of the best charity accreditation programs in the country. Charities are asked to submit financial statements, governance documents, and copies of their fundraising materials, and the BBB reviews them against a set of 20 Standards for Charity Accountability.

Today, the BBB and a group called Muslim Advocates announced a plan to encourage Muslim charities to undergo the BBB’s accreditation program. Muslim charities have been under a great deal of scrutiny since 9/11 for supposed ties to terrorism, and ethical Muslim charities hope that this new program will encourage donors to trust them with their money. One of the mantras that I repeated while I was at the BBB was that it was nearly impossible for a donor to tell the difference between a “legitimate” charity and an unethical one, and that even the definition of “legitimate” was questionable. For example, the American Red Cross has been involved in a number of ethics scandals, regarding their executives, their handling of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, and their blood donation program. Yet the Red Cross unquestionably does a great deal of good. Are they “legitimate”? Are they “ethical”? This is why the BBB’s standards are so important. The standards provide 20 objective measures of a charity’s practices and policies, so that donors can make their own decision. According to the Wall Street Journal, one of the first charities to volunteer for the program is the Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati, which would have been part of my territory.

Way to go, BBB!

Yesterday, our daughters spent part of the afternoon painting outside on our patio.  When it came time to put away the paints, our 4-year-old had a stack of wet paintings that needed to be hung up and dried.  “Aha,” I thought, “I’ll just get some twine and clothespins and hang them on the deck.”  My next thought, however, was, “Twine and clothespins?  What is this - Little House on the Prairie? We don’t even have twine and clothespins!”

So I created a hanging wall with the contemporary equivalent: DSL cable and binder clips.  Problem solved.

Pictures drying on the deck

DSL cable as twine

Binder clips as clothespins

A humorous message from Wal-Mart’s music download website:

We’re sorry, your operating system is incompatible. To provide the best download experience, we can no longer support Windows 98, ME or NT. Please visit again after you upgrade to Windows 2000 or XP. 

I am amused because:

1. I have a Mac, and don’t plan on “upgrading” to Windows anytime soon. 
2. Notice how Vista isn’t even mentioned. 

Well, this is quite possibly our final Monday as a family with two kids.  Elizabeth is due to give birth to our son this Friday, May 2 (which is also my mother’s birthday).  Agatha was right on time - born at 8:00 am on her due date - while Ginger was two weeks late.  Just about everything is ready - we have a name picked out (it’s a secret), a crib, a freshly painted pirate-themed nursery.  Not everyone is ready, though: Elizabeth asked Ginger what she thought of baby brother.  She shook her head and said, “No like!”

In other news, we received yet another free television, this time an HDTV from Elizabeth’s aunt!  While there, we also received several family heirlooms that had belonged to Elizabeth’s grandmother.  I claimed this incredible Gillette Aristocrat safety razor.  Elizabeth insists that I not use it, but, if I did, it came with several dozen extra razors.  

If I did decide to convert to “wet shaving,” at least I have some good guidance from Andy Crouch. 

With all the hubbub over college rankings each year, wouldn’t it be great if there was a simpler way? Looks like Google has figured it out.  When you search for a business on Google Maps, you can rank it - ostensibly so that you can say, “Wow, great pizza!” or “Don’t use this plumber!”  I am amused that Google Maps lets you rank universities in the same way.  Sorry, UC - looks like you only got 3 stars out of 5. 

Note that you can order the search results by ranking.  I would NOT recommend this as a way of picking a college. 

To move things in a completely different direction, maybe human beings are the “running animal.”  We’re not used to thinking of human beings as physically superior to other animals - e.g. cheetahs are faster, elephants are stronger - but it turns out that human beings are the best long-distance runners in the world. So says Daniel Lieberman of Harvard and Dennis Bramble of Utah. In another article, Lieberman notes that:

Once humans start running, it only takes a bit more energy for us to run faster, Lieberman said. Other animals, on the other hand, expend a lot more energy as they speed up, particularly when they switch from a trot to a gallop, which most animals cannot maintain over long distances.

They also point out that human beings are the only animals in the world that run long distances - like a marathon - voluntarily.  Which reminds me of the scene from Back to the Future 3 in which some cowboys are laughing at Marty McFly’s “running shoes.”  

Powered by ScribeFire.

So, last night, our good friends Bryan and Kelley Brandeberry invited us to Pizza Hut, but we couldn’t go because we already had some steaks defrosting and were low on cash in our eating out envelope. We, in turn, invited them to the Erlanger library’s Family Fun Night (clowns + water balloons + popsicles = fun!). We took a long time walking to the library, never saw them, and just assumed we missed them or they decided not to come.

We returned home to find the following message on our answering machine:

Hi guys. We could not make it to the library because of a long and very funny story that happened to us at Pizza Hut. We will tell you all about it later. But as a result, we received a free ham and sausage pizza. Which is now in your fridge. Enjoy!

I opened the refrigerator door. Lo and behold, a free ham and sausage pizza had magically appeared on the middle shelf.

That’s what friends are for: free pizza. God bless America.

Over at slate.com, this interesting paragraph showed up:

Systems of belief such as religion and even scientific paradigms can lock their adherents into confirmation biases. And then tidbits of fact or gossip appear over the Internet to shore them up. There’s a point of no return beyond which it’s very hard to change one’s views about an important subject.

The writer, Arthur Allen, is discussing a scientific theory that he believes is patently false (the theory that childhood vaccinations have increased the incidents of autism), but that’s not what I’m most interested in.  Rather, I want to focus on the way he makes it sound as if only “adherents” view evidence through a biased lens. 

Here’s the thing: everyone has a system of belief.  It might be not be systematic, it might not be considered a “belief,” it might not even be consistent or agree with any traditional philosophy or religion.  But everyone has one.  It’s impossible not to.  Otherwise, how would you even begin to make sense of the world?   How would you know what to pay attention to, what to ignore, where to start considering a new idea or newly acquired fact? 

Rather than blaming what you perceive as someone’s mistake simply on the fact that they adhere to system of belief,  it’s better to examine that system of belief itself.  Is it consistent?  Does it align with known evidence?  Do you have trustworthy foundations for your system?  Is there a better system that explains what’s going on?

Then, rather than pretending that Person A is judging things based on a system, while Person B is looking at “just the facts,” we should mutually recognize each others’ biases and presuppositions, as well as our own.  If we are aware of our own assumptions - even if we have good reasons for them - then we can much more easily communicate with people whose assumptions differ from ours.   Futher, the other person might have very good reasons for the assumptions they make, even if their conclusions are ultimately wrong.  By understanding and sympathizing with those reasons, we can love our neighbors as ourselves, even if we disagree completely.

What a great name for a website and organization.

 I have to say, I like their purpose, too. 

We also believe that human beings were designed to be interdependent with the natural world as well, which is why we’ve chosen an outdoor setting for these events.  While the average modern life doesn’t readily incorporate a daily relationship with the air, trees, soil, land forms and creatures that surround us, spending a period of time in more direct relationship can serve to remind us of the ways in which we might make conscious choices every day to be good stewards of the earth.  In addition, the quiet of a farm or forest or beach provides an important retreat from the noise, an opportunity to breathe deeply, listen closely and love extravagantly.

Elizabeth, the kids, and I are hoping to get in some good camping pretty soon.  If our schedule’s don’t lighten up, though, we might have to make do with our (hardly at all) rustic backyard.   We do have some poison ivy back there, so at least that part will be authentic.