NB: This blog was based on information available last summer. No 2012 tax forms are yet available for this charity. 2011 tax forms can be found at the website of the attorney general of the state of New York at
http://www.charitiesnys.com/RegistrySearch/show_details.jsp?id={379C03EF-1484-498F-8A38-3A9DCC4609DF}
This is the text of a youtube video to be found at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTWxhp07J5k
Slide #1 (Peas Tutorial)
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Last year, Josh Groban, participated in something called "Living Below the Line." That's when I started writing this. I did not get around to finishing. My ex used to say the world was short of round to-its.
Now that Josh has written a song about it, and is taking up this cause again, I feel I really must get one of those round to-its.
Slide #2 (21.25 s) (Josh & Tweeps)
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Josh is the chief of my online tribe and my twitter godfather. In fact, he was my first godfather, as I never had one before I joined twitter. Josh is also my avatar in the great video game that is the Internet -- as well as my avatar in my personal fantasy life. Plus, he's a great entertainer.
Every day a group of Grobies gather on twitter and wait for Josh to tweet. We chat with each other and respond to what he says.
Josh recently told us that we are demons who eat kittens, so now, instead of just calling us Grobies, I call us Grobies (aka kitten slayers). Well, maybe that's not quite what he said, but that's how I'm going to take it.
I am used to thinking of Josh as the focus of my tribe, so I pay a lot of attention to everything he does.
Slide #3 (1:08 min) (dollar 50 dollar 25)
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Last year, "Living Below the Line" was trying to raise consciousness of poverty by encouraging people to live on $1.50 worth of food per day for a day or a week -- extreme poverty being then defined as living on $1.50 per day or less.
Now they've lowered it to $1.25. I'm not sure why. Maybe they heard that I was going to make this video or that Josh paid $1.39 for his can of beans. I'm just going to go ahead and keep saying $1.50, because that is how I planned this video.
Slide #4 (1:37 min) (Seurat)
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There is, of course, a huge difference between living on $1.50 per day and living on $1.50 worth of food per day; but you can't really live on $1.50 per day and live in a home in the US, because the value of the home is more than $1.50 per day.
I guess Living Below the Line figured that they shouldn't try to encourage a whole bunch of people to go sleep in the park for a day or a week.
Slide #5 (2.04 min) (josh swimming)
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But, when I first heard about the challenge, I did not know it had been softened to $1.50 of food per day.
I got sort of panicky when I heard Josh was doing this challenge. I know he can get kind of zany and impulsive. I started thinking about him trying to bathe in the rivers around New York City, which are free, while taking a shower in a home would likely have a value beyond $1.50 per day.
I didn't know if Josh knew how dangerous these rivers are. They have treacherous currents and large ships in them.
He noticed I was panicking at the time and tweeted me about the challenge without ever really understanding my concerns, I don't think.
After a while I found out that he wasn't going to go all the way. He was just going to live on $1.50 worth of food. That was a relief.
Slide #6 (2:50.5 min) (numerically challenged)
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Now in order to do this project, Josh did not avail himself of any clever budget techniques, like pooling money with friends, buying in bulk, or consulting an expert in Home Economics (aka girlfriend). Now someone is sure to criticize me for being sexist in saying that last, but Josh's behavior seems so very stereotypically male that I feel constrained into imagining a stereotypical female for him. Please forgive me. For better or for worse, the older I get, the more sexist I find I become
Instead of being clever, Josh just went to a local grocery store and bought a can of beans. Apparently, it cost almost $1.50, so he figured that was all he could eat for the day.
Josh has always admitted he is numerically challenged. I wonder if Josh thinks that everyone who is living below the line is similarly numerically challenged. That would be a little insulting to them.
In any case, Josh was very upset about how hungry he was that day, so he wrote this new song "Below the Line."
Of course, poverty is a very serious problem -- and hunger is a very serious problem -- and the song is very nice -- but Josh really got and gave a very oversimplified picture.
I would like to show a bit more complexity to this picture. For those of you who know me, this should not be surprising. I am all about complexity. I would also like to give some critiques about this charity that Josh seems to be endorsing.
Slide #7 (4:23.75 min) (Hail Josh)
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This is a risky activity in the land of Grobania. There are many of my fellow tribeswomen who believe that it is never ok to criticize our Chief or question his judgment or motives. They believe that we must always be positive in our support of him, otherwise we are not fans.
Groups of such fans have been known to attempt to excommunicate tribe members who fail to comply.
Slide #8 (4:46.5 min) (US flag)
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OK. This is the point where I recall that, despite my trepidation, I also live in the United States of America, where, fortunately, we are guaranteed freedom of speech. I believe that freedom is one of those things that if you don't use it you lose it, so here I go.
I do want to add that I know Josh is a very idealistic and well-meaning person. I don't question that, just this charity and this interpretation of this very serious issue.
Slide #9 (5:14.5 min) (Remington)
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First, what does it mean to live on $1.50 per day?
A homeless person in the USA, who is living in a shelter and getting food from a soup kitchen, is receiving benefits worth substantially more than $1.50 per day. Moreover, someone is likely actually putting out cash to purchase those benefits, because the USA economy is so heavily money oriented. Therefore the people we are talking about are mostly not in the USA.
Not all living is so money oriented.
Once upon a time, the United States, where Josh and I live, was inhabited by first peoples. At that time, there was no money in most places, not money the way we think of it.
People lived off of the land at no monetary cost. They lived in houses they built themselves. They wore clothes they made themselves. They ate food that they grew or hunted themselves. They lived at a cost of $0/day, as they spent no money.
Does this mean that they lived in poverty?
No, not necessarily. In many cases, they lived quite well, with plenty to eat, intact nuclear families, lack of disease, and enormous natural beauty.
This is a problem with equating lack of money and poverty.
Slide #10 (6:27.5 min) (Dubrovnic)
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Living off the land is now often impossible. This is due to overpopulation and environmental destruction. You can't live in "civilization" very well without money.
Nevertheless, in many areas of the world, people who live on $1.50 per day are still eating some food from the land. For instance, in his book My Grandfather's Son, Clarence Thomas describes that, when he lived in a rural area of the Southern USA as a boy, he was able to supplement his diet with crawdads, so he was not starving. It was not until he moved to a city that there was really nothing to eat.
Also, in the USA, we think of living outdoors as being quite dangerous, because of our climate. In other areas of the world, where the climate is warmer, it may not be nearly so much of a hardship.
Therefore, looking only at how much money a person has is not a good measure of whether that person is in poverty or not. You also have to look at what kind of environment they live in.
Slide #11 (7:19.5) (dollar v other currencies)
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Also, we should remember that the value of the dollar is distorted in many countries. The dollar is particularly overvalued in poor countries with weak currencies, so a dollar goes a whole lot farther there than here.
For instance, according to Wall Street Journal calculations, in January of 2012, $50 would buy 30 Big Macs in India, but only 11 in the USA or 7 in Norway.
Slide #12 (7:43.25) (can of beans)
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Now let's go back to Josh and his can of beans and home economics.
I went to my store and found that they had cans of beans at 3 for $2.00, which was a bit cheaper, though maybe these were smaller cans. I don't know. In any case, even if you could get 1.5 cans, by pooling with a friend, this was still not enough to eat.
I have seen estimates that a 15 oz can of kidney beans contains about 465 calories, typically. I am not sure if that is what Josh got. Maybe he got a smaller can. In any case, a grown man is supposed to eat about 2000 calories per day. Clearly one can of beans is not enough to eat.
That was in fact Josh's experience. He was very hungry and unhappy the day when he had to live on one can of beans.
Does this mean that people are starving to death on a can of beans every day?
No it doesn't. First, Josh was cheating if he used a can opener worth more than $1.50; but also, because we have invented something called cooking and food can be bought in bulk.
I don't think Josh knows very much about cooking or shopping.
Slide #13 (8:47.5 min) (bag of dried peas)
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This is a picture of a bag of dried peas. This bag cost me 99 cents last summer.
Slide #14 (8:54) (cooked peas)
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When cooked, that bag made up almost 6 cups of peas that had 1200 calories and 108 g of protein, almost 3 times as many calories as the 15 oz can of kidney beans, and well over the minimum amount of protein that a person needs to survive for a day, which is supposedly 60g.
Ideally a person would mix peas with a grain, because grain/legume mixing yields a complete protein. Therefore the below-the-liner should pool with someone to get a bag of grain and share the two bags to get a complete protein meal, but that is going to make things even more complicated, so I won't get into it right now.
I found this cooking example interesting, because Josh was starving in part due to not knowing about cooking. It made me realize that, when living below the line, having a wife who can cook might be a matter of life and death.
Are you listening to this, Josh?
Slide #15 (9:49.25) (cooking oil)
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Even with the 99 cent bag of dried peas, though, a person would not have enough calories. It was only 1200 calories and a man is supposed to have 2000.
So I looked around the store and found this bottle of cooking oil at $7 for 3 qts or 96 oz. Each tablespoon has 120 calories. There are 2 tablespoons in an ounce yielding 192 tablespoons in 3 quarts. This means that each tablespoon costs a bit more than 4 cents.
Therefore, if the below the liner can pool some money with friends and family, he or she can get the additional 800 calories with 6 2/3 TBS of cooking oil costing approximately 24 cents.
I found this especially interesting, because it explains why poor people like to eat high fat food, which is not considered very healthy.
I wonder why it is that cooking oil is so much cheaper per calorie than other foods. There is something odd about that.
In any case, the bag of peas plus the oil would be less than $1.50 per day. Even less than $1.25 per day. It might not be nutritionally perfect, but it's not starving.
Slide #16 (10:50.75) (stove)
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Now, I personally cooked this bag of peas on a stove.
Stoves are expensive.
Stoves use fuel or electricity that is also expensive
This could be a problem for someone living below the line, though, in fact, many of them cook on fires.
Slide #17 (11:04.5) (solar cook kit)
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Cheap solar cookers are available, which can cook the peas, or beans, with no fuel costs at all. Many, if not most, below the line people live in warm climates where there is plenty of sun to operate solar cookers.
At this point, I want to put in a plug for Solar Cookers International, a charity that supplies solar cookers to poor people in warm climates. LInk appears below.
http://www.solarcookers.org/index.html
These solar cookers bring the benefit of cooking, without environmental damage that comes from cutting down trees. Moreover, in the third world. families often have kids solely for the purpose of gathering wood. These families do not feel as compelled to have so many kids if they don't have to gather wood, further benefiting the environment. In addition, in refugee camps in Africa, it was found that there were 60% less rapes, when women did not have to go out to gather wood to cook.
I would like to encourage people to donate to Solar Cookers International, rather than Living Below the Line.
Why don't I like "Living Below the Line?"
Slide #18 (12:04.75) (tearing hair)
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One concern I have is that the sole purpose of "Below the Line" seems to be to get people upset. They do not directly help any starving people.
I wonder about the benefits of seeking to upset the public. Does that really accomplish anything -- other than getting Josh to write a nice song?
After people tear their hair -- or whatever -- are they really going to be more helpful to the poor than they would have been when calmer?
Another concern I have is that traditionally, the measure of a good charity has been a low the percentage of funds going to the people running the charity. The less that percentage is, the better the charity. I can't see where money to "Below the Line" goes to anyone other than the people who run the charity. Maybe someone can edify me if it in fact goes anywhere else, assuming you're still listening.
Also when I was in college, we fasted for Oxfam, rather than for Living Below the Line. A link to Oxfam is below.
http://www.oxfam.org/
I"m not sure why people would stop fasting for Oxfam and start fasting for Below the Line instead. What's wrong with Oxfam?
In any case, I had a bad experience, watching a friend go into a nervous breakdown and having to leave college, because of the Oxfam fast getting him all upset. That left a bad taste in my mouth.
Slide #19 (13:22) (Marie Antoinette)
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I am a bit concerned, too, with how this approach would feel to those who are intended as beneficiaries.
Once upon a time there was a French queen named Marie Antoinette. Allegedly, she felt that sometimes her life in the huge palace of Versailles was a bit fatiguing, so she went to a smaller palace called Petit Trianon, where she play acted being a shepherdess.
This didn't go over too well with the French people, who were, at the time, starving. They found the vapid play acting of being a shepherdess offensive.
Marie Antoinette was one of the people famously guillotined during the French Revolution. This was a bit harsh, since she was only a foolish woman, who did not understand the world, with little or no real power to change anything, but people got upset about her insensitivity.
Now some of my tribeswomen have criticized me for bringing up this story in this context. I certainly know that Josh is not so foolish or insensitive as Marie Antoinette.
Still I wonder how people who are really starving view much wealthier people, who play at starving, by eating $1.50 or $1.25 worth of food per day for a day, or even a week. I'm not sure that isn't insensitive. It concerns me.
Slide #1 (14:28)
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So that's my peas tutorial. The text of what I just said appears in the description below, in case you missed anything.
end 14:37
When I did this video, I hoped to put the text in the "about" section below the video. YouTube would not let me. Apparently it was too much text. I have therefore put the text here. The the video still says that the text appears below, but actually it doesn't appear below. I did not change the video, tho. I think that if you edit the video you have to give it a new link, which I don't want to do. I might be wrong about that. I should find out.
Anyway, this blog now has the pictures from the video, so it is actually more complete than the video. Plus I enlarged the information about the Big Mac index, which is blurry in the video, so that you can see it better -- at least I hope you can.
