:: Casey Parks

Become a Small-Time Banker; End Poverty

Nick Kristof's column today illuminates one very easy way you can help developing nations with only $25. Kiva.org allows you to become a microfinancier. You're technically not even donating the $25, just lending it.

Kristof writes, The local group, Ariana Financial Services, has only Afghan employees and is run by Storai Sadat, a dynamic young woman who was in her second year of medical school when the Taliban came to power and ended education for women. She ended up working for Mercy Corps and becoming a first-rate financier; some day she may take over Citigroup.

“Being a finance person is better than being a doctor,” Ms. Sadat said. “You can cure the whole family, not just one person. And it’s good medicine — you can see them get better day by day.”

Small loans to entrepreneurs are now widely recognized as an important tool against poverty. Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his pioneering work with microfinance in Bangladesh.

Can't Stop, Won't Stop

I can't get enough of the book I'm reading -- "Can't Stop Won't Stop" by Jeff Chang. It really delves into what was going on as hip-hop launched into life then writhed until it became what it is today. I've always said I like (modern) hip-hop for its stories, for what it tells me about young black Americans. Policymakers should study it, I've said, to see what they're really thinking.

But man, that was even more so when it first started. When hip-hop started in the South Bronx, the beats really were the only respite (and in this way, maybe Lil Jon isn't so bad .. that crunkified dancing may be just release, and that may be more important than I've realized). But it's amazing to see what ideas like urban renewal did to the black youth, to impoverished people put out of their houses all for the sake of a new freeway. The South Bronx part of the book was fierce enough: gangs, graffiti wars that end in death, Howard Beach, the rise of crack and freebasing.

But now, as the book moves to LA, it's getting even crazier. West Coast rappers had South Central and Compton, Rodney King and Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old girl shot by a Korean storeworker who mistakingly thought Harlins was stealing some juice. The Korean woman only got five years in prison. LA has the Crips, no grocery stores and Boyz N The Hood. NWA. Ice Cube (who by the way, after "Death Certificate" came out, used the same rationale that many rappers do now about saying the n-word or blasting misogyny or homophobia: "The language of the streets is the only language I can use to communicate with the streets.")

Man oh man.

I really love journalism. I really love all that it can teach.

Nick Kristof has announced another Win a Trip contest, and I am jealous of all the people excited about the possibility of going. I really want to go back; I want my blog again. I want to be writing so furiously, feeling like what I am doing is important. I want to be pushing myself beyond what I think is really possible. I want to be tired out from a good day of work. I want to be sweaty from interviewing in the heat. I miss these things. Sitting in an office is not for me. It just really isn't. I am learning so much at the Oregonian, but I am hungry for adventure, for a more global understanding.

I much prefer my laptop outside scattered by the world's largest mosquito bugs. I prefer working so hard your body absolutely will give out, but first: you have to file something, something so furioius that it pours out of you without you having to even consider it.

Oh, I want so much.

Ugly is the New Pretty

The irony of ugly. I knew it well. Back in Mississippi, I once got my hair cut into a style JFP co-workers said looked like I had mange (hint: I had stripes shaved around my head with a rat tail and makeshift-mohawk). My clothes almost never matched. My socks didn't match until this last fall. My earrings still don't.

But in Portland, the irony of being ugly reigns supreme. Last night, I saw a girl actually wearing a top made out of various '80s windbreakers sewn together in one big puff. Topping the outfit off were a pair of plaid hotpants and some tights.

From the back of the concert, I spotted a girl -- overweight in a mis-cut dress made of material that could have been curtains we were embarrassed to have as poor kids in the early '90s. Most of her head was shaved except for one long piece on the side. She danced with authority. Flirted with the people around her. Here, ugly rules, and the curtain dress is racking up sexy points. In an alternate universe (the world's 'normal universe'), she'd be ugly. She wouldn't get dates. She might have a great personality, but would likely secretly lament.

"I don't want to really live in either of those universes," my girlfriend told me this morning, when I recounted my night to her.

"Me either," I said.

I used to hate being hit on in clubs. Why should people tell me I'm cute, compliment some accident mash-up of DNA that is beyond my control? I never worked to be skinny, to form dimples in my cheeks.

That's why I was excited when that show "Ugly Betty" came out (though even it really makes America Ferrarra, who is really beautiful, as ugly as possible) with an ugly heroine and a campaign -- BE UGLY -- to bolster it. Why shouldn't we all eschew DNA and just be sexy together?

But, I have to say, the fashion of ironic ugly is way beyond my comprehension. I suspect they'll look back at pictures of themselves and grimace -- just a little -- the way I do when I peep pictures of my 'mange' 'do. But, I always think, too, I'm glad I did that. Just to see.

You're From the South?

A few nights ago, at a reading for the book "Other People's Property" (supposedly a book about being white and loving hip-hop), a guy said, "Violent rap doesn't exist anymore. (Pause) Well, except in the South where it's all just bling."

This came from the same reading where the author had said Eminem experienced "reverse racism" (whatever that is. Neola Young and I are still trying to figure that out. Isn't any racism racism?), where when Lynette Hanson said she is from Mississippi, the crowd collectively gasped (some even covered their mouths).

We're in Portland, Oregon, folks. It's the place I dreamed about as a young teenager in the South, thinking I'd move here to the land of progressives and fit in.

Don't get me wrong, Portland is open and welcoming, and you can walk gay as you want to do down the street. But it is amazing to me the way the world still views the South. It's not a foreign country. It isn't the only place where violent rap still lives (and as a side note, every song I know about bling has nothing to do with violence. Jewelery and violence do not necessarily go hand-in-hand).

So what do we do to get people to quit thinking of the South in such distorted ways? I know I want to work for a national bureau at a paper, covering the South, to combat unresponsible journalism (like my favorite example, Eric Lipton's piece on post-Katrina Jackson last year) but also to illuminate the South for the rest of the country, to end the collective gasps and the misinformed declarations.

Confusion at Walter Reed

The Washington Post ran an amazing two-part series about the lack of follow-up care for soldiers returning from war to Walter Reed Hospital over the weekend. It's written by really a journalistic dream team of Dana Priest (She won the Pulitzer last year for her pieces on "black site" prisons) and Anne Hull (who, I think, is easily the best narrative writer in journalism. She's a magic worker, just truly astounding).

The Pentagon has announced plans to close Walter Reed by 2011, but that hasn't stopped the flow of casualties. Three times a week, school buses painted white and fitted with stretchers and blackened windows stream down Georgia Avenue. Sirens blaring, they deliver soldiers groggy from a pain-relief cocktail at the end of their long trip from Iraq via Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and Andrews Air Force Base.

Staff Sgt. John Daniel Shannon, 43, came in on one of those buses in November 2004 and spent several weeks on the fifth floor of Walter Reed's hospital. His eye and skull were shattered by an AK-47 round. His odyssey in the Other Walter Reed has lasted more than two years, but it began when someone handed him a map of the grounds and told him to find his room across post.

A reconnaissance and land-navigation expert, Shannon was so disoriented that he couldn't even find north. Holding the map, he stumbled around outside the hospital, sliding against walls and trying to keep himself upright, he said. He asked anyone he found for directions.

Seriously, read this story. This is what journalism is capable of. It is more than responding to news, more than spot pieces or Britney's bald new look. It's the chance to really show the public something it is incapable of seeing on its own.

Hiding Love in Iraq

This story ran two years ago, but on Valentine's Day, with the war in Iraq and war over sexuality still both in heavy effect, I think it's relevant.

This story, a piece from the NYTimes Modern Love column about a lesbian serving in Iraq, about hiding her sexuality.

It is really one of the most gorgeous columns I've ever read.

A snippet:

But I couldn't do that. When I joined the Army in 2000 I had never anticipated any future need to censor my life, had never imagined the flesh and blood form in which my true love would one day appear. I had raised my hand and sworn the military oath to redeem a decade of debt, to escape the years of assembly lines, waitress aprons and janitor buckets that had kept me afloat. Thanks to the Army, I had just received a degree in English, and for this I was grateful.

Like my country, teetering on the edge of a war with unknowable costs, I had decided to borrow now and pay later. As I saw it, I owed for what I had received, and it would be a sniveling, wimpy misuse of my love to back out just when the bill was due to my country and the men and women I served with. I did not really buy the bill of goods they'd sold everyone to star-and-spangle our reasons for pre-emptive invasion, but I had sworn to obey my commander in chief.

Leonard Pitts: Obama is Black

Leonard Pitts' column today is both smart and hilarious.

I'd like to add to this that I interviewed some 18 year olds in the suburbs near Portland last week, and one asked if it is illegal for a black man to become president. The others, none of whom had heard of Obama, said if a black man ever became president, he'd be shot.

For all its getting-off-the-hook about it, the Northwest has some serious race conversations to have.

Music Issue Survey

The big music issue is coming up, and you can decide who we feature. Go vote: http://jacksonfreepress.com/music/survey.php

State Tax Slip-ups

I filed my 2005 income taxes for Mississippi last April, expecting a couple of hundred dollars back. Then I waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, I call the State Tax Commissioner and ask what's up. They lost my files.

So I refile. And wait. And wait. And wait. Finally, I start calling in November to ask what's up. Every time, I get the same reply:

"Our computers are down. Call back later."

Click. No thank you or have a nice day.

Finally, in December, I check online and it says a check was sent to me on Dec. 5. So I wait for that check to arrive. It never does. I call the State Tax Commissioner (Jackson office) again.

"You're gonna have to call back. Our computers are down."

Click.

Why isn't the STC running efficiently? Forget the fact that I still haven't gotten the check and these people are rude on the phone, but what is up that their computers are always down? I really think this needs to be looked into. A state government agency should not have malfunctioning computers so often.

Learning More Online

It only takes a few years to start reminiscing about college, to begin wishing you'd done so much more. Only two years out, I'm already regretting all of the classes I didn't take, all of the students I didn't meet (because, seriously, sometimes in college you learn more from the people there with you than you do from the text books).

So what to do? I'm already big-time in debt to loan people from Millsaps. I've already clunked over more money to a grad. program. I read this article in Time about bringing classrooms into the 21st Century. The article explores all kind of cool aspects of learning in the new more-global, more-techno world, but one thing I found particularly interesting is this site Curriki.

The site has various text books and curriculum online for free. There aren't a lot on there now, but there are 450 courses in the works. Very cool for those like me who are regretting all the things they didn't learn in college (not to mention high school).