Tonight's Watercolor!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cehvL2akWfk

So I've begun working with TOMS Shoes in Santa Monica, CA. What is TOMS Shoes? We're a shoe company, BUT

With every pair you purchase, TOMS will give another pair of shoes to a child in need. One for One.

This youtube video is a quick introduction to our mission at TOMS

Maybe you've heard of it?

www.Kiva.org is a social change non-profit that empowers individuals with internet access and a paypal account with the capacity to microfinance directly to borrowers in the developing world through no-interest loans. It's the same basic principles of microfinance that Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.

After easily raising over $450 online for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital through the elementary school where I have been a teacher's aid through AmeriCorps *NCCC, I was on a high. Not long after, I spoke with my sister's boyfriend (who also happens to be an Adam) and he reminded me about a site that we had talked about before, but that I had since forgotten - www.Kiva.org.

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Strapped: Why America's 20 and 30 somethings can't get ahead.

Great book; I read it in about 3 days. And I'd recommend it to anyone, so for this blog post, it is my recommendation to you.

Read a free excerpt over at www.StrappedTheBook.com and then go buy it.

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Insert powerful quote here. "Gays are pedophiles who engage in a self-destructive and immoral life-style." - Anonymous Armed Forces General.

Sarcastic Author Response. Okay great, thank you worthy source, Mr. Anonymous!

Background. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", a law compromised by Clinton in 1993 after much right-wing "protest", is the one and only law in the United States that pointedly mandates firing someone because of his or her sexual orientation. A law that the very essence of which basically says, "We don't want to know... so we'll turn our backs, but if we find out that you're out, then you're out".

Point. To uphold such a policy, one that considers ignorance as bliss (i.e., "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"), and chooses rather to ignore the "issue" as if it weren't the 800 lb. elephant in the room, is to inherently acknowledge that this "issue" that you don't really want to know (or ask) about, must actually be bad and wrong, immoral or guilt-ridden. Is that what our military is really saying here about homosexuality? Yes, yes it is.

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A few Sunday nights ago, my Dad and I were watching a program on channel 13 about Iwo Jima which, presumably as intended, sparked me to think about war.