Will it be Obama?

The election this year may be one for the history books. For mere diversity, we have an interesting race. On the Democratic side, we have had an African-American and a woman as the two front-runners, but also in the race has been Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who is of Latino heritage. On the Republican side, we have a born-again Christian pastor and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (a.k.a. Mormon).

Before we go patting ourselves on our back, however, we should remember that the majority of the candidates are still white men. And before we start declaring this a year of firsts, we should remember that many other countries have had women in leadership roles - as presidents or prime ministers.

And yet, for America, as egalitarian as we think we are, this is the first time it has appeared that either a woman or a black person has offered a real possibility of election. I was just recently sent a link of Barack Obama speaking at Martin Luther King's old church. It was a stirring and powerful speech. It is worth watching when you have 15-20 minutes.

Will it be Obama? I don't know. But after this speech, I am excited to see what is ahead.

Peace,
Huffman

Convenience, Justice and Privilege

So I was recently reading through some recent posts of my favorite blog - No Impact Man. For those of you who don't know, the basic premise of this guy's blog is that he kept a year-long web journal while he tried to reduce his environmental impact down to nothing, all while living in Manhattan with his wife and daughter.

"What is environmental impact?" you ask. For ease of reference, it is the amount of negative impact we have on the ecosystem just by living. To give you an idea of how important this is, if everyone in the world were to live like the average American (i.e. making the same "environmental impact"), it would take 6 planet earths to sustain all of us. Obviously, we only have one. So we can't keep using all the power, burning all the fuel, using up all the water at the pace we are or we will die. It's pretty simple, really.

So Colin Beavan (a.k.a. "No Impact Man") conducted an experiment in which he tried to get down to a zero impact on the environment. That means no electricity, no cars, no packaged food, no paper products (not even toilet paper - I know...gross). The year of living like that is over, but he learned a lot. Mainly, he learned that he doesn't need to live as he did before. He learned that consuming and using as much as he did before added nothing to his happiness. Now that the experiment is over, he has added some things back to his life, but he is nothing like he was before.

This guy impresses me, but I am writing now to share an idea that came from one of the comments on his blog. I read it today and it was written by a woman named Sharon. You can read it here. Basically, here is her point. There is a finite (limited) amount of resources on the planet so, reasonably everyone can have a fair share, provided the amount used leaves the place working well for the next generation. If we use more than our fair share, we are effectively saying, "I deserve more than other people." If we are too lazy to change, then we are choosing our own laziness over somebody else's suffering.

How can we continue this?

I mean, morally and ethically speaking, why do we feel we have the right to more resources than other people on the planet, and people not yet born?

We can't. We have to find a way to reduce what we are burning, using and throwing away. If you are going to post a comment to this blog, I would like to hear what ideas you have. Unless, of course, you think I am off my rocker, then you can tell me that, too.

Peace,
Huffman

Huffman's Westview Blogosphere...Welcome!

This is the beginning. In the beginning was the word.

Welcome to Huffman's Westview corner of the blogosphere. If all goes as planned, this blog will be a place to share ideas, respond to each other, give constructive criticism and get a peek into the way Huffman's head works.

The idea is this. I will post here at least once a week. You will come to read what is going on in my head - I know that is incredibly arrogant of me, but this is not intended to be an exercise in massaging my own ego. At weird times, I find a lot of interesting stuff out there on the internet. I will post some links here for you to check out and respond to.

You will be required to post at least one blog response a week (at around 50 words - not even a paragraph). Also, you will have to respond to at least one of your peers' posts. The point is to be interactive. What do you think about what is being said out there? What do others think? How can we grow together?

This should be fun. (My kind of fun, at least. Maybe not yours. But have an open mind - you might end up enjoying this, too.)

For now, I would like you to respond to this blog post. I am also going to add some links to some interesting sites out there that might provoke some other good discussion. Check any of them out and let me know what you think.