Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Kiva.org

Saw the advertisement of Kiva.org while trying to watch celebrity apprentice online. Wow, major advertisement budget. Effectively, I hope, judging by the fact that we went out of donee by Sunday again. [To the Christian lady I mentioned in my previous blog: helping those in need make you a good person. Helping them without flaunting about your achievement make you an even better person.]

Long story short, Kiva.org is a website that allows you to do microfinancing -- making small loans to those who live in poverty, where a little sum can go a long way, help them jump start/maintain their entrepreneurship, get the money back. Years ago I've donated to Grameen Foundation, a similar establishment but Kiva is better in that you get to put a face to your donation (loan), AND you can reasonably expect the recipient of the loan to repay you, then you can choose between loaning your money to another individual/group, donate to Kiva, or pull your fund back out. I truly like the transparency of that. It's been to be able to "see" where the money went, and see it coming back, instead of not knowing how much of my donation really went to helping people and how much is tied up in administrative fees. Scroll down this blog to see the link to Kiva.org.

Pub & Christian Lady

Some "religious" people can somehow, always, manage to find a way to insert their religious belief in a conversation. That was simply incredible, and by incredible, I am being sarcastic, I meant obnoxious and offensive, and a bigot at best. I used to have a coworker who just refused to stop praying for me, despite multiples instances that I had to tell her point blank that I am an atheist and do not believe there is a God. She just wanted to "do her thing." Which is fine, after all, what possible harm could it done to pray to a God, her God, fictitious or otherwise, but why the need to persistently TOLD me that she prayed for me???

So I went with Hubby to see his friend play in a band over the weekend. Mind you, I'm not a bar/pub/club kind of person. I merely went there for the food, and ended up staying. Okay, so the friend was kind of cute, so I wanted to stay to hear him sing, and it appeared that they play music that I somewhat like. Alas, my attention can only last so long, so after a few songs, I broke out my iPod touch and started watching tv shows on it. The lady next to me expresssed strong interest in my little device so I happily took my headphone off and showed her the functionality, briefly mentioned iTunes, just like any other geek would. I explained to her that shows cost money, unless, of course, if she downloads them illegally (I did not encourage her to do so, merely stating a fact that it is do-able) but podcasts are free. Out of no where came this, "I like to Christian podcasts, I do not get sleepy when I am listening to God." Ummmmm. I'm sorry, did I by any chance inquired about your religious belief? Or even the slightest curiosity about WHAT type of content would you be interested in, did I? That was unbelievable that she could managed to sneak her religious belief in that conversation.

Luckily, I've already had my iPod out and earphones in my hand. I rolled my eyes, put my ear piece back in, that conversation was SO over. What's with these people who like to flaunt their religious belief? Ooookay, so you are Christian, yippee. What does that have to do with me? Really, the ONLY message behind that statement is "Being a Christian naturally make me a good person." No lady, being a good person make you a good person, your religious belief by no means tell me what kind of a person you are. Shall we bring up certain priests' fondness toward little boys? Telling a complete stranger within the first ten minutes your religious belief tells me that you are a rude bigot who (1) believe that naturally every one is religious and (2) naturally we all believe in your religious. Please, keep that to yourself. Thank you.