shoup house: scruple please: heavy on the caffeine

Shoup

• merchandise • standards • feedback • cambodia sst • gc people • rss feed • devotions I • devotions II • trilidun • oedipus

blogin! name: pass:	gmail! name: pass:

Quote of the Week:

"An industrial capitalist society that does not recognize ecological limits but only perpetual economic expansion and has the profit motive as driver, will eventually consume and destroy itself."

"But we will all be taken down with it."

- David Orton

Shoup News

Add a headline!

Shoup Foas:

Add a feed!

Friendly Links:

• new world blog
• the note
• the onion
• artsjournal
• yr congress
• morning news
• wooster
• DCBCA
• east hall
• jeremy b
• imdb
• all music guide
• jen y
• hey cd reviews
• sara
• lanny
• dan h
• ketchup
• d-m

• kenwood
• eicher
• debby s.

• t-mo
• evil tim s.
• tristan k
• daviduh
• lando!

• maria
• breakfast burritos
• trippity trip trip
• dino comics
• phil
• teresa

• pitchfork media
• mksm
• trilidun
• oedipus
• Light St Cycles

Shoup Pics:

shoup ♥ flickr

Shoup Shop:

Shoup Radio

Add a song!

Save the Internet!

News Links:

• Indymedia
• Z-Mag
• GNN
• ReligionOnAStick
• The Guardian
• Christian Science Monitor
• BBC
• Sploid

• Washington Post
• The Record
• New York Times
• Chicago Tribune
• Deutsche Welle
• Le Monde

Pictures:

• kate
• alisa joy
• rob
• david
• megly
• rossbay
• kate II
• jessebm
• katieco
• lando
• philip
• sasha
• joel f.
• darla/steve
• tim naf
• erini
• andrea
• matt m.
• guen
• montreal

Aren't a member of this blog, but have something to say? That's OK! Use username "shoupguest" with password "shoupguest".*

Question of the Week:

Add a poll!

Shoup Archives:

Thursday, October 28, 2004

scruple please: heavy on the caffeine
joel's conundrum -
listen up now, because this a great story.

the other day, i went to one of the coffee shops near my house here in indianapolis. the name of the coffee house is abba moses, located across the street from "the joy of all who suffer orthodox church". i went with two objectives in mind: begin writing my "personal theory of social change" paper for dean johnson's class and read from the book "a patch of eden: america's inner-city gardeners" by h. patricia hynes.

i ordered a vietnamese coffee, thick with grounds and sweetened condensed milk and set about tackling my interpretation for the cause of social problems and how i want to fix them. theofan and mary, the owners of the coffeehouse and resident cool people, and i began a conversation about the the cause of such problems. we talked about the fallen nature of humanity, how, if it is necessary, salvation plays a part in the role of social change and what humans inherently desire and search for. after talking for about and hour, a customer walked in and order a coffee to go, but overheard our conversation and asked to join.

in his mid- to late-forties, robert smith, wore a tan, heavy cotton hat, not a baseball cap, but one with a brim all the way around. one edge of the brim was folded up and attached to the side of the top with a snap. the hat and robert's button down, short sleeve tan shirt, overlaid on a dark long sleeve shirt, elicited the image of an australian outback explorer. on his hat, three pins: each one from a different union. the operators engineers, the teamsters and one more i forget at the moment. robert holds three union cards and three different pensions.

robert joined the conversation and as more people filled the coffee shop in the afternoon, theofan and mary were taken away, leaving just me and robert to talk. our conversation touched on topics including the biased media, how union pensions work, how he works in asphalt paving eight months out of the year than goes to the city aquas calientes, in the state of aguas calientes, in mexico for the winter; returning once in the late winter to file his taxes. the conversation turned towards me and what i want to do with my journalism, peace studies and, ahem, limited design skills. i told him i wanted to farm.

then, we began talking about different travels we have made and i mentioned that i had spent a year in hong kong, volunteering my roberte as a web editor, writer and photographer to the social movement. at this point in the talk, robert's interest noticeably increased and would continue to exude more fascination as i explained all that i experienced and knew about hong kong culture and to less extent, my limited knowledge of china. we talked about the social structure of society in hong kong and how hundreds of thousands of domestic workers come from thailand, indonesia, the philippines, cambodia, vietnam, south china and others to work in homes of hong kong chinese as care takers and domestic servants. robert then surprised me by asking how he could become one of these domestic servants. i immediately cautioned him, telling about incidents of abuse and indentured servant labor. then, robert pulled out his business card: quantum realty.

http://www.quantumrealestate.net/

robert, on the side, owns and operates quantum real estate and lists thousands of properties on his web page. through the help of a friend who worked or works for nasa, a database adds and clears the listings every two weeks. apparently this is far more up to date than many other realtors claims robert.

aha, i thought to myself, i see where this is going. incredible, really.

i arrived at abba moses at around 2 pm. i left at 6:15, late for my house dinner; an offer on the table. if i should so choose, i have a free ticket and accommodations for a month in hong kong, plus a cut in the profits if i take robert to hk and show him around. inspired by the book, "ugly americans: the true story of the ivy league cowboys who raided the asian markets for millions" by ben mezrich, robert wants me to help him sell north american properties to hk investors.

so the question: why me? why me, a person who just sat down to write his personal ethos on why society fails to provide for people and basic human rights; i firmly believe that our capitalist system is one of the root causes of the injustices among others. yet, even as i write this, i must be honest and admit that when i left hong kong, i did so not knowing when i would return, if i ever would. the people i left behind, i miss dearly and yearn to see them in person again.

as i close this story, i ask you, my community, to respond to this decision. spread the anecdote and ask others to add their input.

as i left the coffee house, robert wrote his cell phone number on the back of the card. he lives only blocks away from my house, and we will undoubtedly meet again. i did not give my contact information to him and i withheld my last name. but then again, if my journey is such as it has been in the past years, where far fetched opportunities catch me and hold me, i do not doubt that i will receive an e-mail all too shortly.

in conclusion, i raise my cup of fair trade coffee to internal conflicts.

note: the name of the realtor has been changed, but the website is real.

posted by joel @ 1:23 PM

name

email

Please state your business:

Comments: