“When a person is twenty-one or twenty-two years old and facing that great enigma about what to do, envying the law students or medical students who can get on a set of rails and run on it and know where they’re going, the writer doesn’t know. But a writer should also bear in mind there are numerous paths to this goal and they’re all O.K….You’re going to get there. If the person expects the big answer at twenty-one, that’s ridiculous. Everyone’s in the dark.”

(John McPhee quoted in Literary Journalism in an essay by editor Norman Sims)

When I was twenty-two I was a world-traveling SCUBA instructor with a degree in Anthropology hanging on the wall of my vacant bedroom at my parent’s house. I wasn’t allowed to put holes in the wall of the attic, accessed by fold down stairs, in which I lived in Key West.

Would I ever actually use the degree?

I didn’t want to be an Anthropologist. I wanted to write. But how?

When I turned off the light in my attic I was literally and figuratively in the dark.

I’ve recounted my writing path before, so I won’t do it again here, but I would like to touch on something that McPhee said. I have always envied folks on a traditional career path, including med students, law students, and teachers. They know they have to go to school for X many years and then for X many years more, and then they’ll find a job doing X. A writer faces uncertainty.

You can work your tail off writing your novel only to complete it and no one wants to publish it. You can travel the world chasing the tags of your clothes with a notion of an idea that could be a book, maybe, and you could return with nothing to show but a wallet $8,000 lighter.

Writing takes courage, faith, and, in my case, a very a patient spouse.

I was a columnist earning less than $30 per week. Then I was a freelancer earning a couple of hundred per story. Then I was an author who was paid a year’s salary (a year working at McDonald’s). Then I was a freelancer earning up to $3 per word. Then I was a speaker, earning a couple grand per talk. And now I’m all of the above, sometimes.

I’m not really sure.

I had a day job, but it is no more. I know how I’ll earn a living from now until December, but after that I have no idea. The Nothing Personal book proposal is very near to going out. Even though I think it’s a killer book, who knows how it will be received? My last two proposals had some interest, but not enough to give them life. So much of a writing career depends on someone else believing in your story.

At 21 I lived McPhee’s quote and at 31, a published author, I still do. Yes, I live the uncertainty, but more than that I have faith in what McPhee says, “You’re going to get there.” I hope that I will always be striving for a there — another book, the next speaking gig, This American Life, the New Yorker, Esquire, a novel.

A writer must constantly evolve. McPhee says, “It’s like a huge river with a lot of islands in it. You can go around an island to the left or right. You can got to this or that island. You might go to an eddy. But you’re still in the river.”

What’s next for me? Maybe a book. I’ve got some cool radio pieces in the works and an exciting list of fun speaking gigs coming up. Maybe school.

To grow as a writer I’m auditing a graduate course in Literary Journalism at Ball State that led me to the book below (affiliate link) and McPhee’s quote. Maybe I’ll take the course for credit and pursue my MA.

When I grow up I want to be a writer. I’m not positive how I’ll continue my pursuit of there, but one thing is for sure — I’ll never stop paddling.

My “Free Money” post, part of my $10 for Tuesday Project, has received over 60 comments. Everything from “Give me $10 or I’ll kill you” to, more often, tales that are a sign of these tough times.

It’s become much more of a responsibility than I ever imagined. To think someone was so desperate that they Googled “free money” and took the time to comment or email me their story hoping they might get a measly $10 breaks my heart. I always try to respond.

I received this note a while back:

My name is Michelle I am a 32 yr old single mom of 2. A 12 yr old lil girl and my 7yr old son Kevin who was diagnosed with a rare aggressive form of cancer called Rhabdomyopsarcoma. On June 19,2010 he is getting chemo and radiation. I am trying to raise 1500.00 to get a vehicle and my license so I can get him to his doctors appointments in Atlanta, Ga which is nearly 4 hours from our home in Valdosta, GA. We have to be in Atlanta twice a week and sometimes more. I am a waitress and it’s very hard to juggle all of this. I feel like I’m letting my babies down. But I’m trying. I would greatly appreciate it if you would please ask your family and church and anyone else you can think of to please pray for my Bo. His name is Kevin. Bo is his nickname. Thank you

“I’m letting my babies down.” That sentence levels me.

It’s not always easy to vet the stories to see if they are genuine. But after doing some digging and exchanging a few emails with Michelle I have no reason to believe that she isn’t telling the horrible truth.

This week I’m mailing my $10 to Michelle so she can help take care of her babies. I know that $10 won’t make that much of a difference, but more than anything I want her to know that there is someone out there that hears her. I would be honored if you joined me.

Email me at Kelsey@kelseytimmerman.com and I’ll send you her address.

(This is my second $10 for Tuesday today because I missed last week)

Americans earning less than $25,000 give away 4.2% of their income on average and those earning $75,000+ give away only 2.7% of theirs according to a piece by Judith Warner in the NY Times The Charitable Giving Divide.

Some of the most interesting parts of the story were Warner’s discussions with grad student, Paul Piff, about his research at UC Berkeley:

“…lower-income people were more generous, charitable, trusting and helpful to others than were those with more wealth. They were more attuned to the needs of others and more committed generally to the values of egalitarianism.

“Upper class” people, on the other hand, clung to values that “prioritized their own need.” And, he told me this week, “wealth seems to buffer people from attending to the needs of others.” Empathy and compassion appeared to be the key ingredients in the greater generosity of those with lower incomes. And these two traits proved to be in increasingly short supply as people moved up the income spectrum.

Piff found that if higher-income people were instructed to imagine themselves as lower class, they became more charitable. If they were primed by, say, watching a sympathy-eliciting video, they became more helpful to others — so much so, in fact, that the difference between their behavior and that of the low-income subjects disappeared. And fascinatingly, the inverse was true as well: when lower-income people were led to think of themselves as upper class, they actually became less altruistic.

Another interesting quote in the piece was from economist, Frank Levy:

“The welfare state rests on enlightened self-interest in which people can look at beneficiaries and reasonably say, ‘There but for the grace of God. . . .’ As income differences widen, this statement rings less true.”

“Runaway inequality (has led to) a pulling away of the very wealthy from the rest of American society. Do we believe the rich should be trusted to tithe, or should we have a society with a basic taxing-and-spending structure that ensures a modicum of economic security for all people?”

That last bit is the tie-in to the present day discussion on whether or not to roll back the Bush tax cuts. Personally, I’m all right with the “have’s” kicking in a little extra right now. There’s all this talk about if the wealthy have more money they’ll invest it and create jobs. That might be the case at times – and I do believe that giving someone a job gives them a dignity that no amount of charity ever could – but the folks who I know that still have money are sitting on it because the economy is still so uncertain. I don’t blame them.

Actually, I think the tie-in to the tax cuts in the piece is simply necessary to land it in the NY Times. The real story here is: More money = less empathy.

Don’t you just love humans and our short memories?

You give a poor person money and they care less. They forget the struggles they had. This is the whole “boot strap” argument. I did it by myself so you should do it by yourself.

There is no getting out of poverty by yourself or getting rich on your own. You can’t pull yourself up by the bootstraps if you don’t have any boots. At some point someone believes in you, whether it’s an employer or a client or an investor or a teacher.

The downside to financial independence is isolation. There’s more community in one apartment complex in the projects than there is in an entire development in the suburbs.

I work with a group in Muncie called Teamwork for Quality Living. They pair three middle and upper class volunteers, who are known as “allies,” with someone in the community who is trying to get out of poverty, known as “captains.” The allies don’t give the captains money, but they share their experiences, expertise, and connections in the community to help the captains reach their goals.

When the group meets as a whole, it’s hard to distinguish the captains from the allies, and, in fact, no one really tries. Two weeks ago when the group met we discussed what the allies and captains, alike, get out of the experience. Many of the allies talked about how they see the poor in a very different light now and the captains said the same thing about the wealthy.

It turns out zeroes in a bank account don’t mean as much as we think.

I guarantee that the members of Teamwork — captains and allies alike — give away much more than 4.2% of their incomes. It’s an investment that yields big returns in the form of friendship, confidence, faith in people, and empathy. And that’s something that no tax cut will ever do.

–

This Tuesday as part of my $10 for Tuesday project I’m giving $10 to Teamwork for Quality Living. I encourage you to find a group in your community to support with Time and/or moeny that breaks down the barriers between the have’s and have-nots and reminds us all that we’re in this mess together.

What I’m saying is that I consume as many cartoons now as I did when I was six. And while the cartoons of today teach my little girl how to share and be a good friend and how to say “hi” in Spanish and Chinese, I feel like they are lacking in the imagination department (Backyardagins is a phenomenal exception).

Lenny, Tuck, and Ming Ming (the Wonder Pets) get a call from an animal in trouble, they put their airship together and zoom off to save them. When they arrive there is some problem that needs overcome: the animal is a skunk and they have to free him without scaring him, or the animal is high in a tree. Whatever. They always work it out in the end with Teamwork. (By the way – in our house one of the great ways to stop Harper from crying is to call out: “What’s going to work?” And then she sucks it up and responds with a teary-eyed: “Teamwork!”) Problem solved.

The show like many of the others we watch seem too formulaic. I tell Harper, “Your cartoons aren’t as good as the cartoons when I was a kid.” I worry about what this means for the development of her imagination, and her understanding of story.

But nostalgia can be blinding, so I really started to consider my favorite cartoons of the 80s. And I found that they weren’t as imaginative and non-formulaic as I thought.

Let’s examine a few:

HE-MAN
When the shit hits the fan Prince Adam raises his sword to the heavens and hollers “By the Power of Grayskull, I have the Power.” Skeletor proceeds to get his butt whooped by Battle Cat and He-Man. (On a side note: Who the heck thought of the name He-Man? How uncreative is that?)

Voltron(The one with the cats not the cars. Tell me you didn’t like the one with the cars!)
King Zarkon and/or his son Lotor, and their witch buddy Haggar unleash yet another Robeast on the planet Arus. Quick to the robot lion ships! The robot lions get smacked down by the Robeast. Uh oh, let’s form Vol-Tron! Voltron is formed and he holds his own for a bit before taking a few lumps. Now let’s show him how a robot-man made out of robot cats does it! Form flaming sword! And no Robeast is a match for a flaming-sword wielding Vol-Tron. Peace falls on the land of Arus. Hey, geniuses why not just form Voltron with blazing sword from the get go, kick some ass, and then you can all get back to trying to woo the princess in the pink cat?

(Isn’t this Optimus Prime introducing Vol-Tron?)

Gummi Bears
Trouble. Trouble. Duke Igthorn is at it again with the help of his ogre minions. Oh no Grammy Gummi is captured. Drink Gummiberry Juice. Bounce on helmets of Ogres. Zip down Gummi shoot to underground Gummi lair. Laugh. End show.

Thundercats
See He-Man. Replace “By the Power of Grayskull…” with “Thunder…Thunder…Thunder Cats Ho!” Skeletor = Mummra. Snark = Orko. Toys = Sold.

Silverhawks:

Exactly like Thundercats but in space with hawks.

And all of the above are basically just rip-offs of Popeye. Poor Popeye can’t defend his lady – not sure why he wants to defend the homely Olive Oyl anyhow – eats some spinach and kicks Bluto’s butt.

They are all the same show!

Granted there were other genre of cartoons back in the day, but they were often similar to others. Transformers = Mask = GI Joe

And that brings me to what I feel to be the best and most imaginative cartoon of the 80s: Duck Tales. Woohoo!

How much of my wanting to explore the world came from watching Huey, Duey, and Luey protecting the fortune of Uncle Scrooge, I’ll never know.

What is your favorite cartoon of today? How about of the 80s? (I’ve left some good ones off the list.)

“Dov Charney is at the moment of truth,” said Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates Inc., a national retail consulting and investment banking firm based in New York City. “And all roads for him lead to hell. He’s got to pick the best of the worst choices.”

From the Financial Post story American Apparel a hipster darling no more as bankruptcy looms

Dov Charney is the controversial CEO of American Apparel, the US’s largest remaining apparel manufacturer. Dov is reportedly very hands on when it comes to clothes and, reportedly his female workers. I write about AA in Where Am I Wearing? as an option for engaged consumers who are looking to support American-made products.

But recently the company’s stock has fallen lower than the necklines of their T-shirts — 66%. It’s doubtful that the brand will go away, but it sounds like they might be in for a restructuring and that likely means Dov will have to go away. This is a shame. Despite his alleged transgressions, I hate seeing someone forced from doing the something that they love.

That said, why is American Apparel in this position? Here are five reasons:

1) Sex Sells except when it doesn’t
No company has taken the advertising mantra “sex sells” to the level of American Apparel.

I mean really, does anything say “come shop here and you’ll get laid” more than this?

American Apparel sells T-shirts, socks, and everything in between, but most of their ads feature women barely wearing anything. I’ve never seen a copy of their catalog, likely because they are stuffed beneath the mattresses of every 13 year-old boy from here to Tuscaloosa. If men bought and wore pantyhose, the ad to the left would have sold millions of pair.

Unfortunately, women buy pantyhose.

The fact that their ads are oversexed and Dov, the face and crotch, of American Apparel is too, could have contributed to their decline.

2) Don’t mess with Woody Allen

AA ran an ad with Woody Allen in it without his permission. Allen sued and won. Now AA is breathing it’s last breath. Woody Allen is still doing fine. Just saying…

3) A referendum on mustaches

Need I say more?

4) Garment workers aren’t supposed to be paid a decent wage

Last year AA had to layoff 1,500 workers under threat of a raid by the federal government to investigate claims of illegal immigrants working.

Illegal or not, the workers were paid a respectable wage with respectable benefits. American Apparel workers made American Apparel products. This is something unheard of today. There’s no such thing as a GAP garment maker. The folks who make GAP work for some other factory in faraway places.

Maybe it’s economically impossible for a brand to actually make something other than a commercial in today’s market.

5) Too cool for school

I own two of their collared shirts and a few of their T-shirts. However, much of what they make is too cool, too fuscia, too (dare I say) ball hugging for me. I don’t know a single guy that owns a pair of pink pants, let alone pink briefs.

—

Which if any of the above factors played a roll in American Apparel’s troubles? I can’t say. Regardless, we live in a world where engaged consumers have limited options already. The loss of American Apparel would limit them even further.

Cartoon by Geoff Hassing

So this fella Matt Long wrote this piece titled, “Don’t be a Touron.”

Gasp!

Hand me my backpack, scepter, and crown. You might want to back up a little.

(adjusts crown, raises scepter which is really just a stick that happened to be nearby)

“By the power of Grayskull, I am the Great Touron King!”

The flashes of dozens of disposable cameras fill the sky.

That glow that you see radiating from me isn’t my aura of power. That’s just the sun reflecting off of my SPF 80 sunscreen.

My first published sentence was, “In the Land of Tourons I am the Great Touron King.” It appeared in the Key West City Paper in 2002. Each week for the following three years, I recounted my experiences in places that weren’t home; places that I didn’t always know how to act or where to go; places that I found new and creative ways to make myself look like a jackass.

Here’s Matt on Tourons:

The Urban Dictionary defines a Touron as “The derogatory term combines the words “Tourist” with “Moron” to describe any person who, while on vacation, commits an act of pure stupidity.”

Ultimately, a touron is a person who apparently hates to leave home, but for some reason has decided to spend coin and time to do just that. After a recent trip to New York, I was reminded of how awful these individuals can be and as a public service want to provide some tips on how not to be a touron, in the classical sense.

When traveling, it is vital to have at least a modicum of self-awareness. You are a visitor and you should comport yourself as a guest, not an invading army. Pay attention to what local people are doing, and then do that! Also be a smart traveler. No matter how much you try to blend in, you usually won’t.

Here is my definition of Touron:

1) A touron is one part eager tourist and one part well-meaning moron.

2) Faced with a deluge of new sites, smells, sounds, and behaviors, a tourist turns touron because of an enhanced curiosity and innocent unawareness. The farther behind we leave the familiar, the more touronic we become.

3) Matt Long

4) You

In his “Don’t be a Touron” piece Matt says he came across the term “Touron” when he was “a college student in Williamsburg, Virginia, which is inundated with millions of tourists every year. Of these millions, there is a not-so-insignificant percentage which may be described as being tourons.”

I came across the term in Key West while working as a dive instructor and taking thousands of tourists into an environment where they found new and creative ways to try to kill themselves. I would give the dive briefing, “Whatever you do, don’t swim over there where you see the waves breaking onto the reef,” and five minutes later a diver would emerge waving his arms as he was slowly pulverized into bloody coral powder. Then I would swim like hell over to him, keep him from dying, and drag his sorry scraped up butt off the reef.

Although I cussed at these people through my regulator on a regular basis, I never looked down on them. They were my people. I respected the fact that they were brave enough to enter a world in which they didn’t belong. And some of them REALLY didn’t belong there. But I didn’t belong either. You can’t travel through a more foreign environment than swimming along a reef at 60’ beneath the Atlantic with hammerheads, puffer fish, and spotted eagle rays.

This is how I feel about traveling in general. Whether you want to label yourself a tourist or a traveler, I could give a flying flipper about, but if you pack your bags and head out the door to somewhere in which you are a foreigner, you are my people. You are a Touron.

Like a SCUBA diver, you’ll likely stick out like a sore thumb. You won’t lug your tank around, but you’ll be hefting plenty of cultural baggage. You’ll do your best not to kick the coral or cultural norms, but no matter how much you try, you will on occasion.

This is the beauty of the word Touron. It tears downs all these “my traveling is better than your traveling arguments.” It embraces all our inherent faults as travelers and unites us in our love for travel.

I love that Matt travels the world. I’ve never met him, but I’m guessing he has loads of tales of how he’s looked like a jackass around the world.

I do. It’s pretty much required to be the Great Touron King.

And as the GTK I hereby dub Matt Long (adjusts crown – these Burger King crowns just don’t fit like they once did. Places stick on Matt’s left shoulder and then his right) Sir Matt Long, an honorary knight of the knights of the Touron Table.

(If you want to read my first published piece “The Land of Tourons” it’s below the cut)

The Land of Tourons
Kelsey Timmerman

In the land of tourons, I am the Great Touron King.

A touron is one part eager tourist and one part well-meaning moron. You yourself have likely been a touron at one time or another.

If you’ve ever…

…set out on a trip over 2 weeks long with 3 pair of underwear…
…thought visiting a nude beach would be a good idea…
…spent an entire flight with your knee jammed into the chair in front of you to keep a six year old from reclining…
… been to a Drag Show with your mother…
…been in a room full of people where You were the only one not staring at YOU…
…stepped out your front door and made a complete fool of yourself…

…you might be a Touron.

Faced with a deluge of new sites, smells, sounds, and behaviors, a tourist turns touron because of an enhanced curiosity and innocent unawareness. The farther behind we leave the familiar, the more touronic we become.

On one occasion in Thailand, I managed to offend an entire busload of locals. In the previous few months I had walked many miles through the mud of trails and the filth of city streets wearing my sandals. They progressively attained a sour stench strong enough to keep Thai sidewalk merchants at bay. Hoping to avoid assaulting the olfactory senses of my co-riders, I took off my sandals and placed them in my luggage above. When I sat back down I noticed and felt many sets of eyes turned in my direction. I knew I had crossed a line, but did not realize when or how. Finally, my neighbor, through a series of grunts and gestures, told me to bring my shoes back down from the luggage rack. Apparently, things associated with feet are profane and should never be above one’s head. I complied with the social rule and removed my sandals from the rack. At our meal stop, I found myself passing rice and unfamiliar entrees with a table of my forgiving co-riders. We all laughed as various degrees of Thai spice twisted and distorted my face. I parted with my new found friends at the end of the ten-hour trip, through silent, friendly smiles and handshakes.

The village idiot rarely lacks friends.

It takes a lot of courage to step out of your comfort zone and enter a world with which you are totally unfamiliar. This world doesn’t have to be another country or continent. I can leave my house right now and within minutes be out of my comfort zone and in the Land of Tourons. Whether it is a few frames at the local bowling alley or visiting a Buddhist monastery, I’m out of my element.

Some like to wax poetic about being a “traveler” while condemning the lack of cultural sensitivity of a “tourist.” They claim that a traveler is in tune with the local way of life and moves through foreign environments with great savvy. They do not taint or influence the places they visit and easily become part of the ebb and flow of daily life. In turn, a tourist is a mumbling buffoon who forces their culture upon everyone around them, leaving a wake of disbelief and anger in their path.

It’s impossible to leave our cultural baggage at the border of a foreign land or experience. When it comes down to it we are all tourons.

Travel is humbling, a lesson in humility learned slowly through each finger pointed, glance shot, and laugh guffawed in our direction.

What makes me the Great Touron King? I grew up in small town Ohio, far from any ocean or anything resembling a hill, where there was little to no diversity in the people or the landscape. There is a short list of things that don’t amaze me: farmers in over-alls, tractors, pigs, cows, chickens, flat fields, and manure (especially manure). Wherever I go things strike me as new and exciting. In the past few years I have stepped foot into nearly 30 nations and I have yet to feel like a “traveler.” I am hopeless to be savvy, as I haplessly travel.

Through this column I hope to share with you my experiences in the many places where I am a touron, whether it is Key West, Kosovo, or Kathmandu, Castle Dracula in Romania or a step-aerobics class in Ohio. Feel free to laugh, sympathize, or learn from my adventures and misadventures, because I have.

I was once held hostage by monks in Nepal. (old column from the experience below the cut)

When I finally convinced them to let me go, they consulted some scrolls to see if the date was a good one to release a hostage. It wasn’t but the next day was.

That trip, my first around the world, began on a Friday the 13th. I traveled for 6 months in Hawaii, Australia, Thailand, Nepal, and Western Europe. Those first experiences traveling led to my writing a travel column. I wrote about 200 columns about that first trip and other trips that followed. The column was my grad school. It was where I found my voice and started to do what I do today.

Friday the 13th was the first day of the rest of my life and a great time to hit the road.

Bulletproof Monk
By Kelsey Timmerman

I feel the chanting- long, drawn-out, and monotone. A group of robed men sitting on the floor at five in the morning give life to the damp morning air. I hear the incense slowly burn, releasing musky overtones in long white rising whips of smoke- ever disappearing. For each of these men the rising sun will shine on a day more important than most; to prepare they come together in prayer. I am in the middle of my own preparation- sleeping in- when the chanting wakes me.

My room sits high on the hillside, overlooking the comings and goings of life in the valley below. From a down cocoon of warmth and comfort I unzip my sleeping bag and enter a place and culture that I barely understand. Here south of Kathmandu, in the foothills of the Himalayas, I am wide-eyed at first blink.

Breakfast is ladled out of a smoldering cauldron. In such a mountainous area terraces have been cut into the hillside to make agriculture possible. The kitchen occupies a terrace far below my room and consists of a few tables, the cauldron, and many young monks whose eyes are filled with sleep and mischief.

“Ta-shi de-leh, Tepto.” Dorjee, my appointed translator and buddy, lights up as he pats me on the back. Tepto is the nickname that Dorjee has given me. In Tibetan it means rough and tough, it was bestowed upon me after I aborted a weeklong hike after one day because of a painful infection in my foot. Apparently being a wiseacre does not affect one’s karmic score. “Please sit my friend.” He pats on a bench.

“Are you ready?” Dorjee hands me a bowl of steaming porridge.

Taking in a spoonful of creamy white goop my face contorts with the bitter hot waves of pain and repugnance. I motion to the video camera and give him a thumbs-up.

“It’s good my friend?”

At times, being a good guest requires nothing more than cleaning every bowl and plate set before you. “Yes, very good.” Tibetans eat four meals a day, perhaps unveiling the source of so many Buddha like bellies among the senior monks who are primarily vegetarians. Buddhists believe that this entire world is suffering, in my case especially true when applied to their gastronomic delicacies. I have suffered through the extremes of blandness, bitterness, and spiciness like an excellent guest, on the way to my own Buddha belly.

Another clean bowl behind me and we take our places on the porch of the monastery. Soon the monastery and its ramparts are swarming with local villagers, pilgrims from Kathmandu, and brightly robed lamas.

“His Holiness is very powerful. When Chinese forced us away from our homeland he was one of the last to leave. He left with many men and women. The Chinese follow them to the mountains with guns. They shoot and kill many people around His Holiness, but the bullets fall at his feet and their grenades do not explode until he has passed. The hike over the Himalaya is very difficult and others die of cold and hunger. His Holiness injures leg which hurts him even today. 300 left Tibet only 30 make it to India.” As the car of His Holiness Penor Rinpoche, the present day reincarnation of a monk first born in 1679, came to a stop at the base of the monastery, the gathered crowd surges forward hoping to glimpse or touch him. A saffron-clad Secret Service emerges and clears a tunnel for the short squat holy man to limp through. Katas, white silk cloths used in greetings, are thrown at his head like panties at a rock star.

His Holiness is here for the revelation of Padma Sambhava, a Tibetan deity, and the opening of a new lamasery headed by one of his former students, Khenpo Sange, whom I befriended on a plane of enlightenment 30,000’ in the air from Thailand to Kathmandu.

Around me are Nepalese, eyes filled with religious fervor, hoping to be blessed by the man who they honor in their prayers each day. As His Holiness passes up the stairs to the monastery and into a small ceremonial hall, the Saffron Secret Service weeds the crowd down to 100 lamas and respected guests to participate in the prayer. With Khenpo Sange as my escort, I am among them.

All the praying kills my back. I am sitting on the floor next to Dorjee squirming to find a way to relieve the pain. Two and a half hours have gone by and there is no sign of stopping. The chants are catchy and I find myself tapping my foot and nodding to the beat. One of Khenpo Sange’s senior Lamas is rocking the microphone with a deep quick-paced rolling drone enviable by any modern day rapper. “East side represent- MC Bodhi in Da hoooouuuuse!”

The prayer comes to an end with bursting horns, crashing cymbals, and gonging drums, an essay to dissonance mixed with the right amount of incense that makes the atmosphere magical.

One by one we file up to His Holiness seated on an elevated throne. I kneel before him and present him with a kata. His face turns from a bulldog grimace to a warm smile as he places his hand upon my head and ruffles my blonde curls.

Why am I here and why are many of the Buddhist faithful outside? Is it my blonde hair and western dress that hint at a bank account full of donations? A view that is cynical and not probable. More likely my presence is a result of great compassion, an age-old story of a few monks helping a young traveler.

At the very least I was accepted into a world and an event steeped in tradition for my blonde hair and perceived wealth, walking away with colorful memories of intricate ceremonies. At the most, after my blessing, I am bulletproof.

I was trying out some new material on being a glocal (think globally, act locally). The more I travel and the more I come into contact with extreme poverty, the more I realize that it is Bangladeshi’s that are the most capable of helping other Bangladeshi’s, just as it is Hoosiers who have to help other Hoosiers.

So now I donate money to organizations that I feel do a good job of supporting Bangladeshi’s helping other Bangladeshi’s. And where I’m a local – Muncie, Indiana – I’m donating time to fight poverty in my community.

I think that it’s important that each of us thinks about our place in the world and in our local community. I’ll hash these thoughts out more in a future post. This is something I really want to work into my new and improved “Where Am I Wearing?” presentation this fall.

Anyhow, during the Q&A after the talk someone posited, “Wouldn’t it be better for countries like Bangladesh if instead of traveling there you just donated the amount of money you would have spent and stay home?” I like the question. It kind of reminds me of this one that Wall Street Journal asked me. The audience turned a bit on the poor fella who was really just playing devil’s advocate and lobbing up a softball for me to knock out of the park.

I answered it similar to my answer in the Journal:

That’s misguided, says Kelsey Timmerman, a 28-year-old Muncie, Ind., scuba-diving instructor and author. If he’d never been to the Great Barrier Reef, he wouldn’t care as much that it is dying from rising ocean temperatures. Decisions he makes as a consumer and a voter offset emissions resulting from his travels, says Mr. Timmerman, who visited Bangladesh, Cambodia and China last year. “Travel helps us care more about our world.”

My answer was okay, but nowhere near the answer that came from the next hand that went up. Anwar Khan and his wife were planning a trip to Bangladesh with the intention of helping one family. They went and couldn’t do it. There was just too much suffering to help only one family. They founded OBAT Helpers an organization that gives hope to Pakistani refugees in Bangladesh.

Soon as Anwar told his story, I knew that some Tuesday in the very near future I would be giving OBAT $10. Today is that Tuesday. Here’s how to join me.

A letter from Anwar is below the break

Dear friends,

I hope at least a few of you would have already heard about the sad plight of the stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh. Some of you may have always been providing some help to this suffering sea of humanity on a regular basis. How ever, my first visits in July 2004 to the different camps has been an eye opener. Suddenly, the gravity of the problem at hand was before me in full show!

I began to understand the virtue of the old dictum that poverty is often self-perpetuating. No amount of relief and charity work in piecemeal doses will bring a permanent solution to such grave tragedies. What we need is a visionary roadmap with a broader long-term perspective. OBAT Helpers is determined to take up the challenge and hence our emphasis on involvement and empowerment of the affected communities in all our programs.

History

These forgotten people commonly known as Stranded Pakistanis / Biharis, have a population of almost 250 thousand. They are settled in more than 66 camps in different cities of Bangladesh. The history goes back to the partition of India in 1947. They are mostly from the Indian state of Bihar, who moved to East Pakistan (present Bangladesh) during partition in 1947. In 1971 after the creation of Bangladesh, due to the law & order situations these people compelled to accommodate in 66 temporary camps across the country. They never thought that this will be their permanent home for couple decades. Almost four decades later, they are still waiting for a solution that can bring a hopeful future of their upcoming generation who are growing in the camps.

Almost all camps lack basic amenities, privacy and social life. They have lived in these camps since 1971. An entire generation has lost their identity. They are suffering from severe demographic stresses. Even in misery they held their heads high, and were driven by the hope that they would be able to start life afresh, sooner than later. They never dreamt that these temporary shelters would become their cursed homes for eternity.

The Governments of Pakistan and Bangladesh did wake up with occasional sound bytes on this human calamity of unbound proportions. But the efforts were always scratchy and it was always a case of too little, too late.

Mission Hope

The silver lining is that these people still have hopes; they dream of a better tomorrow. Luckily, all is not lost yet and we still have time to put our acts together. Let us salute their fighting spirits; let us rekindle their hopes; let us give them good water, sanitation, health care, education; let us empower them to follow their dreams of a better life.
TOGETHER, we can make the difference!

Thank You
With Best Regards
Anwar Khan (Akmal)
Reach me at AnwarKhan@Obathelpers.org

If you live somewhere as beautiful as Key West or any other Caribbean island you might have to pay the price of dealing with a hurricane now and again.

If you live in Hawaii, there’s the occasional volcano.

If you live in the rugged outdoorsness of the West, there’s the occasional forest fire.

If you live in Santa Carla, there’s the “damn vampires” that need dealt with now and again.

But explain tornadoes to me.

What are the peaceful folks of the Midwest paying for? The majestical flatness? Sweeping fields of corn? Low cost of living? It doesn’t make sense. Until now.

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If the answer to these questions is a resounding “yes”, visit our Tour Schedule page and begin planning your Atmospheric Adventure of a Lifetime today!

Maybe Tornadoes aren’t the risk of the “reward” of living in the Midwest. Maybe they aren’t Acts of God, but, in fact, Gifts of God that bring tourists from around the world for a glimpse of mother nature’s cruel irony.

The tourists have to suffer long car rides and perhaps the scariest thing of all, a diet of fast food. That’s right, Tornado tourism is like going on a summer road trip with your father who won’t stop the car for you to pee because he’s making great time on the way to the Giant Wheel of Cheese in Wisconsin and wants to get the disappointment over as quickly as possible so he can get home and back to work.

It’s like that except you might be killed. On second thought…they are pretty much the same.

When I was a teenager with too little homework, a driver’s license, and a head full of stupid ideas, I went storm chasing.

My cousin Brice was visiting from Illinois. The Tornado warning interrupted a rerun of ALF.

“Hey, man,” I said, “Do you know what we should do?”

If that phrase is uttered by a male under the age of 21, run the other way.

“Dude, be quiet,” Brice said. “I think ALF might get the cat this time.”

“We should totally see if we can chase down the tornado,” I said. “I’ve never seen one before.”

Brice tore himself away from ALF, I grabbed the keys and hollered, “Brice and I are going tornado chasing” to my mom as we walked out the door.

“Okay,” Mom said, apparently not paying attention, just like the time she gave me permission to eat an entire stick of butter like a candy bar when I was five. “Be back for dinner.”

We scanned the radio for weather reports and drove in the direction of the action. When we arrived where the action was supposed to be there was no action. It was a major let down. The skies were clear enough for a game of croquet.

“Bummer,” Brice said.

“Yep, let’s turn around.”

And that’s when we drove into the heart of the storm.

Gusts of wind pushed us back and forth over the center line. The rain came down so hard it was like we were underwater and the black Blazer we rode in was a submarine.

The hail was hell.

I pulled over because the world was invisible. The truck shook. The gusts penetrated the cracks in the rusty Blazer and ruffled our hair. We didn’t say anything because it was pointless. We sat in a raging river of white noise. I never told Brice this, but I wanted to be held. I wanted my mommy. I wanted to be sitting in a recliner at home seeing if ALF finally ate Lucky the cat.

If there was a tornado, we weren’t able to see it.

When the storm passed, I put the truck into gear and we rode home in silence.

There’s a big difference between storm chasing and storm finding.

You won’t see me on a Tornado Tour anytime soon. Instead, enjoy this clip…