Wednesday, November 21, 2007

And Now for Something Completely Different; Good News From Afghanistan

Sarah Chayes was an NPR reporter who stayed behind when the Taliban fell. She formed the Arghand Cooperative with Afghan farmers and others. They are selling soaps made from ingredients from Afghanistan. The idea is to give people a way to make money (and soap) that doesn't involve killing Americans. There are several retailers around Boston and around the country.
Granted, it's a small project that only affects a few people, but, and here we revert to our normal blog style of complaining and smug self righteousness, small changes add up. At work recently, someone was complaining about high gas prices and saying the government should do something. I said that I only bought gas once a month or so because I ride a bike, and that we all could do things to use energy more wisely. Yeah, that's individuals, he said...And here I see I've also abandoned quotation marks. I think because I'm getting pretty bored with this post and I just want to get to the part where I tie in the noble Afghans with the American bike rider.
"No one snowflake," I quoted, "feels responsible for the avalanche."

No comments:

Post a Comment