From Abroad: Thankful for the United States of America

Yesterday, on Thanksgiving, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published a brief essay I wrote on what I'm thankful for in the United States of America. The more extended version of the essay is below. Happy Thanksgiving.

From Abroad: Thankful for the American Experience

A friend from Singapore once told me that if he ever got the chance to visit the United States he wanted to have an American breakfast at a truck stop at 4am. His vision struck me. He managed to gather into one wish the unique American approaches to breakfast (waffles), work (where else so many 24-hour truck stops and diners?), and wide-open spaces.

Thanksgiving is also uniquely American, and this year, as I connect American volunteers with community development projects around the world and prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving with my American Students and their Bolivian host families, I’m taking a moment to consider what I’m thankful for in The United States of America. Thankfully, we have:  

Water: The vast majority of citizens of the United States can turn on tap water in their homes and drink it, unfiltered. This is a daily miracle.  Nearly 1 billion people around the world (that’s more than three times the population of the United States) do not have access to safe water. And the vast majority of people who do have access to safe water do not have it flowing directly into their homes on a continuous basis.

Public  Education: The United States invests in people. The effort to provide accessible and strong public education is nearly as old as the country. That effort has been unequal, unfair, and subject to continuous contestation. And it should be an area of argument – it is where we make or break the future of individuals and the future of the country. Looking around the world, the message is crystal clear: countries that invest in their people flourish economically, support democracy, and respect freedoms.

Democracy: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...” Putting this radical idea to paper in 1776 put many lives at risk, and as the ideal was expanded to include women, African Americans and other minorities, more lives were risked, more advances were made for human freedom and human dignity, and our American Experiment grew ever closer to the ideals it espoused. Blood is spilled everyday over precisely what democracy is and who has the right to define it. We do well to remember that our foundational understanding of democracy derives from the radical idea that each individual has inalienable rights, and “among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”   

Work Ethic: In fairness, people work hard all around the world. That was one of my first impressions of Africa – men and women were moving crops, hauling water, exerting themselves continuously. And there are doubtlessly millions of lazy Americans. But – our culture is associated with obsessive and excessive concern with work. We’ve even produced a substantial self-help literature on how to escape the work obsession, how to achieve better balance, how to escape the ostensibly unhealthy hyper-focus on achieving the American dream. Reality check: One doesn’t take every weekend and holiday off and fly to the moon. One doesn’t take a siesta everyday and also play a primary role in creating the financial architecture of the world as we know it. One doesn’t sleep early and wake late and support the steady flow of ideals of freedom and democracy around the world. Hard work yields dividends. For those who don’t agree, see “Contemporary China.”  

Timeliness: Scandinavians and Germans are slightly more obsessive about time than Americans, but much of the world tends to be far more laidback. Timeliness helps us get things done (see work ethic). 

Freedom and Open Spaces: I’m well aware that there is a substantial subset of the population that complains that “The American West,” “The Frontier,” “Freedom,” and the “Rural American Dream” are all in one way or another mere mythologies. And to anyone in that subset I say, stop reading, go west, and experience your beautiful country. Breathe in Dwight D. Eisenhower’s internationally unique achievement – The American Highway System. Zip past acres upon acres of sunflowers in Kansas; grab a six-pack and hang out with rural Nebraskan kids floating up and down on the backs of oil derricks, drinking and talking about eight-man-football as the sun drops below the plains. Then, somewhere in the massive and intimidating Rockies, throw a tent and sleeping bags into the back of a pickup and drive a full day over dirt roads deep into one of our numerous National Forests to camp. American Freedom is fundamentally intertwined with the freedom to move and to experience; to see and to learn on your own. Now go.   

Diversity: There is always need for improvement; there is always need to become better at accepting one another, but America has accomplished a functioning multicultural democracy to an extent unmatched elsewhere and unparalleled in history. This is a beautiful thing. It’s also an effective thing – history shows us that strong societies are adept at incorporating and adapting ideas from other cultures. I was in Washington DC several years ago on July 4^th. The National Symphony Orchestra was playing, Tony Danza was emceeing, the capitol building was in the background, and all around me this multicultural menagerie was celebrating the same set of ideals, the same shared purposes and commitments to individual human dignity. It was radical and beautiful and becomes more diverse and therefore more dynamic every single day.   

Volunteer Military: The United States Military is the strongest and most capable military in the history of the world. This is due to many factors, but one primary among them is the decision a generation ago to ensure that our service men and women would only be enlisting voluntarily. Our strength and power sometimes makes us a target – and our volunteers step forward to put their lives at risk, anonymously. War – and the effort to create stability that follows it – is horrible and profoundly complicated. That should never prevent us from honoring the men and women who volunteer to keep us safe, who serve under the direction of our elected officials, who prevented further genocide in Bosnia, who toppled the oppressive Taliban regime, and who continue to risk their lives on behalf of American Security and American Ideals. 

Pancakes, Waffles, Hamburgers, French Fries and Fusion Food: For a country so rich in history, we’re poor in our own unique culinary traditions. But the sweet, syrup-topped, simple and affordable breakfast foods – pancakes and waffles – those are all ours. Yum. And burgers – made with ground beef, which for some inexplicable reason is hard to recreate elsewhere around the world – are our own form of magic. Most interesting is that in America one can experience the fine foods and culinary traditions from almost any corner of the world, anytime.

Incentives for Honesty: James Madison laid this out for us in The Federalist Papers, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary… In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men … you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” Throughout our history, we’ve continued to work at that project – the project that is simultaneously enabling human freedoms to the fullest extent possible while also acknowledging human vices and limitations – in government or in the private sector. I see too much corruption and graft in my work around the world, but it’s helpful to remember that good behavior is built with institutional reform over time. The lending crisis has shown us another area where we need to better control excessive impulses while still providing people opportunity to access credit; that is a current project. Our institutions have and should continue to be built with an eye toward simultaneously expanding individual freedoms and incentivizing honest practice and fair play.    

Philanthropy: Yes, other developed countries spend a greater portion of their budgets on social welfare at home and abroad. But Americans give from their own pockets in a way that is not matched elsewhere. Individual involvement tends to lead to greater oversight, which has led to the development of thousands of dynamic and responsive nonprofit organizations and social sector movements. It has also led to a hyper-production of small and mid-size global nonprofit organizations like the one I direct. While organizations of this size are not able to address issues for everyone in a country or region, they are more deeply connected with individuals in the specific communities where they work. Their size permits them to be more responsive to community members’ real lives and concerns. 

Desire: Humans have desire, so I of course cannot claim that emotion as uniquely American. Yet I will suggest that the American Story, the American Mythology, the American Dream and American Ideals are tied up with the notion that we can do better, again, and again and again. We dare not relax until the project is complete. We continue to build a better society. We work to redress the excesses of past generations. We are now concerned with ensuring our society becomes sustainable. We need to cooperate with other countries and people around the world – to ensure greater access to inalienable rights for every man, woman, and child. We continue to want to improve the human experience – and we continue to work toward the goal of expanding individual human freedoms in our own country and around the world.

For these things and for so much more, we should be profoundly thankful. Throughout world history, few peoples have broadly had the opportunity to experience long lives. Few peoples have had the opportunity to voice and hear internal debate in the run up to free and fair elections. No other peoples have had the opportunity to hop on a motorcycle and cruise across a continent on smooth and well-manicured roads, stopping at truck stops along the way at any hour of the day or night for fast, efficient service and savory food. I am thankful to be an American in the world today.  We have a lot of problems. We have a lot of disagreements. We create injustices. We attempt to redress them. We mess up and sometimes we fail. 

Today, pause. Be thankful for the broad contours of this American reality. Tomorrow, let’s get back to work making it continuously better. 

Human Miracles 20 Years Later: The Fall of the Berlin Wall

We are, it seems, insufficiently awed by the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Some might argue that our complacency results from other, now pressing concerns. We are eight years into a multi-front war, China has emerged as a capitalist competitor and environmental-degrader of unprecedented scale, and the US is being veritably torn asunder over the question of how best to address health care. Regardless, it is important to stop and be thankful for human miracles - and the invention, creation, and extension of ideals of freedom enshrined and protected through law amounts to one such miracle. Twenty years ago, that miracle was extended to millions more people, in a single moment. (Tears come to eyes when reading this or other first-hand accounts).  

Our understanding and appreciation of this anniversary is not important merely because of the importance of celebrating great human achievements; the world remains locked in an ongoing struggle to define itself, to determine whether individuals will all have basic freedoms - or to pursue another route, where individuals are not valued as rights-holders. We have drifted away from defining our contemporary struggles in these terms, but the terms are often present.

Democracy and democratic freedoms cannot be taken for granted. In Latin America Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales are undermining press freedoms and marginalizing dissenting voices; freedom of the press is arguably on retreat throughout Latin America. In Africa Uganda's Yoweri Museveni, once a favorite of the West, continues to extend his Presidential terms long past the originally-promised peaceful transition to the next democratically-elected ruler; Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe is of course a disgrace for any proponent of basic democratic freedoms, and even in Kenya there is need for substantial education and development of civil society before democracy and democratic transitions will be respected. Much like was true in the communist bloc, some of these leaders are able to buy brief loyalty through economic programs for their citizens, but as we have seen time and time again, a few unsustainable benefits are not enough to compensate for living in a state of civil, political, and economic liberty. The citizens of these countries are looking for a fair shake, and will only get it through continuing global collaboration to promote basic human rights and liberties around the world.

In China as well as in large parts of Latin America and Africa the battle is often between basic individual freedoms and an excessively strong state, but in much of the Middle East, Northern Africa, and portions of Asia, the fight is with those who put religious fundamentalism ahead of individual development, individual rights, and individual liberty. The fight is for individual access to broad and wide education, for boys and for girls. Strong democracy is fundamentally dependent upon education, as Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser recently pointed out in the New York Times, total average years of schooling in a country is strongly predictive of the likelihood that country will be democratic.

Twenty years ago, the world witnessed a human miracle. Today, civil society organizations and citizens' groups around the world continue to cooperate with sympathetic governments and businesses to work to extend that miracle - to extend basic human freedoms to every individual around the world. We would do well to remember our history and to recall the broad vision that is part of our efforts.

Mountain Mania, A Stymied Stomach, Incredible Travelers, The Personal Challenge (And,as always, beautiful Bolivia)

My apologies for the long lull in blog posts! The break was due to the perfect storm of heaps of important Amizade work, tons of incredible opportunities here, and the unfortunate occasional visit from a developing country parasite or two - something that in this case I am affectionately calling Bolivia sickia.

In mid-September Amizade had an open volunteer program here. One of the participants, Ryan Wolfrum, had recently completed the Leadville 50, which is a 50 mile endurance race above 10,000 feet in Colorado. He wanted to hike to the top of Mt. Tunari, a nearby mountain (peak pictured below in the background of the Cochabamba photo) that rises to above 17,000 feet. To put this in perspective, the highest mountain in the United States, Mt. Whitney, rises to 14,505 feet, many people experience symptoms of altitude sickness at elevations above 8,000 feet, and in Pittsburgh the three rivers meet at approximately 700 feet above sea level. Of course, I was eager to attempt the summit with Ryan. We hired a guide and were joined by three other guests at the international guest house where I live.

In fairness, we were able to drive to about 15,000 feet, so all we had to do was about 2,000 feet of elevation - at altitude. I felt good and was glad to be able to talk with Ryan most of the way up. Some of the others were clearly dragging. A step at this height is unlike any other step. Every 20 meters is a definitive challenge. Nonetheless, we enjoyed it. We saw llamas and learned a great deal from our guide about these and other regional camelids (vicuna, alpaca).

We passed by a few beautiful lakes, and all in all had a great climb before

reaching a beautiful summit where we could see the now-minute city of Cochabamba far below. The climb was great, the hike was beautiful, the air at the top was cold and we event got a little light snow before heading down. On the way down, I got all the classic altitude sickness signs. I had been in Cochabamba about two weeks - and they say it takes as long as six months to adjust. I got a headache, I got lethargic, and then I threw up. But, all in all - as the Spanish expression goes, it was vale la pena, worth the pain. And really the pain was very slight and very much at the end of the day.

It was great to meet Ryan (who took all of the photos I've posted above in this particular narrative) and to hike the mountain with Val and Jon (volunteers from Colorado and Oregon working with a very cool initiative to improve access to safe water, SODIS) as well as Helen, a graduate student from Switzerland researching the implementation of the new land tenure reform in Bolivia. As is so often the case, I'm meeting a number of incredible people while on the road. In fact, this past week two of the people who stayed at the guest house were a husband and wife traveling team that has been on the road for three years, continuously. They call themselves Uncornered Market.

They travel, they blog, they freelance, they take excellent photos, they try to act as person-to-person diplomats, and they reflect on their lessons learned. Checking out their blog will take you through a set of experiences and places that most people will never have the chance to access in person. Their photo below is of a mural on the third floor of the Bishkek State Historical Museum in Kyrgyzstan. It is pro-peace, anti-atomic bomb, and.... complex.

Audrey and Dan (the Uncornered Market team) are leaving Cochabamaba today but of course I'm staying and I'm continuing my effort toward a personal challenge that I have only one more month to complete.

That is, I need to run up the steps to El Cristo de la Concordia, the statue of Christ that towers over Cochabamba. I've included photos of El Cristo, the ascent to him, and the view from his base below. Cochabamba sits at about 8,000 feet and, apparently, the statue rests at about 9,000 feet, so we're talking about 1,000 or so feet of steps - mas o menos - at altitude. I've been incrementally working toward this goal. I run across town, run the steps until I can't do anymore, then hike the remaining steps before returning, but the occasional Bolivia sickia sets me back. Nonetheless, I think it's achievable. I'll keep you posted.

Below and on the next linked page are many photos from Cochabamba. Enjoy!

Cochabamba Viewed from El Cristo

My house is just right of center, a little bit to the right of the soccer stadium that is just possible to make out in the center of the photo. Just possible that is, if you click on the photo to enlarge it. The other notable feature: The highest peak in the background is Mt. Tunari.

El Cristo Steps

An early look back.

Climbing to El Cristo

Note that at this point, you can not see El Cristo.

El Cristo

Watching over Cochabamba.

The Cactus, El Cristo

Flowers for Sale, Saturday Evening, End of Market Day

Quechua Woman Leaving the Market

Billboards, Billboards, Billboards

The Christ and the Billboard

Modern Billboards, Classic Church, Omnipresent Mountain View

Traditional Dance at the End of El Prado

This is a move often seen and repeated in the traditional dances I've seen in Cochabamba Department. The man courts, courts, and is pushed away several times before eventually being accepted.

Evening, Plaza Colon

NY Times Travel Top 10: 8 Latin America, 1 Quebec, 1 Pittsburgh to DC Bike Trail

Perfect.But ok I miss Zanzibar, and Asia, and Australia... and Oregon and Alaska, but nonetheless this is right up my alley: 

1. 36 Hours in Montevideo, Uruguay
2. Latin America Issue: The Other Brazil: Minas Gerais
3. Biking Coal Country’s Tracks and Tunnels
4. Next Stop | Latin America Issue: Santiago, Chile, Is Hardly Sleepy Anymore
5. Bites | Latin America Issue: Inexpensive Restaurant Choices in Lima, Peru
6. Journeys | Latin America Issue: Mazatl?n’s Old Town Is Spry Again
7. Practical Traveler | Latin America Issue: Bargains in Latin America, Where Luxury Costs Less
8. Explorer: Gifts From the Heavens and Sea in Quebec
9. Explorer | Latin America Issue: Villa de Leyva, a Graceful Window on Colonial Colombia
10. Surfacing | Latin America Issue: Rio Hot Spot With Miami Vibe

Beautiful Pittsburgh - What to Do, Where, Why People are Staying

Pittsburgh is an excellent city. It boasts four distinct seasons, three beautiful rivers, and six super bowl championships. The city's hills, historic stairs, cloistered neighborhoods, and expansive parks lead to more diverse and hidden recreational opportunities than many cities twice as large. What's more, Pittsburgh has an increasingly strong and vibrant group of young people who are reinventing the city and reigniting its glory. A random selection of those folks are pictured at right, sharing why they're staying in Pittsburgh as part of an event put on by the Great Lakes Urban Exchange.

A bit more than a year ago I put together a list of opportunities for out-of-towners attending the wedding of the handsome Dave Hartman and beautiful Lisa Dippold (now Hartman). What follows is largely from that list. Please read on if you want the scoop on the outdoor activities, museums, neighborhoods, bars, sports, and beer. Enjoy Pittsburgh.

Outdoors 

Venture Outdoors organizes outdoor recreation in and around Pittsburgh all the time. They also have options for kayaking on the rivers and in general give a lot of tips for outdoor enthusiasts.

Stairs of Pittsburgh – Steel Workers used this stair network in the past to walk to work at the mills in the morning. Today the remnants of the stair network remain for adventuresome urban hikers and joggers. The network is strongest going out of the Southside to Mt. Washington and on the Northside Leading to Fineview, site of an annual 5K run largely on stairs.

Frick Park - The largest of Pittsburgh’s parks, with ample hiking opportunity. You’ll feel like you’ve escaped the city. On one side is Reqent Square with D’z 6 Packs and Dogs, on the other side is Squirrel Hill with its restaurants and shops. Both great spots for post-hike rewards (more info on each below).

Schenley Park is likewise abundant in terms of size and breadth of activities offered. Schenley also happens to be on the edge of Oakland, so it’s very convenient if you’d like to visit the universities and / or Phipps Conservatory before some time in the park.

The Inclines – If you’d like to enjoy the outdoors but aren’t so sure about being active in them, an incline may be your solution. During the height of the steel industry, Mt. Washington had over a dozen inclines operating on it to ferry people up the mountain. Today there are two.  You can access both from Grandview Avenue on Mt. Washington or along Carson Street near Station Square. Riding is a couple of dollars, and affords you a view of the city and an opportunity to stroll a bit along Grandview Ave.

Museums

The Carnegie Museums Network rivals the collections of most cities 2 and 3 times Pittsburgh’s size, and annually offers the Carnegie International.

The Mattress Factory - is unique in the country for the large contemporary art installations it offers.

The Warhol Museum  – includes a room of floating silver pillows and is dedicated to Pittsburgh’s most famous pop? artist.

The Heinz History Center  – You are visiting the city that produced more steel than any other region in the World during World War II, the frontier of the US during the Revolutionary era, a region rife with decisive battles with the French, site of the largest coal deposit found in the US, and home of the first public radio broadcast, as well as the city that gave you Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. Find out all about it and more (like one of the most storied decades of winning in NFL History) at the Heinz History Center and Heinz Sports Museum.

The Carnegie Science Center – This is a fun, interactive Science Museum. It includes an OMNIMAX theater  and is endlessly entertaining for kids of all ages. Right next door is

Sportsworks – a museum dedicated entirely to the science of sport. What are the biomechanics of throwing a fastball? Can you design and ride a roller coaster?

Neighborhoods – Eating, Drinking, Shopping

  

Squirrel Hill: Pittsburgh’s historically Jewish Neighborhood and one of the largest in the country today. Great delicatessen Kazanzky’s and a host of other good ethnic food, including Thai, Chinese, Middle Eastern, and – of course – Italian.

Bloomfield: Pittsburgh’s Italian neighborhood and home to a number of good pizza shops, restaurants, and bars, including the Brillo Box, a relatively recent comer popular among many, shunned by several, and featured in this New York Times article. (Any shunning, which is limited, tends to be related to Pittsburghers' strong aversion to anything that could look at all pretentious... so there's danger, of course, in being too hip).

The Southside: Carson Street is Pittsburgh’s bar spot and the center of many nights out. The restaurants range from high-end French cafes through Spanish tapas bars and include sandwich shops, pizza joints, and the Cheesecake Factory at Southside Works (The shopping side of the Southside). At the other end of the Southside from the Southside Works is Station Square, a stand-alone section of restaurants and shops that includes Bar Louie, Joe’s Crabshack, and, most importantly, the bottom of the Incline to ride up to Mt. Washington.

Shadyside: Is Pittsburgh’s neighborhood for established urban style. You won’t get any basement bargains but you might find a great meal or pick up your favorite Williams and Sonoma, J-Crew, Anne Taylor, or American Apparel gear.

Lawrenceville is increasingly known for art galleries, small stores, and other signs of an up and coming arts neighborhood, something even the New York Times noticed in recent years. The boutiques and galleries have led to a set of great new restaurants and bars, including the Round Corner Cantina, which has a beautiful patio area for eating and drinking and excellent mixed drinks (I haven't yet gotten to the food).

Mt. Washington offers unparalleled views of the city. Grandview Avenue includes several fine dining establishments with beautiful views and offers the opportunity to walk along the avenue and stand on Pittsburgh’s many Mt. Washington overlooks. If you choose to ride the incline at the end of Mt. Washington closest to where the Rivers connect, be sure to look at the photos on the wall inside the building at the top.

On Saturday, the place to be is the Strip. The Strip District is the regional shopping hub for fresh fish market (Wholey’s), free samples at Greek markets (Stamooli’s), fresh fruits and vegetables, and free fudge samples. It also includes Pittsburgh’s Primanti Brothers’ sandwiches, an iconic answer to Philly’s Cheesesteak.  The Strip is just north of Downtown along Penn Avenue. Parking is sometimes a trick but if you’re willing to park near 26^th and walk down to the action near 21^st you’ll certainly find something.

Notable Sports and Beer

The Pens tend to regularly compete for or win The Stanley Cup. Be aware.

The Pirates have set records too - for consecutive losing seasons.  But their stadium is beautiful and tickets are cheap. From the stadium you get a wonderful view of the rivers.

The Steelers are consistently good, and in 2006 and 2009 won the Super Bowl.

Penn Brewery brews at their location on the Northside and serves up bar fare as well as traditional German cuisine, while East End Brewing probably brews Pittsburgh's best beers, but has more limited hours for sampling and direct sales. Ask for East End in many of the local bars, however.

Church Brew Works was once a large Catholic Church. The building was purchased several years ago by the owners, who put vats where the altar used to be and began brewing. They offer good beer, excellent food, and – unique – environment.

D’z 6 Packs and Dogz - definitely a personal favorite - is in Regent Square. D'z offers a selection of approximately hundreds of different kinds of beers in its Beer Cave, includes several on tap, and specializes in hot dogs and sausages, and now even includes a few other (and even some healthy) foods as well.

One Family's Experience of the Economic Downturn

A friend just made this short film. It's worth the five minutes to watch it:

Little Miracles Happen During Travel

I'm staying in the same guest house as an old Bolivian-German artist who has paintings hanging in the Baltimore Museum of Art and who exhibited at a DC Museum in 2002. I ate lunch with him, when he gave me three very small paintings, each his own replicas of his larger works. Schmitz - Mr. Schmitz is his name.

Bolivia's landscape is pure beauty, but nearly forty percent of the population lives on less than $1 per day, all of which I've tried to give an intro to in my most recent Amizade blog update.

In other semi-Andean news, the Dogfish Head Ales Founder must be wondering if all press is indeed good press, after the New York Times coverage of his essentially failed attempt to make chicha, a corn beer used throughout the Incan Empire and common in Quechua regions to the present day. And Ollyantaytambo, an Incan fortress and population center, is topping off the Times travel section.  

Why are People Raging about the G-20?

Pittsburgh, beautiful city that it is, is about to host the G-20. No one – protestor, policymaker, nor politician – seems able to provide a clear articulation of what this meeting is about and why it matters so much. I’m going to work to clear it up here.

First, the G-20 says (and news agencies frequently repeat directly) that it is a group of twenty “systemically important industrialized and developing economies” that “promotes open and constructive discussion” in an effort to “strengthen international financial architecture,” and thereby enhance global economic stability. Translation: Especially rich countries that were part of the G-7 noticed that their largest corporations took some hits during the financial meltdown of the late 90s, so they invited thirteen newbies to the table and said ‘we’ll let you roll with the big kids if you put some safeguards in place, because we all know that the best form of capitalism is the form that socializes risk and privatizes profit.’  

In fairness though, there are many other positive things that may come along with government measures that enhance global economic stability. Things like ensuring financial transactions are transparent and therefore traceable (this helps combat things like terrorism and tax evasion, and therefore supports the possibility of public goods).   We have a globalized economy. There’s no doubt about that. What we don’t have are safeguards to prevent abuses with the money and resources flowing rapidly around the world. Any smart business person wants as much clarity on their investments as is possible, hence the G-20.

The protestors come for a whole set of perfectly logical reasons. First, the most powerful people in the world are gathered together. Really, it doesn’t get any more knights-of-the-round-table than this. And if you are advocating for peace, supporting environmental protections, or fighting for the rights of workers, you want to remind the most powerful people in the world that you exist.

Second, and related, history suggests that economic agreements precede agreements on human rights and environmental protections. It takes people a long time to realize that their capitalistic self-interests often lie with cooperation with a broader community, but they tend to come around to it (Check out Power and Prosperity by Mancur Olson). In the United States we were agreeing to drop tariffs between states long before we were agreeing to recognize real nationwide equality; Europe had the European Coal and Steel Community a half century before it got into labor and environmental agreements with the European Union; and if you check out T.H. Marshall’s review of rights developments in Britain, you see three centuries of steady march from civil (e.g. right to work), to political (e.g. right to voice in governance), then social rights (e.g. a right to an education). This history makes me believe that as our economic linkages become clearer we pave the way for addressing important social and environmental issues. And many of the protestors believe it to, and they have to be in Pittsburgh to speed that process as much as they can. (Side note: Yes, some protesters are just anarchists who aren't looking for cooperative solutions - and unfortunately, they tend to get a wildly disproportionate amount of the press - but for the most part these are smart and civil people with good ideas).   

Protest matters because it does have a strong history. Its history includes ending slavery in the British Empire (again, economic incentives were important first, with a boycott of slave-grown sugar), advancing civil rights, and advancing environmental protections and labor rights.

I’m also writing this on my Amizade blog for two primary reasons. First, we work directly with the people who see no immediate benefits of enhanced global economic stability. Benefit may – and I even suspect will – come over the long term. But children in developing countries who have no access to clean water or education today will not be helped during their youths by sound G-20 fiscal policy. Protestors call attention to the 1.1 billion people in the world who are mired in destitute poverty (See Paul Collier's Book, The Bottom Billion). Some of those people are my friends (See "African Innovation and Entrepreneurialism" on my Amizade blog). They are innovative, smart, independent, and they would have staggeringly better possibilities for human flourishing if basic government structures existed to stabilize markets, reduce corruption, and provide basic public goods.

The photo above is from a town in Bolivia, a beautiful place with incredible people that also happens to be the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

The second clear connection to Amizade is that all too often economists (and, by extension, finance ministers) are functionally clueless to the real world, as Paul Krugman recently argued in the New York Times Magazine. The extent to which this is true is astonishing and staggering. Protestors call attention to real world issues. I’d like to take the finance ministers out of their air-conditioned offices and invite them to join me on a course on community and international development, where they not only recite the meaning of informal economy, but also bargain for business with me on what are frequently the wildly capitalistic dirt roads of Africa. In some ways, there are few freer markets than the markets in developing countries.

Of course, corruption by government is a huge problem in many of those countries, and government alone is no solution to many of the issues above, but these big fish will be fried in later blogs. For now, future finance ministers ought to take advantage of the kinds of courses that deepen their understanding by putting them in contact with the places and people our concepts and policies affect.  

Five Rules for Good Clean Livin'

Do good work. That is, do good and work well. Ensure that your daily efforts are more than monotony. It might be business, philanthropy, teaching, building, writing, or farming, but know how you’re contributing to the world outside yourself. And when you do it, make it count.

Strain every day – or at least five times a week. First this was intended for physical exercise, but it applies on the mental front too. Push yourself. Play basketball, run, hike, move large items, walk around your neighborhood, but hit your limits and go beyond them. And do this not only with your body but with your mind too. Read from a new topic area, learn about a new place, pick up an instrument.

Find and maintain a broad, deep set of friend and family relationships. Take time, all the time, to remember and support the relationships that keep you alive and learning. Have lunch, have drinks, have a coffee, or just squeeze in a phone call at the end of the day. Good and deep relationships make all our relationships better, even improving the quality of relationships with our significant others.  

Create. Take time to exercise your creative side, let your mind wander and spark. It could be writing, could be simply improving the systems you work with regularly. Improving anything in a novel way is an act of creation.

Occasionally, be excessive – and throw out the rules. Eat, drink, be merry. Stay out late. Get up early. Go too far. Spend a slothful day. Your body needs a break, your heart needs rejuvenation, your life needs variety. Enjoy. Live. Extend and explore.