The Kiva microloan charity organization lets individuals lend money to individuals or small groups in areas like Africa and Asia via the Internet. You don't get interest on the loan, but it is repaid to you, and you can either lend it out again or withdraw it.

Kiva initially repaid lenders at the end of the loan term (typically 10 months to 18 months), but they've just changed their policy so that they repay lenders each time the loan recipient pays an installment (typically once a month). So you can get your money back faster.

I just went online to lend out my accumulated "Kiva credit." A lot of other people were doing the same thing, presumably because of this change in policy. I was refreshing the pages of several loan requests and watching the "amount still needed" drop every minute.

It is cool to watch people trying to help other people.

My lender page: http://www.kiva.org/lender/firecatstef

Tags: check it out, cool

Get yourself a free copy of the new 'zine Big Bums here:
http://obesitytimebomb.blogspot.com/2008/08/big-bums.html

Highlights:
Heads drawn back onto headless fatty photos
Positive Fattributes comic
Obesity Epidemic random story generator
Make your own Ticking Time Bomb of Obesity costume

Tags: check it out, cool, fat, pass it on

Modified from http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/03/19/funny-pictures-joy-elephant/

Tags: cool, funny, gip, happiness

In my review of the Golden Compass movie I mentioned a couple of the cool knitted garments that showed up in the movie.

The OH and I recently watched Jailhouse Rock. Elvis wears an very nice sweater in one scene. I wondered if I could find a pattern for it. A brief search turned up an adapted version (a personal pattern):
http://colorguardblog.blogs.com/knitblog/2005/01/can_i_have_the_.html
http://colorguardblog.blogs.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/april_presley_2.jpg

It also appears you can buy a reproduction of the sweater.

Tags: cool, knitting, movies

....go to http://www.bethelstreetgallery.com/index_flash.html, click artists, click Chris Campbell, and enjoy.

Since I like all four, I'm enjoying a lot. Some of my favorites: "Summer Heat," "Cat Fight," "Floating Flower"

(via BBW Art: The Broad Band http://francesca.net/broadband.html via liveavatar)

Tags: check it out, cool, fat

plymouth just posted a fascinating metaphor in one of my friends' friends-locked posts.

Social groups are hollow spheres - everyone's on the edge and noone is in the middle. That's the theory I came up with a few years back to explain the fact that all my friends seem to think they're on the fringes somehow. I guess you could say there are different shells to the spheres and some people are in the inner shells and some in the outer shells. Kinda like atoms. People are electrons. Nobody is at the nucleus.

I think this is a good way of spinning one's thinking about social groups in a way that makes it OK and normal to feel "on the outside" of one. (Although it doesn't explain why everyone thinks social groups have an inside that they are outside of and everyone else is inside of.)

Tags: cool, thoughts
listening to: "Love Is Everything (Harmony Version)" - Jane Siberry - When I Was A Boy

Kundun, a film about the 14th Dalai Lama, directed by Martin Scorsese, certainly is one-sided in its treatment of the history involved (in a way that I am inclined to agree with), and more than a tad emotionally manipulative. But it's so. fucking. beautiful. And besides, how can I resist a score with Philip Glass and the Gyuto Monks?

Tags: cool, movies, reviews

Cool!

http://bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com/375773.html

(note, contains photos of shirtless man)

Tags: check it out, cool, health

Albert Kuvezin and Yat-Kha, Re-Covers

They are from Tuva, and I found out about them via the_ogre via the movie Genghis Blues about the American blues musician/throat singer Paul Pena, and ultimately via Richard Feynman (one of the first Westerners to popularize Tuva).

On this album they are covering a wide variety of mostly Western rock music, from Led Zeppelin to Joy Division. My favorites are the Zeppelin song (see the "listening to" field), "In A Gadda Da Vida," just because—who does "In A Gadda Da Vida" these days? and "Black Magic Woman," which I like a lot more than Santana's version.

I can't remember where I found out about Tuvan throat-singing originally. I have had a CD of Tuvan throat-singing, Deep in the Heart of Tuva, for a long time. It has a Yat-Kha song on it. It also has a couple of Paul Pena songs on it.

I have other overtone-and throat-singing music—from David Hykes' Harmonic Choir and from the Gyuto Monks Tibetan Tantric Choir (a great CD, but not the best choice to take with you to the oral surgeon when having your wisdom teeth out).

Tags: cool, music, reviews
listening to: "When The Levee Breaks" - Albert Kuvezin and Yat-Kha - Re-Covers

Via suzimoses, I learn that scientists have created mouse-human hybrids...well OK, the only hybrid part is a set of genes coding for human-type trichromatic color vision, otherwise they are mice.

Carl Zimmer's blog The Loom (syndicated at carlzimmer) contains an interesting discussion of the result - the mice's brains can actually interpret what they are seeing, even though their brains aren't specifically designed to interpret the extra color information.

http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2007/03/22/said_the_mouse_to_the_other_mo.php

Also it contains an image I couldn't resist iconifying.

Tags: cool, gip, science

Heather MacAllister's notes for her keynote address to the NOLOSE conference in September 2006:

http://nolose.org/06/hm_keynote.php

These are notes so there are parts where the flow breaks into "still-to-do" lists and there's some repetition.

This is relevant beyond the fat dyke community. It talks about history and intergenerational communication and love of community and the meaning and possibility of gatherings and sexuality and appearance and social competitiveness and inclusivity and discrimination and health care and risk taking and identity politics and includes a very interesting act of verbing.

Tags: cool, ethics, feminism, in_memoriam

Thanks to the anonymous person who made a donation to Women for Women International via a "Rosie the Riveter" virtual gift to my profile page. I've never heard of the charity but they seem like a good one.

Tags: cool, feminism