Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Credit Card Fees

Credit Cards

Today I applied for a credit card that offered 0% APR for the next year. It all went well until I asked them to do a balance transfer. Well, she said, there will b a 3% fee on the balance transfer. Fine, I said. I understand that. So she began processing it and then said, well now your balance is $X, which my math skills told me was the balance transfer amount, plus the 3% fee, plus another $52. What’s with the $52? I asked. Oh, that’s a finance charge. What do you mean a finance charge? I thought this was 0% for a year. Yes, that’s right. The interest is 0% This is a finance charge. Remember when I read [the fine print]—and she reread it. When I protested, she instantly dropped the 3% transfer fee, leaving this “finance charge”. But now I do not trust this company. I canceled the entire thing.

The moral of this story, though, is that hidden fees, buried in language you are not supposed to understand, seemed to be part of this company’s method of doing business. Buyer beware, I guess.

Book Review--An Ordinary Man

Book Review—An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina with Tom Zoellner

This is the story that the movie Hotel Rwanda tells, only in book form. You’re going to think all I read is about horror and tragedy around the world—plenty of that out there. This is a very good book, though. It does not dwell on the horrors of the Rwandan genocide, but tells how this hotel manager housed over a thousand refugees in his hotel, and each time someone came and told him they had to leave the hotel, (at which time they would be slaughtered), he talked them out of it. His concept that each man has hard and soft places, that words are stronger than the sword, that his negotiation skills, his willingness to find compromise (and booze) is what saved these people’s lives. Words on a hate-laden radio station, broadcast 24-7 telling people to kill their neighbors is what lit the fuse on the massacre, and he contends that words could be as powerful for good as for evil. The story has been compared to Schindler’s List. He does not see himself as a hero—just a hotel manager doing what he was trained to do—take care of his guests. He’s running a taxi service in Brussels now.

One interesting point is that the Belgians who colonized Rwanda, used the tribes against each other to get what they wanted. This kind of interference is not unique to Rwanda! He also has strong words for the hobbles put on the U.N. peacekeeping force (they were not allowed to do anything even in the face of mass killing) and the refusal of help from the U.S. The Belgians fled as soon as the killing began. Can we, will we ever learn anything from these horrors that we can use to stop the next one?

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Three Cups of Tea by Relin and Mortenson

Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations … One School at a Time
by David Oliver Relin with Greg Mortenson


Greg Mortenson got lost and nearly died in a failed attempt to scale K2 in northern Pakistan. He blundered into a village high above a river accessible to the world by a sort of cable car—a box pulled on a cable and pulled across the river by hand. The people of this village welcomed him, fed him, warmed him, and restored him to life. He promised them that he would build them a school in gratitude-they had none and their children’s lessons, what they had of them, were held outside writing in dirt with sticks. He kept his promise, came back and with his own money and the money he raised in inept fund-raising efforts he built them first a bridge across the river, and then a school. This book is the story of this and many other schools he and later his organization has built in Pakistan and perhaps by now Afghanistan.

Mortenson believes that the Wahabis of Saudi Arabia building Madrasas and educating young Pakistani, Afghani, and other young men around the world, filled a vacuum crated by war, corruption and poverty. These schools and camps are breeding grounds for fundamentalist Islam and the terrorism we have seen. He believes that educating children, especially girls, is the way to counter this terrorism in the long term, by giving the next generations in these regions options. The boys, he says, will leave their villages for the cities, but the girls are the ones who can change a culture, bring advances home to the villages. He believes strongly in educating the girls. His mission has been to build schools and pay teachers. It’s a fascinating story;, and one that has not ended yet.

It pricks my complacency, flings sparks into the dreams I have always cherished of doing something that would make a difference. Giving to those who have less than I. Sharing my gifts. I am restless today, wondering where my path will lead if I just let it.