Some People Will Be Hungry This Thanksgiving: Reprised

Thanksgiving Day 2008 -- Bountiful tables, full tummies, excess leftovers characterize many of our Thanksgiving feasts. On one of our favorite holidays in the United States, we give thanks for all we have. Today's post is an updated republication of a post that has remained popular since it first appeared in 2005. I begin with an update:
An economist's view -- "The world financial, food and hunger crisis" by Lane Vanderslice from World Hunger Notes (updated Nov. 11, 2008). Some points:

1. The world food crisis has been replaced in large part by the world financial crisis.


2. . . . food prices have soared. . . rice, the staple food of billions of people, more than doubled from 2003 through March 2008. . . This is a crisis for the poorest people in the world. 2.6 billion people live on $2 a day or less. They spend approximately 50 percent of their income on food.


3. [Causes] What are key factors affecting the supply of food? [On] Demand side: There has been strong economic growth for the world economy over the past 10 years or so. . . the quantity people demand of food does not vary much with changes in prices. . . Commodity speculation has been widespread.


4. Supply side: A major factor affecting the supply of food has been the diversion of crop land to fuel production. . . the agricultural production of developing countries is now directed to a greater extent toward producing for export to developed countries rather than to producing goods for their own people. . . There have also been certain shortfalls in production. . . Assistance to agriculture by developed countries and multilateral development banks has been minimal, and, though some countries have adequately supported their agriculture sector including India and China, others have not, including many and perhaps most countries of Africa. Agricultural producers, especially the poorest, in Africa and elsewhere have been exploited or neglected by governments. Assistance to agriculture by developed countries and multilateral development banks has fallen dramatically.

Wikipedia page "Malnutrition" 2008 -- has what appears to be some good entries. For example:

Some environmentalists claim that the fundamental issue causing malnutrition is that the human population exceeds the Earth's carrying capacity;^[5] however, Food First raises the issue of food sovereignty and claims that every country (with the possible minor exceptions of some city-states) has sufficient agricultural capacity to feed its own people, but that the "free trade" economic order associated with such institutions as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank prevent this from happening. At the other end of the spectrum, the World Bank itself claims to be part of the solution to malnutrition, asserting that the best way for countries to succeed in breaking the cycle of poverty and malnutrition is to build export-led economies that will give them the financial means to buy foodstuffs on the world market.

World Hunger Notes is a fabulous resource for the latest news about world hunger. For example:

• Rising unemployment could push an additional 7.5 million to 10.3 million United States residents below the federal poverty line in the next two or three years, study says Eric Eckholm New York Times November 24, 2008.
• Some 691,000 children went hungry in America sometime in 2007, while close to one in eight Americans struggled to feed themselves adequately US food security report says Michael J. Sniffen Associated Press November 17, 2008

The original post -- Some Will Be Hungry This Thanksgiving -- Nov. 23, 2005

How does it feel to be hungry, really hungry? It is not the kind of hunger that comes with having missed a meal. It is also not the kind of hunger one feels when doing a very purposeful "cleansing fast," or fasting on Fridays, in the old days of an observed liturgical holy week.
This hunger is that which comes from not getting anything to eat, or very little to eat, on a regular basis for days, weeks, months or years at a time. It comes from not getting a nutritionally balanced diet. This kind of hunger makes it difficult, if not impossible for mothers to nurse their infants. Infants do not grow and thrive if they live. People - adults and children - starve to death, or they die of diseases brought on by malnutrition. There are entire nations starving or desperately endangered today; right now. And there far too many people in these United States that are also hungry. This week, this coming Thanksgiving Day, the weekend following , millions are hungry. For many of the rest of us, we will be trying to figure out what to do with all our leftovers.
A recent Reuters story focused on the just published United Nations report on hunger in the world which states that 6 million children a year die from hunger related causes. (see also the terrific pop up map in the title link above) Quoting Reuters,

Most of the 6 million child deaths a year are not due to starvation but
rather to neonatal disorders and diseases like diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria and measles which would be easily curable if the victims were not weakened by lack of nutrition.

The food crisis brought about by climate change is also part of the larger hunger picture. The BBC article begins,

Climate change threatens to put far more people at risk of hunger over the next 50 years than previously thought, according to new research. Scientists say expected shifts in rain patterns and temperatures over that time could lead to an extra 50 million people struggling to get enough food.

(BBC image) In Africa people in Malawi face a maize crisis. Quoting,

The worse harvest in a decade and failed rains are being blamed for what aid agencies warn is a rapidly emerging food crisis. What is making matters worse is HIV/Aids. One in seven people in Malawi is affected and it is fueling the problem of extreme hunger. Money that households would normally spend on buying seed and fertiliser, is being spent on transporting the sick to hospital and buying basic medicine instead.

In Zimbabwe even their own soldiers are hungry enough that there are shortages of food in the barracks and forced leaves. High food prices are a factor in Niger's hunger problems, because of the high demand for food in the surrounding countries. The crisis of African hunger was debated in this BBC feature; some of the discussion comments were excellent. Millions are at risk in Africa, but so are millions in southern Asia.
Earthquake survivors face winter hunger in the Kashmir area. It is a major crisis for the millions left homeless by the quakes in Pakistan, Kashmir and India. The article states, "As of 16 October, food had reached 440,000 people but an estimated 560,000 remained in "desperate need of assistance".
In our own hemisphere hunger is a major problem in several contries. The BBC reports that Guatemalans face hunger as a result of the recent natural disaster, Hurricane Stan. Rats ate the crops of many people in Nicaragua, one of the poorest nations in the Central America. The BBC article headlines, "The UN is to send 230 tons of emergency food aid to thousands of Miskito Indians facing hunger in Nicaragua."
Here at home, the Food Research and Action Center is an excellent site for exploring hunger in the United States. America's Second Harvest, the nation's food bank network, has excellent material on hunger in the U. S. The Children's Defense Fund explores the question of U.S. children's hunger in this 6-page PDF document. Here is what the USDA site has to say about "food security" in the U.S.:

Eighty-eight percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year 2004, meaning that they had access, at all times, to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households were food insecure at least some time during that year. The prevalence of food insecurity was 11.9 percent in 2004, up from 11.2 percent in 2003. The prevalence of food insecurity with hunger was 3.9 percent in 2004, up from 3.5 percent in 2003.

Since our population was 290,342,554 in July of 2003, the "3.9% of food insecurity with hunger" translates into 11, 323,360 hungry people in the United States. Is there anything that can be done about the recent increase in hunger? The above paragraph on hunger in America includes several references in the linked articles to organizations that endeavor to feed people who go to bed hungry. In your own city, there is probably a food bank, a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter that could use some help, either volunteering or donating. And many churches, synagogues and mosques as well as other faith based organizations focus of food pantries or feeding programs.
World wide, diminishing poverty and the predominance of violence and war will help. Improvements in agriculture are key to the long term solution. For example, unraveling the DNA code of the rice genome may be an answer for many countries where rice is the predominant staple.
Reference: Wikipedia's excellent section on hunger discusses many aspects of the problem and includes links to many organizations that work on hunger.
(Cross-posted at The Reaction.)
My “creativity and dreaming” post today is at Making Good Mondays.
Technorati tags: thanksgiving hunger malnutrition news and politics

Defending Community Organizing

Hearing the Republicans' sneer at the noble cause of community organizing during the recent campaign has been personally hurtful to me as a retired social worker. I have done my share of anti poverty work in my time, and there is no area of activism that is more personally satisfying. My current activist writing focus is on the preservation of civil liberties. One of the references to whom I often turn is Tom Head who writes Civil Liberties at About.com. I quote from his recent post which makes my point, "Political Nililism:"

For activists, 2008 has been the Year of Shut Up. Numerous Republican talking heads--at the convention, on television, and on the blogosphere--dedicated considerable energy to mocking the Roman Catholic poverty relief coalition to which Obama dedicated three years of his life after law school. Hillary Clinton, during the Democratic primaries, argued that Lyndon B. Johnson be seen as the primary hero of the civil rights movement, not the community organizers who risked and in some cases gave their lives to make his reforms inevitable. Even Obama himself, by far the most activism-friendly of the major-party candidates, has boasted of "taking on the special interests" (a category that includes activist groups) and refusing to accept PAC money (which comes from activist groups)--but to his credit, that's about as far as he's taken it.

If we don't bother with community organizing, then we leave the issues important to us to the politicians--politicians who, if they ignore community organizers, can't possibly have our best interests at heart because they have no way of knowing what our best interests are.

Activist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Al Gore has organized almost the entire world community. Peaceful people around the globe are working together to making a difference with climate change. Using both science and psychology, Gore is among the best. I am on his We Have a Choice (9/9/08) mailing list, which urges citizen involvement with Congress to do something on energy. To quote his call to action,

We face a stark choice: subsidize old, dirty energy or invest in new, clean energy. This should be easy, but the influence of the oil lobby is deep -- they've already spent more than $100 million in lobbying and advertising this year. Please call your members of Congress now and tell them to pass legislation that will Repower America. Click here to find out how to call.

Strong words and deeds are the stuff of community organizing. Those who do it well inspire in spiritual ways, or with passion. Their listeners and readers become galvanized to work towards change. I recommend this wordsmith's high quality piece of writing via Memeorandum in The New York Times, September 9, 2008: "The Rantings of a P.T.A. Mom," by Sandra Tsing Loh. I do not necessarily agree with her criticism, because I think it is over-simplified, however. But I loved her last paragraph about being an activist. Bio material first: "Sandra Tsing Loh, a writer and a performer, is the author most recently of “Mother on Fire,” a comic memoir of her struggle to find a school in Los Angeles for her child to attend." To quote from the author's piece:

As usual, Bruce Fuller and Lance Izumi , my fellow Education Watch contributors, make some fascinating points, none more startling to me than Lance’s casual throw-away that Barack Obama sends his children to private school. As a rabid public school Democrat, I crumpled in despair at the news.

Look, I am not in politics, I get no money from foundations, I do not get invited to lecture on third world eco-sustainability on luxury cruises. I have no highly placed blue-state friends and I will soon be a divorced woman because my die-hard Democratic husband will not brook any dissent, public or private, about our party.

Another mother spoke out so powerfully that her essays morphed into an opera. Fine art is often the stuff of activists. It inspires using the mind-spirit-body connection. This little blurb is from CQ Behind the Linesfrom which I quote (author's links):

Her experience as a mother living near Ground Zero became the guiding theme of Wickham Boyle’s late-2001 collection of essays, which she has turned into an opera opening next week, The New York Times’ Susan Dominus profiles.

And last, you can be sure that activists first had this idea. And they no doubt organized their community to make it happen. I am not sure what to make of it at all, because I do not know whether it is effective. It is a very big cause to take on. To succeed as civil liberties cause, it would need to highlight the need for preserving civil liberties while also fighting terrorists. This too is from my recent CQ Behind the Lines newsletter (author's links):

Debuting during the Democratic Convention, Denver’s Center for Empowered Living and Learning “is a high-tech, multimedia, Technicolor exhibit devoted to educating the American public about the realities —and root causes — of terrorism,” Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball spotlight.

Democrats need to fight back with a spirited defense of community organizing. One of the most important people to the field was Saul D. Alinsky, who got his start in Chicago and inspired both Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. The Alinsky model eventually found its way to San Antonio. During my early years in community work that model guided me and some of my fellow activists here in North Texas. It is sort of a small world thing, I guess. But making the connection makes me remember once again that ours is a village.

View my current slide show about the Bush years -- "Millennium" -- at the bottom of this column.

(Cross-posted at The Reaction.)

My “creativity and dreaming” post today is at Making Good Mondays.

Technorati tags: news news and politics community organizing 2008 election democrats obama mccain republicans

Off the beaten path of politics

Sunday should be a day of rest. Today's post meanders along the path of the unusual, steering away from serious politics. From the ridiculous to the sublime, and points in between, S/SW peers into the murky forest.

"Digital Drugs: New Worry For Parents?* Reports of Sounds With Drug-Like Effects Have Some Parents Spooked" -- OPINION by KIM KOMANDO -- Aug. 9, 2008. Take the time to read some of the comments following this story. They range from utter derision to reports of positive personal experiences by users. This is from ABC News. To quote:

. . . can music create the same effects as illegal drugs?

Some say that certain sounds, when played on headphones, can have a drug-like effect.
(Photodisc)This seems like a ridiculous question. But websites are targeting your children with so-called digital drugs. These are audio files designed to induce drug-like effects. All your child needs is a music player and headphones.

Understanding Binaural Beats -- There are different slang terms for digital drugs. They're often called "idozers" or "idosers." All rely on the concept of binaural beats. It is incorrect to call binaural beats music. They're really ambient sounds designed to affect your brain waves.

. . . Dr. Nicholas Theodore, a brain surgeon at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, said there is no real evidence that idosers work. But he noted that musical preference is indicative of emotional vulnerability. Trying idosers could indicate a willingness to experiment with drugs and other dangerous behavior.

Theodore added that idosers are another reason to monitor kids' Internet usage. And, he said, kids need frank talks with their parents about correct choices.

"I suspect this 'Pied Piper' phenomenon will pass rapidly and quietly," he said.

These tiny morsels need very little explanation:

"Teach Your Children Well." Blog friend "betmo" who asks, "weeping jesus is nothing sacred?" It's from Media Needle. To quote:

Parker Brothers replaces Monopoly money with Visa brand Debit card systems.

Top 9 best new drugs*: One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small. Take one, take them all!" By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist, Friday, August 8, 2008

This link is from my friend Jon: "This video made me laugh -- you should watch it: Funny or Die about "a new ad for the Republican party."

The dilemma for the Internet is how to make money, so ISP companies decided to advertise. And then they decided to get together. The idea of media consolidation must extend to the digital world, if it is to be realistic. And consolidation is not usually good news for consumers. It often limits access to information, drives up prices and can threaten privacy. The perfect example follows -: Google, Yahoo partially disclose terms of ad pact"* from The Raw Story/Reuters, Saturday August 9, 2008. To quote:

Google Inc and Yahoo Inc released on Friday excerpts of a pact covering their search advertising partnership that keeps secret financial terms and the extent of other ties between the two.

. . . Critics say the deal threatens competition for advertising that runs alongside Web searches. Congressional leaders have conducted hearings to investigate what impact the partnership could have on the Internet market. The agreement covers the United States and Canada, but not other international markets.

. . . But the contract is heavily redacted in an area that covers "other business opportunities" and is silent about how the sharing of user data between the partners could affect the privacy of Yahoo users.

HT to betmo for all of the *links.

View my current slide show about the Bush years -- "Millennium" -- at the bottom of this column.

(Cross-posted at The Reaction.)

My “creativity and dreaming” post today is at Making Good Mondays.

Technorati tags: news internet isp humor psychology

"Failure to protect"

This is a very serious charge. Since our current president (OCP) George W. Bush was first elected, we as citizens became more vulnerable to harm from our own government. "Failure to protect" applies to people in government who leave citizens and aliens vulnerable to harm. "Failure to protect" applies to citizens who have the responsibility to maintain a vibrant democracy. In effect the requisite number of citizen voters failed to protect our nation from Bush's reelection in 2004.

"Failure to protect" applies to parents responsible for seeing to the well-being of their children. When I was actively working as a social worker, an advocate for kids, any parent who knowingly failed to protect the child from abuse by another person could be in trouble with Child Welfare. And as a social worker I had a legal duty to warn about a threat to harm, in certain cases that overrode my duty to maintain confidentiality.

Since the turn of the century things have radically changed for me personally and for our nation. In 2002 I went into retirement. Because I have retired does not mean that I am absolved of responsibility, however. I remain a citizen. I see my job as a blogger as an advocate for vulnerable people. At times I see this writing as fulfilling a duty to warn. Here are some more current issues about which you should know, if you do not already.

Failure to protect U.S. citizens' civil liberties is one of the serious charges leveled at our current president, (OCP) and increasingly, our current Congress as foreign intelligence surveillance legislation (FISA) is contemplated. Glenn Greenwald is a powerful advocate for civil liberties. Writing for Salon.com on Tuesday June 17, 2008, his headline read, "Targeting Steny Hoyer for his contempt for the rule of law." To quote:

It is now definitively clear that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is the driving force behind a bill -- written by GOP Sen. Kit Bond -- to vest the President with vast new warrantless eavesdropping powers and to vest lawbreaking telecoms with amnesty. Even as his office dishonestly denies that he is doing so, still more reports yesterday -- this one from the NYT and this one from Roll Call (sub req'd) -- confirm that a so-called "compromise" is being spearheaded by Hoyer and the House Democratic leadership.

. . . As a result, there is a major new campaign beginning today aimed at Hoyer and a handful of other key members of Congress who enable telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping.

Failure to protect basic human rights -- In 2002-2003 could the Pentagon not spare just a few of its 10,000 lawyers to protect military protocols and the rule of law from the assaults of the higher-ups at the Justice Department, DoD and the CIA? Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti at the New York Times reported Wednesday on the previous day's important Senate Armed Services Committee hearings on the harsh interrogation methods used against detainees suspected of terrorism. It was titled, "Notes Show Confusion on Interrogation Methods." To quote:

Mr. Haynes fended off attacks by Democrats and some Republicans, noting that the Defense Department has 10,000 lawyers and saying he had no time to conduct legal research himself on which methods were permitted.

Moreover, Mr. Haynes said, “as the lawyer, I was not the decision maker. I was the adviser.”

Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, said he thought Mr. Haynes’s advice had led American soldiers drastically astray. “You degraded the integrity of the United States military,” Mr. Reed said.

People in the Veterans Administration failed to protect veterans in this case reported by ABC News (6/17/08): "'Disposable Heroes': Veterans Used To Test Suicide-Linked Drugs"* To quote:

Mentally distressed veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are being recruited for government tests on pharmaceutical drugs linked to suicide and other violent side effects, an investigation by ABC News and The Washington Times has found.

. . . In one of the human experiments, involving the anti-smoking drug Chantix, Veterans Administration doctors waited more than three months before warning veterans about the possible serious side effects, including suicide and neuropsychiatric behavior.

And finally it has come to this -- a failure to protect from an over reaching Department of Homeland Security. Is this true or is it Conspiracy Theory? Read this regarding continuity of government, from survival acres : "The Last Roundup - Main Core" (6/7/08)*

*from my blog friend "betmo" at life's journey.

I will be traveling soon to visit my family of origin in Wyoming. Therefore blog posting may be much more sporadic. But I will be tuned in to the web as much as possible, given technology and circumstances.

This day in history - Constitutional Convention, June 18, 1787: Hamilton proposed his vision of a supreme central government.

View my current slide show about the Bush years -- "Millennium" -- at the bottom of this column.

(Cross-posted at The Reaction.)

My “creativity and dreaming” post today is at Making Good Mondays.

Technorati tags: news news and politics politics civil liberties militarycongress

Here and there from the Southwest USA

The southwest region of the United States sometimes makes the national headlines, for good or for ill. Three events captured national attention this past week. A West Texas polygamist sect's compound was raided in order to protects its vulnerable women and children from sexual abuse. Hundreds of passenger flights in the region were canceled in order to do safety inspections on airplane electrical wiring. And NASA in Houston is transitioning their three-person crew aboard the International Space Station.

Texas polygamist sect story: Monday brings a Washington Post story of what will happen next in these troubling events regarding custody of the children, protection of spouses, etc. It will come under the auspices of the state courts, and even the governor could weigh in. To quote:

An investigation of abuse at the private ranch of a polygamous sect is moving to a San Angelo courthouse this week as the state argues to retain custody of 416 children removed from their parents. Texas bar officials say more than 350 attorneys from across the state have volunteered to represent the children for free.

"The size, the scope of this effort is unprecedented," attorney Guy Choate said. "It's terribly important to the State Bar of Texas that everyone have access to justice."

. . . Three mothers have appealed to Gov. Rick Perry for help in a letter the sect said was mailed to him on Saturday.

There is a new twist to the polygamist ranch story. Americans have been subsidizing the group with millions of their tax dollars, according to McClatchy. My Representative, Kay Granger, should probably urge an investigation, although what action might come out of it is unknown. To quote:

American taxpayers have unwittingly helped finance a polygamist sect that is now the focus of a massive child abuse investigation in West Texas, with a business tied to the group receiving a nearly $1 million loan from the federal government and $1.2 million in military contracts.

. . . A large portion of the awards were preferential no-bid or "sole source" contracts because of the company's classification as a small business, according to online databases that track federal government appropriations.

. . . U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, the Fort Worth Republican who sits on the House Appropriations Committee that deals with issues of defense, military and homeland security, said she is surprised that the federal government is doing business with a group accused of mistreating women and children.

"It makes me very uneasy," Granger said. "It needs to be investigated without a doubt."

Is it yet safe to fly? Travelers in the Southwest and elsewhere were affected deeply by the FAA safety inspection problems presented to Southwest and American Airlines. There is plenty of blame to go around in both the FAA and the airline companies. "Safety problems in grounded jets known for years by FAA," was written by Bob Cox at McClatchy Newspapers, April 12, 2008. To quote:

Airline safety regulators have known for years that MD-80 airliners could have a potentially serious electrical wiring problem like the one that led to the sudden grounding of American Airlines planes last week.

But a review of Federal Aviation Administration documents indicates that the agency was in no hurry to force airlines to make fixes.

NASA's Space Program is located in the Southwest region of the United States. Missions are controlled primarily out of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas as well as number of facilities in Europe. The current mission is ISS Expedition 17, now transitioning a new crew to be aboard the Space Station. Two members of the new rookie crew and a visitor from South Korea arrived at the station on April 10. To quote from Space.com:

Crewmembers aboard the International Space Station (ISS) welcomed the arrival of a Russian spacecraft bearing their replacements and South Korea's first astronaut early Thursday.

Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko, and South Korean spaceflyer So-yeon Yi pulled in at the station aboard their Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft, which docked with the outpost's Earth-facing Pirs module at about 8:57 a.m. EDT (1257 GMT). The two vehicles were flying over northern Kazakhstan when they connected.

. . . Volkov, the first second-generation spaceflyer to reach space, received congratulations in Russian from his father, famed cosmonaut Alexander Volkov.

. . . Whitson, who served as ISS Expedition 16 commander, and Yuri Malenchenko, Expedition 17 flight engineer, will be relieved by Volkov and Kononenko. The third current station inhabitant, U.S. astronaut Garrett Reisman, will stay onboard as a flight engineer for the new Expedition 17.

. . . Yi, Malenchenko and Whitson are slated to land on the steppes of Kazakhstan next week after a 3 ½-hour journey home from the space station.

NASA has launched a beautiful new science web site: NASA SCIENCE . . . for the benefit of all. Researchers, educators, kids and citizen scientists are invited to delve into the sections on Earth, Heliophysics, Planets and Astrophysics. Full featured, it also includes an image of the day, spotlights one of the science missions, and focuses on "NASA Science and Kids."

View my current slide show about the Bush years -- "Millennium" -- at the bottom of this column.

(Cross-posted at The Reaction.)

My “creativity and dreaming” post today is at Making Good Mondays.

Technorati tags: news space nasa southwest travel texas polygamy airlines

A Red Ribbon Day

Today is World AIDS Day. Millions of Americans' lives have somehow been touched by AIDS. Our family lost a dear friend to the disease in the '90s. Years ago I, like many , was required to get a negative AIDS test for a new insurance policy. And some of the money we paid in taxes has been spent to battle this sad and scary epidemic now devastating Africa.
Bush marks World AIDS Day at church that supports children orphaned by the disease," is the headline in yesterday's International Herald Tribune. The article begins:

President George W. Bush urged Congress to approve an additional $30 billion (€20 billion) for the global fight against AIDS over the next five years, and announced he would visit Africa early next year to further highlight the need and his administration's efforts.

"We dedicate ourselves to a great purpose: We will turn the tide against HIV/AIDS — once and for all," Bush said Friday, the day before World AIDS Day. "I look forward to seeing the results of America's generosity."

. . . In honor of Saturday's World AIDS Day, the White House hung a red ribbon — 28 feet (8.5 meters) tall and 8 feet (2.5 meters) wide — in the North Portico of the mansion to symbolize the fight against AIDS. It will stay up for two days and, on Saturday, guests who visit the White House will receive a red ribbon sticker and a fact card.

The article concludes with another side to the story, that perhaps the administration of our current president (OCP), has not been very effective. To quote further from the IHT story:

Forty protesters, including students, HIV-positive activists and health advocates, were arrested Friday after they sat down on the sidewalk in front of the White House and refused police orders to move, said Lt. Scott Fear of the U.S. Park Police.

Demonstrators said the Bush administration's response to the spread of AIDS has been ineffective. They called for increased funding and an end to abstinence-only sex education requirements for U.S.-funded HIV and AIDS programs internationally. They said the disease also has been largely ignored in the nation's capital, which has the country's worst rate of infection.

"You don't know how to save lives, Mr. President," Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington, D.C.'s nonvoting member of Congress, said to cheers from a crowd of more than 150 at a rally before the arrests. "Stop sending mixed messages with the taxpayer funds of the American people.

The truth about AIDS in Africa probably lies somewhere in between these two views. But the statistics are clear. According to AVERT, an international AIDS charity, I quote:

Sub-Saharan Africa is more heavily affected by HIV and AIDS than any other region of the world. An estimated 22.5 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2007 and approximately 1.7 million additional people were infected with HIV during that year. In just the past year, the AIDS epidemic in Africa has claimed the lives of an estimated 1.6 million people in this region. More than eleven million children have been orphaned by AIDS.

The extent of the AIDS crisis is only now becoming clear in many African countries, as increasing numbers of people with HIV are becoming ill. In the absence of massively expanded prevention, treatment and care efforts, it is expected that the AIDS death toll in sub-Saharan Africa will continue to rise. This means that impact of the AIDS epidemic on these societies will be felt most strongly in the course of the next ten years and beyond. Its social and economic consequences are already widely felt, not only in the health sector but also in education, industry, agriculture, transport, human resources and the economy in general.

What can we as individuals do? I do not post at DailyKos very often, but today I did and closed with this:

Much as we hate to give credit to OCP, is should be noted that his commitment to helping fight the AIDS epidemic has been considerable.

AIDS knows no party lines, no geographical borders, no gender preferences, no time-limited scope.

Just for today give it a thought, "send white light" to its victims, and get tested if there is any question in your mind about your own status.

View my current slide show about the Bush years, "Millennium," at the bottom of this column.
My links:
(Cross-posted at The Reaction.)
Technorati tags: news news and politics africa AIDS bush

The "One Vote 08" movement

Activism is of deep importance to many citizens. Bloggers' work in this arena, I believe, is crucial to the health of our system of government. Even though I have retired from active social work practice, I retain social work values and a concern for the basic needs of vulnerable people across the planet. Wednesdays are my day to focus on the latest news about activists and their projects. I often learn about such things on television, particularly, C-SPAN.



C-SPAN covered the 6/11/07 launch of the One V0te 08 Campaign. Their blurb reads,

One Campaign on Global Poverty and Disease
The One Campaign launched its One Vote '08 project, co-chaired by former Senate Majority Leaders Frist and Daschle, to mobilize voters to make the fight against global poverty and disease an election issue. The event, held at St. Mark's Episcopal Church on Capitol Hill, included a video message from supportors including Bono and Matt Damon, and others. 6/11/2007: WASHINGTON, DC: 1 hr.

More Information -

• A excellent recent post by Scott Paul at The Washington Note featured the One Vote 08 Campaign.
• Paul Bedard in "Washington Whispers," at CBS News, covers the "ONE" founder Bono's part in the campaign.
• Digg also weighed in on the launch of "One Vote 08 Campaign..
• The Insider Online, a conservative website, has some predictable reservations about how to best help Africa. To quote,
  

  Hopefully, a part of the push to help Africa will involve making an effort to understand where the problems in Africa come from in the first place, and a good place to start is understanding how foreign aid can and has made things worse.

The campaign's website uses this slogan: "Mobilizing voters to save lives and secure America's future." To quote further,

ONE Vote '08 is an unprecedented, bi-partisan campaign to make global health and extreme poverty foreign policy priorities in the 2008 presidential election.

. . . ONE Vote '08 is part of ONE, a broad and growing movement of Americans from every state and walk of life. More than millions of people have added their voices to ONE by visiting ONE.org.

One.org has a counter that states that there is a current count of "2,420,903 people standing as one" in the movement. Won't you join the movement and add "one more voice" to the millions?
Technorati tags: current events news news and politics activism poverty politics africa

Questions remain:

"Police and university authorities faced pressure on Tuesday to explain how a gunman apparently evaded detection after killing two people and then went on to kill 30 others two hours later in America's worst shooting rampage," reports Reuters. As is often the case, law enforcement did not do what they might have if they had known what constituted the bigger picture. Judgement was imperfect and intra-campus communication was imperfect. Large institutions are inevitably going to react imperfectly in the face of a determined deranged person, bent on who knows what, with big guns and lots of ammo. That is because none of us can make sense of it, at the time or even later.
Awful gruesome records - After the reports began coming in that it was much worse than we first thought, reporters began to say, "It is the worst . . .". TV's CNN.com carried one of the many stories of the mass shootings at Virginia Tech University. To quote,

• Story Highlights:
• At least two professors among the dead in Virginia Tech massacre
• Police have preliminary identification of campus gunman
• University officials say 33 dead, including gunman
• Attacks mark deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history

In Washington, the House and Senate observed moments of silence for the victims and President Bush said the nation was "shocked and saddened" by news of the tragedy.
. . . Before Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in the United States occurred in 1991, when George Hennard drove a pickup truck into a Killeen, Texas, cafeteria and fatally shot 23 people, before shooting and killing himself.

Before this the worst shootings happened in Texas and Colorado. Now Virginia is added to that awful list of states having records of students out of control. The dismay was apparent on the faces of Virginia Senators Warner and Webb as they came to the floor of the Senate to offer grim condolences to their constituents. For all of us living in these states it is "too close to home." According to a Reuters side bar story, from which I quote:

Until Monday's rampage, the worst school shooting incident in the United States was at the University of Texas campus in Austin on August 1, 1966, when Charles Whitman went to the top of a tower and opened fire. He killed 15 people, including his mother and wife the night before, and wounded 31 others.

Sensible and sensitive Senate decision - Fortunately Senator Leahy delayed the hearing to feature Alberto Gonzales. "Senate Delays Gonzales Testimony on Firings," according to the Washington Post - Quoting from the (4/17/07) Dan Eggen and Paul Kane WaPo article that summarizes the Gonzales story to date,

After Slayings at College, Judiciary Panel Moves Session on Prosecutors to Thursday -
The Senate Judiciary Committee canceled testimony scheduled for today from Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales after concluding that the hearing would be inappropriate in the wake of yesterday's mass slayings at Virginia Tech.

Watching in horror - One of the New York Times stories focused on the style of TV coverage of the shootings, headlining it "Deadly Rampage and No Loss for Words." It was an excellent article on the media, written by Allessandra Stanley. To quote from the piece,

Television anchors said over and over that the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech was the deadliest in American history, but that was not the only shocking aspect of yesterday’s continual coverage.
The amazing thing is how familiar campus shootings have become. For viewers, initial disbelief is quickly folded into a methodical ritual of breaking bad news. News trucks race to the scene, witnesses upload images recorded on cellphones and video cameras, students on the scene calmly and patiently recount their impressions in front of news cameras. One student was taped soberly expressing shock — and cognizance. “This is like a college Columbine,” he said on MSNBC. “Really sad.”

South by Southwest will be occasionally dormant during the next month due to my travel plans. As is always the case when I take this annual trip, I will be dependent on the largesse of small town local libraries for access to the Internet. My home state is not widely wired, but it is beautiful. It will soon be spring there and the lilacs will bloom. And then I will feel like a child again. So long for now.
Technorati Tags: media my life news news and politics school culture events senate

An epidemic?

Foundations have often led the way with activism. (see Title Link above for articles and feeds from a Bloglines "childhood obesity" search)
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, for example, has just pledged to spend $500,000 over the next five years to fight childhood obesity. The foundation, according to the New York Times, has worked on health issues since it first came into being in 1968:

Robert Wood Johnson, who built Johnson & Johnson into one of the world’s largest health and medical care products companies, established his foundation at his death in 1968 with 10,204,377 shares of the company’s stock. He committed it to improving the health of Americans.

The Saucony Run for the Good Foundation "Fights Childhood Obesity," according to eMaxHealth.com.

At a time when childhood obesity is rising at an alarming rate, children are now facing one of the most important challenges of their lives: embracing a fit lifestyle that will provide the foundation for a healthy future.
The Saucony Run For Good Foundation joined Governor Deval Patrick in tackling this issue as "Run For Good Day" in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Federal action proposed - Unhealthy school lunches have long been suspected as part of the problem. The Ag Observatory has a recent article on the fact that, "USDA Seeks More Healthful School Meals." (It was originally in the WaPo). To quote,

As part of a sweeping effort to help improve nutrition for schoolchildren and fight childhood obesity, the Agriculture Department is proposing for the first time to require schools to bring their cafeteria menus into compliance with the latest U.S. dietary guidelines.
While the USDA has limited the sale of soda and some junk foods in school cafeterias, it has not required schools to implement the 2005 Dietary Guidelines, which call for increased consumption of whole grains, fruit and vegetables. Nor does it regulate vending machines, a la carte menus, or other food and beverages sold in schools outside the cafeteria, although a bill introduced by Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) seeks to have it do that.

States also take a lead - The state of Florida is also trying to do something through the schools. Tampa Bay's 10 News reports on "Battling childhood obesity"

According to the American Heart Association, Florida is one of only 15 states that do not mandate physical education for elementary students. That’s why legislators want to require that elementary students get at least 2 ½ hours a week of physical education and junior high students get a minimum of 3 hours and 45 minutes a week.

The state of California is promoting leafy green vegetables. The Californian has the story, "Greens agreement details developing," from which I quote:

Getting the message out that fresh produce is safe and healthy is paramount to fighting childhood obesity and other health problems, California's secretary of food and agriculture said Tuesday in Salinas.
Hundreds of local growers and state and local agriculture industry leaders had gathered with him at the Salinas Community Center to talk publicly about new food safety rules under the Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement and how it will affect their industry.

Those of us with grown children do not envy parents trying to raise healthy children these days. The good news is that the "epidemic," as some experts call it, is being seen as a big problem. That fact now becomes a part of the eventual solution.
Technorati tags: articles blogs business culture current affairs family food health and wellness school
My "creative post" today at Southwest Blogger is about the promise of Spring.

Southwest Space & Schools Digest - April 2007

Texas is one of the most populace states among the 50 in the United States. Thus it faces a big educational challenge as a state. And it is also home to the National Aeronautics and Space Agency headquarters in Houston, with its cadre of highly educated astronauts. Today's post gathers a number of current articles on space and education making the news.

From NASA - International Space Station - Status Report of April 7, 2007. Another very rich guy has flown into space from Russia. And he's bringing dinner. To quote from the news release:

HOUSTON – Two Russian cosmonauts and a space flight participant launched aboard a Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 12:31 p.m. CDT Saturday for a two-day flight to the International Space Station.
Less than 10 minutes after launch their spacecraft reached orbit and its antennas and solar arrays deployed. The Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft is scheduled to dock at the station at a little after 3 p.m. Monday.
Once they arrive at the station, Cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin, Expedition 15 commander, and Oleg Kotov, Expedition 15 flight engineer, and spaceflight participant Charles Simonyi, a U.S. businessman, will be greeted by the station’s current crew, Expedition 14 Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and flight engineers Mikhail Tyurin and Suni Williams.

More about Charles Simonyi from Reuters - "Software mogul blasts into space," by Maria Golovnina. To quote,

U.S. software mogul Charles Simonyi and two Russian cosmonauts blasted into orbit on Saturday aboard a Russian spaceship watched by Simonyi's friend, lifestyle guru Martha Stewart.
. . . "He had a big grin on his face," said Simonyi's family spokeswoman Susan Hutchison, who was able to see the crew via a live camera inside the cockpit as the spacecraft pulled away from the launch-pad.
Simonyi, a 58-year-old billionaire who helped found Microsoft, is making a 12-day round trip to the International Space Station (ISS).
Simonyi is carrying a special dinner packed in an aluminum container which he will share with ISS colleagues on Russia's Cosmonauts Day, April 12.
Stewart chose the menu featuring quail roasted in wine, duck breast with capers and rice pudding, among other courses. The two Americans have been reported to be romantically linked.

Astronaut will "run" in Boston Marathon - The Boston Globe carried an article with a interesting new twist on specialized exercising to maintain body mass and bone health in space. It is headlined, "Altitude training: Astronaut gears for own Marathon" To quote,

She looks like a typical marathon runner, thin and compact. She sounds like one, too, talking excitedly about her training for the Marathon a week from today and her strategy for completing the race. It goes without saying, Williams will run anything but the typical Marathon aboard the International Space Station.
. . . just the constant pain of the harness that tethers Williams to the space treadmill.
"Thank God, we can't [re-create Heartbreak Hill in space]," said Williams, who is familiar with the course from growing up in Needham, watching the Marathon from the 14-mile mark, and running the race previously. "I remember running that hill on the 100th running and that's a pretty vicious hill. But I have to say the treadmill itself isn't the easiest thing to run on. Not only are we running, but we're held down with a harness and it's a little bit heavy on your shoulders and your hips. So, it's going to be a little bit of a pain as it is. So, I think I'll do just as well [simulating the difficulty of the course] running on the treadmill."

Texas Higher Education - Though they may be eclipsed at times by Ivy League Schools, the southwest region has a number of very fine institutions. But the state's higher education is not available to nearly enough students. "CouldBe True" at South Texas Chisme reveals A college education crisis in the making. with a quote from the Houston Chronicle:

Texas lags far behind comparable states in offering financial aid to college students, and a new report by a Houston state senator warns of a coming crisis if the state fails to increase its number of college graduates.

Cannot go to college? If you cannot enroll at a university, you might at least bone up on the basics. Clipper "friedbeef" provides a great list of books from which to start: 10 Best Places to Get Free Books.
Interesting Texas education links:

• Dailytexanonline: (3/21/07) "Editorial: Dollars for diplomas" re for-profit education
• Education in Texas - elementary education teacher's blog
• Educational Equity, Politics & Policy in Texas - blog of UT Professor Angela Valenzuela
• Texas Ed: Comments on Education from Texas - home schooler's blog

Technorati tags: articles events news school space texas education
My “creativity and dreaming” post today at Good Second Mondays is about Easter.

Round or flat, it's a linked world

U.S. and E.U. part of linked world - This week saw jittery stock markets around the world and Wall Street's worst week in more than four years. A BBC story summarized the market slump thus,

A number of issues have come to a head this week, and the decline in share prices was triggered on Tuesday by fears of a new tax in China.
Investors have blamed issues as varied as the strength of the global economy, weakness in the US mortgage market, the outlook for corporate earnings and the effect of a stronger Japanese yen for their decision to dump equities.

Currency links - The place of currency differentials and other factors involving the falling value of the U.S. dollar was foreshadowed by this New Year's day article, "Appeal of euro strengthens against U.S. dollar," from the International Herald Tribune. The news evidently reminded people of Thomas Friedman's idea that the world is flat. In the past couple of days, there were seven visitors to this very old S/SW post: "Friedman's flat world," July 19, 2005.
Airlines key aspect of linked flat world - For a few days in December of last year the highest number of visitors to my blog were from Europe, due to this 12/1/06 post, "What's Your Score," about the TSA system for rating your terrorist potential as an airline passenger traveling internationally. More recently, the EU and US have made substantial progress in the so-called "Open Skies" agreements, according to the International Herald Tribune's article. To quote,

The European Union said Friday that it had reached a preliminary agreement with U.S. negotiators to all but eliminate restrictions on trans-Atlantic air routes, marking a significant breakthrough in talks aimed at increasing the number of flights — and lowering fares.
. . . The U.S. Congress must also back the deal before the new rules would take effect on Oct. 28.

Kids are not equal in the flat adult world - The West's children do not fare equally in all of this. Last month, the BBC News carried an excellent article that compared the well-being of children in various European countries and the U.S. The headline read, "Child study finds big divisions." Quoting from the story,

The first report on the well-being of children in 21 western states shows marked divisions in education, health and sexual behaviour and drug-taking.
The Netherlands topped the well-being table compiled by the UN children's agency Unicef, with Scandinavian nations also performing well.
However the United Kingdom and United States fare much worse, taking the bottom two places in the table.

Link to E.U. Views - Delegation of the European Commission to the USA's Ambassador John Bruton's weekly message (2/27/07) spoke to several of the above issues. To quote,

• Last week the European Commission published its Annual Policy Strategy for 2008 and its legislative program for 2007. These two documents give a very good outline of the Commission's work program.
• Last week the Council, . . . unanimously adopted a negotiation mandate for a new agreement between the European Union and the United States to regulate the transfer of air passengers’ data . . . Negotiations to replace the current interim agreement that expires on 31 July 2007 are starting this week in Washington.
• While it is true that the EU as a whole has been growing more slowly than the US, seven EU Member States have grown “markedly faster” than the US since 1995 – the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, Poland and Slovakia. Some of this is explained by relatively low income countries catching up, rather than forging ahead as such.

The China/US link - "When China sneezed the U.S. market caught cold" is a reversal of the way the saying used to go. The fact that our nation is in such financial debt to China is another fact of life that requires investors to remain well informed. The Internet and blogs, happily, make that increasingly possible. I remain grateful to a few great news online references:

1. Financial Times
2. BBC News
3. International Herald Tribune
4. Europa

Technorati tags: current-events in the news business links news travel globalization
My "creative post" today at Southwest Blogger is called "In the Eye of the Beholder."

Congress - Keep your eyes open

The election of a majority of Democrats to the U.S. House and Senate raised the expections of all of us for getting things done. We want our elected legislators to provide oversight, to make new laws, to resist special interest excesses, to provide constituent services, to curb executive powers, and to sanction executive branch appointments. We expect them to be honest, to get us out of Iraq and to see to the protection of our civil liberties. They are also to work five days a week in Washnigton, to look good, to speak well, to keep their families intact, and to be in about six places at once.
Members of the United States House of Representatives and Senate, thus, have many things over which they are expected to watch on our behalf. There is the environment, foreign affairs, constitutionality of legislation, the federal budget, the well-being of the military, public works and climate change, just to name a few.
And there are the ceremonial traditions that bolster the institution that is Congress. Monday Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) read George Washington's farewell address to the nation when the father of our country decided not to allow himself to be nominated for a third term as President. In a heavy Southern accent, the Republican rookie gamely struggled through the arcane language of the time, fortifying himself with sips of water and giving Washington's original erudite phrases a kind of wide-eyed read and commitment that was often charming. I am glad the Senators listen to the speech every year. Our first - very modest - president provides a good role model and a steadying hand these several centuries later. Congress needs all the help it can get in these trying times. The war in Iraq is draining precious lives, attention and far too much of the public treasury. Congress ignores domestic policy at the peril of us all.
Here is my list of current domestic issues needing the most scrutiny in the coming weeks and months.

1. The Clock is Ticking for Clean Energy and the Environment - "Auto lobby bracing for higher fuel standards," says the CNN headline, from which I quote:

   Major automakers believe stricter fuel economy standards for passenger cars are inevitable, but they want the Transportation Department - not Congress - to set the goal, the industry's lead U.S. trade group said on Friday.
   "There will be an increase in fuel standards, but it needs to be through a process that relies on data in a balanced system," Dave McCurdy, president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, told Reuters in an interview.

2. Immigration Reform Cannot be Ignored Forever - "Immigration debate between wall and wallet" is the title of this commentary by CNN's Ruben Navarette, Jr.'s commentary. The author puts the problem in a nutshell:

   This week, Congress will return to the immigration debate when it hears testimony from U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.
   I love the pairing. It illustrates America's schizophrenia on the issue and the built-in tension between the need to control our borders and the profits we reap from keeping it open, between the wall and wallet.
   Hopefully, at the end of it all, we'll have comprehensive immigration reform that gives illegal immigrants a path to legal residency. Until that happens, the popular view is that towns, cities, and states will take it upon themselves to try to end illegal immigration -- for better or worse.

3. Safety Net Still Needed for Poor People - "Welfare state growing despite overhauls" headlines the Yahoo! News story, from which I quote,

   The welfare state is bigger than ever despite a decade of policies designed to wean poor people from public aid. The number of families receiving cash benefits from welfare has plummeted since the government imposed time limits on the payments a decade ago. But other programs for the poor, including Medicaid, food stamps and disability benefits, are bursting with new enrollees.
   The result, according to an Associated Press analysis: Nearly one in six people rely on some form of public assistance, a larger share than at any time since the government started measuring two decades ago.

4. Public Safety Still Needed for Citizenry - "U.S. food safety inspections languishing" is the headline from CNN. To quote from the story,

   The federal agency that's been front and center in warning the public about tainted spinach and contaminated peanut butter is conducting just half the food safety inspections it did three years ago.
   The cuts by the Food and Drug Administration come despite a barrage of high-profile food recalls.

Congress must take up the slack for these and many other neglected domestic problems. They must insure that our own citizens do not get lost in the fog of the very troubling Middle East conflicts.
What would you put on your list for Congress?
Technorati tags: global-warming middle-east money war current affairs news news and politics politics congress
My "creative post" today at Southwest Blogger is about following rules.

War, violence and video

There is something vary caustic about constant exposure to violence. Sometimes the shock of it just takes my breath away. Fatigue sets in, and I go into avoidance mode. Perhaps I am numbed to it. Is it like kicking a snake? Is it because I am getting older and less resilient? Is it because I am a woman and a mom, a granny?
I am full of questions about the world's proclivity towards violence. Is war justified violence? Is there just an over-abundance of violence in the media where I get my news? Is it overblown, sensationalized to increase ratings in a competitive atmosphere? Are we all addicted to violence? Or is it catching? Do children also become desensitized by exposure to it? What about violent video games?
People continue to debate the effect of video games on children. A (2/1/07) story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette reported that,

Featuring everything from obscene gestures to accusations that this generation is the "most self-absorbed and egocentric" in recent history, California University of Pennsylvania hosted a raucous debate Tuesday on violence in video games.
Although speakers Gerard Jones, a San Francisco culture critic and writer, and Jack Thompson, a Miami lawyer known as the "virtue vigilante," cordially debated the effects of violence on children and even found points of agreement, the crowd zeroed in on Mr. Thompson for his much-vilified views on youth and the video game industry.
More than 50 students, with a sprinkling of adults, attended the two-hour debate sponsored by the university's student activities board and student association.

Europe may be ahead of the United States on this. Daily Tech - European is reporting, "European Union Explores Ban on Violent Video Games - Germany leads charge for EU regulation of violent games." To quote,

European authorities met earlier this week to examine the area of violent video games. Germany, who currently holds the current six-month presidency of the EU, is leading the charge in the regulation of what it considers inappropriate content.
The German government has a long history on its harsh views on violent video games and is taking it upon itself to conduct a study of all the different national rules concerning video games to create a unified policy that all 27 members of the EU could put into place.

Hillary Clinton began speaking out in March 2005 against the widespread availability to children of violent video games. She must have had the same questions as many women - and men - have. Surprising, as a Democrat, she aligned herself at the time with conservative Senators Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback. I do not believe it was done for political expediency. She is a mom. And she has long been a smart and sensitive advocate for children. That started long before she announced her run for the presidency, and it has continued. Breitbart.com has a (11/29/06) story, from which I quote,

Backed by gruesome shots of computerised cannibalism, police beatings and violence, campaigners warned parents that their children were increasingly at risk from "sadistic" video games.
Senator Hillary Clinton and former vice presidential nominee Joseph Lieberman meanwhile launched new legislation intended to protect kids from graphic, violent and sexual material on their game consoles. The National Institute on Media and the Family said in its annual report that video game retailors had failed to honor promises to safeguard children from violent and sexual content in new generation video games.

Which is worse, the war in Iraq or video games? Blogger Arianna Huffington at The Huffington Post raised an interesting point about proportionality. She wrote a post on 12/07/06 criticizing Hillary Clinton's campaign against violent video games. Like many of us, Huffington has been a bit frustrated by Clinton's hawkish stance on the war in Iraq. Headlined, "Reality Check: As Violence Escalates in Iraq, Hillary Holds Press Conference on Violent Video Games," Huffington's post went on to say,

The violence in Iraq is becoming more savage by the minute -- among the dead yesterday were 45 bullet-riddled corpses found in Baghdad, many of whom had been tortured before being executed -- and Hillary is worried about video game violence? Are you kidding me? Could she be any more politically tone deaf?

Hillary will be coming around about Iraq, I think. And she is not required to choose between opposition to violent videos and opposition to the war in Iraq. She can speak out about both. The Washington Post recently reported that,

Clinton on Friday defended her support for a nonbinding resolution expressing disapproval of the plan to send more troops to Iraq, but she made a point to say that she is now ready to press for tougher action.
"I want to go further," she told the audience of Democrats who will be delegates at the party's national convention in 2008. She outlined other steps she has proposed to cap the number of U.S. troops in Iraq and pressure the Iraqi government. But she has so far resisted embracing any timetable for bringing home the troops.

We just have to help Hillary get further in her opposition. It is neither a black nor white issue. The past six years have been marked by a level of everyday foreign policy violence that has corroded the very heart of our capacity to relate to each other as citizens. My early learning was that politics stopped at the water's edge. No more. We cannot allow ourselved to be numbed to violence, to be divided by it, or to allow the use of violence in place of the harder stuff of talking to our enemies. We cannot allow our nation to be run by gamers with a joysticks, already numbed to reality, to the awful permanency of the consequences of their actions.
References:

1. Podcast - "Do Violent Video Games Cause Violence?"
2. A few of my revious posts on violence:

• Weapons, weapons everywhere


• When the good die young


• Too many deaths, too much violence


• Bobby would have been 80 today

Technorati tags: war current affairs media news and politics violence video games hillary democrats

Heat and Light On War

The war in Iraq is painful in so very many important ways. Today's post is meant to shed a bit of light on specifics, and to put heat on those who can change it.
The war is painful for the people of Iraq, more specifically for children - A favorite blogger, who was born in Iraq and now lives in Texas, Fayrouz in Beaumont, always writes with great heart and insight. Her recent post, "Painful Smile" is enlightening. To quote,

Iraqi children suffered the most from the current war in Iraq. Iraqi children in "the new Iraq" aren't fortunate enough to enjoy a normal life. I've yet to see an American or Iraqi politician considers the miserable life of the Iraqi Children when (s)he makes a decision related to the future of Iraq.
. . . Every Iraqi, excluding the crazy folks fighting for power and destruction, are psychologically injured. I left Iraq 13 years ago. But, I still have nightmares of war and missing peace in Iraq. I can't even imagine what goes in the mind of an Iraqi child these days.
Despite the pain of severe burns, Saif is able to smile. Maybe our politicians can learn to become passionate by looking into Saif's burned eyes. A wall can even learn from the cries of miserable children while politicians won't.

Important new media voice sheds light on anti-war movement's challenge - The beltway is buzzing about the new media launched on "the streets, the airwaves and the Internet," according to LostRemote, on January 23: The Politico headlined, "Anti-War 'Silent Majority' Can't Make Itself Heard." Quoting from the article,

A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that 65 percent of Americans oppose sending more troops to Iraq, 59 percent would support an attempt by Congress to block a troop surge and 52 percent are ready to leave before the situation stabilizes. Almost two-thirds now say the invasion was a mistake, the highest that number has been since the war began.
So where are the riots? The marches? The sit-ins? The arrests?
Organizers of Saturday's march on Washington are genuinely puzzled that those outside of the effort can't hear the noise. At the National Press Club yesterday, march sponsors said the majority has, in fact, spoken loudly and clearly. Now the mainstream media and politicians need to listen.

My S/SW posts spotlight activism on Wednesdays - The South by Southwest (1/3/07) post talked about ". . . Activism, Citizenship and the Environment." To quote,

Citizen action means in some cases getting on your feet, putting one foot in front of the other, footing the bill, and never sitting at the feet of power. There is an opportunity for many feet to march in Washington at the end of the month. This story about the potential of activism comes from a website called the Baltimore Independent Media Center . The headline reads,"MASS DEMONSTRATION IN WASHINGTON DC ON JANUARY 27." To quote from the story,

United for Peace and Justice (1500 organizations) is teaming with over 500 additional groups to march on Congress to insist the US get out of Iraq. Massive numbers are expected to rally and to march around the Capital on January 27 at the start of a 3-day event.
. . . More than 70% of the American public is opposed to this war, but it doesn't matter to this President. You voted in November -- but your vote apparently didn't register. This time, vote with your feet, vote with your airfare, vote with your bus ticket. Vote with your presence in the streets of Washington DC on Saturday, January, 27th. The stakes have never been higher.

Biden committee leads in putting heat on the current Bush administration - Some may think I am being inflammatory by linking to an Aljazeera story. I do not mean to be so. I have often found that source to provide perspective, but read it for yourself. The headline, "US panel votes against Bush plan," begins this quote,

A US senate committee has rejected the president's plan to send more troops to Iraq, sending the measure to the full senate for a vote which is expected next week.
The vote by the foreign relations committee is not binding, but supporters hope that it will convince the president to reconsider.
. . . Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, dismissed the congressional objections. During an interview with CNN he said "it won't stop us".
He said: "It would be, I think, detrimental from the standpoint of the troops.
"We are moving forward. We are moving forward. We'll continue to consult with the congress. But the fact of the matter is, we need to get the job done."

Light on Lebanon - Another favorite blogger was born in Lebanon, and recently returned home to the U.S. after a trip to her homeland. Her blog offered a number of her very fascinating posts while traveling in Lebanon. Her blog post of today at Margaret's Wanderings in titled, "Not being in Lebanon." I quote from it:

I know people mean well when they tell me that they are glad that I am back in the States and am not still in Lebanon. They are trying to tell me that they care. I know this but I do not like the assumption that their good heartedness is based on: that Lebanon is dangerous and unsafe. Sure some parts are unsafe, they may have been especially unsafe this past Tuesday, but how is this different from living in certain parts of the U.S., say New Orleans for instance? Quite frankly, I felt safer in Lebanon than I have felt almost anywhere and I have done my share of traveling.
. . . Some of my feelings of discomfort are also my own. There is a side of me that wishes I was there yesterday and today expressing solidarity and living through this difficult time too.
I know that this isn't realistic. I have a job and a life here. I am doing good work and am learning many skills so that I can continue to help others as life goes on. I can also use my resources to become more informed and to possibly even influence U.S. policies towards Lebanon and Palestine. This is what I tell myself.
And in case you follow the news, yes, the U.S. is planning to offer $770 million dollars and other countries plan to offer additional support. I just ask you to remember that many of the weapons that the Israelis used on Lebanon this summer were supplied by the U.S., that the U.S. dragged its feet this summer and let the Israelis destroy Lebanon for over a month, and that the U.S. publically supported Israel. In addition, this money will not be used to reform the Lebanese sectarian system or to decrease the disparity between those that have and those that do not. If Lebanon is ever to know longterm peace, these two things need to happen.

New heat from the Military* - Here is what we have to look forward to in 2010! The BBC News carried this story headlined, "US military unveils heat-ray gun," from which I quote:

The US military has given the first public display of what it says is a revolutionary heat-ray weapon to repel enemies or disperse hostile crowds.
Called the Active Denial System, it projects an invisible high energy beam that produces a sudden burning feeling, but is said to be harmless.
Military officials believe the gun could be used as a non-lethal way of making enemies surrender their weapons.

Talk about heat and light! There is no way I can top this last item. All I can do is sit down, take a breath, and hope my head will stop spinning.

References:
Baghdad Burning

a very popular "fiery" Iraqi blogger*U.S. Department of Defense this site is worth a visit because it sheds light on an important center of power.

Technorati tags: bush democrats war women news news and politics politics blogs middle east iraq lebanon