On The Daily Show last night, Jon Stewart was speaking about Tony Blair standing down and how this is the end of the political partnership between Bush and Blair:
“So there we have it, the end of an era.
I’m sorry, I misspoke – the end of a whole series of blundering errors.”
1 billion people live without safe drinking water and 2.6 billion people have no basic sanitation. Oxfam
At any given time, nearly half of all people in the developing world are suffering from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits. UN
The 3 richest men in the world are wealthier than the 48 poorest countries combined (that’s 3 people having more money than 600 million people…) [This statistic is from 1998, but I'm sure a similar situation applies today] WDM & here
The 48 poorest countries account for less than 0.4% of global exports.
If Africa, East Asia, South Asia, and Latin America each increased their share of world exports by just 1%, the resulting gains could lift 128 million people out of poverty. Oxfam
Nearly 1 billion people can’t read or write [presumably those are people of reading/writing age]. UNICEF
When reading statistics that talk of millions or billions of people, I find it helps to remember that each one of those people is someone just like me - someone’s child/mother/father; someone with hopes and dreams for the future; someone who feels pain and hunger exactly the same as everyone else, etc.
New Zealand’s life expectancy in 2005: 80
Sierra Leone’s Life expectancy in 2005: 39 WHO
New Zealand’s infant mortality rate (number of babies per 1,000 births who die before the age of 5) in 2005: 6
Sierra Leone’s infant mortality rate in 2005: 283 WHO
Average income for working age adults in New Zealand in 2005: $26,464
Average income for working age adults in Timor-Leste (East Timor) in 2005: $352
Average income for working age adults in Burundi in 2005: $107 IMF
World military expenditure in 2005 was over $1 trillion (that’s $1,000 billion). The USA spent $522 billion. The UN estimates that around $50 billion would be enough for basic education and healthcare, adequate food and safe water for all of the world’s people. SPIRI
From 1998 to 2001, the USA, the UK, and France earned more from arms sales to developing countries than they gave in aid. Control Arms
The 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council are the USA, UK, France, Russia, and China. Together, they are responsible for 88% of reported conventional arms exports. Control Arms
At any one time, more than 300,000 children (under-18) around the world are actively fighting as soldiers with government armed forces or armed political groups. Amnesty International
75% of the estimated 700,000-2.7 million people who die of malaria each year are African children. CDC
12% of the world’s population uses 85% of its water. source
The average person in the developing world uses 10 litres of water every day for their drinking, washing and cooking. This is the same amount used when you flush the toilet. Oxfam
8,000 people die of AIDS every day. AIDS has already killed 25 million people. 15 million children have been orphaned by AIDS. Oxfam & Oxfam
Africa is home to about 66% of the 40 million people in the world infected with HIV. In 2005, nine out of ten Africans in need of AIDS medicines were still not receiving them. Because of AIDS many African countries now have a lower life expectancy than they did in 1960. BBC & Oxfam
…and so on.
Check out Global Issues - a great site with heaps of information.
To help change the present world situation, visit some of the sites listed in my sidebar under ‘CONSCIENCE…’.
Every decision you make in this life is a political one.
Now that I have seen
I am responsible
From New Internationalist:
http://www.newint.org/issue383/xword.htm
http://www.newint.org/issue351/xword.htm
http://www.newint.org/columns/bbw/2006/01/01/big-bad-world/
http://www.newint.org/issue356/xword.htm
http://www.newint.org/issue357/xword.htm
http://www.newint.org/issue360/xword.htm
http://www.newint.org/issue362/xword.htm
http://www.newint.org/issue368/xword.htm
http://www.newint.org/issue378/xword.htm
http://www.newint.org/issue376/xword.htm
AMORALITY A quality admired and rewarded in modern organizations, where it is referred to through metaphors such as professionalism and efficiency.
Amorality is corporatist wisdom. It is one of the terms which highlights the confusion in society between what is officially taught as a value and what is actually rewarded by the structure.
Immorality is doing wrong of our own volition. Amorality is doing it because a structure or an organization expects us to do it. Amorality is thus worse than immorality because it involves denying our responsibility and therefore our existence as anything more than an animal.
– John Ralston Saul, The Doubter’s Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common SenseANSWERS A mechanism for avoiding questions.
This might be called obsessional avoidance or a manic syndrome. It is based on the belief that the possession of an education – particularly if it leads to professional or expert status and, above all, if it involves some responsibility or status and, above all, if it involves some responsibility or power – carries with it an obligation to provide the answer to every question posed in your area of knowledge. This has become much more than the opiate of the rational elites. It may be the West’s most serious addiction.
Time is of the essence in this process. An inability to provide the answer immediately is a professional fault. The availability of unlimited facts can produce an equally unlimited number of absolute answers in most areas. Memory is not highly regarded. Right answers which turn out to be wrong are simply replaced by a new formula. The result of these sequential truths is an assertive or declarative society which admires neither reflection nor doubt and has difficulty with the idea that to most questions there are many answers, none of them absolute and few of them satisfactory except in a limited way.
– John Ralston Saul, The Doubter’s Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common SenseECONOMICS The romance of truth through measurement.
….Economic truth has replaced such earlier truths as an all-powerful God, and a natural Social Contract. Economics are the new religious core of public policy. But what evidence has been produced to prove this natural right to primacy over other values, methods and activities?
The answer usually given is that economic activity determines the success or failure of a society. It follows that economists are the priests whose necessary expertise will make it possible to maximise the value of this activity. But economic activity is less a cause than an effect – of geographical and climatic necessity, family and wider social structures, the balance between freedom and order, the ability of society to unleash the imagination, and the weakness or strength of neighbours. If anything, the importance given to economics over the last quarter-century has interfered with prosperity. The more we concentrate on it, the less money we make.
– John Ralston Saul, The Doubter’s Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense
Gethsemane
1914-18The Garden called Gethsemane
In Picardy it was,
And there the people came to see
The English soldiers pass,
We used to pass — we used to pass
Or halt, as it might be,
And ship our masks in case of gas
Beyond Gethsemane.The Garden called Gethsemane,
It held a pretty lass,
But all the time she talked to me
I prayed my cup might pass.
The officer sat on the chair,
The men lay on the grass,
And all the time we halted there
I prayed my cup might pass.It didn’t pass — it didn’t pass —
It didn’t pass from me.
I drank it when we met the gas
Beyond Gethsemane.- Rudyard Kipling
Common Form
If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.- Rudyard Kipling, Epitaphs of the War
Kipling’s only son, John, died in WWI, just six weeks after his eighteenth birthday. Kipling had used his influence to get his son a commission in the Irish Guards, as John was short-sighted and would have failed his medical.
Brick
by Ben Folds and Darren Jessee6am, day after Christmas
I throw some clothes on in the dark
The smell of cold
Car seat is freezing
The world is sleeping
I am numbUp the stairs to the apartment
She is balled up on the couch
Her mom and dad went down to Charlotte
They’re not home to find us out
And we drive
Now that I have found someone
I’m feeling more alone
Than I ever have beforeShe’s a brick and I’m drowning slowly
Off the coast and I’m headed nowhere
She’s a brick and I’m drowning slowlyThey call her name at 7:30
I pace around the parking lot
Then I walk down to buy her flowers
And sell some gifts that I got
Can’t you see
It’s not me you’re dying for
Now she’s feeling more alone
Than she ever has beforeShe’s a brick and I’m drowning slowly
Off the coast and I’m headed nowhere
She’s a brick and I’m drowning slowlyAs weeks went by
It showed that she was not fine
They told me son, it’s time to tell the truthShe broke down, and I broke down
Cause I was tired of lyingDriving home to her apartment
For a moment we’re alone
Yeah she’s alone
I’m alone
Now I know itShe’s a brick and I’m drowning slowly
Off the coast and I’m headed nowhere
She’s a brick and I’m drowning slowly
“People ask me what this song’s about…I was asked about it a lot, and I didn’t really wanna make a big hairy deal out of it, because I just wanted the song to speak for itself. But the song is about when I was in high school, me and my girlfriend had to get an abortion, and it was a very sad thing. And, I didn’t really want to write this song from any kind of political standpoint, or make a statement. I just wanted to reflect what it feels like. So, anyone who’s gone through that before, then you’ll know what the song’s about.” – Ben Folds
You can hear & see the song on Youtube here.
Now that I have found someone / I’m feeling more alone / Than I ever have before
Can’t you see / It’s not me you’re dying for
