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Saturday, July 14, 2007
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Libya Backs H.I.V. Case Death Penalty
I cannot believe this case has not been resolved yet!
The Libyan Supreme Court today once again upheld the death sentances imposed on five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who were accused of intentionally infecting more than 400 Libyan children with the AIDS virus in 1998.
The court rejected the results of a 2003 investigation by two of the world’s leading AIDS experts, which found that unsanitary medical conditions at Benghazi Children’s Hospital were to blame for the children becoming infected with HIV. The nurses and doctor have now been in jail for nearly a decade.
Still, their fate remained uncertain today, despite the court’s ruling on the one hand, and months of recent negotiations to secure their release on the other. The European Union and the United States have repeatedly pressed the Libyan government to free the six, and groups of Nobel laureates have visited Tripoli to plead their case with the Libyan leader, Moammar Ghaddafi.
(..)
In the past year, the European Union has given substantial financial aid to Libya in hopes of resolving the case. One high-level union diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said the total amount was equivalent to more than 10 million euros ($14 million) for each infected child. The union has set up treatment programs in Libya for the children, built medical facilities and purchased equipment.
(..)
Dr. Zdravko Georgiev, the husband of one of the jailed nurses, said in a telephone interview from Libya today that the families of the nurses were dismayed by the ruling. “After spending more than eight monstrous years in Libyan dungeons, we are exhausted to death,” he said. Dr. Georgiev was himself initially charged and jailed in the case; he was released after four years, but has not been allowed to leave Libya.
(..)
The six were arrested in 1999. In the initial indictment, which reads like a spy novel, Libyan prosecutors claimed that the nurses intentionally infected the children as part of a plot by Mossad, the Israeli secret service, to undermine the Libyan state. Prosecutors claimed that the nurses confessed to the crime, and that investigators had found vials of tainted blood in one of the nurses’ rooms. For their part, the nurses said they were tortured and raped while in custody, in order to extract confessions from them.
The Libyan Supreme Court today once again upheld the death sentances imposed on five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who were accused of intentionally infecting more than 400 Libyan children with the AIDS virus in 1998.
The court rejected the results of a 2003 investigation by two of the world’s leading AIDS experts, which found that unsanitary medical conditions at Benghazi Children’s Hospital were to blame for the children becoming infected with HIV. The nurses and doctor have now been in jail for nearly a decade.
Still, their fate remained uncertain today, despite the court’s ruling on the one hand, and months of recent negotiations to secure their release on the other. The European Union and the United States have repeatedly pressed the Libyan government to free the six, and groups of Nobel laureates have visited Tripoli to plead their case with the Libyan leader, Moammar Ghaddafi.
(..)
In the past year, the European Union has given substantial financial aid to Libya in hopes of resolving the case. One high-level union diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said the total amount was equivalent to more than 10 million euros ($14 million) for each infected child. The union has set up treatment programs in Libya for the children, built medical facilities and purchased equipment.
(..)
Dr. Zdravko Georgiev, the husband of one of the jailed nurses, said in a telephone interview from Libya today that the families of the nurses were dismayed by the ruling. “After spending more than eight monstrous years in Libyan dungeons, we are exhausted to death,” he said. Dr. Georgiev was himself initially charged and jailed in the case; he was released after four years, but has not been allowed to leave Libya.
(..)
The six were arrested in 1999. In the initial indictment, which reads like a spy novel, Libyan prosecutors claimed that the nurses intentionally infected the children as part of a plot by Mossad, the Israeli secret service, to undermine the Libyan state. Prosecutors claimed that the nurses confessed to the crime, and that investigators had found vials of tainted blood in one of the nurses’ rooms. For their part, the nurses said they were tortured and raped while in custody, in order to extract confessions from them.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
AIDS in Africa: Rising Above the Partisan Babble
It is hard to remember when AIDS was just a simple epidemic disease. Long ago it exploded into a global rallying cry for ideologues of every stripe, politicizing the science and the social science alike. A small army of academics and consultants now stake careers — and millions of international aid dollars — on specific and often conflicting theories of how to reduce behavioral risks for acquiring and transmitting H.I.V.
Amid the partisan babble, Helen Epstein has for years generated some of the most sensible commentary around, posting dispatches from AIDS-afflicted countries in Africa to The New York Review of Books and other publications. As a scientist morphed into a journalist, Dr. Epstein combines an understanding of the biology of AIDS with a coolly impartial view of the political and social landscape of Africa. She has now assembled more than a decade’s worth of reporting into an enlightening and troubling book.
(..)
That said, however, Dr. Epstein’s basic point is quite true: the drugs alone will never save Africa. Prevalence and transmission rates are too high, the health care infrastructure is too weak, there are too many other threatening diseases, and the costs are impossible. Instead, experts agree that hope lies in a still-distant vaccine, and in the “invisible cure” of Epstein’s title: dramatic behavioral changes to prevent new infections.
(..)
Interrupting this perfect storm requires a clear understanding of its origins, and we still cannot fully explain why heterosexually transmitted H.I.V. exploded in Africa while remaining confined to very specific communities in the West. Theories abound, and Dr. Epstein does a nice job of reviewing them.
The fiction that Africans are more “promiscuous” than Westerners has been disproved; studies have found that Africans often have fewer sexual partners during their lifetime than Westerners do.
But accepted patterns of sexual activity seem to have ignited the tinderbox in Africa. Sex there crosses social boundaries more often than in the West, and the habit of having concurrent partners — simultaneous long-term relationships in which friendship and trust may thwart routine condom use — means a single person’s infection may spread rapidly through a group.
Amid the partisan babble, Helen Epstein has for years generated some of the most sensible commentary around, posting dispatches from AIDS-afflicted countries in Africa to The New York Review of Books and other publications. As a scientist morphed into a journalist, Dr. Epstein combines an understanding of the biology of AIDS with a coolly impartial view of the political and social landscape of Africa. She has now assembled more than a decade’s worth of reporting into an enlightening and troubling book.
(..)
That said, however, Dr. Epstein’s basic point is quite true: the drugs alone will never save Africa. Prevalence and transmission rates are too high, the health care infrastructure is too weak, there are too many other threatening diseases, and the costs are impossible. Instead, experts agree that hope lies in a still-distant vaccine, and in the “invisible cure” of Epstein’s title: dramatic behavioral changes to prevent new infections.
(..)
Interrupting this perfect storm requires a clear understanding of its origins, and we still cannot fully explain why heterosexually transmitted H.I.V. exploded in Africa while remaining confined to very specific communities in the West. Theories abound, and Dr. Epstein does a nice job of reviewing them.
The fiction that Africans are more “promiscuous” than Westerners has been disproved; studies have found that Africans often have fewer sexual partners during their lifetime than Westerners do.
But accepted patterns of sexual activity seem to have ignited the tinderbox in Africa. Sex there crosses social boundaries more often than in the West, and the habit of having concurrent partners — simultaneous long-term relationships in which friendship and trust may thwart routine condom use — means a single person’s infection may spread rapidly through a group.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Spineless on Sudan
The latest from Kristof on Sudan...
In May 2006, President Bush declared: “The vulnerable people of Darfur deserve more than sympathy. ... America will not turn away from this tragedy.”
Since then, Mr. Bush has turned away — and 450,000 more people have been displaced in Darfur. “Things are getting worse,” noted Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, a human rights campaigner in Sudan.
One of the most troubling signs is that Sudan has been encouraging Arabs from Chad, Niger and other countries to settle in Darfur. More than 30,000 of them have moved into areas depopulated after African tribes were driven out.
In the last few months, Sudan’s government has given these new arrivals citizenship papers and weapons, cementing in place the demographic consequences of its genocide. And if Sudan thinks it has gotten away with mass murder in Darfur, it is more likely to resume its war against southern Sudan — which seems increasingly likely.
Within Darfur, aid groups have increasingly become targets, and in April alone three aid workers were shot and 20 were kidnapped, while hijackers tried to seize aid workers’ vehicles at a rate of almost one a day. As for African Union peacekeepers, seven of them were shot dead the same month — so they’re in no position to rescue aid workers.
The cancer has also been spreading into Chad and the Central African Republic, compounding each country’s intrinsic instability. Last month a 27-year-old French woman, Elsa Serfass, on her first assignment with Doctors Without Borders, was shot dead in C.A.R. as she drove through an area where militias had been burning villages. So Doctors Without Borders has had to suspend much of its work in the area.
(..)
Much of the news on Darfur has been a bit optimistic lately, because it has focused on recent flurries of international diplomacy. While it’s true that China is belatedly putting some pressure on Sudan to admit international peacekeepers, at the same time China continues to supply Sudan with the guns used to slaughter Darfuri children. China also just signed a 20-year agreement to develop offshore oil for Sudan, and in April China pledged “to boost military exchanges and cooperation” with Sudan.
Let’s hope that athletes who go to Beijing for the Olympics next year will wear T-shirts honoring the victims of the genocide that China is underwriting.
In May 2006, President Bush declared: “The vulnerable people of Darfur deserve more than sympathy. ... America will not turn away from this tragedy.”
Since then, Mr. Bush has turned away — and 450,000 more people have been displaced in Darfur. “Things are getting worse,” noted Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, a human rights campaigner in Sudan.
One of the most troubling signs is that Sudan has been encouraging Arabs from Chad, Niger and other countries to settle in Darfur. More than 30,000 of them have moved into areas depopulated after African tribes were driven out.
In the last few months, Sudan’s government has given these new arrivals citizenship papers and weapons, cementing in place the demographic consequences of its genocide. And if Sudan thinks it has gotten away with mass murder in Darfur, it is more likely to resume its war against southern Sudan — which seems increasingly likely.
Within Darfur, aid groups have increasingly become targets, and in April alone three aid workers were shot and 20 were kidnapped, while hijackers tried to seize aid workers’ vehicles at a rate of almost one a day. As for African Union peacekeepers, seven of them were shot dead the same month — so they’re in no position to rescue aid workers.
The cancer has also been spreading into Chad and the Central African Republic, compounding each country’s intrinsic instability. Last month a 27-year-old French woman, Elsa Serfass, on her first assignment with Doctors Without Borders, was shot dead in C.A.R. as she drove through an area where militias had been burning villages. So Doctors Without Borders has had to suspend much of its work in the area.
(..)
Much of the news on Darfur has been a bit optimistic lately, because it has focused on recent flurries of international diplomacy. While it’s true that China is belatedly putting some pressure on Sudan to admit international peacekeepers, at the same time China continues to supply Sudan with the guns used to slaughter Darfuri children. China also just signed a 20-year agreement to develop offshore oil for Sudan, and in April China pledged “to boost military exchanges and cooperation” with Sudan.
Let’s hope that athletes who go to Beijing for the Olympics next year will wear T-shirts honoring the victims of the genocide that China is underwriting.
Americans Give Record 295 billion dollars to Charities Last Year
Americans gave nearly $300 billion to charitable causes last year, setting a new record and besting the 2005 total that had been boosted by a surge in aid to victims of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma and the Asian tsunami
Giving historically tracks the health of the overall economy, with the rise amounting to about one-third the rise in the stock market, according to Giving USA. Last year was right on target, with a 3.2 percent rise as stocks rose more than 10 percent on an inflation-adjusted basis.
(..)
The biggest chunk of the donations, $96.82 billion or 32.8 percent, went to religious organizations. The second largest slice, $40.98 billion or 13.9 percent, went to education, including gifts to colleges, universities and libraries.
About 65 percent of households with incomes less than $100,000 give to charity, the report showed.
"It tells you something about American culture that is unlike any other country," said Claire Gaudiani, a professor at NYU's Heyman Center for Philanthropy and author of "The Greater Good: How Philanthropy Drives the American Economy and Can Save Capitalism."
(..)
He said Americans give twice as much as the next most charitable country, according to a November 2006 comparison done by the Charities Aid Foundation. In philanthropic giving as a percentage of gross domestic product, the US ranked first at 1.7 percent. No 2 Britain gave 0.73 percent, while France, with a 0.14 percent rate, trailed such countries as South Africa, Singapore, Turkey and Germany.
(Tip of the hat to DocFreeze for the link)
Giving historically tracks the health of the overall economy, with the rise amounting to about one-third the rise in the stock market, according to Giving USA. Last year was right on target, with a 3.2 percent rise as stocks rose more than 10 percent on an inflation-adjusted basis.
(..)
The biggest chunk of the donations, $96.82 billion or 32.8 percent, went to religious organizations. The second largest slice, $40.98 billion or 13.9 percent, went to education, including gifts to colleges, universities and libraries.
About 65 percent of households with incomes less than $100,000 give to charity, the report showed.
"It tells you something about American culture that is unlike any other country," said Claire Gaudiani, a professor at NYU's Heyman Center for Philanthropy and author of "The Greater Good: How Philanthropy Drives the American Economy and Can Save Capitalism."
(..)
He said Americans give twice as much as the next most charitable country, according to a November 2006 comparison done by the Charities Aid Foundation. In philanthropic giving as a percentage of gross domestic product, the US ranked first at 1.7 percent. No 2 Britain gave 0.73 percent, while France, with a 0.14 percent rate, trailed such countries as South Africa, Singapore, Turkey and Germany.
(Tip of the hat to DocFreeze for the link)
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Playing Doctor
This humurous article brought back fond memories of similar experiences I had as a third year medical student, learning how to do physical exams on volunteer patients...
(..)
Sometimes it was hard for me not to laugh. Dr. A was so sweetly flustered that in a perfect Chaplinesque slapstick, he would drop his reflex hammer on the floor, bend to pick it up, and then discover that his pen had fallen out of his white coat. Dr. N wasted the first eight minutes of the exam trying repeatedly to get a blood pressure reading. The panic in his eyes seemed to say, "She appears to be alive, yet she has no vital signs." He finally solved the dilemma when he realized he was listening to my arm with the wrong side of the stethoscope. (My blood pressure readings, which require technical skills on the part of the doctor, varied from 87/60 to 125/90.) Sometimes it was hard for the student not to laugh. Shy and mousy Dr. B, after peering into my eyes and ears, said, "Now I have to look up your nose!" and let out an embarrassed snort.
From the moment petite, blond Dr. C came in the room, she took command. Before she started, she briefly told me what the exam consisted of, then explained each procedure before she did it. Her touch was confident, and she did all 45 parts of the exam without hesitation. She asked me to tell her if anything hurt or made me uncomfortable. After she listened to my abdomen and proclaimed, "Good bowel sounds," I felt gratified I was able to please her....
In France, Jogging Is a Running Joke
The sight of the new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, jogging -- often wearing his favorite NYPD T-shirt -- has fired up a tempest in a Reebok in France and Britain this summer. Sarkozy's running is an un-French, right-wing conspiracy, suggests Paris' left-wing newspaper Libération. In response, British commentators gleefully conclude: The French have lost their mind again.
On the primary state television channel, France 2, Alain Finkielkraut, a leading French intellectual, recently demanded that Sarkozy give up his "undignified" exercise. Not only did he imply that exposing the boss's naked knees is something that never would have occurred in the time of Mitterrand, much less Louis XIV, Finkielkraut claimed strolling is the proper activity of the thinking person, from Socrates to the poet Arthur Rimbaud."Western civilization, in its best sense, was born with the promenade," said Finkielkraut. "Walking is a sensitive, spiritual act. Jogging is management of the body. The jogger says I am in control. It has nothing to do with meditation."
Sarkozy has fueled a French suspicion that running is for self-centered individualists like Americans, reports Charles Bremner, Paris correspondent for the Times of London.
"Patrick Mignon, a sports sociologist, noted that French intellectuals had always held sport in contempt, while totalitarian regimes cultivated physical fitness," Bremner writes.
"Jogging is of course about performance and individualism, values that are traditionally ascribed to the right," Odile Baudrier, editor of V02 magazine, a sports publication, told Libération.
"The Sarkozy jog, say his critics, is a sad imitation of the habits of American presidents, and a capitulation to 'le défi Américain' (a phrase that was the title of a book published here as 'The American Challenge') as bad as the influx of Hollywood movies," writes Boris Johnson, a British member of Parliament and confirmed jogger, in the Telegraph.
"I am not deterred . . . by the accusation that jogging is right-wing," he says. "Of course it is right-wing, in the sense that the facts of life are generally right-wing. The very act of forcing yourself to go for a run, every morning, is a highly conservative business. There is the mental effort needed to overcome your laziness.
"Charles de Gaulle . . . moved with the stately undulation of a giraffe, and never broke into so much as a trot..."
On the primary state television channel, France 2, Alain Finkielkraut, a leading French intellectual, recently demanded that Sarkozy give up his "undignified" exercise. Not only did he imply that exposing the boss's naked knees is something that never would have occurred in the time of Mitterrand, much less Louis XIV, Finkielkraut claimed strolling is the proper activity of the thinking person, from Socrates to the poet Arthur Rimbaud."Western civilization, in its best sense, was born with the promenade," said Finkielkraut. "Walking is a sensitive, spiritual act. Jogging is management of the body. The jogger says I am in control. It has nothing to do with meditation."
Sarkozy has fueled a French suspicion that running is for self-centered individualists like Americans, reports Charles Bremner, Paris correspondent for the Times of London.
"Patrick Mignon, a sports sociologist, noted that French intellectuals had always held sport in contempt, while totalitarian regimes cultivated physical fitness," Bremner writes.
"Jogging is of course about performance and individualism, values that are traditionally ascribed to the right," Odile Baudrier, editor of V02 magazine, a sports publication, told Libération.
"The Sarkozy jog, say his critics, is a sad imitation of the habits of American presidents, and a capitulation to 'le défi Américain' (a phrase that was the title of a book published here as 'The American Challenge') as bad as the influx of Hollywood movies," writes Boris Johnson, a British member of Parliament and confirmed jogger, in the Telegraph.
"I am not deterred . . . by the accusation that jogging is right-wing," he says. "Of course it is right-wing, in the sense that the facts of life are generally right-wing. The very act of forcing yourself to go for a run, every morning, is a highly conservative business. There is the mental effort needed to overcome your laziness.
"Charles de Gaulle . . . moved with the stately undulation of a giraffe, and never broke into so much as a trot..."
Friday, July 06, 2007
Giving Till It Hurts
But nonprofits say they are receiving an increasing number of "stretch" gifts, donations seemingly out of proportion to the givers' resources. To the shock or chagrin of friends and family, these gifts often require donors to make sacrifices or at least live more modestly than their income would allow.
(..)
People who follow philanthropy say donors like Ms. Hergenhan and Ms. Kajitani set examples that extend far beyond the gifts they make, simply by causing those around them, including children, family members and friends, to at least reconsider how much they give and how they might feel if they gave more.
(..)
Academics who study wealth say more aging Baby Boomers are choosing charity to add meaning to their lives -- and to get a buzz that lasts longer than the kick that comes from splurging on a designer watch or expensive car.
(..)
Not all family members are thrilled by these stretch gifts, however. Neurosurgeon James Doty recently gave stock currently valued at about $28 million to charity -- a gift that represents about 99% of his net worth. As a result, instead of retiring early Dr. Doty will have to save money to put his 3-year-old son, Sebastian, through college, and to fund retirement.
"I would have kept at least some of it for us," says Dr. Doty's wife, Masha Zhdanovich Doty. Though she sends money every month to relatives in the former Soviet Union -- "I believe in charity, especially in helping people directly" -- she wasn't completely supportive of her husband's giving. At ages 39 and 51 respectively, she and Dr. Doty need to plan carefully for the future of their young family, she says.
(..)
People who follow philanthropy say donors like Ms. Hergenhan and Ms. Kajitani set examples that extend far beyond the gifts they make, simply by causing those around them, including children, family members and friends, to at least reconsider how much they give and how they might feel if they gave more.
(..)
Academics who study wealth say more aging Baby Boomers are choosing charity to add meaning to their lives -- and to get a buzz that lasts longer than the kick that comes from splurging on a designer watch or expensive car.
(..)
Not all family members are thrilled by these stretch gifts, however. Neurosurgeon James Doty recently gave stock currently valued at about $28 million to charity -- a gift that represents about 99% of his net worth. As a result, instead of retiring early Dr. Doty will have to save money to put his 3-year-old son, Sebastian, through college, and to fund retirement.
"I would have kept at least some of it for us," says Dr. Doty's wife, Masha Zhdanovich Doty. Though she sends money every month to relatives in the former Soviet Union -- "I believe in charity, especially in helping people directly" -- she wasn't completely supportive of her husband's giving. At ages 39 and 51 respectively, she and Dr. Doty need to plan carefully for the future of their young family, she says.
Africa: Land of Hope
President Kigame of RwandaIn the early 1990s, Rwanda reinforced all the worst stereotypes of Africa: wretchedly poor, torn apart by war and seemingly destined to be an international basket case forever.
Yet now it has become the little nation that could. It is clean, safe and enjoying economic growth more than twice as fast as the U.S. or Europe. And Rwanda underscores something that is easy to forget: There are signs of a turnaround in Africa, and plenty of reason for optimism.
This is the last column from my win-a-trip journey in Africa with a student, Leana Wen, and a teacher, Will Okun, and the stories have been long on gloom and suffering. But there is also a cheerier side to Africa, and Rwanda reflects the continent’s potential when there is both stability and good governance.
(..)
In the early 1960s, most of Africa was richer than Asia and many economists expected Africa to zoom far ahead of Asia. Back then, the World Bank named a group of African countries that it projected to grow at 7 percent annually.
Instead, Africa drove over a cliff. Of those countries with good data, one-third now have lower per capita incomes than they did at independence (typically about 1960), and the five worst-performing economies in the world from 1960 to 2001 were all in Africa.
What went wrong? The two most important reasons were that Africa was terribly governed and that it was torn apart by wars.
The problem of conflict is as bad as ever (Darfur sums it up), but governance is getting far better.
(..)
And when African countries have enjoyed stability and sound policies, they have often thrived. Indeed, the fastest-growing country in the world from 1960 to 2001 was Botswana (South Korea was second, and Singapore and China tied for third).
More and more African countries are now following the Botswana model of welcoming investors and obeying markets. Aside from Rwanda, countries like Mozambique, Benin, Tanzania, Liberia and Mauritius are among those trying to build a future on trade more than aid.
“We’re not going to say ‘We don’t need aid,’ ” Mr. Kagame said. “But there’s no question about trade being more important than aid. There’s no question about that.”
Blame It on Mr. Rogers: Why
Signs of narcissism among college students have been rising for 25 years, according to a recent study led by a San Diego State University psychologist. Obviously, Mr. Rogers alone can't be blamed for this. But as Prof. Chance sees it, "he's representative of a culture of excessive doting."
Prof. Chance teaches many Asian-born students, and says they accept whatever grade they're given; they see B's and C's as an indication that they must work harder, and that their elders assessed them accurately. They didn't grow up with Mr. Rogers or anyone else telling them they were born special.
By contrast, American students often view lower grades as a reason to "hit you up for an A because they came to class and feel they worked hard," says Prof. Chance. He wishes more parents would offer kids this perspective: "The world owes you nothing. You have to work and compete. If you wanjavascript:void(0)t to be special, you'll have to prove it."
Prof. Chance teaches many Asian-born students, and says they accept whatever grade they're given; they see B's and C's as an indication that they must work harder, and that their elders assessed them accurately. They didn't grow up with Mr. Rogers or anyone else telling them they were born special.
By contrast, American students often view lower grades as a reason to "hit you up for an A because they came to class and feel they worked hard," says Prof. Chance. He wishes more parents would offer kids this perspective: "The world owes you nothing. You have to work and compete. If you wanjavascript:void(0)t to be special, you'll have to prove it."
Ten Questions with Scott Berkun, Author of "The Myths of Innovation"
Guy Kawasaki interviews former microsoft developer, who has just written a new book: "The Myths of Innovation"
n epiphany is the tip of the creative iceberg, and all epiphanies are grounded in work. If you take any magic moment of discovery from history and wander backwards in time you’ll find dozens of smaller observations, inquiries, mistakes, and comedies that occured to make the epiphany possible.
n epiphany is the tip of the creative iceberg, and all epiphanies are grounded in work. If you take any magic moment of discovery from history and wander backwards in time you’ll find dozens of smaller observations, inquiries, mistakes, and comedies that occured to make the epiphany possible.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
The stone-age whale hunters who kill with their bare hands
Their way of life hasn't changed for hundreds of years - a group of skilled fishermen using only their bodies and extraordinary bravery to catch 75ft-long sperm whales to provide enough food and materials for their whole village.
t is like a scene from Moby Dick, except the odds are stacked even higher against the captains of each tiny wooden boat.
These amazing images were taken during a whale hunt in one of the last places on Earth where people still use traditional methods to fish for one of the largest creatures in the seas.
Drought Forces Desert Nomads to Settle Down
These same forces of climate change are intertwined in the Sudanese conflict between Arabic nomads and native African farmers as Lake Chad continues to dry up...
BTW, there is a very nice, narrated slide show if you go to the link below...
Climate change threatens ice sheets and ecosystems, but it also threatens human cultures.
For centuries, the Tuareg people have lived as nomads, herding their animals from field to field just south of the Sahara Desert in Mali, near Timbuktu.
"Our life is basically the animals we have, so we protect them and we feed them," says Mohamed Ag Mustafa, a herder living the traditional nomadic lifestyle. "Whenever we need tea or grain or clothes, we take an animal to the market and sell it and buy something."
But this way of life has become impossible due to a change in the climate.
Over the past 40 years, persistent drought has forced the Tuareg to give up their wandering way of life. To survive they have had to start settling in villages and cultivating land to secure a food supply which is less susceptible to drought.
BTW, there is a very nice, narrated slide show if you go to the link below...
Climate change threatens ice sheets and ecosystems, but it also threatens human cultures.
For centuries, the Tuareg people have lived as nomads, herding their animals from field to field just south of the Sahara Desert in Mali, near Timbuktu.
"Our life is basically the animals we have, so we protect them and we feed them," says Mohamed Ag Mustafa, a herder living the traditional nomadic lifestyle. "Whenever we need tea or grain or clothes, we take an animal to the market and sell it and buy something."
But this way of life has become impossible due to a change in the climate.
Over the past 40 years, persistent drought has forced the Tuareg to give up their wandering way of life. To survive they have had to start settling in villages and cultivating land to secure a food supply which is less susceptible to drought.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
What We Can Do to Help
One of the most common comments we get goes: “What can I do to help? You guys talk so much about the problems, and now I want to do something.” I don’t like to bring up problems without proposing solutions. In this second-to-last entry, I propose concrete action steps to channel passion and idealism into activism and action.
Be forewarned that I don’t think that giving money is usually the best way to help. I believe that education, awareness and tangible actions multiple many times over. They are actions that, during your lifetime, will far outweigh infrequent monetary contributions.
Be forewarned that I don’t think that giving money is usually the best way to help. I believe that education, awareness and tangible actions multiple many times over. They are actions that, during your lifetime, will far outweigh infrequent monetary contributions.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Sick Joke
More from slate.com on "Sicko.."
In one of the movie's best segments, insurance-industry insiders frankly admit that their profession is rapacious
A former medical director for an HMO, testifying before Congress, delivers a scathing rebuke both of the insurance industry and of her own role in denying patients care. Another whistle-blower describes the industry's tactics with stark clarity: "You're not slipping through the cracks. Somebody made that crack and swept you toward it." A woman who does customer service for a major insurer weeps as she recalls denying sick customers coverage, then adds, "That's why I'm such a bitch on the phone to people. … I just can't take the stress."
In one of the movie's best segments, insurance-industry insiders frankly admit that their profession is rapacious
A former medical director for an HMO, testifying before Congress, delivers a scathing rebuke both of the insurance industry and of her own role in denying patients care. Another whistle-blower describes the industry's tactics with stark clarity: "You're not slipping through the cracks. Somebody made that crack and swept you toward it." A woman who does customer service for a major insurer weeps as she recalls denying sick customers coverage, then adds, "That's why I'm such a bitch on the phone to people. … I just can't take the stress."
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