To most of the world it appears that the apparent devotion of North Korean citizens to the "Deer Leader" is motivated by fear rather than genuine devotionTo most of the world it appears that the apparent devotion of North Korean citizens to... more
To combat terrorism, we should address the root causes of poverty, says former "economic hit man" John Perkins.
Excerpt:
I recalled my visits with the Bugi people when I was sent to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in the early 1970s. The Bugi had been infamous pirates since the time of the East India companies in the 1600s and 1700s. Their ferocity inspired returning European sailors to discipline their disobedient children with threats that “the bugiman will get you.” In the 1970s, we feared that they would attack our oil tankers as they passed through the vital Strait of Malacca.
I sat with one of their elders on the Sulawesi shore one afternoon. We watched his people build a sailing galleon, known as a prahu, much as they had for centuries. Like a gigantic beached whale, it was high and dry, propped upright by rows of gnarled stakes that resembled roots sprouting from its hull. Dozens of men hustled about it, working with adzes, hatchets, and hand drills. I expressed the concerns of my government to him, intimating that we would retaliate if the oil lanes were threatened.
The old man glared at me. “We were not pirates in the old days,” he said, his bushy white hair bobbing indignantly. “We only fought to defend our lands against Europeans who came to steal our spices. If we attack your ships today, it is because they take the trade away from us; your ‘stink ships’ foul our waters with oil, destroying our fish and starving our children.” Then he shrugged. “Now, we’re at a loss.” His smile was disarming. “How can a handful of people in wooden sailing ships fight off America’s submarines, airplanes, bombs, and missiles?”
(much more at link)To combat terrorism, we should address the root causes of poverty, says former... more
Global Poverty can be thought of as a vast desert of despair and hopelessness. That said, foreign aid programs deliver hope and possibility. The Borgen Project lobbies politicians on behalf of the worlds poor so that foreign aid programs have more than enough liquidity to get the task done. http://borgenproject.org/Global Poverty can be thought of as a vast desert of despair and hopelessness. That... more
More outwardly reputable middle-class people are shoplifting to cope with the economic downturn. Researchers say it may be hard to break them of the habit
Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of African-American kids will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, and researchers say fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher.Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of African-American kids will be on... more
Global Poverty can be thought of as a vast desert of despair and hopelessness. That said, foreign aid programs deliver hope and possibility. The Borgen Project lobbies politicians on behalf of the worlds poor so that foreign aid programs have more than enough liquidity to get the task done. http://borgenproject.org/Global Poverty can be thought of as a vast desert of despair and hopelessness. That... more
The End of Poverty? (2008) is a startling documentary that brings comprehension to the origin of global poverty. The opening question by narrator Martin Sheen sets the direction of the film; "In a world where there is so much wealth, with modern cities and plentiful resources, how can we still have so much poverty where so many people must live on less than one dollar per day?"
How rich—and powerful—have today’s rich become? Some numbers can help tell the story. In 1974, the most affluent 1% of Americans averaged, in today’s dollars, $380,000 in income.
Now let’s fast-forward. In 2007, the most recent year with stats, households in America’s top 1% averaged $1.4 million, well over triple what top 1% households averaged back in 1974—and, remember, this tripling came after adjusting for inflation.
Americans in the bottom 90%, meanwhile, saw their average incomes increase a meager $47 a year between 1974 and 2007, not enough to foot the bill for a month’s worth of cable TV.
The bottom line: top-1% households made 12 times more income than bottom-90% households in 1974, 42 times more in 2007.
The numbers become even more striking when we go back a bit further in time and focus not on the top 1%, but on the richest of the rich, the top 400, the living symbol of wealth and power in the United States ever since America’s original Gilded Age in the late 19th century.
In 1955, our 400 highest incomes averaged $12.3 million, in today’s dollars. But the top 400 in 1955 didn’t get to enjoy all those millions. On average, after exploiting every tax loophole they could find, they actually paid over half their incomes, 51.2%, in federal income tax.
Today’s super rich are doing better, fantastically better, both before and after taxes. In 2006, the top 400 averaged an astounding $263 million each in income. These 400 financially fortunate paid, after loopholes, just 17.2% of their incomes in federal tax.
After taxes, as a group, the top 400 of 2006 had $84 billion more in their pockets than 1955’s top 400, $84 billion more they could put to work bankrolling politicians and right-wing think tanks and Swift Boat ad blitzes against progressive candidates and causes.
How could America’s super rich have so little, relatively speaking, back in 1955 and so much today? What has changed between the mid 20th century and the first decade of the 21st? We have lost, simply put, the economic checks and balances that so significantly discouraged grand concentrations of private wealth in the years right after World War II.
[more after the jump]How rich—and powerful—have today’s rich become? Some numbers can help tell the... more
(This article is worthy of posting in it's entirety) Friends and fellow Colorado Rocky Mountain School juniors Kelsey Bohannon and JJ Worley recently found a way to help needy people around the world, and keep what otherwise would be trash out of area landfills.
Through the Soles4Souls shoe charity, they collected some 500 pairs of used shoes from throughout the Roaring Fork Valley. The shoes will be sent to a warehouse in Nevada, and eventually shipped to villages around the world where people cannot afford to buy shoes themselves.
“I heard about it and it just interested me as a way for people do something for those in need without sending money,” said Bohannon, 16, who lives in Glenwood Springs.
“Some people don't like giving money, because they're not sure what's really going to happen to it,” she said. “There's not much else you can do with used shoes, though. You know someone is going to be wearing them who needs them.”
Worley, also 16, from Carbondale, looks at it as a “one person's trash is another person's treasure” sort of approach to global charity.
“People really do get tired of donating money. This is a way to get rid of something you'd be throwing away anyway, and for a good cause,” she said.
Bohannon and Worley put up flyers around the valley and set up collection boxes at Summit Canyon Mountaineering in Glenwood Springs and at Dos Gringos Burritos in Carbondale.
“They asked me to come empty the box at Summit because it was overflowing,” Bohannon said. “The shoes filled up my car.”
Once they collected all the shoes they realized it would cost $230 to ship them to Nevada, even after the 80 percent charity discount from UPS. So they approached the Aspen Skiing Company, and it covered the shipping cost.
“We didn't even think about the money part of it,” Worley said. “We really want to thank the Skico for helping us out.”
They received some interesting shoes along the way, including some Go-Go boots, a pair of snowboard boots, and ballet slippers.
“Some of them are pretty fancy shoes, and not very used at all,” Bohannon said.
Miser's Mercantile, a local second-hand store, also donated some of the shoes it had in stock, and the American Legion Ladies Auxiliary collected a box of shoes as well.
The students may do another drive in the future, but their collection efforts are done for now. However, Independence Run and Hike, a local running and outdoor gear store, is also a collection location for Soles4Souls.
The store, located in the Gateway Plaza at Highway 133 and Cowen Drive in Carbondale, is collecting “gently worn” footwear and/or monetary donations to help ship the shoes.
The shoes sometimes go to victims of a natural disaster, or who are subject to living in extreme poverty, according to the organization's website, www.giveshoes.org.
“It is estimated that Americans have 1.5 billion pairs of unused shoes lying in their closets,” it notes. “The charity can use each and every one of these pairs to make a tangible difference in someone's life.”
Independence Run and Hike owner Brion After said he is glad to contribute, both in the charitable sense and because of the reduced environmental impact of recycling used shoes.
“We believe in taking care of the land that takes care of us,” he said. “Partnering with Soles4Souls enables the local running and hiking community to be environmental stewards and assist those in need throughout the world.” jstroud@postindependent.com
For more information on Colorado Rocky Mountain School please contact lraleigh@crms.org
You can not explain or summarize in a few lines the life and work of a poet, the only way to know is to read what she wrote. Alda Merini has written many books, mostly poetry, to talk especially about love. She was born in Milan in 1931, the first day of spring, and during her life she has gone through and helped create the Italian literature of the twentieth century. http://inaltreparole.net/en/read/aldamerini021109.htmlYou can not explain or summarize in a few lines the life and work of a poet, the only... more
Half of American kids will live in households receiving food stamps before age 20, according to a study reported Monday in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, and fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher, researchers say.
The estimate comes from an analysis of 30 years of national data, and it bolsters other recent evidence on the pervasiveness of youngsters at economic risk. It suggests that almost everyone knows a family who has received food stamps, or will in the future, said lead author Mark Rank, a sociologist at Washington University in St. Louis.
The analysis was released Monday in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. The authors say it’s a medical issue pediatricians need to be aware of because children on food stamps are at risk for malnutrition and other ills linked with poverty.
The analysis was released Monday in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. The authors say it’s a medical issue pediatricians need to be aware of because children on food stamps are at risk for malnutrition and other ills linked with poverty.
Nearly half of all US children, including an overwhelming majority of black children, will eat meals at some point during their childhood paid for by food stamps, an indicator of poverty, a study showed Monday.
"If you get food stamps, you are by definition in poverty and your household doesn't have many assets," said Mark Rank, a co-author of the study with Thomas Hirschl of Cornell University.
"The fact that half of American children at some time during their childhood find themselves in this position really ought to be a wake-up call to America," he told AFP.
The study found that 49.2 percent of all American children will at some point live in a home that receives food stamps.
Among black children and children living in single-parent households, the percentage is much higher: around 90 percent live in homes that receive food stamps at one stage or another.Nearly half of all US children, including an overwhelming majority of black children,... more
Eighty years ago this week, the stock market crashed and ushered in the Great Depression. We need to apply the lessons from that era to our own to relieve the needless suffering of the Great Recession.
In just two days, between Oct. 28 and 29, 1929, the stock market plummeted by 25 percent. Between September and November of that year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 40 percent of its value. By July of 1932, the Dow had lost nearly 90 percent of its value.
By then the Great Depression was raging, with unemployment rates rising to 25 percent.
To combat unemployment and alleviate poverty, the federal government engaged in a massive public works and jobs program through the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
Private markets weren’t about to create jobs, and the public sector became the employer of last resort. The job creation from the WPA provided survival and sustenance for millions of American families. Where is the contemporary WPA?
Absent public job creation, it is likely that the economy will not fully recover. The official unemployment rate stands at 9.8 percent. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics acknowledges that the adjusted unemployment rate — including part-timers looking for full-time work, and those who don’t look for work because they don’t think work is out there — is as high as 17 percent. This means that one in six Americans does not have a job. Among certain subgroups — notably older Americans and blacks — the unemployment rate exceeds Depression-era unemployment.
To commemorate this anniversary of the Great Depression, the Obama administration ought to engage in Depression-era tactics to jump-start the economy. We have spent $700 billion bailing out banks and $787 billion in economic stimulus. But we have not focused on directly creating employment, on lifting people at the bottom.
Many of us feel as though being here we cannot make a marked difference elsewhere in the world to help mitigate deforestation and climate change. Tree Nation gives us a chance to use the Internet for truly positive change. It is a site devoted to more that just talk. You get action and results that will be felt for a lifetime in mitigating poverty, deforestation, and giving clean water to those who need it most. I highly recommend this site if you want to make a real difference in the world.Many of us feel as though being here we cannot make a marked difference elsewhere in... more
“George Washington” is David Gordon Green’s acclaimed impressionistic Southern Gothic debut film, which one reviewer described as “within a heart-shot of William Faulkner.” Green won the Best First Film prize from the New York Film Critics, the Discovery Award at Toronto and the Best Director Prize at The Newport Film Festival.
Green’s feature debut is a seamless blend of subjectivity, pseudo-documentary, evocation of childhood and mythopoeia. In an impoverished small town in North Carolina, various misfit and poor children converse. “Look at this place,” one boy says to another. “It looks like two tornadoes came through here.” The town is dilapidated; one of the “tornadoes” may have been the Great Depression. Shots of railroad tracks suggest dreams of getting out. But during the course of the film, death hovers: a boy dies; as a result, another boy feels that God’s judgment is close; another boy almost dies; a boy’s dog dies. The underlying theme of “George Washington” is clearly “the loss of all things.”
This piece presents a number of color photographs from the film and three videos. The videos include the hypnotic opening sequence of Green’s auspicious debut film “George Washington,” another video from the film described as an influential scene in modern cinema and an interview with Charlie Rose, where Green talks about his film “George Washington.”
India — Some farmers struggling to pay back their debt to the lender are forced to give their wives to the loan giver.India — Some farmers struggling to pay back their debt to the lender are forced to... more
A new documentary uncovers the truly disastrous effects of the Swine Flu following the lives of a young Egyptian family living in Cairo’s ultra-poor recycling village.
Marina of the Zabbaleen, a new documentary by Torch Films, enters the lives of this largely Coptic Christian tribe seen through the eyes of three children and their mother. Barely eking out survival in this poor community, Marina’s tribe subsists by collecting nearly half of Cairo’s municipal solid waste, separating it into its recyclable components and feeding what’s left to their pigs.
When the H1N1 virus, or Swine Flu, was declared an international pandemic, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak ordered all the country’s 300,000 hogs slaughtered. The result was an all out halt of Egypt’s decentralized, natural and sustainable waste disposal system – the hungry pigs.
Now, the garbage heaps in Cairo are too much for the Zabbaleen to control themselves, effectively burying the unfortunate tribe under the very material that kept them alive.
For a look at Marina of the Zabbaleen, click here.
Screenshots taken from Marina of the Zabbaleen courtesy of Torch Films.A new documentary uncovers the truly disastrous effects of the Swine Flu following the... more
Israel is denying Palestinians access to even the basic minimum of clean, safe water, Amnesty International says.
In a report, the human rights group says Israeli water restrictions discriminate against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
It says that in Gaza, Israel's blockade has pushed the already ailing water and sewage system to "crisis point".
It says that some Palestinians barely get 20 litres a day - the minimum recommended even in humanitarian emergencies.
While Israeli settlers in the West Bank enjoy lush gardens and swimming pools.
Once again we have religion, god and governments to thank for making humans hate and fight eachother, for making us starve in poverty and denying us access to even the most basic of human rights and needs, not that i'm saying doing away with religion will help this cause, religion is too deeply embedded in these peoples minds, the key, i feel, is to make them see more that we are all the same, but when there's money and debt in circulation we will never be equals.Israel is denying Palestinians access to even the basic minimum of clean, safe water,... more
