Here it is … the end of the day.
I thought I had nothing. Several bloggers I know had made me aware of this event and I’ve been thinking about it, but nothing came to mind. And … I’ve been busier than a blue bottle fly as my grammy used to say. So it just wasn’t happenin’ … no big deal. I could let it pass without participating. I’ve done that before.
But then I read two things. This fact over at pinkhairedgirl.net:
“Americans spend 450 Billion dollars a year in Christmas. It is estimated that it would cost 10 billion dollars to SOLVE the clean water shortage around the planet that causes a majority of diseases in the third world.” and Crystal credits Troy Kennedy, who in turn quotes The Advent Conspiracy for the source of that information.
A short time later I read an article in the BBC that today is also World Handwashing Day sponsored by the United Nations.
The UN says it wants to get over the message that this simple routine is one of the most effective ways of preventing killer diseases. Nearly half the world’s population do not have access to adequate sanitation.
The UN says it wants to get over the message that this simple routine is one of the most effective ways of preventing killer diseases.
Nearly half the world’s population do not have access to adequate sanitation.
The main concern seems to be cleaning one’s hands after using the bathroom and before food preparation and consumption. That’s reasonable. And it’s what we teach our children, for good reason.
It seems like a great idea. But then I remember these stories from Jimmy Carter’s latest book (these quotes come from pages at the Carter Center website):
Onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness, is a disease affecting 18 million people in 37 countries worldwide. River blindness is transmitted by black flies, which deposit the larvae of the Onchocerca volvulus worm into the body. Over the course of a year, these larvae mature within the human host at which point the adult worms mate and the female worms release their embryonic microfilariae. These microfilariae cause debilitating itching and inflammation, and may eventually infiltrate the eye where they cause damage and diminished eyesight. If left untreated, the infected person can become permanently blind.
The ancient Guinea worm parasite, while not usually fatal to its human hosts, can grow up to three feet long inside the body before emerging slowly through a blister on the flesh. The disease is contracted by drinking water that contains the microscopic Cyclops flea, which eats and carries parasitic Guinea worm larvae. In the host’s stomach, the flea is broken down, leaving the male and female worm larvae free to cruise undetected through the body until they find one another and mate. The male dies, while the impregnated female grows not fat but long before emerging blindly into the African sunshine some nine months to a year later, typically on the lower limbs. The emergence of “the fiery serpent” causes a painful burning sensation, often sending victims to the nearest water source to soak the sore, which begins the cycle anew: when it hits the water, the worm releases thousands of new larvae.
I read that book a couple of years ago and the mental visages stuck with me. It seemed as though washing one’s hands in water that might be infested like this would be spitting into the wind. We think of washing our hands and the picture we get is of running water, clean sinks, drains and a clean town with which to dry our hands when we’re done. But what if we only have pest infested water, or fetid rain water caught in a rusty barrel sitting around brooding mosquitos to wash our hands in? Or to drink?
The numbers are huge and staggering. So big that we cannot comprehend them. The numbers of people dying, living blind, living poor, living hungry. The amount of money it would take to change that is huge too.
It would take 2% of a Christmas.
About 1% of a financial crisis.
Would we wipe out poverty? No. But at least people would have clean water. Then maybe they could start taking care of the rest of it themselves. What if we put something besides small change aside?
But those numbers, those numbers are so damn big. I can’t get my head around them. There’s not a collection plate in the world that’s big enough. Everyone is working on it, talking about it, moaning about it. But at heart, we’re all still essentially selfish. We don’t want to give up our Christmases and our Wall Streets.
Until that changes, nothing else really will.
LightHusband just came to me, as I perched upon my sofa and asked, “Would it be too much to consider cleaning this space up sometime?” I struggled to contain the laughter and said, “Well, of course it would be … where else would I put my stuff?”
Now “my” sofa is a green micro-fiber suede sofa with a chaise end. I sit on the chaise part. The rest of it is covered in books and papers, with the odd, empty popcorn bowl. Upon one short stack of books, is a pile of unused paper that is a resting place for my coffee. In front of the sofa is an old coffee table. Upon the coffee table are more books and papers, a stack of candle holders, and my laptop case perched precariously on one end. Underneath the coffeetable … more books. And Rosetta Stone Arabic. Because one day soon I really am going to start that. Really. I am.
LightHusband went on. By now we were both laughing. “You know what you need?” “A bookshelf?” I replied. That’s the standard answer in our house. “No,” says he. “You need an Uncle Paul room. A room with a recliner in the middle surrounded by bookshelves with a light next to it.” “Hah,” says me “I really do need a bookshelf.” He ignored me and went on, “I can see you just like Uncle Paul, sitting there with all your books in your recliner … come to think of it, Opie was like that too. Oh! NO! You’ve got it from both sides!!!”
So there it is friends. My destiny, given to me by blood … a recliner surrounded by books. I can only hope that someone will stop by with coffee and water occasionally.
LightHusband and I arose at an ungodly hour this morning. We were on a mission.
Today is the last day to register to vote in Virginia if you want to vote in this year’s federal, state and local election cycle in November. A friend of ours has been very active in getting people to vote. She suggested (you may take that word in any manner you like) that we go to a local commuter train station in the early morning hours and “help” people register to vote. She was very persuasive and somewhat zealous about it. She also threw in a yard sign for the candidate of our choice as bait.
So we got up very, very early this morning. LightHusband dressed in conservative gear, I dressed more liberally and we went to the train station fully loaded with clipboards full of registration forms, absentee voter cards, and pens. We had no candidate information whatsoever. We were not interested in prosyletizing for any particular candidate, just getting people registered to vote.
However, we made a critical error. The people who wait for commuter trains are the responsible citizens. They are the folks who have already registered and know all about absentee voter rules. So we came home, mildly disappointed with our outing.
We’re trying to think of other third spaces where people gather and congregate and might be amenable to thinking about the idea of registering to vote. Or maybe just being amenable to talking to other people at all.
Join me and others as we live blog the Vice Presidential debate this evening … should be fun!
Blake Huggins did this for the first Presidential debate last week, but I think his computer died. So I’ve set this up just in case he can’t make it tonight.
So … Blake has made a comeback and a smackdown is about to happen. He’s got the liveblogging on his site …
Go Here for lots of commentary and fun talk during the debate
Count the catch phrases and wonder at how silly politics has become!
So, like many US-ians I’ve been following the market and the hoopla surrounding what is being called the financial crisis and bailout.
The President is calling for a lot of money to be earmarked to spend on companies which made risky bad financial decisions. Otherwise, so the thinking goes, our market will crash. Our credit will be bad. All sorts of horrible things will happen. There are, apparently, monsters in our national closet just waiting to come out and eat us.
Well, there’s a part of me that’s feeling the crunch on behalf of my in-laws. That’s for sure. People who are depending on the stock market right now for their retirement income are bearing the brunt of this. People who are planning to retire in the next five years or so will also bear the brunt of this.
Here’s the thing though. Or perhaps it’s several things that I’ve been thinking about.
First is this. This crisis did not happen overnight. It has been slowly building over the course of about 30 years. It began during the Reagan administration and has been the result of successive Republican AND Democratic administrations AND Congresses turning a blind eye to the consequences of their economic policies. This is a bi-partisan issue. No party can point the finger at the other and say, “It’s all their fault.” Because both have done some good and a lot of bad.
For a crisis that’s been coming for so long, how is it that our government got caught with it’s pants down?
As a Christian, I do not look to a government, or a political party, or a president for redemption, perfection or utopia in this world. However, I am a citizen and so I am a bearer of the social contract that we all hold with our government here in the U.S. I believe that social contract gives me certain privileges and rights, but it also brings with it certain responsibilities. It also gives the government and it’s representatives certain rights and responsibilities. We tend to dicker amongst the left and right about what those rights and responsibilities should be. And how they should be meted out. But we don’t dicker about the necessity of having a government. We all tend to agree about that.
There’s been a lot of noise and heat generated lately about this crisis heralding another Great Depression. This feels like fear-mongering to me. And that makes me ashamed of my government and our leadership. Lord knows, I do not want another Great Depression, nor the panic or Dust Bowl that accompanied it. It was a terrible time for our country and the world. People struggled and died. But people also struggled and overcame. We forget that part of the story line. We came together as a nation during the Depression. We helped each other. Yes, FDR put into place some things that have frayed around the edges and are coming apart at the seams now, but at the time, they were a safety net. This allowed people to help themselves and each other. I think of our National Park System and our national highway system both built in part by the Civilian Conservation Corps. When people were out of work, Roosevelt created jobs for them.
Our current government though, is not living up to its part of our social contract. Regardless of which bits and pieces you feel the government should be providing (i.e. whether you’re a liberal or a conservative), our government in its current form is not looking out for the citizens, but is looking out for business entities alone. By rushing through this enormous financial bailout and forcing the citizenry to bear all the bad risk brought on by greedy decision-making on Wall Street, a Democratic Congress and Republican Administration are reneging on their end of the bargain. Congress (both House and Senate) should slow down, ask for hearings from professionals in every walk of economic life. A couple of weeks won’t hurt (as we’re seeing). There are more options for solving this problem than all or nothing as the politicians would like us to believe.
Some of those options might involve all of us planting gardens and growing our own vegetables (Victory Gardens). It might involve personal sacrifice on the part of the executives and executive boards of those fat cat companies; as it really should and as I seem to remember from my economics classes. It might involve real leadership from the top, real ideas, real negotiating, real compromise, real change. There are other options out there. And if we’re going to put that much money on the line, we all need the opportunity to step back, take a breath and decide if it really and truly is necessary. Or, are Adam Smith’s bones chattering in his grave about now? Because from what little I remember from my economics classes, this bailout/rescue seems to fly directly in the face of solid capitalist market theory.