living proof

From livingproofproject.org:

Investments in global health are achieving real, demonstrable results. These investments are saving lives, preventing and curing disease, and helping people to escape from poverty.

The Living Proof Project is a multimedia initiative intended to highlight successes of U.S.-funded global health initiatives. By reporting success stories back to the people who funded them - American taxpayers and their representatives - we hope to reframe the current global health conversation.

At first when I heard about this, I have to admit I was more than a bit skeptical... seeing as my last post exclaimed how "european" I feel, this "Living Proof Project" seemed something like American propaganda: "Ooooh, look at how much money America can spend on foreign aid!" If anything, it was just a diversion away from all the typical news of how high our federal budget deficit is, or how much money we spend on war/military each year...

However, last night I saw a talk given by Bill and Melinda Gates about this project, and it was being advertised by the ONE campaign, which I am a member of. Now, just to be clear, the fact that a technology guru was giving the talk wasn't enough on its own to sway me: I'm first a linux fan, and a Mac user, and lastly I have to support Windows because it's my job.

But after watching/hearing what the Gates' had to say, I felt something pretty unusual... I actually felt a little bit better about being American! And sadly, if I understood what they were saying correctly, even though America only gives about 1% of our federal budget to foreign aid (and only about .22% goes to Global Health initiatives, like vaccines/medication), that is still more than what Europe gives. As the wealthiest nation, the USA has stepped up its foreign aid, and that has been followed by increased giving in other "first world" countries. So at least that is something.

More importantly, I did grow to appreciate that even with as little as we do give to Global Health issues, an impact is being made, as the video above summarizes.

feeling european...

So I don't know how most people get the news - on the internet, reading a real newspaper, watching TV news, via twitter, etc - but I enjoy the feeling of sitting at a table with a cup of coffee and reading a real newspaper. With that said, I usually have quite a stack of newspapers to get through, and I'm usually reading news that is several days to a week old. Interestingly, I recently read that an Amish newspaper called "The Budget" has been doing quite well despite the recession because Amish folks hold the same value of not needing the most up-to-the-minute news and reading the paper version.

Anyway, the main reason for my post tonight is to rant yet again against "stupid" politics. Healthcare reform. I'm for "universal" healthcare in the sense that I do want to have the healthcare industry regulated and accessible to all people (reduced medical costs, reduced premiums, limits on out of pocket expenses, no denying or dropping coverage because of a health condition).

I just read an article from last week's Thursday LA Times that talks about how Congress isn't willing to consider limiting premiums because that "would be meddling too much in the private sector." That's upsetting, because Congress is considering legislation that will require everyone to have insurance and pay those increasing premiums... which won't solve anything because the difference between what the poor can afford and what industry is charging in premiums will just come from tax payer funded subsidies.

while states have long supervised what companies charge for mandated automobile and homeowners insurance, the idea has been largely banished from the healthcare debate.

Nor are lawmakers seriously considering any proposals to regulate what doctors, hospitals, drug makers and other healthcare providers charge -- a strategy used by several European countries to control healthcare spending.

In those systems -- some of which, like the United States, feature a blend of private insurers and government programs -- the government sets prices that providers charge to everyone.

I suppose it'd only be fair at this point to add that I'm a dual citizen of the US and Sweden. So I do have a certain bias toward the more socialist model...

Newsweek: Why Obama Should Learn to Love "The Bomb"

A growing and compelling body of research suggests that nuclear weapons may not, in fact, make the world more dangerous, as Obama and most people assume. The bomb may actually make us safer. In this era of rogue states and transnational terrorists, that idea sounds so obviously wrongheaded that few politicians or policymakers are willing to entertain it. But that's a mistake. Knowing the truth about nukes would have a profound impact on government policy. Obama's idealistic campaign, so out of character for a pragmatic administration, may be unlikely to get far (past presidents have tried and failed).

Essentially, the article makes these points about the impact of nuclear weapons on countries that have the technology:

• there hasn't ever been a war between two nations that possess nuclear weapons.


• "Why fight if you can't win and might lose everything?" - No one goes to war thinking they are going to lose. Nukes make the cost of war obvious, and assuming no one has a death wish, you aren't going to attack a country that might fight back with nukes.


• we've had 64 years of "nuclear peace: the virtually unprecedented stretch since the end of World War II in which all the world's major powers have avoided coming to blows." - smaller wars have erupted, but none on the scale of WWII.


• the Cuban Missle Crisis in October 1962 ended with both the United States and the Soviet Union backing off when they realized "it's impossible to win a nuclear war"


• since India and Pakistan acquired nuclear weapons in 1998, their behavior toward each other had dramatically mellowed.


• Nuclear weapons are so controversial and expensive that only countries that deem them absolutely critical to their survival go through the extreme trouble of acquiring them.


• terrorists "with no return address" won't get the chance to use nukes because nuclear weapons are too valuable to allow them to fall into the wrong hands, and Washington has said it will treat a terrorist use of nuclear weapons the same as if the country that provided the nukes had used it.


• apparently nuclear weapons are very complex to both maintain and operate, and they can be easily dismantled. so even if a terrorist regime did obtain nukes, it wouldn't be able to use them on their own.

The article then makes these suggestions that we should focus on instead of worrying about nuclear disarmament:

• "the logic of deterrence works only if everybody knows who has a nuclear arsenal and thus can't be attacked. So the United States should make sure everyone knows roughly who has what, to keep anyone from getting dangerous ideas."


• "the United States should put more effort into advancing 'nuclear forensics,' an emerging discipline that would allow scientists to trace any nuclear device exploded anywhere, by anybody back to its manufacturer and point of origin"


• So called "second strike" technology that would allow an attacked country to fire back would further deter any attack in the first place.


• Lastly, Washington should continue to offer assistance to secure nuclear weapons once acquired. This involves both technology and training to make sure the weapons are maintained and guarded safely to prevent theft or accidental launch. This should be offered to both allies and enemies alike, since in this aspect helping our enemies really means helping ourselves.

I certainly don't agree with all the points in this article, but I do like the fact that it took a more realistic perspective on the issue: nuclear weapons aren't going anywhere anytime soon. We live in a nuclear world, so lets look at it and at our best options.

a realistic, affordable plan for universal healthcare (not an oxymoron)

I'm no expert in politics, legislation, hospital administration, or any of the other areas that would probably help make this statement more valid, but I want to believe it anyway: universal healthcare should be feasible, without having to go with a government-run plan. The LA Times ran a story titled "Doctor has common-sense fixes to healthcare crisis" which tells the story of a Glendale surgeon, Dr Paul Toffel, who thinks he has a pretty good idea of what just might work.

If Toffel were the healthcare czar, he would dump the "50-state patchwork" of private insurance programs that can't cross state borders and switch to competing national plans that would be required to take all comers, with no exemptions for preexisting conditions.

Then he would reinstate federal regulations abandoned in the 1980s that limited insurance companies' fees. Freedom from those limitations, Toffel believes, was part of what caused healthcare to shift from its mission of treating the sick to the business of printing money.

Toffel would also move away from employment-based healthcare, with companies paying higher salaries, instead, so employees can shop for a suitable plan and carry it with them from one job to the next.

On point four, Toffel would cap frivolous malpractice suits across the nation, as California did many years ago.
...
If Toffel were king, every teaching hospital in the nation would have but one mission -- treating the uninsured residents of its own community, as County-USC has done.

If there's a publicly funded component to Toffel's plan, it's that such schools would be subsidized as necessary with grants and a variety of federal, state and local funding.

For the last bit about how to help the uninsured, there is a great example of what could be happening on a broader scale called RAM, Remote Area Medical. They are providing free healthcare (regular checkups, dentistry, vision, mammograms, etc) to 1,500 people a day for 8 days in Los Angeles. If a non-profit can do it, surely teaching hospitals should be able to do it inexpensively too, right?

Anyway, I was encouraged to read about this.

Sojo on 'what kind of america do we want to be?'

President Obama and previous Vice President Cheney both gave speeches on national security policies.  Their two perspectives stand in stark contrast. Here are some quotes from an entry in Sojourner's blog God's Politics about Obama's speech:

In short, there was a choice offered to us ... for exactly what kind of country and people we want to be – and what America will mean for us and for the world.

In a very powerful symbol, Obama chose the National Archives as the venue for this major address, pointing to the historic documents that are kept here—The Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights—noting that these documents are “the foundation of liberty and justice in this country, and a light that shines for all who seek freedom, fairness, equality, and dignity around the world,” and clearly suggesting that they have been violated in the policies of the United States over the past several years, policies that included the systematic violation of legal rights and even the use of torture.

[President Obama:] "… I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values. … I make this claim not simply as a matter of idealism. We uphold our most cherished values not only because doing so is right, but because it strengthens our country and it keeps us safe. Time and again, our values have been our best national security asset … Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America’s strongest currency in the world. "

The alternative perspective of national security offered by Cheney, is based on "fear and self-righteousness":

... the vision of America that Dick Cheney offers ... is decidedly evil, and has helped to spread even more evil around the world. Dick Cheney represents the dark side of America, a view of the world dominated by fear and self-righteousness—always a deadly combination.

[Cheney:] ... to completely rule out enhanced interrogation methods in the future is unwise in the extreme. It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness, and would make the American people less safe.

The argument that Cheney uses is simply: the ends justify the means. Any time you go down that path, you put yourself in danger of doing more harm than good. I think it is far more reckless to sacrifice the values integrity, justice, fairness and equality - which the Bush administration did repeatedly in their "war on terror". America's future will be much brighter if we return to our founding values.

Watch the original speech by President Obama

very real side-effects...of poverty

Several theories have emerged as to why all but one of the confirmed deaths from swine flu have occurred in Mexico. Much of it is speculation -- that Mexico City's 7,300-foot elevation exacerbates respiratory illnesses, that there may be a slight variation between the viral strain prevalent in Mexico and swine flu elsewhere, that Mexico is further along in disease transmission and other countries will eventually see severe cases.

Unfortunately, I bet that most people won't pause to think much about the fact that Mexico has taken the brunt of the Swine Flue "pandemic".  I bet that to the public, it will just reinforce the image that Mexico is a poor country, where conditions are bad, where people die... where I don't want to be.

However, the truth of the matter is that there are socio-economic forces at work that force people in poverty to make decisions that will hurt their health:

Delaying medical care is a characteristic of poverty. For people living close to the edge, taking off a day to visit a doctor or staying home sick is literally taking food out of their mouths.

- Paul J. Gertler, a professor of economics at the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley, in response to why some in Mexico self-medicated before receiving hospital treatment for swine flu. (Source: The Washington Post)

are we willing to go all the way?

Seeing how "popular" it is nowadays to be "green" and environmentally friendly, I wonder how far are we really willing to go? I mean, coal and oil companies will certainly fight to maintain their market share, but how about normal consumers? Are we willing to purchase "green" products? Hybrid vehicles are more expensive than their non-hybrid equivalents, and they have proven popular. Using energy efficient light bulbs and other, simple home improvements has also proven doable. But here is something pretty extreme:

Are we willing to drink our own waste water? This article in NY Times "A Tall Cool Drink of... Sewage?" about a new treatment plant in Fountain Valley shows how you can actually make very, very clean water out of sewage. But here is an interesting and sobering conclusion:

You could argue that in coming to terms with wastewater as a resource, we’ll take better care of our water. At long last, the “everything is connected” message, the bedrock of the environmental movement, will hit home. In this view, once a community is forced to process and drink its toilet water, those who must drink it will rise up and change their ways. Floor moppers will switch to biodegradable cleaning products. Industry will use nontoxic material. Factory farms will cut their use of antibiotics. Maybe we’ll even stop building homes in the desert.

But these situations are not very likely. No one wants to think too hard about where our water comes from. It’s more likely that the virtuosity of water technology will let polluters off the hook: why bother to reduce noxious discharges if the treatment plant can remove just about anything? The technology, far from making us aware of the consequences of our behavior, may give us license to continue doing what we’ve always done.

It seems we're not yet ready for change. Apathy and "ignorance is bliss" wins again.

*nerd note* They do it in the space station - months at a time drinking 100% reclaimed waste water! *end nerd note*

remaining encouraged and inspired

Unfortunately, the LRA is still fighting, in Uganda and the DR Congo - abducting children, massacring villages, and forcing people to be displaced.

The rebels have attacked Congolese villages, massacring more than 900 people since the offensive began just before Christmas.

Mr Kony's long and brutal rebellion against the Ugandan government has left tens of thousands of people dead, driven some two million people from their homes and destabilised a swathe of central Africa.

Last year, the LRA leader refused to sign a final peace deal thrashed out at two years of talks in neighbouring South Sudan - prompting the Ugandan military to lead the latest offensive.

The LRA has insisted the war crimes indictments must be lifted before signing a deal to end the conflict. The rebels are accused of having raped and mutilated civilians, forcibly enlisting child soldiers and of massacring thousands during two decades of conflict.
- March 4th, 2009 BBC News | Africa

And this is just one of many global humanitarian injustices that I could be focusing on.

I acknowledge that I'm slightly biased towards Uganda, because I was there.  But I'm really encouraged by the efforts and effects of the Invisible Children campaign.  Check out the videos below: 

Invisible Children: The Rescue Plan




Invisible Children: TRI

Click here to see more videos about Invisible Children's mission.

what works = what's right

The Best Thing for the Economy, the Right Thing for the Poor

by Jim Wallis, 02-12-2009

First, economists across the political spectrum agree that the economy desperately needs to be stimulated by federal investment in things that will generate immediate economic activity and jobs. Second, the same analysts also agree that benefits to low-income families will result in immediate economic stimulation as people in distress will spend the money they receive because they have no other choice. In other words, directly helping vulnerable people works because it will quickly help stimulate the economy, and it’s right because it will immediately help poor and vulnerable people. How often do we get to do what works and what’s right at the same time?

...

Helping those who have fallen on hard times — and helping states avert cuts in a range of critical services — will do more to help the economy and create jobs than poorly targeted tax cuts.

So... what I want to know is, why in the world are we spending upwards of $2 trillion dollars on some complicated bailout bills for corporations, banks, the housing market, etc...?  Can you imagine if $2 trillion dollars were instead distributed directly to people starting at the bottom of our economic ladder?  Say... $10,000 per person... that would give the 200 million poorest people in the US a huge boost.   If the population of the US is around 400 million, that means we'd be helping out the poorest half of the country directly, instead of the richest top percentage.  And if there were restrictions on the money, so that it had to go towards paying off debt first, then it would also help corporations and banks who are not getting paid because people are defaulting on loans.

Anyway, just a thought. I'm no economist, so I'm sure some eloquent person could explain why such an idea wouldn't work...

yet another tale of 'ugliness revealed'

My roommate has a subscription to Time magazine and I usually don’t get around to reading most of the articles in there, but yesterday and today I discovered some articles that I feel are really worth sharing.

First, a disclaimer that I don’t really have an opinion one way or the other on the “Palestinian vs Israel” issue - I think both should have to learn to live with each other, but beyond that I haven’t really read enough about it to say how that peace should look. But one thing I do know for sure, is that when you stop just looking at numbers of casualties, and hear personal stories, then you know that ideologies just don’t matter. War is ugly! The killing must stop!

“I looked down and saw my 2-year-old daughter lying there with her insides spilling out. And then the soldier shot my two other girls. I’m not Hamas. My girls weren’t Hamas. Why did they do this to us?” - quote from the article “Voices from the Rubble” - TIME magazine, Feb 9 issue.

The above quote, from “Voices from the Rubble” is an article that tells the sad tale of a man in Gaza who had 2 of his 3 daughters slaughtered in front of him (all three were shot, 1 is paralyzed but survived) by an Israeli soldier for no apparent reason. Read the story for yourself… but to hear it told certainly makes you just despise the Israeli army for doing something like that. Especially when they deny it and claim “the Israel Defense Forces is an ethical army…”

And even though it is estimated that about 90% of Jews in Israel were supporting the 22-day offensive against Gaza, I read another article titled “Israel’s Lonesome Doves” which tells the story of peace activists within Israel and their losing battle at home.

“I listened to one of my neighbors telling Israeli TV that the sound of the bombing was like a symphony, that he’s never heard such powerful music before… And I was thinking, how many people are dying because of that ‘music’?” - an Israeli peace activist commenting on her neighbor’s response to news reports of the air strikes on TV.

But it is good to hear that there are still people in both Israel and Gaza who are in-touch with their humanity and desiring peace rather than continued conflict.