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Archive for the ‘World politics’ Category

Two fingers up at the 4th Estate … the long and short of rabble babble

Posted in History, The USA from the outside in, World politics, tagged , , , on September 8, 2009| 5 Comments »

As a species, are humans getting dumber, or does instant access to information just make it seem that way? A couple of stories in today’s news have me pondering pandering as what was once journalism jigs toward justification with revenue being the mighty motivator.

Starting with all the flap over the President of the United States addressing the nation’s school children, I admit to being aghast. Although I agree that it was totally wrong for Dan Quayle to insist kids spell potato incorrectly, the country’s leaders are supposed to be role models, inspirational … every kid has the potential to be, etc. … and it is rather the job of the President to LEAD, even kids.

This article from the Heritage Foundation takes issue with that whole ‘leadership’ thing, apparently, reducing the office of the President to a political entity without merit .

Parents across the country have raised alarm about President Obama’s planned “back to school” address to American students. When the Department of Education released a lesson plan that included asking youngsters—how can you help President Obama?—parents’ concern that their children were being “organized” for political purposes was justified.

Helping the President is now a bad thing that children are to be turned away from, protected from the idea of? There’s a concept history will not take kindly to.

I won’t bother making too much of a point about the fact that math skills seem to be lacking at the Heritage Foundation … “This year, American taxpayers will spend $10,000 per-student on the average students’ public school education this year. A kindergartener starting school this year can expect to have $100,000 spent on his or her education.” … but will say that $7,692.31 per child per year is peanuts.

Considering the fact that Americans spent more than $66 billion on soft drinks in 2004 … and probably more than that in 2008 … that less-that-ten-grand (do the math) sounds meager.

And speaking of how things sound …

Yet for millions of kids, this six-figure investment will lead to dismal results.

doesn’t sound good. Turn it around, however, and talk about the millions of kids who make the most out of under-funded education, graduate from high school, go through college, establish successful careers, head up companies, raise families and keep the world spinning and the picture shifts from a boo hiss to hearty hoorays accompanied by no few thank-our-lucky-stars.

Arguments over a Presidential address to American children should have been nothing more than a tempest in tepid tea, sour grapes grumbling from some of those who didn’t get enough votes to be running the show right now. Contrary to the general welfare, however, the rabble raises revenue so rates regurgitation.

Of course, this isn’t only an American phenomenon. Over in Europe, they’re getting the short end of the stick from the press as it goes to great lengths to make a tall tale out of French President Sarkozy’s stature … as if his wife wearing flats proves he’s a heel when it comes to running a country.

The BBC headlines the story, “Sarkozy height row grips France”, and if that’s not insulting … even to the French (which might very well be the point, since this is from the BBC) … well …

Mass media … short on substance, but long on prevarication. Why? Because it sells.

We’ll be shortchanged as long as we keep buying it. Shouldn’t we have loftier goals?

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“How to Serve Mankind” was a cookbook … divide, conquer, slice and dice

Posted in Cambodia, History, Hopeful thoughts, International Adoption, Smarten up, World politics on September 4, 2009| Leave a Comment »

As regular readers know, my household is international in every sense. One of the results of being born in one place and living in others can be dual nationality, or, in some cases, even triple the legal connections to countries.

My hope is that sooner or later we humans, with our inbred tendencies to inbreed out of xenophobic compulsion, will grasp the idea that divisions are arbitrary, and as bipedal primates we are more similar than we are different no matter where the heck we popped onto the planet.

Not that we’ve grown any closer to accepting that basic fact over the centuries, as illustrated in a recent post, and with so much at stake … power and money being at the root, of course … keeping divisions in place makes a lot of sense to a lot of people.

“Divide and conquer’, also known as “divide and rule”, divide et impera, is such an easy strategy that most don’t even think to question the wisdom, true necessity and history of this long-standing tactic.

The use of this strategy was imputed to administrators of vast empires, including the Roman and British, who were charged with playing one tribe against another to maintain control of their territories with a minimal number of imperial forces. The concept of “Divide and Rule” gained prominence when India was a part of the British Empire, but was also used to account for the strategy used by the Romans to take Britain, and for the Anglo-Normans to take Ireland. It is said that the British used the strategy to gain control of the large territory of India by keeping its people divided along lines of religion, language, or caste, taking control of petty princely states in India piecemeal.

Extrapolate it out globally and wonder why, in today’s world of instant communication, ease of peregrination and cultural blending, the need for lines drawn on maps exists.

How much energy goes into defending borders that are nothing more than artificial designations, and how many people die in the process of attempting to keep invisible lines etched in sand holding back floods?

Of course, keeping the enthusiasm for an outpouring of resources and blood is of the utmost importance, so whipping up a constant frenzy of “we’re better … and different … than you are” is a mission passionately embraced.

It’s not like fencing folks in and calling them a People solves the problem of unity. We maintain our tribal affiliations no matter what neighborhood we’re tied to, so eliminating a a few specifications would hardly rob us of an opportunity to look down upon our fellow man with scorn over eye color or choice of peanut butter.

So why not get past the archaic notion that soil defines?

Well, for one thing, a lot of people would be out of work. Keeping things separate is big business and multiple governments employ millions. If, for example, geography, not politics, dictated affiliation and Canada, the US and Mexico were to be considered the same place with one set of grand plans and one set of workers charged with overseeing those plans a lot of offices in all three places would be empty.

This is a ridiculous idea, though, since Canadians, Americans and Mexicans represent completely different species.

Aliens, that’s the word.

Oh! Gee. That’s not correct. They are no more different from each other than are Oregonians from New Yorkers, yet those admittedly diverse groups manage to exist within the same broader borders.

So, where does the advantage lie? What do we get out of divisions, other than conquered and ruled, and why do we not ask this question often?

Wondering how I got on this kick today?

It all started with an emailed newsletter from the US Embassy in Mauritius … another small island nation in the Indian Ocean that spends a fortune making sure its government is a distinct entity … that included the following:

Almost all male U.S. citizens (including dual nationals) and male aliens living in the U.S. who are 18 through 25 are required to register with the Selective Service.

If a man does not register, he could be prosecuted and fined up to $250,000 and/or be jailed for up to five years. Registration is a requirement to qualify for Federal student aid, job training benefits, and most Federal employment. Even if not tried, a man who fails to register with the Selective Service before turning age 26 may find that some doors are permanently closed.

As the mother of a Cambodian-born son living in Seychelles with a British passport I can’t help but react to this negatively and fall back to thinking that begging the American government to make Sam a citizen will not be a priority.

The world is a small place, we are citizens of this world, and I do my damnedest to teach my kids that there are no limits to where they can contribute and to whom they can feel connected.

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If walls could talk …

Posted in History, My Chinese Checkered Past, science, Smarten up, Women's rights, World politics, tagged , , , on September 3, 2009| 2 Comments »

Photo Credit: AFP

Photo Credit: AFP

Archeology has long been an interest of mine, and if my life had gone according to plans made when I was about nine I would have spent a good deal of time digging around places like the Olduvai Gorge, doing my utmost to follow Mary Leakey’s immense footsteps, or looking for the roots of Quetzalcoatl at Tenochtitlan.

Of course, it turns out that John Lennon was right … life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans … but the physical evidence of history continues to fascinate me.

This story demanded my attention today, and set me toward a mental meander I’ve been wandering for hours.

A 3,700-year-old wall has been discovered in east Jerusalem, Israeli archaeologists say.

The structure was built to protect the city’s water supply as part of what dig director Ronny Reich described as the region’s earliest fortifications.

The 26-ft (8-m) high wall showed the Canaanite people who built it were a sophisticated civilisation, he said.

I’ll completely ignore the mention of the fact that the guy in charge of the dig has the surname “Reich” and move along to the more salient points, one being the stunningly naive statement attributed to him about the wall showing “… the Canaanite people who built it were a sophisticated civilization” that I’m hoping was an under-educated reporter’s version and not words actually uttered by an archeologist.

Considering that the Canaanites came up with the alphabet … their city of Byblos was the inspiration for the Greek word for book and hence Bible … figured out how to navigate and set up major ports and trading posts from Britain to Africa shipping and selling everything from salt to wine to ebony, started the first lending institutions, and had a system of government that included legal rights for women that allowed them to sue, invest and even adopt children, a wall that managed to stick around for almost 4,000 years seems superfluous to need when it comes to defining “sophisticated civilization”.

Even slaves … and everyone had slaves in those days … got a fair shake:

As was commonplace in the ancient days, there were slaves, but laws protected them from mistreatment and authorized payment to them in redress of grievances. They could earn their own money, purchasing property and eventually their own freedom. A freed slave could reach high office.

Let’s also not forget that the Canaanites were named for the color purple …Kinakhu: the purple people .. since they were the only source for the die that indicates royalty to this day.

Jump ahead 3,700 years … Shall we? … and take a gander at our modern world and the progress humankind has made in almost 4 millennia. We could start with the fact that the method of making purple from sea snails is a long-lost art, then move along to the mess the Middle East is so well known for these days, as witnessed by reaction to the discovery of this old wall:

Critics say Israel uses such projects as a political tool to bolster Jewish claims to occupied Palestinian land.

Perhaps if ancient walls could talk we’d learn a lesson or two. If nothing else, maybe we’d rethink our arrogance, our perpetual self-congratulatory back patting over our advancements, our short-sighted claims of enlightenment, and realize that we’ve not come a long way, Baby, at all.

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China profits and Africa talks

Posted in Smarten up, The United Nations, World politics on August 24, 2009| 3 Comments »

A one-two punch of stories in today’s news would not have seemed to follow taken individually, but when set side-by-side an obvious tango appears.

The first, this out of China, is about a four-fold increase in profits seen by the state oil company, Sinopec.

Fuel price reforms have allowed price hikes that have been repeating bundles.

Sinopec reported a net income of 33.2bn yuan ($4.8bn; £2.9bn) for the six months to the end of June, compared with 7.7bn yuan a year earlier.

… “It is anticipated that the result of [the] first three quarters of 2009 will be over 50% higher compared with the same period of last year … ”

Oil companies making money in today’s global economy may sound like a positive ramping up that could fuel growth … for those who consider growth always positive … but that brings me to the next report.

In Africa, leaders are gathering to talk about climate change.

Captioned, “Africa is set to suffer the worst impacts of climate change”, the implications should not be underplayed.

Under the auspices of the African Union, the meeting will underline the chief African demand for compensation for damages caused by global warming.

The move to agree a common negotiating platform for Africa is a recognition of the failure of the continent to make its voice heard to date.

One of the documents prepared for the meeting talks about the “dismal co-ordination” of the African negotiation process.

Fine and dandy, yes?

Considering the aggressive courting China is now doing in Africa, maybe not.

The reality of the UN climate negotiations is that the US, China, India and the European Union have the greatest sway.

Failing to recognize a link between increasing oil consumption and profits for that consumption in China and climate change in Africa would be missing a major point, and if Africa is set to “demand compensation for damages caused by global warming” at the same time China is buying the continent wholesale, we have a conflict, folks.

Not only is Africa more than willing to take just about whatever China is wiling to give, and they give a LOT in the way of construction, development, cash … whatever … African countries also vote in the UN General Assembly — line on the left, one vote each — and those votes go a long way toward keeping the Chinese government away from accountability and closer to doing whatever the heck they want in ways that can’t help but get that climate change thing going through the roof, or the ozone layer, as the case actually will be.

We’ve all seen images of drought in Ethiopia, the venue for the African talks … starving children, dead cattle, millions of people in camps begging for a grain of anything to keep them alive one more day … but reading about four-fold profits on oil in China may not trigger a response that connects to those images nor seem the potentially devastating blow it truly is.

It’s not a vacuum we live in … if it was, the world would be cleaner … and what happens in one corner of the globe impacts us all, some much more drastically than others.

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Panties aside …

Posted in Entitled to opinions, Smarten up, Women's rights, World politics, tagged , , , on August 23, 2009| 13 Comments »

Since a post with panties in the title has attracted thousands of hits even though the topic was women’s rights and the panties mentioned were “big girl” with an admonition to pull them on and change the world, I’m wearing mine again … and, no, I won’t be offering multi-day-worn undies on Japanese eBay, no matter how much pocket money that provides schoolgirls there … hoping to get folks who may not tune their dials to the plight of the world’s female population to give a read, and perhaps even a thought.

The recent subject has revolved around the question of how and why a a planet with inhabitants that are more than 50% of the girl persuasion gets away with treating that majority like shit. The answer may be as simple as: Because it can.

The minority most certainly has a vested interest in keeping up this sucky status quo, as illustrated by this load of protected bollocks:

Conservative clerics in Iran have criticised a proposal by re-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to include three women in his new cabinet.

“There are religious doubts over the abilities of women when it comes to management,” said hardline lawmaker Mohammad Taghi Rahbar.

He said his views were shared by many MPs from his clerics’ faction, which dominates Iran’s parliament.

Yep. He’s afraid his gnarled set of piyaz torshi will sink to the bottom of a bowl of turshulu aash and his bullshit will never float again if women have the power to do more than run households, live within budgets, oversee families and all that other stuff that keeps him and his cronies going.

But it’s not only men dedicated to the perpetuation of perpetual misery for their own mothers, sisters, daughters and wives doing damage.

Take women in Mali for an example …

Tens of thousands of people in Mali’s capital, Bamako, have been protesting against a new law which gives women equal rights in marriage.

The law, passed earlier this month, also strengthens inheritance rights for women and children born out of wedlock.

The head of a Muslim women’s association says only a minority of Malian women – “the intellectuals” as she put it – supports the law.

Amazing how often “intellectual” is spat toward a supposedly thinking world like a shit-covered fly … wouldn’t want to swallow anything having to do with smart now, would we?

And intellectual women? OMG! Stop them. Stop them now … and while you’re at it, beat them and throw acid in their faces.

Which brings us to this, right back where we started a couple of days ago in Afghanistan … a story in the NYTimes about acid attacks on girls in Kandahar who have the temerity to go to school.

… Through the mask, he asked Shamsia what seemed like a strange question.

“Are you going to school?”

The masked man pulled the scarf away from Shamsia’s face and, with his other hand, pumped the trigger on his spray gun. Shamsia felt as if her face and eyes were on fire. As she screamed, the masked man reached for Atifa, who was already running. He pulled at her and tore her scarf away and pumped the spray into her back. The men sped off toward another group of girls. Shamsia lay in the street holding her burning face.

I hold out some hope that outrage will replace apathy and that we eventually approach the tipping point where women will have finally had enough of this and turn the tables … and chairs and beds.

Watch out world when that happens, because the backlash is gonna be fierce.

Have I mentioned that my friend Gay spouts her solution far and wide … and with no little support resulting? The plan? Universal Male Castration. Since the announcement of the creation of artificial sperm, her arguments for a world where balls are just beach toys is getting more attention.

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Blogging outside my bleak box …

Posted in International Adoption, Sex, The United Nations, Women's rights, World politics, tagged on August 17, 2009| 7 Comments »

It’s time for me to let outrage spill into the blog again, and although I could pound on about health care in America, the abomination in Burma, the double standard on internationally adopted children and much more, this gets my dander itching this morning …

It is now legal in Afghanistan for a man to starve his wife to death if she refuses to have sex with him.

Rape, of course, is not an issue, as that goes without saying. Beating to death is common enough and usually without repercussions, and now starvation is condoned.

And how will the world react? With its usual impotence …

Western leaders and Afghan women’s groups were united in condemning an apparent reversal of key freedoms won by women after the fall of the Taliban.

Oh, the dreaded “united condemning”!

Shall we wait to see how much food that puts into an Afghan woman who’s not in the mood for abuse?

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The UN and the “Terminator” … and we ain’t talking Arnold.

Posted in Children, History, The United Nations, World politics, WTF?, tagged , , , on April 29, 2009| 2 Comments »

If you were in charge, what would you do if you came across a dude who is known to have run camps that kidnapped kids, then trained them to be soldiers? Not just one camp, but seven of them. Keep in mind that this would be in Africa, the guy’s nickname is “the Terminator”, and he is on the UN war crimes list as a wanted man.

According to the BBC, what the UN has done is given him a job.

An indicted war criminal is playing a leading role in the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to documents seen by the BBC.

A Congolese army paper suggests ex-rebel leader Gen Bosco Ntaganda has a major part in the command chain, says a BBC correspondent in the country.

The UN-Congolese force is fighting Hutu rebels in the eastern DR Congo.

Well, that’ll teach him.

On the off chance that you’re not familiar with the plight of children taken for soldiering in the DRC, this report from Amnesty International gives a taste. Here’s just a tiny bit of the intro:

Seven years of almost continuous war in the Democratic Republic of Congo ( DRC) have led to the death of over three million people since 1998 alone, most of them civilian men, women and children. Tens of thousands of women have been raped. Countless acts of torture have been reported. Fleeing the conflict, hundreds of thousands of civilians have been driven from their home into neighbouring countries or other parts of the DRC. Many have died from malnutrition and lack of access to humanitarian assistance. Up to two million people have been internally displaced, including 400,000 children displaced from their homes. This is not a war in which civilians have been the unfortunate victims of ‘collateral damage’, but one in which they have been unremittingly and remorselessly targeted. Death and intense suffering have become the daily fabric of Congolese lives. The conflict has also been marked by the widespread use of children as combatants by all parties. The DRC is currently one of the countries of the world with the largest number of child soldiers.

Read the full report if you have the heart.

The UN is denying that the Terminator is on the payroll … they would, wouldn’t they? … but apparently Human Rights Watch isn’t buying it

“We are very worried by this information and it seems to us that the United Nations is acting like an ostrich with its head in the sand,” Anneke Van Woudenberg, the group’s senior researcher on DR Congo, told the BBC.

“It’s time now this is addressed head on. Rather than denying or ignoring the role being played by Bosco Ntaganda, the UN should be actively seeking his arrest and transferring him to The Hague.”

Well, yeah, although ostrich is not what comes to my mind. I doubt very much that this is a case of not knowing, or even of pretending not to know, but rather out-and-out lying when facts are brought from the gloom of shady dealing into the bright light of a world paying attention.

Where the PR machine spins this one is anybody’s guess, but I am hoping the story doesn’t die on the BBC vine, especially when the UN’s public defense so far comes down to a UN spokesman’s sorry comeback:

“Bosco Ntaganda’s name does not appear on that document, so we have from our Congolese counterparts an assurance that he is not part of the command.”

Well, then … job over, hey, Buddy?

If the United Nations designed dildos, they would all be one inch long, as thick as a toothpick, made from Silly Putty and would just lay there, but they would be a pretty baby blue … and would cost $1 million each.

And, yeah, that’s a statement on expensive impotence.

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Just hearing the jokes … ’bout time … thinking that it’s not SO bad

Posted in Elections USA, Island life, The USA from the outside in, World politics on April 6, 2009| 1 Comment »

Pardon me for being way behind the curve here, but I do live on an island in the middle of nowhere with only an hour and a half of CNN per day …

Thankfully, however, I read blogs so came across this link to the transcript of the Bush Roast at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, given by a guy I’ve never heard of … as if that matters to anyone, especially Stephen Colbert.

Okay. Okay. This is going back about a thousand days, but … shit … it’s really funny, and worth recalling, if for no other reason than to make one feel better about today.

Yeah … the world is a mess and people are suffering and life sucks, but BUSH IS GONE!!!!!

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Seychelles Economy in the News

Posted in Seychelles, World politics on March 27, 2009| 1 Comment »

Big thanks to a reader for the heads up on this article on the state of the economy in Seychelles.

… Seychelles now has the unenviable stature of being perhaps the most indebted country in the world. Public and private debt totals $800 million – roughly the size of the country’s entire economy.

In every country in the world … to a greater or lesser degree, of course … excessive spending, poor management and political ass-covering drop a bottom line below the bootstrap level that would allow pulling up in times of global economic meltdown.

Not all that long ago, I would have suggested that a move toward countries being run more like businesses would have been a step in a responsible direction, but now it’s pretty clear that the sort of mismanagement government machines are noted for is writ big in the corporate world after all.

The phrase “a world of hurt” comes to mind a lot these days.

Shit.

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Human Rights Report: Seychelles

Posted in Seychelles, World politics on March 24, 2009| 2 Comments »

The US Department of State has released the 2008 Human Rights Report on Seychelles. Anyone interested in reading it can click here.

Some of the highlights … and reasons I like living here:

There were no reports of street children.

The law prohibits trafficking in persons, and there were no reports that persons were trafficked to, from, or within the country.

There was no discrimination reported against persons with disabilities in housing, employment, or education, or in the provision of other state services.

There were no reports of discrimination based on sexual orientation.

There were no reports of discrimination against persons with HIV/AIDS.

The law prohibits forced or compulsory labor, including by children, and there were no reports that such practices occurred.

The law prohibits forced exile, and the government did not use it.

Of course, this being the real world and all, the report is not all sweetness and light.

I have to wonder how other countries, the US included, stacks up.

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