Posted in Children, Elections USA, Family, World politics, tagged daughters, Obama, Presidential race, proud parent on August 18, 2008| 4 Comments »
I could, with very little prompting, boast endlessly about the innate genius, fantastic beauty and amazing accomplishments of all four of my children, and sometime do.
Today, however, I’ll just post a link to this article in the New York Times that shows the quality of the paper by quoting my eldest child, my daughter Jennifer, in a story about her presidential candidate of preference.
Posted in World politics, tagged China, Olympics on August 13, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Okay, I’ll admit that the male swimmers bring to my conflicted mind images of substance that has flash written all over them in what could be whipped cream, but it’s not the athletes that are my issue today … although I suspect some may be eventually.
This story about the little girl with the beautiful voice shunted aside for the pretty little doll who lip synced the song that stirred hearts during the opening ceremonies has me fuming. Add that to the admission that some of the flash … the real flashy flash of fireworks … were fake, computer-generated for the world TV viewing audience, and I’m taken back to 1989 when I visited China just three weeks before the sit-in started in Tiananmen Square. You remember? The one that showed without any doubt the brutal, ugly foot of the Chinese government on the throat of human rights.
At the time, Beijing was preparing to host the Asia Games, and construction was going on everywhere. Huge apartment complexes had been built for TV skyline shots, but every one of them was nothing more than a shell lit like a movie set to give the impression that they were real and habitable homes of real Chinese. Totally fake and just for the cameras.
That was China almost 20 years ago, and no matter how loudly or often shouts of “It’s all so different now!” come around, I don’t buy it, and I resent the hell out of the fact that a country that is responsible for making the lives of millions of people in the world a misery is getting so many Brownie points for the illusion they have so carefully cultivated.
What’s next? How much of the news in the future will feature revelations that will turn medals into bottle tops and have broken records start sounding like broken records with repeated refrains of “doping scandal” popping up as technology catches up or people start revealing real events?
And if anyone tells me that sports and politics are two separate things … especially where the Olympics are involved … I swear I’ll clobber them with a baseball bat and call it a game, not a maneuver or a consequence.
Posted in Seychelles, World politics, tagged Burma, Lonely Planet Guide, Myanmar on February 22, 2008| 2 Comments »
Here’s an interesting dilemma to weigh …
When a country has gone to hell in a handbasket, is it better to give it a wide berth or barge in and take a look around?
This is the debate between the British Trade Union Congress (TUC) in conjunction with Tourism Concern Burma, and the Lonely Planet Guide going on right now, with one side insisting that travel to Burma constitutes unethical support of the repressive regime that rules the country and makes life miserable for its people, while the other argues that there are pros and cons, and that people should make up their minds for themselves.
Listed at the front of the book are points for and against:
Its reasons not to go include:
Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi opposes tourism
The military government uses forced labour
International tourism seen as ‘stamp of approval’
Money from tourism goes to the military governmentReasons to go are:
Tourism is one of few areas to which locals have access
Carefully targeted spending reaches individuals in need
Locals have told travel guide authors they are in favour
Abuses less likely in areas frequented by foreigners
I’ll admit that I am no fan of tourists … living where and how I do has calloused my view on those who traipse into a country, treat the place like Disneyland and the people like entertainment hired to amuse or serve, then depart with no thought whatsoever as to what legacy they might be leaving. In fact, I detest their arrogance and their ignorance and wish they would all stay home and annoy their own.
On the other hand, I am quite fond of travelers.
There’s a big difference between those needing to place a check mark saying BTDT alongside other peoples’ homes in hopes of impressing friends probably too busy doing the same to actually be impressed and people seeking knowledge and horizon expansion. Of course, both can be called tourists, but the impact made is as contrastive as are the motivations.
And motivations do count in travel, especially when talking about travel to a place like Burma.
Adventurers looking for the undiscovered destination come in many flavors, and where those determined to fill the first-white-man-the-village-has-ever-seen types can do a lot of damage and ruin the place … not only for those coming behind, but also for the locals, and forever … some with a gentle approach may prepare the ground for the populace to have some control over the changes about to descend on their world.
High-end tourists, those demanding Five Star service in Six Star destinations, aren’t likely to head for Burma until Raffles builds a resort and Bill Gates puts another Four Seasons on another “unspoiled” bit of property … spoiling it forever like the place he’s building in my back yard … but there are a few of the more intrepid rich guys who will rent a villa with the full complement of staff so they can be the first in their private-jet-parking group to say, “Had a lovely couple of days in Mandalay.”
They could have just as well been in Mauritania or Mauritius for all the Myanmar they experienced, but that wouldn’t be the point, now, would it?
I suspect sex tourism will be on the agenda for far too many who look for new ground to break in South East Asia and might figure the poverty in Burma would make for easy pickings.
Holiday destinations rise and fall in popularity, and the trendiness of Burma is probably only a matter of time as other countries become tarnished with familiarity. I predict this will be both a good thing and a bad thing and that life for the Burmese will change both for the better and for the worse as it becomes part of the homogenized world of franchises that Lonely Planet, like every guide book ever written encourages whether meaning to or not.
Calling for a boycott of Lonely Planet seems just silly, as I know I wouldn’t be writing about tourism to Burma had they not pressed the issue, and I’m betting others are doing the same in reaction to the BBC coverage it spurred.
Twenty years ago, I would have been one of the first to buy the book and try to plan a trip. These days, however, I’m just hoping a few of the rude and pushy tourists cluttering beaches and driving on the wrong side of the road in Seychelles decide to go there instead.
Posted in Adoption, Children, International Adoption, orphans, The USA from the outside in, World politics, tagged Africa, AIDS, GW Bush, Mugabe, orphans, PEPFAR, Zimbabwe on February 21, 2008| 2 Comments »
I’ve just read the most confounding bit of news I’ve seen in a while, and in a source that usually delivers it straight up, making it even more confusing.
It’s this article in the Washington Post that sent me scurrying all over the Internet in search of corroboration and reason.
The story is about George W. Bush’s Africa trip from the angle of PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, where it has succeeded and where it has fallen short. It makes sense, for the most part, as it explains how $15 billion has increased the availability of treatment, but with the rate of infections going up faster than meds can be handed out, that the big picture is not rosy.
The statement that “nearly half of today’s 15-year-olds in South Africa, one of the biggest beneficiaries of the program, will contract the virus in their lifetimes at current infection rates,” jars gratingly against the claim of 157,000 cases of pediatric HIV prevented through providing antiretrovirals to pregnant women, and research that says 40% of those given the lifesaving drugs drop out of the loop, stop taking their meds and most likely die takes some of the gloss off the 1.3 million PEPFAR supports treatment for.
The political motivation combining with whatever portion of the PEPFAR dollar comes from pure benevolence puts an interesting point on the quill, as well:
Studies have shown that family planning could avert far more infections than antiretroviral drugs because many women, especially those with HIV, want fewer children. Critics say the restriction, along with PEPFAR’s emphasis on untested abstinence programs, exists mainly to win support from conservative congressional Republicans, undermining the full potential of a program that the White House bills as one of the biggest humanitarian ventures in history.
Yes, that’s confounding to me, as medical issues should not be cross-contaminated by moral judgement as far as I’m concerned.
Not nearly as confounding, however, as what wraps up the piece:
Yet the past five years have also shown that the AIDS epidemic can be contained by forces other than U.S. money and political will. Africa’s biggest declines in HIV rates during Bush’s AIDS initiative have come in Zimbabwe, where economic collapse has coincided with fundamental social change, including a shift toward monogamy and away from more-costly multiple relationships, research there shows.
Yep … Sandra reads those words, and goes scuttering in search of something that has THAT make any sense.
Zimbabwe put forth as an example of something going right? Hmmmmm. Me thinks there’s something rotten in Harare.
A quick search of “AIDS in Zimbabwe” comes up with 604,000 links on Google and not one I opened made any grand statements about a drop in the HIV infection rates.
Curious.
AidsPortal.Org has something about an increase in the number of people on antiretrovirals, but also mentions the “daunting task of breaking the vicious cycle of new infections,” which doesn’t sound like a big drop in infections is happening.
HIVInSite, a project of the University of California, doesn’t give any indication of a letup in infections, either. It does, however, give one tiny clue that moved me along … under “New HIV infections, 2005” the entry was “nd”: no data.
Hmmmmm.
Eventually coming across Avert.org’s page on AIDS in Zimbabwe, the true picture emerged.
In many cases, as one Zimbabwean doctor explained to reporters, the reality is that AIDS can now be counted amongst such concerns: “Put simply, people are dying of AIDS before they can starve to death.”
The situation in Zimbabwe is now so bad that:
Between 2002 and 2006, the population is estimated to have decreased by four million people.
Infant mortality has doubled since 1990.
Average life expectancy for women, who are particularly affected by Zimbabwe’s AIDS epidemic, is 34 – the lowest anywhere in the world. Officials from the World Health Organisation have admitted that since this figure is based on data collected two years ago, the real number may be as low as 30.
Zimbabwe has a higher number of orphans, in proportion to its population, than any other country in the world, according to UNICEF. Most of these cases are a result of parents dying from AIDS.
So, there’s the reason AIDS numbers are down in Zimbabwe … more people are already dead than they were last year and the year before, and the deaths are happening just that much faster than new infections are being reported. (We don’t even need to start in on the accuracy of reporting in the country.)
For the WaPo to suggest that Mugabe’s masterwork of horror that is modern-day Zimbabwe proves that “the AIDS epidemic can be contained by forces other than U.S. money and political will,” but rather through, “fundamental social change, including a shift toward monogamy and away from more-costly multiple relationships,” is irresponsible at best, and shows an inclination to accept “research” generated by tyranny in attempts to provide positive spin to genocidal maniacs.
I have come to expect much better from the publication.
Confounding, indeed.
This is x-posted to Adoption Under One Roof because it fits in both places.
Posted in England, International Adoption, World politics, WTF?, tagged 2008 Olympics, British football, Nazis, Steven Speilberg on February 13, 2008| 2 Comments »
After posting yesterday on Chinese-made choking hazards in the shape of toys in really, really, really bad taste, this story out of Britain provides another.
British Olympic chiefs are to force athletes to sign a contract promising not to speak out about China’s appalling human rights record – or face being banned from travelling to Beijing.
… The controversial clause has been inserted into athletes’ contracts for the first time and forbids them from making any political comment about countries staging the Olympic Games.
What the hell is it with China and the huge and hugely disturbing and disgusting pass it’s getting, especially around this whole Olympics hoo-haa?
The upcoming games … and can we remember that this is what it’s about — GAMES? … should be providing an opportunity for the world to focus on the host country, and not through filters but with the glaring light of global attention thrown in every representation of the often ugly face of real-life China that can be taken in by the hundreds of thousands of people traipsing through the place this summer.
The Chinese government signed on for this sort of inspection at the time they begged, borrowed and pleaded to get the games to run, swim, dive, shoot and so on on Chinese soil, and if those doing the running, swimming, diving, etc. happen to notice some of that soil as it collects under their fingernails while in the process of cheerfully competing under the banner of good sportsmanship, or whatever, they damned well should be able to talk about it.
Or whatever else they want to talk about, for that matter.
Since when does an ability to move quickly disqualify one from developing opinions, along with muscles, and speaking out?
Apparently, for British athletes, since the 1930s when the photo above was taken, the year the British soccer … okay, ‘football’ … team did the Fuehrer’s High Five … the Nazi salute … and were so shamefully captured on film doing so.
Personally, I have been a supporter of the movement to boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics and have wished a large proportion of participants would simply opt out and make a big deal of exactly why China does not deserve the implied respect the games convey.
I was very pleased to see just minutes ago that Steven Speilberg has bowed out of his role as artistic advisor … his stated reason is Darfur, just one of the human rights issues China should be forced to account for … and hope others will do the same, and publicly, as the games draw near.
(Interestingly, his withdrawal comes on the heels of the British “gag order”, so this step may backfire. One can hope … )
I do understand how difficult it would be for an athlete to just say no to what must be a lifelong dream, but these games, the competition, the ceremonies, the venues, and the medals that will come from victories, are tainted.
They are tainted with the waste of opportunity to force change, the whorish rolling over of those who should be standing and pointing fingers and demanding China play by rules of better-worldsmanship, the pandering to money interests with advertising dollars, the good-ole-boy, slap on the back, wink-wink-nudge-nudge cronyism that is spinning the world down to a place where rich and poor are so far removed from each other that neither seems human in the eyes of the other.
An article in the CSM called “The Olympics in China: a moment for pride – and world scrutiny”, gives a look at how important it is to the Chinese to come through the games unscathed:
An unprecedented opportunity to shine in the international spotlight for an intense three weeks. The Chinese government is treating the Games as a symbolic end to 150 years of humiliation by outside powers and a confirmation of its status as a global power to be reckoned with.
But the problem is China should be scathed and scathed badly in ways that illustrate just why 150 years of humiliation was deserved and why its status as a global power needs to be carefully monitored. Carte blanche has not been earned.
And as for the Brits … well, gagging their own athletes is about as spineless and unhelpful a move as can be imagined under these circumstance, but since it’s not the first time it’s happened, it didn’t take much imagination to come up with it.
If only Monty Python were still around to take the piss out of this mess, or if Sid Vicious and the rest of the Sex Pistols could do a rousing rendition of something appropriately irreverent.
It would be good to give the Chinese something to choke on for a change.
A collection of my short stories:
I'm in this one, too ...
And I'm in here, as well ...
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Paradise Preoccupied 