Getting Rid of Hunger
Posted on June 3, 2008
I read a few interesting news articles today… I’m not sure if there was just more ‘news’ or if I’m in just a more interested frame of mind.
Probably — no, definitely not important.
The most thought-provoking story was about the international summit on food and the plan to eliminate hunger (Reuters via Yahoo News, article by Stephen Brown and Robin Pomeroy — click here to read at Yahoo).
A U.N. global food crisis summit will draw up an emergency plan on Wednesday to mobilize aid, reduce trade barriers and invest in farming in poor countries to stop the spread of hunger threatening nearly one billion people.
“We commit to eliminating hunger and to securing food for all, today and tomorrow,” read a draft declaration from the three-day Rome summit, whose opening session on Tuesday was attended by leaders of about 44 nations.
44 nations — represents about a fifth of all nations (or a quarter if you only count the 192 UN member nations).
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) now estimate that there are 862 million hungry people around the world.
I am not smart about the issue of world hunger or about the FAO or any of the other organisations that complement or compete with them in addressing the issue of starvation around the world.
Anyone who’s well versed in the topic will, no doubt, be able to reel off dozens or thousands of carefully researched and thought out arguments and statistics and so on.
I can only summarise what I’ve read just in the past few minutes and go with my instincts:
- 862 million people with not enough food.
- The possibility of 100 million more being added to that list because of rising fuel prices along with worsening food and fuel shortages.
- It would cost an estimated US$30 Billion dollars per year to ensure that no-one goes hungry.
- To put that figure into perspective, according to what I’ve just read, US$1,200 Billion was spent on arms (guns, bombs & whatnot) over the course of 2006.
I am not in a position to check or confirm any of those figures… not in any meaningful way but I can reduce all the data flying around to a few basic points that are meaningful to me:
- Everyone needs food but a lot of people aren’t getting enough… about one-sixth of the world’s population is going hungry.
- If everyone had enough to eat, there would probably be less hassle on the planet… less anguish.
- If we can take care of the global food shortage, maybe we can start to take care of some of the other silly little loose ends that have dogged us as a species since the beginning of history… things like War, Pollution… in other words, we’d be left with just the one horseman (Death) and that might be alright. Nah, it’s probably naive. Truthfully, we can tackle the other stuff some other day. Food now, I think.
I don’t have an answer, a plan for addressing the issue.
Maybe no-one does.
Or maybe there are too many plans and, like competing formats for High Definition, too much competition and fist shaking for one system to be given the opportunity it needs to run properly and be effective.
I think there’s enough money… my guess is that Exxon Mobil could probably handle the whole thing themselves.
I don’t expect that to happen but you get the idea.
All of that said, if I lived now in either the US or the UK and if there were any hungry people in the US or the UK, I’d prefer they were taken care of before anyone else.
And, if there were no hungry people in the US and the UK, I’d prefer that America and Britain checked to make sure everyone had shelter. Meaning, as a nation, I would prioritise food and shelter of my compatriots before looking to address issues abroad.
In fact, I’d probably lay out the priorities as follows, if everyone in the US (as an example) is provided for in terms of:
- Food — enough to eat including meeting the established RDA for calories, vitamins, nutrients and clean drinking water.
- Shelter — a roof over one’s head, a room of one’s own and a key to lock it with, a place to stow one’s gear, etc., that’s warm and dry.
- Education — up to a certain, workable level and no more. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, enough to work on Wall Street or be President… kidding.
- Safety — a decent, functional legal infrastructure (including police and legal representation).
- Health — emergency and a respectable level of maintenance health care.
When all those standards have been proven to have been met (proven to the people of your own country), then I believe it might be appropriate for a government or a population to start cherry picking new ideas of how to help the species.
France is probably there already (I’m guessing). So they can do what they want. The US is a little behind and might want to take care of its own stuff before taking on any new elephants — talking about government initiatives.
Don’t get me wrong, the US is great and I’m not trying to pull anyone’s chain but from what I’ve seen, it’s ranked twelfth in the world in terms of Human Development:
| 1 | Iceland |
| 2 | Norway |
| 3 | Australia |
| 4 | Canada |
| 5 | Ireland |
| 6 | Sweden |
| 7 | Switzerland |
| 8 | Japan |
| 9 | Netherlands |
| 10 | France |
| 11 | Finland |
| 12 | United States |
| 13 | Spain |
| 14 | Denmark |
| 15 | Austria |
| 16 | United Kingdom |
| 17 | Belgium |
| 18 | Luxembourg |
| 19 | New Zealand |
| 20 | italy |
I would certainly de-prioritise the environment; I believe it’s spiritually bankrupt to put trees before people.
I don’t think war works… meaning, I don’t believe it’s a meaningful use of resources, energy and money. As a citizen, I believe it’s that not only is it better to fix at home before fixing overseas, either one is better than breaking stuff overseas.
That’s it. I’m done.
Sean
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The Bogeyman Resurfaces in Japan as a 58 Year-Old Woman
Posted on May 30, 2008
A homeless woman in Japan moved into a man’s apartment and lived there for a year without his knowledge… hiding in a closet.
He only became suspicious when food started disappearing.
Story by Mari Yamaguchi on Associated Press (via Yahoo) — click here to read.
Brilliant. A real live Bogeyman… bogeyperson? Bogeywoman. Forget Lost in Translation or The Terminal — this story has it all.
Best quote of the piece:
She had moved a mattress into the small closet space and even took showers, Itakura said, calling the woman “neat and clean.”
Yes. On one level, the story has me giggling away like a kettle lightly on the boil… on the other hand, there’s an element of sadness (you don’t need to embellish the story with metaphors for big city anonymity, loss and isolation) and then there’s the creep factor: holy shit — she lived there an entire year before she was discovered. Would have made a great Ghosthunters episode… Jason & Grant debunking the myth by finding the woman who would be a mouse.
For your further edification, here’s what Wikipedia has to say on the Bogeyman:
The bogeyman, boogyman, bogyman, boogey monster, or boogeyman, is a folkloric or legendary ghostlike monster often believed in by children. The bogeyman has no specific appearance whatsoever, and can in fact vary drastically from household to household within the same community; in many cases he simply has no set appearance in the mind of a child, but is simply an amorphous embodiment of terror. Bogeyman can be used metaphorically to denote a person or thing of which someone has an irrational fear. Parents often say that if their child is naughty, the bogeyman will get them, in an effort to make them behave. The bogeyman legend may originate from Scotland, where such creatures are sometimes called bogles, boggarts, or bogies.
You can read the entire article on Wikipedia by clicking here.
A lot of the articles I saw (turns out there’s a helluva lot of stuff online related to Bogeymen… can’t quite figure that one), suggest that Bogey may originate from bog… bog man. Silly, as we all know that bogeys are nose jelly.
Sean
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Excommunication is a funny old game
Posted on May 30, 2008
I had thought, up until this morning, that the Roman Catholic church was pretty much done with excommunication. I had assumed it to be outdated.
I was wrong. It is, apparently, back in fashion. Particularly for Women would-be Priests and the Bishops that try to ordain them.
So, in case anyone was wondering how to get themselves in on the action, here are Wikipedia’s top nine or so ways to get yourself automatically excommunicated by the Roman Catholic church:
1 … Apostasy (canon 1364)… formally quitting and turning against the Church. Ah. Hmmn. I know a lot of people who’ve done this. Pretty much anyone Irish who’s now atheist is an apostate or, more frequently, a Lapsed Catholic. Also, seems a fairly slack approach to the problem insofar as excommicating the apostate is somewhat like bolting the door after the horse has gone.
2 … Heresy (canon 1364)…or outright disagreement with Church doctrine. Oops, done that as well. Does anyone print T-shirts for this type of thing? And again, in terms of equine escapes, another belated bolting.
3 … Schism (canon 1364), to split with the Church… historically, that covers everyone who’s not Catholic or planning to be Catholic. This explains the lack of T-Shirts: who can print in that kind of volume?
4 … Desecration of the Eucharist (canon 1367) … makes perfect sense: similar to defacing a coin depicting the Queen’s head… which reminds me of a pub called the Queen’s Head just outside Brighton — had a picture of Freddie Mercury on it.
5 … Physical violence against the Pope (canon 1370) … ha, you were expecting him to turn the other cheek?
6 … Attempted sacramental absolution of a partner in a sin against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue (”Thou shalt not commit adultery.”) (canon 1378 §1) … if I understand this right, it would be forgiving or trying to forgive someone who’d committed adultery. Interesting.
7 … Ordination of a bishop without papal mandate (canon 1382)… No fake Bishops. Please.
8 … Direct violation of the sacramental seal of confession by a confessor (canon 1388) … no tattle telling or ratting on parishioners.
9 … Procurement of a completed abortion (canon 1398) … I’m not too sure about this one. I mean, I understand, getting an abortion but the ‘completed’ part… confusing.
10 … Helping or helping to plan any of the above.
I think that’s enough from me. No need to comment on the list. At any other time, I might have wondered why a few of those are included and wonder out loud why a few obvious ones are omitted but it’s Friday and I see no reason to fret.
Anyhoo, according to the news article by Phil Stewart (on Reuters via Yahoo News), the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (or VATCON-D-FAITH as it’s known in the US) has written and published a decree that now makes it a full-on excommunicationable offense to be a woman and become a Priest or be a Bishop and ordain a woman as a Priest.
As far as I know, the decree says very little about being a Priest, quitting and becoming a woman. Or, being a woman, becoming a man and then becoming a Priest but usually (historically) the Roman Catholic church has been very good about getting down to the nitty gritty and hammering out all the details. Catholic, after all, does mean ‘universal’.
Sean
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Robert Asprin
Posted on May 28, 2008
And that’s A.S.P.R.I.N. rather than like the painkiller.
Lucked into one of the Mythadventure series books, the first one, about a year ago.
I’ll read just about anything (except Dan Brown who’s awful… just awful) without too much complaint but rarely manage to find anything that keeps me interested over the course of a series.
I was enjoying the first Myth book without really paying much attention — killing time you might say. Each chapter started off with a quote which, for the first twenty or so chapters, I simply ignored as do most people, I imagine, when the following struck my eye:
“One must deal openly and fairly with one’s forces if maximum effectiveness is to be achieved.”
-D. VADER
Re-read that line a couple of times and then decided I liked Robert Asprin well enough to read the whole Myth series.
Well, Asprin died in bed a week ago (May 22nd) so I won’t be anticipating anything new to the Myth or Phule series (cracking open the book with a big silly smile on my face) but I’ll read them all again, once or twice, and spare a thought for Mr. Aspirin — a man big, smart and serious enough to write the kind of light, silly little books I love reading.
Sean
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Sharon Stone — the New Face of Karma
Posted on May 27, 2008
It’s not often that an entertainment news article jumps out of me but Sharon Stone’s “karma” story is just one of those times.
From Yahoo News this morning (you can click here to read the Yahoo News article), Stone’s movies are facing a ban from a cinema chain because the owner is annoyed at the actress for a comment made at the Cannes film festival… she suggested the earthquake may have some karmic link with China’s treatment of Tibetans.
Ah well, that’s why Hollywood actors make the big bucks. And Stone’s no dummy. According to Wikipedia, she has an IQ of 154.
Amazingly, Wikipedia already has the karmic earthquake comment noted… the update was posted yesterday.
Here’s what she actually said regarding the earthquake:
“Of course I have [heard the news about the earthquake in China]. You know it was very interesting, because at first, you know, I am not happy about the way the Chinese are treating Tibetans because I don’t think anyone should be unkind to anyone else. And so I have been very concerned about how to think and what to do about that, because I don’t like…that. And I’ve been concerned about how should we deal with Olympics because they’ve not been nice to Dalai Lama, who is a good friend of mine. And all this earthquake this stuff happened and I thought, is that karma? When you are not nice the bad things happen to you. Then I got a letter from the Tibetan Foundation, and they wanted to go and be helpful. And that made my cry. And they asked me if I’d write a quote for that and I said I would. That was a big lesson to me, that sometimes you have to learn to put you head down to be at service even to the people who aren’t nice to you. That’s a big lesson for me.”
And here’s the YouTube video where you can watch her actually saying it.
Let me see, earthquake in China because of the government screwing with Tibet… Karma…
Ah well. I’ve got so much to say about the subject but the sense to stop right now.
Sean
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Misunderstood Features in Microsoft Vista
Posted on May 22, 2008
I’ve been catching this story out of the corner of my eye over the past week or two.
Apparently, an apologetical missive from the mavens at Microsoft on how the most annoying aspects of the we-hope-it’s-soon-to-be-doomed Vista are actually features (that used to be a joke back from the 98 Second Edition days, “It’s not a bug: it’s a feature.”).
Apparently, the article went up on Microsoft’s server and came down again very quickly… just before a lot of cynical yet savvy bloggers could get their pencils out and their teeth sharpened.
That said, I ran across what appears to be a working copy on the Guardian tech blog.
Click here to read that Guardian article.
The Guardian does link to the original Microsoft page but that’s now been removed so all you get is a “Sorry, the page you requested…” Clever chaps over there at Microsoft.
Here’s the opening paragraph:
No one would expect a new OS adoption to be easy, and certainly adopting Windows Vista® across a desktop infrastructure can come with a few challenges—but like many urban myths, perception can quickly depart from reality. In this article, we will look at five features of Windows Vista that are often misunderstood, provide their background and rationale, and present the straight scoop on how to deal with them.
I confess: I don’t know what he’s going on about here, particularly the ‘like many urban myths, perception can quickly depart from reality’ – which is to say, I know it’s English. I know every word in the sentence but just don’t understand it.
Oh crap! I love this:
“With Standard User mode configured across the PC infrastructure, you help ensure intruders are unable to get to the family jewels.”
Ok, it now seems this must be a hoax letter or spoof… a belated April Fool gag… no way they’re talking about protecting your family jewels… no way.
Well, hold on… after reading further:
We‘ve heard some of you say that Windows Vista runs slower than Windows XP on a given PC. So what‘s really happening here? First, we need to avoid comparing apples to oranges—Windows Vista is doing a lot more than Windows XP, and it requires resources to conduct these tasks.
Hum, maybe the author’s not spoofing… he may just be a plonker.
He says, in relation to XP and VISTA, we shouldn’t compare apples to oranges… he’s right, fruit is a much better means of comparing: VISTA is a lemon. many of us still have sour grapes about XP and, apparently Apples are delicious.
Glad I finally read the article though (after it was pulled by Microsoft).
Sean
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Waiting to know Sophie’s Choice
Posted on May 13, 2008
Doh, it’s may 14th and we still don’t know whether the prawn will be a boy or a girl…
…for what it’s worth, we’re hoping for a little girly sprog and, according to the doctor this morning, that may be what we’re going to get… because there are 4 lines between the legs that usually indicate the vagina (labia minor & labia major) at the developmental stage.
Update: You can now see the video on Google Video by clicking here.
Truthfully, I don’t know a lot about that… he could have said what he liked and I would have nodded along like the amiable dolt I am. So, there you go: it’s probably a girl but could still be a boy.
We did try a whole bunch of different angles and so on to get a clearer picture of ‘The Package’ but, as usual, our baby twisted, somersaulted and, memorably, knelt down twice as if in prayer to avoid showing her (or less probably ‘his’) parts and keep us in suspense as long as possible.
Today’s scan was 3D (sometimes called 4D in Bali… I’m not really sure why) Ultrasound — here’s a quote from Wikipedia:
There are several different scanning modes in medical and obstetric ultrasound. The standard common obstetric diagnostic mode is 2D scanning.[1] In 3D fetal scanning, however, instead of the sound waves being sent straight down and reflected back, they are sent at different angles. The returning echoes are processed by a sophisticated computer program resulting in a reconstructed three dimensional volume image of fetus’s surface or internal organs; allowing one to see width, height and depth of images in much the same way as 3D movies but no movement is shown.
Ahem. We just wanted a bit more detail than our usual scan (which, in terms of picture quality, comes down to the same process as discerning shapes in cloud formations).
Most exciting for me was the appearance of a face and a fully formed hand (not just flipping about but waving before the thumb was sucked in and swallowed for some good old fashioned stress relief).
And though we’re still not absolutely sure and there’s always room for a surprise and the doctor was appropriately tentative, I’m officially upgrading ‘The Prawn’ to Human Being (Half-Baked Bean in Tomato Sauce) by the name of Sophie Helen Hynes… and I now know Sophie’s nose is completely unlike mine.
Well done. You’re already starting to make good decisions.
Unless of course that wasn’t your nose but just a slightly squidged up cheek. Oh well.
You can download the MPEG here… it’s 18 MB and should play on most computers without too much trouble.
And you can now view on Google Video by clicking here.
» Filed Under Baby Talk | 1 Comment
Telkomsel Speedy
Posted on May 7, 2008
My speed test result from Speedy net (by Telkomsel).
This is my high speed internet supplier at a cost of about US$120.00 per month…
…good Grief, you can cut the irony with a knife.
Every day, they start out well fluffing around the 300k mark… ok, maybe not ‘well’… more middling and then just as you start to need the speed they drop right down to nearly nothing… that’s right: from middling to piddling.
I used to use BlueLine at the office (I still have them at home) but they kept crapping out on me as well. 20 minutes of play nice (up to a whopping 384) followed by 5 days on ice… at US$300.00 per month (and sometimes more).
Ah well, not that much to say and certainly nothing intelligent: it’s only a rant after all.
Or possibly a gripe.
Sean
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The Sun hits the Sky… in England?
Posted on April 4, 2008
For the past few months (although it seems longer… like… forever), Bali has been bombarded by the recent VisitBritain campaign.
Visually pretty and fun (I’ve been back to Britain twice in the last ten years) but one thing grabs me by the… throat and shakes me every time: the damn theme song.
What nutter came up with this lukewarm Supergrass tripe as a song for Britain:
I know a place where the sun hits the sky,
Everything changes and blows out the night,
Everyone knows why my tongue can’t be tied,
Cause I want to live where the sun meets the sky,
I am a doctor, I’ll be your doctor,
I’m on my way, you won’t come down today,
Live for the right things, be with the right ones,
Or they’ll hold you down, they’ll turn your world around,
Well, I just don’t know why the sun hits the sky,
Everyone changed as they turned out the light,
Living is easy with time on my side,
‘Cause I want to live where the sun meets the sky,
I am a doctor, I’ll be your doctor,
I’m on my way, and you won’t come down today,
Live for the right things, be with the right ones,
Or they’ll hold you down, they’ll turn your world around,
I am a doctor, I’ll be your doctor,
I’m on my way, and you won’t come down today,
Live for the right things, be with the right ones,
Or they’ll hold you down, they’ll turn your world around
Weird for me as I’d never heard the song the first time around (was it popular? God, I hope not)… and the tune is catchy (of course) so there I am wandering around the kitchen mumbling, “I am a doctor, I’ll be a doctor…” What on earth does that mean and what does it have to do with Britain. Nonsensical.
And, more than anything else: I know a place where the sun hits the sky… Britain. Gah. Really?
Enough.
Sean
» Filed Under Gripes, Rants & Raves | 1 Comment
Indonesia Export Menu Picked Up By Google
Posted on March 28, 2008
It may not seem worthy of a post but as I was idly searching for Indonesia Export (best darned Bali Handicraft, Decor & Furniture Exporter that I know) and cursing the day I began to take an interest in Search Engines and their ilk, I came across this:
Yes, Google have picked up my menu structure and incorporated it into their search results.
It only works if you search for IndonesiaExport.com but it’s there and now I’m feeling extremely chuffed.
I shall send them a note at Christmas.
Not this Christmas perhaps but one day.
Thanks Chaps,
We who are about to Export, salute you.
Sean
» Filed Under Business | Leave a Comment
Click to see Sophie