La Voix Humaine: The Struggle and Hope of Modern Africa

Uh-oh I'm in trouble!!

2007-05-22T11:51:00.000-07:00

Given that FORGE central managed to OVERESTIMATE my fundraising amount by 20% for the past THREE MONTHS, my project has suddenly come under question. UNLESS I can raise $2,000 by June 1st, it is in jeopardy of not happening. As angry as I am at whomever FORGE calls their "finance person" I need to make this project happen.

Many of you have donated generously and I am SO THANKFUL for that (and if you haven't received a "thank you" card from me yet, then you will. It is likely due to the fact the FORGE has managed to lose donors here and there - no biggie, RIGHT?!?!? ggrr - sorry, internal monologue)

Regardless, if any of you are connected to people with money ooorrr churches ooorrr rotary clubs oooorrrr circuses (who doesn't love that big bear on a ball wearing a tutu? heh heh) please please please go out on the limb and see if they are willing to help. I have one page descriptions of the project, presentation books, 6 page descriptions. Anything they want, I will provide.

PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE

TO DONATE: Go to http://www.forgenow.org/
Click "Join our Cause - Donate" and proceed.
PLEASE NOTE "Kala - Rachelle" as the Project Facilitator

THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!!! :)

A Month and a Half Left..A PANDA!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-05-11T15:59:00.000-07:00

Here is updated info on my portion of the project. This is the content of a one-sheet that a professor of mine is passing on to his Euro chronies who specialize in refugee issues (betterment, law, human rights, etc.) for input and possible internships, connections, yadda yadda. This is, however, the ex-World-Bank-employee-professor who told me that I am far too realistic and sceptical to be a part of FORGE. Apparently he has known past participants with 19 years of "life experience" (10 years of which they can't remember) who want to "help the poor black people." Ouch - not a good impression to leave on your development economics prof who happens to be academically and professionally well connected. Well, thanks for making me look good past FORGies! (Disclaimer: everyone I've ever personally met in FORGE is mature(ish), professional(ish) and doing what they are for the right reasons. Hence my surprise at the professor's comment)

6 Weeks until finishing at Lehman
7 Weeks before US departure

oy oy oy oy oy oy oy oy oy oy oy oy oy oy oy oy oy oy
TO DONATE: Go to http://www.forgenow.org/
Click "Join our Cause - Donate" and proceed.
PLEASE NOTE "Kala - Rachelle" as the Project Facilitator
_________________________________________________________________
Facilitating Opportunities for Refugee Growth and Empowerment (FORGE) is an implementing partner of UNHCR.
FORGE is founded on both a US-based Domestic Advocacy program and a Camp Operations department. The Camp Operations model is a project-driven approach to injecting sustainable knowledge, acquisition of skills and economic stimulation into refugee communities. Sectoral concentrations include health, education, business, agriculture, micro-finance, sports, arts and gender equality. Recent shifts in the Southern African situation has encouraged initiatives specific to repatriation from Zambia, Tanzania and Botswana to ease community emplacement in the secured areas of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Angola.

With this in mind, the Entrepreneurial Affairs branch of the Center for Community Driven Repatriation (CCDR) will incorporate culturally appropriate activities and classroom based curriculum to assist DRC nationals currently living in UNHCR camps, prepare for their repatriation to the Southeast Katanga province of DRC. The first CCDR initiative will be implemented on Kala camp near Kawambwa in northeast Zambia over the summer of 2007. Research based preparation for curriculum of three courses began in November 2006 and will end in May 2007. These courses include:
1) Crash Course in Community Economics
2) Savings-led Micro-Finance
3) Social Entrepreneurial Development
The curricula for these will be finalized during the month of June. The implementation phase, beginning in July 2007 and ending in September 2007, will include training Congolese teachers on Kala camp to maintain and continue to develop the courses. Funding will be secured for two years of operation including teacher salaries, classroom materials and curriculum upkeep. According to the guidance of the Congolese teachers and participants, the project will be reevaluated every six months to ensure maximum need-fulfillment. Changes will be made to the program and funding secured according to their guidance as discussed with the FORGE Project Manager who will remain in the camp for coming years. Indicators of success, though difficult to obtain due to the nature of repatriation, are currently being developed.
************************************
Crash Course in Community Economics
• One, 4 Hour Workshop
• Prerequisite for other classes
• Overview of international market functions
• Economic and international law governing refugee camps, the repatriation
process and newly emplaced communities
• Historical patterns of repatriated populations in Southern Africa with a
focus on the development of petty trade
• Discussion of power determined by market share internationally and within a community
• Examine implications of wage labor opportunities focusing on Multi National Corporations in the Katanga region
***************************************
Savings-led Micro Finance
• Two-weeks, 2 hours per day
• Focus on recruiting marginal populations (single
mothers, disabled, elderly, orphans, illiterate)
• Mobile, non-book based course
• Curriculum and activities based on “Savings for
Change” published by Oxfam and Freedom from
Hunger in August, 2006
• Group savings and loan schemes
• Pros and cons of both group and independent saving
• Discuss security issues in Katanga and the safety
implications for marginalized populations connected
through savings
• Self-sufficiency through conscious finance
• Possibilities for business development
*************************************************
Social Entrepreneurial Development
• Two-weeks, 2 hours per day
• Social considerations in business models
• Considering your market on the camp and once
in emplaced community
• Cost/Benefit analyses of upstart
• Marketing and going to market
• Dealing with change and volatility in the community
• Saving surplus to weather downturn
• Resource thrifty accounting/bookkeeping
• How to ensure your business is not creating an
unsustainable need
• Hiring employees: when is the right time?
• Diversity in goods & services
• Preparing in the camp for business after repatriation

*************************************************************
TO DONATE: Go to http://www.forgenow.org/
Click "Join our Cause - Donate" and proceed.
PLEASE NOTE "Kala - Rachelle" as the Project Facilitator

2007-05-02T11:01:00.000-07:00

So, I've gotten my shots (for $700!!), my plane ticket(s) (8 out of total 10 for $2,400), malarone, a lifetime supply of Cipro, I ALMOST have my French visa, the Zambia one is in process, yet there is so much more to do... I don't even have a mosquito net, a sleeping bag, imodium AD, hair product (i mean, have you seen this hair?!) - the devil's in the details, man!

Anyhoo - the budget is solidified and we (my group of three) are still $3,500 short of what we need to support the Repatriation Center for 2 years....still chuggin away (thanks to everyone who donated - you're so cute!). Most of that need is for the $500 a year teacher salaries (that is slightly above market wage....amazing). We have also applied for a $4,000 grant from the Audrey Hepburn Foundation specifically to cover the building we will need to house our project and the health project. We will know by the end of next week whether we get that (fingers crossed!!!! ...ow...)

On a funny note, one of the Project Facilitators on different project but same LA team, raised $10,000 by winning a bet she made with a porn producer at a Clippers game.......welcome to LA (please help me!! these people are crazy!)

Depart LA June 25th
Depart JFK July 3rd
Depart the other side of tha atlantic?.................nneeevvvveeeerrrrr.

TO DONATE: Go to http://www.forgenow.org/
Click "Join our Cause - Donate" and proceed.
PLEASE NOTE "Kala - Rachelle" as the Project Facilitator

FORGE Updates

2007-04-18T14:25:00.000-07:00

1) A video feature of FORGE, The Edge With Jake, and Dr. Kenneth Kaunda is now up on the ONE blog. http://action.one.org/blog/

2) The Executive Director of FORGE will be featured on CNN's "People You Should Know" segment which focuses attention on people who do interesting and effective things. It is set to air on Paula Zahn soon. I will let you know when.

3) Lawyers, Law and Social Change - explores the impact of lawyers on social change and a portion of the proceeds will go directly to FORGE which will also be featured on the back cover of the books. It can be purchased at http://www.unlimitedpublishing.com/forge/

4) PROJECT UPDATE: The oppressive nature of refugee camps should not be normalized nor perpetuated by the implementation of FORGE projects on the camps. Taking this into consideration, I will now look to integrate the international laws and human rights regarding refugees into their education. I will look to explore the origins and underpinnings of refugee camps in an effort to help the refugees understand their situations and to know their rights as humans.

TO DONATE:
Go to www.FORGEnow.org
Click "Join our Cause - Donate" and proceed.
PLEASE NOTE "Kala - Rachelle" as the Project Facilitator

The Project Details

2007-04-15T07:57:00.000-07:00

Community Driven Repatriation Association (CDRA)

Business Affairs

Mission Statement: The Business Affairs branch of the Community Driven Repatriation Association will pair with community leaders on the camp, to offer Congolese people culturally appropriate business skills that assist in the amelioration of their financial situation and in the creation of small market economies, which increase access to a wider variety of goods and services; all the while backing FORGE out of the structure to ensure sustainability of both the center and the knowledge by its participants.

Means of Achievement:
1) Economic Crash Course Workshop
2) Savings-led Micro Finance Courses
3) Business Development Training

Justification for Business Affairs Sub-Section of CDRA:
Sixty thousand Congolese refugees currently located in Zambia will be repatriated to the South-East Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) provinces of Moba and Pweto over the next two years. NGOs currently present on the ground report no security issues but severe lack of infrastructure including roads, schools, health facilities and housing. The UNHCR will support repatriates with food rations for three months following their strategic drop-off in or near their cities of origin. They will also provide initial necessities such as buckets, blankets, tarps, pickaxes, shovels and first aid kits according to funding availability and family size. The repatriates will be returning to neither housing nor developed areas and have been entirely dependent upon the UN for their existence for the past eight to ten years.
In order to allow the new communities a chance at survival, CDRA will implement three subsections on UNHCR Kala Camp, Zambia (population 25,000), all of which will control expectations and offer education and training to assist repatriates in the creation of reasonably healthy social infrastructures safeguarded against poverty. These three sections include Social Development Initiatives, Emotional and Mental Preparedness Techniques and Business Affairs Training.
The Business Affairs courses will give in depth training using self-perpetuating knowledge i.e. that which will not remain stagnant at the physical center of CDRA but will create a ripple effect so that all attendees can teach their communities within Kala Camp and the communities to which they will be repatriated the knowledge they have acquired. In this way, the cycle of sound applicable business practices will be spread outward as infectious transferable social change at the individual level. This section of the project was developed in response to research conducted by Operations Director, Diana Essex* in the summer of 2006 in the three refugee camps on which FORGE (Facilitating Opportunities for Refugee Growth and Empowerment) operates as an Operating Partner of the UNHCR: Kala, Mwange and Meheba. Given the ability to develop appropriate market economies and the knowledge to use savings-led micro finance to stabilize sound business endeavors, the Congolese repatriates feel that they will be capable of sustaining their communities in DRC.
*Research reports and meeting with Diana available upon request.

Economic Crash Course Workshop
The ECC Workshop is developed to give a general knowledge of economics as applicable to the refugee paradigm. It will serve as a foundation of knowledge from which participants can continue their studies. It will address basic ideas necessary for both the Savings-led Micro Finance courses and Business Development training. It will give a global economic perspective and relate that knowledge to sustainable community economics using culturally applicable examples and simple language absent of unnecessary jargon. It will also give note to the change in economic situation that will be experienced in the move from Zambia to DRC. It will emphasize the affect of international aid on African communities and dispel common economic fallacies while encouraging strong belief in the idea of self-sufficiency.

Savings-led Micro Finance Courses
SLMF will teach groups and individuals the importance of pooling financial resources in order to create a means by which budgetary short falls within the community can be satisfied. Upon completion of the course they will have an understanding of how SLMF can work both on the refugee camp and how they can take the knowledge back to DRC to assist in the development of healthy market economies at the community level. They will understand their rights as contributing members of the fund, borrowers, business people and repatriates. SLMF was developed in response to the success of micro lending institutions in suburban India and Bangladesh and the desire of rural African communities to be free of international assistance. Its perpetuating knowledge system has proven highly successful in both South America and Sub-Saharan Africa allowing under developed communities to live and educate others self-sufficiently. We will work with refugees to tailor this concept to the refugee and repatriate paradigm.

Business Development Training
BDT will ensure that trade skills such as hairdressing, carpentry, fish farming, agro-farming and brick making, of individuals and groups are directed by a basic knowledge of entrepreneurial organization so that they might reach the ambition of moving from subsistence to a sustainable income. We will train the students in steps that will take into consideration all aspects of their current and future situation to establish a business model that suits the community, fulfills a need and is able to be carried on after repatriation. Though starting a business in rural Zambia and DRC has an entirely different connotation than that in developed areas, we will collaborate with the Congolese refugees to guarantee compatibility. Basic accounting and in-depth market considerations will be discussed. We will also demonstrate the interaction of businesses, the formation of a market economy and the link to SLMF.

FORGEnow.org

FORGEnow.org

2007-04-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

As we grow, change and start to work instead of talk....so do our blogs! Who knew?!

Going forward, LaVoixHumaine will host information on the project that I will be implementing in Kala Refugee camp in Northwest Zambia. Some of you have donated generously and I THANK YOU!! Others heard about these fundraising needs through myself or one of my great supportive friends. To be honest, I am less than half way to the minimum fundraising goal with only 2.5 months to go! This worries me as I need to have $7,500 in the FORGE bank no later than June 1st. This is divided as shown below. PLEASE HELP! Pass this link along, email people you know - ANY help you can offer is so very appreciated!

TO DONATE:
Go to www.FORGEnow.org
Click "Donate Now" and proceed.
ALL amounts - big, small and in between - are very much appreciated!!
PLEASE NOTE on the donation "Kala - Rachelle" so that it will be properly credited.

Fundraising break down:
85% of all the following go to my portion of the project, 15% goes to the FORGE umbrella
This is the MINIMUM estimate.
$4,000 - Travel, Ground transport (for myself and the gear), housing in the camp, food, a night
guard for the house, trips the Kawambwa (the local town) for supplies, bike for
around camp transport, portion of FORGE car upkeep, etc.
$1,200 - a portion of refugee teachers and administrators' salaries for 2 years, curriculum
material, printing, building upkeep, paint for building, chairs, chalk board etc.
$2,300 - a portion of the building in which CDRA will be housed

We are working from the bottom up here and in the refugee camp! Small amounts add up so don't be shy!

Thank you so much! Hope you are all well!

The BBC Goes Blatantly Sexist

2006-06-04T08:28:00.000-07:00

Now, some of you may think that I am overly sensitive to gender discrimination considering that I am, heaven forbid, a gggiiirrrllll. Perhaps you would be right to make such an assumption. But I think not. I will tell you, though, that if a feminist group ever asked be to join? They would be met with decisive skepticism. But that is neither here nor there.

In reading this quarter's "BBC Focus on Africa," I see that the detail offered by a "Noname" writer on a particular seven members newly appointed to Tanzania's cabinet as overseen by president Jakaya Kikwete, is the biggest most blatant insult I've seen in western print....ever.

And I quote:
"Taking over the finance and foreign affairs portfolios respectively, they wield some heavy-duty lipgloss, and, by all accounts, they have the mouths to wear them. ( ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?! ....Noname continues...) Renowned for their, eloquence, dedication and impeccable records in public service, their presence offers a long-overdue 'heads up' to their male counterparts." (Heads-up what? That woman do actually have the capacity to be as competent and capable as men even while having to endure antiquated insults that their male counterparts have never had to deal with?!?!)

Little rule of thumb, small-weenie-Noname (Readers, I ask your pardon for my crassness but not for the demasculinating insult...I mean, why is it, really, that you think men take more interest in the lips of women than in their legitimate accomplishments and qualifications as professionals?.....because they want to take them to lunch and refuse to let us pay, just so we understand their financial prowess?!?!?!?!?!?!?), if what you are going to say about anyone in any position of power obtained by any legal means (i.e. appointment or election) can construe that that person is either male or female after the removal of the subject reference, THEN CHANGE YOUR SENTENCE! Have you ever heard a reporter comment on the unusually supple lips or deep, dreamy blue eyes of a male official? Do you understand that in doing so you are invalidating any legitimate accomplishments you site following your d*ck-driven comment?!?!? Now, the collective name for the seven women appointees throughout east Africa is "Kikwete's babes" - nothing tiny-tot-Noname could do about that. But then mini-puder-Noname closes the article with the following:

"Former French Prime Minister, Alain Juppe (a derivative of the French word for skirt), famously gave a group of women (as if they were a band of insurgents making threats to get a post), known as his (he posesses them now!?!) jupettess or 'mini-skirts' , a leg up into his cabinet (oh, gee thanks for the helpin hand "mas'a" and that pun?! Did he really put mini-skirt and 'leg up' in the same sentence? How about 'grab and twist' in the same sentence as 'boxers or briefs' comfortable?). For better or worse, at least for the sake of equality (WHAT?!), perhaps, one day, it will be 'Ellen's eye-candy' hot on the heels of 'Kikwete's babes'."

No, no, no, no! What you don't understand puny-pee-pee-Noname is that we DON'T WANT TO come up with cutesy little insults for the males we work with. You think we want to turn the tables to the point that well quaified men are mocked on a level unrelated to thier competence?

SO - my point is, the magazine's email address is focus.magazine@bbc.co.uk the Editor-in-Chief is Joseph Warungu.

Absolutely unacceptable on any continent. And, let me remind you, THIS CAME FROM A BBC WRITER! Not some right-wing nut job in the US, not from a dinky reporting agency in Istambul, not a state run newspaper in the UAE, which, would all be more susceptible to preferential publishing. This is ONE OF THE LARGEST NEWS MILLS IN THE WORLD PROMOTING BLATANTLY BIASED COMMENTARY ON APPOINTED OFFICIALS IN A NON-EDITORIAL NEWS ARTICLE....only for the reason that they are female....uuhhmm...anyone want to refresh their memory as to the definition of sexism? Discrimination? FACTUAL REPORTING?..................................Buehler?...................Buehler?.....

PS - If you don't get the intended irony of the male sexist comments splashed throughout....please read a less brazen blog ;)

Immigration Policy

2006-06-03T06:28:00.000-07:00

In recent months, the issue of illegal immigration has plagued the United States. Talks of deportation, border walls, military presence along the borders, revocation of driver's licenses, a guest worker program all this along with a you're-a-racist-for-thinking-that-a-sovereign-country-
has-the-right-to-protect-its-already-dilapidated-
infrastructures-from-being-further-taxed-
by-non-citizens-who-don't-pay-taxes-or-work-in-
a-capacity-that-would-bolster-the-limited-
social-structures-we-do-have-set-up-for-
the-benefit-of----US----CITIZENS attitude.

However, according to a judge in Zambia, we are already doing the right thing with our illegal immigrants! A UK businessman who overstayed his visa to Zambia, by an undisclosed amount of time, has been sentenced to gardening for 15 days......

...........................................is..........uh........is he making fun of us?

Biggest Tease

2006-06-02T21:16:00.000-07:00

Three days ago, the headphones to my beautiful, black, 60gb, video iPod died. Too lazy to replace them as of yet, I have been deprived of their shelter since....and life has been oddly real. I understood how the presence of music on long walks up to campus, bus rides, work days, study outings and gym sessions could uplift your mood, increase your diligence and focus your game. However, I had not realized that this iPod was my crack.

As a hermit by nature, crowds annoy. I could spend a year in solitary with nothing but white walls and find entertainment...but the last three days, without the iPod, have reawaken senses I had forgotten were valid. I feel the cool keys as I type, I hear the weights clink back into place as I lower to a halt at the end of a squats set, I hear the murmur of people speaking around me, I feel my chest restricted as the smoke from the patio outside drifts in to find me, I hear a song playing over the cafe speakers; one of my favorite songs from high school that I haven't heard since...and it brings a sadness to me. I realize that enhancing my mood and heightening my heartrate by way of selfishly selected playlists brings with it a dichotomy that actually affects how I react to my environment. For one, there are songs that make me smile to myself when I wanted to cry but two minutes before. Yet it takes from me the reality in which I am actually knee deep...........this reality is not particularly enjoyable: it seems to drag on, moment by moment similar to the difference between driving a car down the street or walking there instead; only you don't get there any faster.

I wonder, if we are all such lonely creatures, constantly seeking out and needing contact with others - by touch, by warmth, by communal areas, by listening, by watching, by being watched, by asking, by hearing, by drunken hook-ups, by servicing institutions, by reading, by buying, by hoping, by smiling, laughing, needing, wanting, crying, shopping, squeezing, forgetting, crashing, leaving, clinging, being left, waiting, fighting - why do we cling to our iPods? To console the soul when the contact never comes? To remind ourselves that you can only take care of number one and hope for organic connections to plow into you hard enough to throw your earphones off? But, then....well, are we not enclosing ourselves in musical capsules at the bursting of which we react with fury against people we don't know but may have had a chance at connecting with?

Where did the "we" go?

Mais si, j'existe toujours!

2006-05-14T19:17:00.000-07:00

Donnez-moi un peu plus de temps pour faire quelque recherche et je retournerai!
Pardonnez-moi s'il vous plait! C'est un trimestre incroyablement difficile pour moi...
Merci!

Uganda: Military Dictatorship, Elections of an Unknown Sort and Unwanted Visits From the Neighbors

2006-01-21T19:55:00.000-08:00

President Yoweri Museveni and his one time rebel-comrade-turned-personal-physician, Dr. Kizza Besigye, just don't seem to be able to get along these days! I guess Dr. Besigye's return from exile in South Africa just in time to pose the only formidable threat to Museveni's third ten-year term as President, jjjuussttt isn't sitting well. Never mind the fact that Museveni originally campaigned on the idea that one of the greatest sources of corruption in all of Africa is the fact that once leaders get power they are not willing to let it go; this, hence standing in the way of true democracy. Of course, this is what he said in 1986 when he was first elected and also prior to him thanking the congress for categorically extending (a) the length of the Presidential Term and (b) the number of times one can be elected into the position.....hhhmmm...

One Ugandan was recently quoted in the print version of BBC Focus on Africa as saying "Of course we want Museveni again, because of his achievements; there is peace in Uganda and we are not troubled by soldiers." Uh, lady, where do you live??? Since Besigye's return to Uganda in late 2005, Museveni's "Men in Black" (aka "Black Mumba's Urban Hit Squad" - no joke, apparently the local Ugandan papers also enjoyed "Kill Bill") - an elite 21 man, heavily armed force comprising "the new face of the Ugandan Military"- have been hunting down Besigye and his 14 closest allies on treason charges. Minor detail: the Ugandan civilian court had already reviewed the case and released these men on bail. The “Men in Black” were assembled to bring Besigye and his men in front of a Ugandan Military court, which, in a previous ruling by Uganda’s Constitutional Court, was found to be inherently inferior to the rulings, precedents and decisions made by the civilian court. Once again: hhhmmm. No wonder Museveni got touchy when opposition leaders accused his government of being “a military dictatorship in disguise”….Uh, what disguise.

In addition to this Machiavellian ballet for political power, the DRC’s hunted refugees are flooding the Ugandan border. Turns out that not only are the state troops of the DRC and the UN blue helmets fighting together against the usual rebels, but battalions within the DRC army are fighting one another. What does this mean for Uganda? A new and delicate campaign issue: What to do with the, thus far, 2,000 refugees…. and who will take what stand...hhhhmmmm....

Rape: Liberia and Internationally

2006-01-21T18:28:00.000-08:00

Subject: Rape

"What has finally made this a public issue is the fact that the fighting is over, but the rape has not stopped."

"Men were forced to have intercourse with their daughters in front of the soldiers," Ms Boiwu said.
"The soldiers forced brother and sister or son and mother to have sex in front of the husband ... So it broke the family ties."

"We have prosecuted a single case since 1999. And we prosecuted that one case because during that time, it was a female judge that was sitting on the case."

ONE CASE OUT OF HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS HAS BEEN PROSECUTED SINCE 1999.
The power of scourged, raped, violently abused, and entirely ignored women brought a female president to power in Liberia and the first word out of her mouth at her inauguration was rape. Good for her.

BAD UN AND PAKISTAN first of all for allowing the gang rape of one of their women per "tribal law" for her brother's crime and second of all for benching her everytime she tries to speak on US soil....ridiculous.

You know, I was about to publish this post and I googled the word "rape" thinking I would be able to find international statistics regarding the violence of rapes and their prosecution percentages in different countries................I am, in a way and in a way not at all, shocked that what came up was OVER 20 PAGES of pornographic depictions of rape. These are not sites condemning the action, there seem to be few disclaimers deterring viewers from partaking in the act that they are watching and (from the very first page it brings you to) there are crying women, bound, defenseless, showing marks of physical abuse on their bodies as menacing men stand over them smiling and touching. Americans think that they are so much more "civilized" and evolved than the rest of the world when really, instead of openly partaking in such depraved acts, they are reinacted in turn encouraging those unable to think for themselves to commit these horrid acts against OUR women.

I am disgusted and ashamed of the arrogance that gives life to such degradation.

Bob The Creepy Snowman

2006-01-15T20:50:00.000-08:00

From the choices below, please select the candidate best suited to run a restaurant, hotel chain, oil company, non-profit organization or -oh I dunno - a country.

Please, take your time. Weigh each of their qualifications carefully and post your decision - only after reviewing all of them thoroughly. Now, I realise that the pictures representing each of these candidates aren't exactly flattering, but do try to be impartial.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

Exhibit D

.........uuuhhhh.... I'm personally gonna go with A through C - all, any or any combination of these that excludes D....but that's just me....

Le Grand Amour...**

2006-01-15T10:01:00.000-08:00

Je suis dans la solitude une fois de plus. Je sais bien que c'etais le bon histoire de ma vie. Je comprends bien qu'il est meilleur d'être seule, mais pourqoui il me fait un peu triste? C'est parceque j'aime bien le sentiment d'un autre étant qui sait ton coeur...neamoins, je ne crois pas que c'etait jamais possible. Il y a des amis qui pensent qu'ils te connaissent, mais je suis sûr que c'est un rêve impossible...

Donc, ce matin quand je lisait les nouvelles, je me suis rappelé ce qui est d'importance dans la vie. Oui, des vrais amis sont très important pour mon coeur. J'ai des amis qui m'aime n'import ce que se passer dans ma vie pas idéal. Je les aime beaucoup. Mais, aussi, je suis certain qu'un qui souhaite vivre une vie d'importance pour un monde en douleur, doive mener une vie solitaire. Si non? Choses comme les petits amour tous tort va arrêter leur progression. Nous devons nous focaliser sur la grande image et pas sur nos-même. Il y a tant de problèmes plus importants que nos propres coeurs...Le grand amour existe: pas chez une personne, mais partout. Il est là...je suis sûr...
_______________________
** Si vous ne parlez pas le français, n'essayez pas de tranduire ce passage....ce n'est jamais précis et je déteste cela!

Jamais Plus Ça?

2005-12-20T17:13:00.000-08:00

"The peacebuilding commission will help countries make the transition from war to peace. It will advise on recovery, it will focus attention on reconstruction and institution building," Mr Annan said.

"It will improve co-ordination both within and beyond the UN system. Perhaps most important of all, it will liaise with the international community to keep us all engaged in the long-term recovery effort."

Now, all I have to say is:
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!
Do we not remember that this was the exact purpose of UNAMIR prior AND DURING the Rwandan Genocide? Have we forgotten that the entirety of that mission was to "help [a country] make the transition from war to peace"?? And that the international community was entirely aware but just didn't give a shit?

Are you KIDDING ME with this? Give me specifics! Tell me, Mr. Annan, will the peace keepers dispatched by those involved in this "new department" have computers? Will they have enough food? Will the troops be supplied by countries who will actually be willing to stand behind the mission even if there are casualties incurred for the purpose of seeing it through? Will the UN outfit these troops with enough rations? Ammunition? Education? Information? Will the UN listen when the Force Commander on the ground speaks out intelligently in a fashion that would have ended the bloodshed before it started? Will we be addressing the symptoms of these nations at the core of their disease rather than slapping a band-aid on their forehead and patting them on the ass with a knowing wink as they keep the violence out of the international headlines? Are you willing to send troops in with a Chapter VII peacekeeping mission so that they can at least protect themselves if you won't listen closely enough to allow them to save others??????? Or will you cut them at the knees from the get go and then watch as they are beaten to death - never breaking your eye contact? Are YOU prepared for that Mr. Annan?

Answer those questions and THEN..MAYBE I will restore SOME faith in your beleaguered efforts...until then, don't you DARE forsake the past and those who died under your time as the head of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations in 1994.

Why Africa?

2005-12-19T19:01:00.000-08:00

At times, I am asked to explain the reason behind my insatiable interest in Sub-Saharan Africa. This question has actually stumped me for a very long time.

I grew up very much doubting that I would be much more than a mother, wife and friend. Although my education was certainly encouraged, I was not the smartest in my family: but I was the artist of the family. None of my history classes mentioned, never mind educated me about Africa. Yet, as a singer, I was introduced to the rhythmic harmonies of African tribal chants and four or five part harmonies that absolutely blew western music away. The spirit I felt from those songs has stuck with me to this day. I have to say that that is where it started.

I remember my fascination at having to use every glottal sound, every pitch, every tongue roll, every clap, slap, stomp, aspiration, nasal vowel and most of all, for the first time, having my artistic energy challenged. The spirit these songs required was refreshing and the European renaissance pieces of constructed triplets, trills, romantic themes and sustained crecendos fell to the floor.

When I hear African music, I crave to knowit. Opera, musical theatre, madrigals and all other constructed art forms of western origin hold no candle to the deep spirituality of a tormented people who were known to shock oppressors by singing these enormously spirit-moving harmonies. On slave ships, while working on American Plantations; while trudging through the uncharted L'Etat Independant du Congo, bound at the neck with chains and forced to carry supplies for their white 'diplomats'; adhereing to a philosophy of non-violence after years of white rule has taken away the one man who can lead the native people to freedom; walking home from segregated schools erected on their own land and taught by their own oppressors - songs of striking beauty and deepest heart rise up. And in the churches built by Europan colonizers on African land, churches where natives have been betrayed and abused if not murdered, music more beautiful than any church in the world flows from each attendee to humbly invite the spirit of God. They sing for purpose and for comfort. They sing songs that everyone knows and music truly is a universal language.

There are songs that can make the sun rise during the pitch of night. There are songs that have healed the personal, national and continental wounds of the many peoples who live there. There have also been songs sung against others; there have been the most terrible songs man could find pouring out of the mouths of rival tribes. But man will never find more intricately composed or spiritually comprehensive pieces of art outside of Africa. When art has a purpose beyond decoration, and the artists embrace pain while maintaining hope, the product is irresistible.

Selfishness makes us Heartless

2005-12-11T12:05:00.000-08:00

Sitting outside on the crowded patio of my local Starbucks (which I hear is owned by Satan), reminds me of an elongated text message conversation I once had with my closest friend. We were contemplating three things: the irrelevance, the loneliness and the shallowness of coffee shop twalk and what a great and mindless sitcom could be made with all of the material we have gathered at our respective coffee shops. (Big ups to the Deitrichs in Laguna Beach and the SB on B&SM)

Irrelevance:
Personally, I am tired of being asked if I am an actress, if I want to be an actress, if what I am reading is a "good script" or if I would be willing to "model." I take all such inquiries (mostly from fat, old men whose gut juts out beyond the toes of their tiny shoes and whose three hairs fly wildly above the shiny crown of their fat head and glisteningly lazy-lip which is always on the verge of drooling) as an insult. Ya think women wear headphones while reading for a reason!?!?!?!?!? But, so goes living in LALA land.

loneliness:
I also hate over hearing "arena shop twalk" (that is a copy righted phrase, so hands off) going on around me as I intensely study advanced quantum physics. "Arena Shoppers" is what I call people who wish to enter the romantic 'arena' with the 'perfect person'..............................from match.com. They meet on the internet after having sifted through many other prospects and have decided to finally go out on a limb and meet with this one. Having previously only seen each others' severely touched up profile pictures, they ask questions that they think will save them the usual uncertainty of having to dedicate their precious time to actually meeting and dating someone they have met at a trustworthy, mutually-attended event or frequented establishment. First of all, NO!!! I am not Janet, Britney, Sharon, Samantha, Courtey, Elizabeth, Cheryl, Jennifer, Rebecca, Dee, Heidi, Martha, Mary, Shaniqua, TitiLala, Meredith, Shannon, Nicole, Lisa, Linda, Linda, Sheppy, Moetie, or anyone the hell else you are looking for...ha! YOU WISH! (* gosh! * ) Second of all, you sitting down with each other in your best dress and asking questions like "where do you see yourself in five years," "what are your top three goals for the next year," "are you a relationship person," "do you like ice cream," and "what is your favorite food/color/cheese/movie star/whatever" IS NOT GOING TO HELP YOU!!! And lastly, get a muzzle. You think that those sitting around you can't tell that you met on the internet? You did, we know it and we don't want to hear what you are saying because it drains us of the hope we once had, not in romance, but in the goodness of humanity!! So SHUT IT!

Shallowness:
THEN, there are the couples, business associates, groups of friends and study buddies who sum up their lives in "oh my god"s, "like totally, yeauh"s, "I mean, you know"s and "k"s. Although I have tried to eavesdrop enough to find some sort of context or subject matter...I still have not been able to pin it down. The conversation revolves around potential men/women/shoes/cars/sex/jobs/money. Are we always so self absorbed?

These being mine and my friends three beefs, I wonder if anyone in LA has relevant conversations that lack playful ambiguity and allow someone to really know them, their aspirations, their hopes and their larger picture longings. You know, I looked at the patchy, white, fluffy clouds above me about 20 minutes ago and they seemed so unchanging. I wondered, do we realize that we all live under the same beautifully decorated sky? We as humans, whether in the shallow LA or the impoverished Sub-Saharan Africa, share more in common than the things we try so hard to use to distinguish ourselves from others. The clouds, over 20 minutes are irreconcilably different. Such intricacies are built into the very world we live...and we have nnnnoooooo clue.

Everyone knows that my beef with the western world is its inability to value on an equal level, people from other cultures and seemingly different worlds. When it comes down to it, individuals are undeniably selfish, thinking only of themselves and that which affects their lives. I am no different. I worry constantly about what I need to do to get to where I want to be so that I can be happy in my ability to help others.

Those whose loved ones died in the recent Nigerian plane crash are not only thinking of themselves, but of the transient and painful nature of life. Those killed in the fire at a wedding in Pakistan hurt at the core of their existence; not about losing some adolescently tingly interest, but for ones who they have loved unconditionally from birth to incomprehensible death. All in all, Los Angeles will spend the week worrying about the gay male relationship portrayed in the multi-million dollar film, "Brokeback Mountain" while the rest of the under developed countries will spend their time wondering if they will be allowed the freedom and protection to vote without losing their lives, whether one of the people responsible for the wrongful deaths of thousands will be held rightfully accountable, and when the next time they will be able to pass a peaceful night will be.

Stop spending your energy on what shoes go with which outfit. Get a clue.

Top 10 Sites that People Mistake for Mine

2005-12-09T20:47:00.000-08:00

10) http://www.soulmusic.com/augustnews.htm

9) http://www.lsus.edu/ba/alumni/alumni_details.asp?ID=12

8 - 5 were all of "questionable content" which I, as a classy young lady, refuse to post

4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachelle_Waterman/GoogleArchive

3) http://www.rachelleb.com/001319.html

2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochelle,_Rochelle

1) http://blogs.warpedworld.org/rachelle/archives/2004_08.html

No, G, I don't think I am fat, nor do I intend to get lyposuction and, no, I am not going to permanently straighten my hair (sorry, SPMG - there you made the blog...twice!! That'll be $2.50)

Rwanda - Key Players

2005-12-06T22:22:00.000-08:00

Political analysis at the domestic level examines ideological, societal and structural factors that contribute to actions taken by an individual nation-state within the international community. In this theory, the nation-state is viewed as a non-unitary actor whose internal factors solidify final foreign policy decisions. Using this view to expound upon the Rwandan genocide of 1994, facilitates the analysis of the actions of four countries.

Rwanda, the United States, France and Belgium each had decisive domestic level factors contributing to their policies of peremptory passivity toward the massacres in Rwanda. The question is, what was the individual reasoning behind each of these four countries that either drove them to adopt policies of “inaction”[1] (the United States and Belgium), to wait out the turmoil of the people in Rwanda and then take late unilateral action (France), or fall into a “power vacuum”[2] (Rwanda) which collectively permitted the genocide to take place? For Rwanda, cultural and political disunity dominated the decisions of their fledgling interim government, while the US was held back from action by past humanitarian failures in Africa and a lack of public and national interest in Rwanda itself. France and Belgium withheld their assistance as their desire to maintain political ties with the Rwandan government dominated policy decisions right up until public opinion was belatedly stirred by negative media coverage. At that point Belgium heeded cries to pullout and France took the main foreign responsibility for stopping the génocidaires.

Rwanda – The Perpetrator and the Victim

Though genocide is a familiar concept throughout Rwandan history, there are tangible reasons as to why the long-simmering pot of political and civil unrest exploded on a previously unprecedented scale in April 1994. Culturally, is it easy to observe the centuries of an oppressed Hutu majority growing bitter against the ruling Tutsi minority. The largest of these groups’ periodic genocides prior to1994, was the systematic murder of 200,000 Hutu by Tutsi in Rwanda’s neighboring country of Burundi.[3] Though it was this ongoing ethnic dispute that weighed most heavily on the decisions made by both sides in the time leading to the uprising of Hutu in 1994, it was actually the more specific domestic factors that triggered the onslaught of willing participants.

Structurally, the government of Rwanda was nearly non-existent due to the potent competition amid varying military and political groups scrambling for power. In August 1993, the Arusha Accords were signed between the Hutu led Rwandan government and the Tutsi led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) for the purpose of balancing the government between these two main competing political entities. The Arusha Accords established a twenty-two month time frame – intended to end in May of 1995 – by the end of which open elections were to have been held and a two-party system was to have been established. The United Nations Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) led by Major General Roméo Dallaire, was put into place in October of 1993 on a Chapter VI peacekeeping mission to assist the country in peaceably abiding by these guidelines. Unfortunately, the street violence and ethnicism continued to rage at an uncontrollable intensity.[4] With no single group steering the country toward peace, but many regimes willing to fight for power, Rwanda seemed never to have had a legitimate chance to follow the road toward peace as laid out by the Arusha Accords. A huge contributor to this multifaceted conflict between fledgling political parties, and a means by which it showed itself to society was the local media.

Radio-Television Libre des Milles Collines (RTLM) broadcast incessant communiqués condemning to death the UN, Rwandan government, supporters of democracy and the Tutsi race as well as moderate government officials sympathetic to the Tutsi. In a country dependant upon radio programming as their sole source for informational dissemination, the Rwandan people had no means by which to counter such negative propaganda and misinformation. It was masterfully used to rally the chosen against the condemned. Public opinion was molded exclusively by these broadcasts. Though Dellaire pleaded with the UN and the UN in turn with the US to implement counter broadcasts for the education of Rwandans regarding human rights and the development of their own government, neither was willing to foot the bill for the operation.[5] Leaving the people with nothing to believe but “hate radio” broadcast by radical RTLM, government extremists prepared the Hutu commoners to take advantage of the ensuing “power vacuum.”[6]

On April 6, 1994 at 8:20pm, just prior to its scheduled landing at Kigali airport, President Habyarimana’s plane was shot down by two ground-to-air missiles. The hours following this tragedy became internationally tumultuous as a meeting of the cabinet and the UN delegation concluded that “everyone responsible for the country’s security was dead.”[7] Rwanda’s president, its head of presidential security and its army chief perished in the plane crash. The minister of defense and the head of army intelligence were out of the country and the corrupt cabinet manipulatively deemed the prime minister “incapable of governing.”[8] Colonel Theoneste Bogosora vied to fill the power gap and is now known as an accomplice to (if not the conductor of) the ensuing genocide.
In addition to deep-seated cultural conflict, a complete lack of leadership, negative propaganda from the media, a molding of public opinion against Tutsi and the most powerful positions in government having been filled by those responsible for the organization of the genocide; the international community had a large role in passively allowing the chaos to unfold.

The United States and Belgium - The Bystanders

The United States adopted a policy of inaction towards the events in Rwanda. Specifically, they declined military intervention, blocked UN resolutions that could have raised the bar on the aggressive capacity available to the UNAMIR peacekeepers already in the place and encouraged all countries on the ground, including those involved with the UN peacekeeping force, to fully withdraw all resources until peace could be established.[9] As the death toll climbed to nearly one million Tutsi within 100 days, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African affairs, Prudence Bushnell continued to merely insist that Rwandan cabinet director and coordinator of the genocide, Colonel Theoneste Bagosora return to the “peace process” begun in the Arusha Accords of 1993.[10] This failure to address the genocide itself, which was already well underway, suited the United States’ desire to remain out of the conflict.

Public opinion in the US was nearly untouched by the atrocities due to a lack of media coverage. On April 22, 1994 the White House released a one page statement by the Press Secretary imploring specific Rwandan military leaders to “end the violence.” This attention was granted only at the incessant urging of Human Rights Watch and is the sole example of high-level attention given to this foreign policy debacle.[11] The US was additionally already timid in the Rwanda situation due to past failures in aggressive multilateral peacekeeping efforts. Somalia and Haiti popped the balloon of the Clinton Administration’s hopes to focus on international humanitarian needs. As “The Clinton Administration’s Policy on Reforming Multilateral Peace Operations, May 1994” concludes, “the U.S. cannot be the world’s policemen.”[12] In this document, 25 points were established to determine whether the US ought to get involved in any peace operation. The main focus is on the fact that any action taken by the US ought to only be approved if it “advances U.S. interests, and there is an international community of interest for dealing with the problem on a multilateral basis.”[13] Though the international community of interest may have been present for multilateral intervention, the other countries with interest opted to follow the lead of the US in refraining from acting on such interests.

Having once been the ruling colonial power in Rwanda and having assisted in the election of a Hutu extremist as its first president in 1962, Belgium had a history with Rwanda but had since become greatly unpopular with its people.[14] Late in 1993, threats made on the lives of Belgian soldiers by the local media triggered a spiral of violent incidents. Belgian troops beat leaders of the rebel group Coalition pour la Defense de la Republique (CDR), who in turn surrounded a minibus of Belgian troops chanting “Tutsi, Tutsi” as well as CDR threw a grenade into the Belgian Colonel Luc Marchal’s headquarters in Kigali.[15] The hostility toward Belgium was growing worse by the day. On the evening of the President’s plane crash, 20 Belgian troops stationed at Kigali airport were taken into custody by the Rwandan Presidential Guard and some disarmed.[16] These incidents were relayed to Brussels and made public in Belgium where the population immediately cried for withdraw of their troops. The last straw came when ten Belgian peacekeepers were seized, disarmed, killed, striped and savagely mutilated: so much so that when Roméo Dellaire finally located the bodies in the backyard of a ravaged hospital, he was unable to determine the number of bodies in the stack of decaying flesh.[17] No longer was Belgian pubic opinion questionable: they wanted a full withdrawal and they wanted it immediately.[18]
France – The Cavalry?

France had been a longtime supporter and stronghold for President Habyarimana whose downed jet had been a gift from the French President Francois Mitterand.[19] In addition to such personalized gifts, France was largely responsible for organizing the purchase of nearly US$112 million worth of weapons stock piled by the Rwandan government between 1990 and 1994. The paper trail linking France to these purchases made on behalf of the poorest, most famin stricken country in the world, were destroyed as the intentions behind the mass weapons cache became glaringly obvious , even to the unsuspecting.[20] With such controversial ties to the wrong end of politics in the war torn country, the last action France wanted to take was to step into the spotlight to prevent a disaster they ultimately assisted in developing. As the country with which Rwanda felt it had the closest international bond, France was accused of abandoning them in their darkest hour. France, however, did end up intervening on June 23, 1994 as “Operation Turquoise” established humanitarian strongholds in the southwest by Cyngugu and Gikongoro where refugees and killers alike came under French protection.[21] The reasoning behind this unilateral military action was to counteract its previously misguided weapons purchases on behalf of the génocidaires. After literally watching the bodies pile up around them, France felt t their responsibility to intercede and finally attempted to end the slaughter in August 1994: 100 days after it began.

Though other countries could have chosen to involve themselves in the prevention of this disaster, as well as the US, Rwanda, Belgium and France could have chosen to take more forceful action to prevent the genocide; each country had their reasons for acting as they did. These domestic level factors, whether structural, societal or ideological, each present compelling arguments in explanation of how the Rwandan genocide of 1994 was allowed to occur.
_________________________________________________________
[1] Samantha Power. “Bystanders to Genocide.” The Atlantic Monthly. September 2001: 2.
[2] Linda Malvern Conspiracy to Commit Murder: The Rwandan Genocide. (London: Verso, 2004) 137.
[3] Bill Berkeley. The Graves are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe and Power in the Heart of Africa. (New York: Basic books, 2001) 238.
[4] Malvern 319.
[5] Malvern 103-107.
[6] Malvern 137.
[7] Malvern 136.
[8] Malvern 138.
[9] United States of America, The National Security Archive, The US and the Genocide in Rwanda 1994: Evidence of Inaction. (Washington D.C., National Security Archive: 2001) 1-12.
[10] USA 5.
[11] USA 4.
[12] USA, Document 9, 15.
[13] USA, Document 9, 4.
[14] Malvern 8.
[15] Malvern 102.
[16] Malvern 103.
[17]
[18] Power 9.
[19] Power 7.
[20] Malvern 57.
[21] Malvern 242.

Back to Africa

2005-12-06T21:50:00.000-08:00

OK!!! Ok already!
I have had complaints pouring in about my lack of posts on Africa (just..one, actually...........ehem!) and all I have to say is YOU work fulltime and go to school fulltime and see what kind of posts YOU make, THEN we can talk...until then, just be thankful I can form a proper sentence...er...well...most of the time!!

...and now for something completely different...

(first one to email me with the correct answer as to where that quote is from gets a FANTASTIC(ly lame) PRIZE!!!)

Tree Hugging? ***

2005-11-19T13:55:00.000-08:00

***
Just had myself a bit of a cuddle with a Chritopher Pine**...not bad... a little prickly, but I am told that that is to be expected from that breed of tree...I don't think I'll continue the relationship though... It was more of a trial relationship for me anyway since I am NOT into the whole tree hugger bit.

So stop asking...that's right, I'm talking to you... you know who you are....

***Disclaimer: No that is NOT a picture of me...I happen to be much more attractive....for a midget...

**No I don't even know if that type of tree exists so don't email me to tell me that I am a loser because "Christopher Pine" is not a real tree type thing... I don't care. NO, not even a little.

Honey? Can we take a cruise off the coast of Somalia this fall?

2005-11-18T11:41:00.000-08:00

I have two very close friends with whom I recently attended a delightful dinner at Il Fornio in Santa Monica (It has a cute warm bar and elegantly casual Italian dining - I recommend the outside patio for its ocean view and fresh air). So there we were, Ms. D and her husband Mr. P and myself with my closest friend Mr. J. As the topic of conversation turned to Ms. D's and Mr. J's past cruise ship experiences, we all broke into hysterics. Although I have never personally ventured aboard such a mobile city, Mr. J took a weekend cruise from Long Beach Harbor to Ensenada, Mexico and back. Ms. D took a Northern Atlantic cruise from New York to England and back...in the winter.
The information that I was able to gather with regards to cruises in general, is as follows:

1) They are mobile brothels - Everyone is chasing tail, hooking up and trying to do so in a 10' x 10' room with two single beds that are 3 feet apart. Apparently, this is all done in pre-determined shifts so as to minimize mutual interference;

2) Facilitating this ritual, is the ever present and unusually inviting piano bar. Generally the name of the pianist is Tony and the bar never closes. Additionally, when below deck (which was especially inviting on the winter cruise of the North Atlantic - who invented that!?!?!) no one really knows or cares what time of the day it is so the drunken stupor spans the entire cruise;

3) There is a day (or if you are lucky two days) when you depart from the mobile brothel in order to find inviting natives on the shore of freedom. Apparently the politics of avoiding the cruise hookup while "on shore leave" is quite the challenge;

4) Finally, the remainder of the cruise is spent avoiding the "leg-one" hook up who is now mad at you for hooking up during shore leave and additionally for having a drinking problem...So, you drink more to drown that out.

Now, having discovered the intrigue of cruises, I wonder, WHAT IN THE WORLD WERE THESE PEOPLE THINKING TAKING A CRUISE OFF THE COAST OF SOMALIA?!?!?!?!? Now, I can understand them wanting to ignore the fact that they were passing by one of the most impoverished nations on the continent of Africa (because, really, did they want to think about the fact that the amount of food on their ship alone would have fed most of the people in Somalia better in one day than they receive in a week? I think not) and I know they wanted to ignore the fact that this is a country that has no central government nor do they even have a functioning infrastructure...but DO YOUR RESEARCH!!!!! Perhaps had they done a bit of research, they would have discovered that pirating has been a common occurrence off of the Somali shore.

"At least 23 hijackings and attempted seizures have been recorded off the Somali coast since mid-March"

This cruise ship kept a 100 mile distance even though the advisory was that they should remain 150 miles or more off shore........In short, the pirates fired A ROCKET with an actual ROCKET LAUNCHER, through a guest room. And to fight back?....the Cruise Ship Crew - mind you these are failed dancers, rejected Navy ship seamen and the piano bar guy named Tony - defended the ship - full of drunk, love-making fools-as follow's:

"The crew used an on-board loud acoustic bang to deter the gunmen, making them believe they were under fire"

Cruise? $500.
Guinness? $8.
Broadway failures saving hundreds of wasted patrons by making loud noises off the shore of Somalia?
Priceless.

Condi or Clinton II...

2005-11-10T19:58:00.000-08:00

This week, the first female leader was elected....In Africa....not in South Africa, the most white washed of all African countries....but in LIBERIA. This is a country founded on a jacked up American idea that if we were going to finally abolish slavery then we had to do something with all of the Africans now living on our soil. Southerners were so diluted that their idea was to ship the Americanized slaves back to "Africa" (not sure they knew that was an entire continent...) where they could be "liberated to their own people."
Never mind they:
(a) would not know the language of wherever they were dropped off;
(b) had no idea about their African or tribal heritage;
(c) had no legitimate land to claim...(oh but never mind that, because imperialism was widely accepted at the time so pushing people off their land was like that speed bump you don't see coming on that street with no lights....sure it is less than comfortable....but you got over it - nnnnoooo problem!)

CONGRATULATIONS TO ELLEN JOHNSON-SIRLEAF!!!!!! WWWOOO HHHOOOO!!!

The US finds it scandalous that we have a TV show that suggests that a six foot tall, politically experienced, white woman can rule our country. Heaven forbid.

You know, I don't care who the first female running for president is (well, unless it is Kerry's wife, because she is a spoiled beotch!!) I am voting for her....I'll even try to cast more than one vote....out of my district even...I will truck people to the purple states to threaten people into voting for her....

...I'm totally lying, if I didn't think she was insanely competent - I would heckle her and throw things like I used to throw at cheerleaders...who wants the first women president to embarrass us all?!?!?! Ladies, we have a lot riding on this...so, for the love of baby jesus, STOP WITH THE DUMBING DOWN ALREADY!!!!

But Condi or Clinton. I'm in.

Who's Laughing Now?

2005-11-06T18:01:00.000-08:00

Now, I'm not one to laugh at others' pain; but ya know what? France can bite me.

This summer I lived with a tiny French nymph to whom both my boss and closest friend endearingly refer to as "the French Bitch." At first I enjoyed her company, but as things progressed, she turned evil. Among other things, she posted two disparaging items on her narcissistic French blog that clued me in on her naughty little mind: (a) a picture of me passed out on my bathroom floor (make what inferences you must - unless you are my father....Then, just, um, well- let's just say I was sick...) and (b) a list of my sleeping disorders and how they annoyed her....Then there was the "American boyfriend" who, I forced out of the closet as a "friend of Bill's" along with his friend with whom I went on a pity date which ended in him trying to jump me...Which further ended in him crying (inference inference).

ANYway, the nymph frog was here during Katrina. She witnessed my astonishment, tears (and I never cry) and my will to do something. Her reaction: (read this in the accent of the feather duster from Beauty and the Beast - yes, OF COURSE the Disney version) "what a ridiculous country! They obviously do not care to save those kind of people anyway, why should they care now?" Although my instinct was to clothesline her, I couldn't reach down that far.

And now I look at France and all I have to say to that is BITE ME!!! I speak French, I love France but don't send me one of your snobby Parisians for a summer and then expect me to feel bad for civil unrest that your government and your bureaucracy caused in the first place. THIS is not an unexpected natural disaster. This nation-wide rioting is caused by years of racial segregation that was encouraged by policies such as those that forced young Muslim girls to remove their headscarfs in the classroom.

So - I am sorry for the innocent people that are being hurt and the innocent Peugots with Michelin (by the way, the Michelin man's name is Blip) that are being lit on fire. THAT is horrible and I feel for those individuals....but to all you Parisians that calloused your hearts at Katrina because of your color consciousness....look where that has gotten YOUR OWN country.

BITE ME.

WHAT THE Fkjhh

2005-11-05T09:07:00.000-08:00

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE BLOODY BLOG PROGRAMMERS?!?!?! HAVEN'T THEY HEARD OF AUTOSAVE???
Gmail finally figured it out, why not blog?!?!?!?!?!?

Osiwurwoiehftbwieorugjvopiefjdnvgfb

If you have not cried over Katrina, you are clueless

2005-09-03T12:50:00.000-07:00

This isn't about New Orleans.
This is not about The South.
This is not about "Black people"or African-Americans.
This is not about Americans.
This is about human suffering.

I never thought that my studies of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees on the continent of Africa would hit so close to home. Never did I think that mainland America would have to worry about hepatitis A, Cholera, a million refugees left without the basic means for existence. I thank and congratulate the private citizens of the United States and the foreign governments who have responded to this crisis with open hearts and wallets. American people are a people grounded in faith and hope. I am not a patriotic person, but it is with that same faith and hope that the US was founded, held together and has pulled through crises time and again. Though portrayed as monsters and gun happy loons throughout the world, the people are also the most kind and generous you will find anywhere. I congratulate the private American citizens for showing their solidarity though prayer vigils, monetary donations, donations of food and clothing, physical volunteer labor and tears of pain for the survivors and the missing.

We have no one to blame. I have articles detailing the blame that can be placed on the local, state and federal government for not preparing or responding properly, for fighting a war in Iraq that has left domestic tragedy on the back burner: but I refuse to post them. This is not a time to blame one another or hurt one another (as some of the victims of this disaster sadly chose to do). This is a time to weep with one another, understand one anothers' short comings, to forgive and to give hope.

I wish all of you affected by this tragedy great strength and I pray to God that your hearts will be comforted. If there is any assistance that I can personally give, please never hesitate to contact me. I have cried deeply for you.

Women Getting Pregnant in Iraq

2005-08-24T21:31:00.000-07:00

We don't even keep track of it for statistical purposes?
The Armed Forces should issue birth control patches to women soldiers and only restrict this benefit if they, in writing decline. I don't say this because I encourage sexual activity in general not to mention within the Armed Forces not to mention during a war. However, women soldiers would be more effective if they did not have to deal with the monthly onslaught of cramps, fatigue and pain of menstruation. Easing of these symptoms can only be offered them by birth control pills or patches. Just to clarify: I IN NO WAY CONDONE SEXUAL ACTIVITY AMONG SOLDIERS OR ANYONE NOR DO I CONDONE THE WAR. I make the assertion to issue birth control patches not because I think that it would only be better for the purpose of preventing pregnancy. If I thought this, I would say something stupid like "issue every guy a bunch of condoms".....But really, who would be THAT STUPID!! I think women in life have enough trouble getting pressured into having sex, we DO NOT need society finding ways to make men feel better about their decisions to pressure them ESPECIALLY NOT WHEN THEY ARE STUCK IN THE MIDDLE OF A DESERT AND LOOKING FOR COMFORT. Now that that is clear. Please re-read the first sentence. Soldiers have enough to worry about.

Communication

2005-08-24T19:36:00.000-07:00

Today I am sad.

.....This all started when I became angry at the following article absolutely buried in the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday August 23, 2005:

In Brief/In Britain
Police Admit Changing Story of Transit Shooting
From Times Wire Reports
London police acknowledged that a Brazilian shot to death had not run into a subway station, had not vaulted a gate and was not wearing a heavy jacket that could conceal a bomb.
Officers said they had met with Jean Charles de Menezes' cousins in London, as well as with Brazilian consular officials, two days after the shooting to tell them those facts.Police shot Menezes on July 22, the day after the failed transit bombings and two weeks after the deadly July 7 attacks.

I am HURT by this. An innocent HUMAN BEING DIED. WAS MURDERED! And buried in the middle of Los Angeles Times is an 83 word article stating that everything that the London police used to justify their murder of a citizen in the tense days after the London bombings was COMPLETELY BOGUS.

I do not understand!! I don't. Individual human lives are so devalued that we either judge people at the outset so that we can take from them what we need or we punch them in as a statistic and write them off altogether.

He was Brazilian: dark skin, terrified of being mistaken for some terrorist. I have this simple thought: what if they had just talked it through?...what if we were all completely honest with each other and ourselves...I don't understand why this happened in the first place and further why the police (a) LIED about the occurance and (b) issued such a lame, tiny, unsympathetic reversal of their previous assertions...how could they?!?!?

Crime and Punishment at the ICC

2005-08-13T15:38:00.000-07:00

I am NOT a proponent of the death penalty. I would never personally want to be held responsible for cutting short the life of another being regardless of whether I believe they have a chance at redemption or reform, or not. HOWEVER, when I see a ten year trial for the prosecution of someone responsible for the orchestration of the deaths of nearly one million people by the most brutal and primitive means one could fathom, I am forced to ponder the philosophical quandary of punishment suitable to the crime.

No developed country other than the US, utilizes the death penalty. And in the US, what is the benchmark for the death penalty? Usually the brutal nature preceding the end of the crime (i.e. murder), weighs most on whether someone receives life in prison or the death penalty. So if there are two murderers, and one momentarily goes ballistic and murders another human and the other premeditates and follows through with the rape, torture and murder of another human, via the sentencing, supreme law acknowledges that these crimes are not equal. Murderer one would most likely not receive the death penalty where as murderer two would probably have no other choice. The punishment is supposedly tailored to fit the brutality of the crime.

Not so for the International Criminal Court. One of the reasons that the ICC cannot sentence people to death (other than the obvious fact that it is an archaic and undesirable act) is that those prosecuted by the ICC are citizens of varying countries with varying rules of engagement. So how, then, can the ICC (any court really, but above all the ICC) punish according to the crime?

Theoneste Bogosora is responsible for the death of nearly one million people. He is charged with the most weighty crime known to man: Genocide by means of gang rape, torture, mutilation, decapitation, dismemberment, impailment, etc. etc. How can you punish for such an unimaginable crime? Should the ICC be governed by the "rules of the jungle," "eye for an eye": everything planned and executed by Bogosora would be done to him until he gave in to death? However, those responsible for justice can never bow to the level of the criminal. No judge, jury, lawyer, even victim would be willing to see such monstrous actions taken against another human: not even the man responsible for the pain and disappearance of their family, friends, children, loved ones.

There will never be a surprise verdict at the ICC. All criminals, from those responsible for minor indiscretions against the Geneva conventions, to the man responsible for the second largest genocide of the 20th Century, can only be held in a cell. Something about that feels very wrong. Not that I would want to see anyone tortured, regardless of their crime. But I want them reminded, everyday, of the pain and horror they wrongly caused innocent people for no purpose other than their disposal.

War Criminal Updates

2005-08-11T11:33:00.000-07:00

I always enjoy checking in with the UN criminal tribunals to see how the lethargic hunting down and prosecution of various war criminals is coming along. Following is the latest and greatest. Perhaps if the world spent less time worrying about Bin Laden's whereabouts, murderers far greater than he would be brought to justice:

1) Charles Taylor: The once illegitimate leader of Liberia propped up by his rebel force (National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL)), turned President (elected in "free and fair"elections in 1997) has been in exile in Nigeria since 2003. 2003 was the climax of a combined Liberean/Sierra Leonean rebel attack against Charles Taylor's NPFL. These rebels took over Monrovia, Nigerian Peacekeepers arrived (temporarily backed by US troops), the UN managed to pull together a broader reaching peacekeeping force, US troops pulled out and riots continued through 2004. Charles Taylor is accused of "17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity against the people of Sierra Leone by the Special Court. The crimes include killings, mutilations, rape and other forms of sexual violence, sexual slavery, the recruitment and use of child soldiers, abduction, and the use of forced labor by Sierra Leonean armed opposition groups. "
NIGERIA MUST SURRENDER TAYLOR FOR PROSECUTION IN THE SPECIAL SIERRA LEONE COURT.

2) Theoneste Bagosora: Mastermind of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide. He has been in the midst of prosecution by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) since 1996. With the verdict still pending, the ICTR continues to struggle over the legitimacy of expert witnesses and truthfulness of character and other witnesses. If only there were a way to insure a fair trial without all of the ensuing bureaucracyy!
PROSECUTE THE MAN ALREADY!!!!

3) Ratko Mladic: The once invincible military leader of the Serbian Army, was also a man disillusionedd by his own power. During his "ethnic cleansing" campaign (a friendlier phrase for Genocide) of Bosnian Muslims, Mladic took hostage numerous Dutch UN peacekeepers, tying and chaining them to military targets essential to NATO's proposed airstrikes. This delayed intervention and caused Dutch troops to back away from the contested safe areas. This allowed Mladic to commit the largest singular act of ethnic cleansing/genocide since WWII. 7,414 Muslim men were herded into a warehouse and mowed down by automatic weapons and hand grenades. Later, Mladic met with UN Force Commander, British General Rupert Smith. When talks did not go his way, Mladic thugishly declared "I am a war criminal, but you have to talk to me as I am the only one who can allow you to leave Gorzade." Later, Smith pulled all UN troops out of the "safe areas" and intense NATO bombings began.
STILL AT LARGE

4) Slobodan Milosevic: Arrested in April 2001, Milosevic is one of the most infamous war criminals known to our generation. His 13 year reign over the Serbian people ended in the total destruction of the country's infrastructure as well as that of all 6 Yugoslav republics. Responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths and the displacement of nearly the entire country throughout the Croatiann (1991), Bosnian (1992) and Kosovo (1999) wars, Milosevic is the worst man Europe has encountered since Hitler.
CURRENTLY ON TRIAL ICTY

Obviously, there are many more war criminal awaiting trial than I have addressed: The greatest demons are usually the hardest to put down.

Niger Started Crying When Kerry Did!

2005-07-27T09:11:00.000-07:00

As the famine and ensuing starvation crisis in Niger lingers at the forefront of African news today, I do nothing. I sit in a cafe with my laptop and log onto the wireless internet that is so plentiful in the developed world and I pontificate. I put down in writing my views, concerns and opinions as only I can. What makes me any better than the politicians that stall aid efforts over minute verbiage technicalities and wait for the right moment in prime time news to announce their intentions: because we all know that no one reads the Saturday paper. We are so used to this insidious stalling and political sport that we think little of it. We are comfortable. Lord knows there is no sin in being comfortable, but what of the miserable? Are we too to be miserable? Are we to give up our abundance until we are the ones with nothing left? Or what about Marxist philosophy? Should the world not do a better job of distributing and sharing the scarce resources provided by Mother Earth? Or does it matter?

I feel deeply for Africa. I have no reason to care for Africa specifically except for the fact that it languishes in squalor mostly ignored by media. Niger's food crisis was first reported in November 2004 but no one could possibly pay attention to Africa when the US was having elections. I even remember that during most of November, the US election was daily front page material for both of the major French newspapers Le Monde and La Figaro not to mention the major news mills BBC and CNN. In November 2004, we already knew that one third of Niger was facing food shortages and fleeing the country over foregone conclusions of the dry rainy season.

Now that the World Food Programme (WFP) has responded with urgency, the world will soon forget the crisis though it could last for years. Should you want to follow an aid worker's journal, I think it is a fantastic way to understand the situation from the core.

Economically speaking, the UN claims that the delayed deployment of food to Niger was not due to the usual logistical hangups, but the lack of donorship they were able to drum up. I cannot defend Washington's measly yearly donation 0.15% Gross National Income (GNI) to developing countries (as opposed to Norway's 0.9% andEurope's s average of 0.35%) as the goal set by the UN is 0.7% GNI for all countries. I have been informed, however, that US private citizens take the donation cake. It appears that not only are they the most generous private donors worldwide, but they are more generous to developing countries than the US government itself. US privately donates 15 times more than Europe. This could be due to the lower tax burden on US citizens: 31.6% compared to Europe's 45.6%. Well, if the citizens are doing such a fantastic job handling their own income.......why do we even let the government take so much of it when they obviously are not putting it in the grid where the citizens want it?!

Darfur: The Beginnings

2005-07-19T20:17:00.001-07:00

In researching the history of the complex conflict in Sudan, I was rather surprised by the "Retrospective Mortality Survey among the internally Displaced Population, Great Darfur, Sudan August 2004." This report was instituted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Sudanese Ministry of Health (MoH) to determine the deaths per 10,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) per day between June 15 and August 15, 2004 within the most contested, Darfur region. Each, Northern Darfur, Western Darfur and one camp in Southern Darfur, Kalma Camp, were statistically boiled down to representative households who were asked a series of questions regarding deaths and causes of death in the household during the above stated time period.

The reason I enjoy stripping away the sensationalism of over zealous journalists especially when researching conflicts, and going right to the source and flipping through pages of statistical reports that make me question my intelligence, is that, in the end, the situation is so sensational in itself. I think adding clever verbiage around the information actually takes away from it. So here goes:

Obviously the highest instances of death per 10,000 was greatest in Southern Darfur. This was highly predictable considering that the survey team could only gain access to one camp in all of Southern Darfur as their wellbeing had been threatened by the insurgents (SLA, government, Janjeweed...take your pick). But throughout all of the regions of Darfur, DIARRHEA was the main cause of death, not acts of genocide, violence or bodily injury...but diarrhea. This is indicative of poor environmental situations. It is also the most preventable cause of death and makes me wonder why the UN often seeks to use a military presence in African when the situation is generally crying for humanitarian aid. I don't just mean sacks of maize and bottled water, but hand pumps that allow them to access their own clean water for years to come and simple education about personal and food sanitation. It would take so little of our effort.

These people are wonderful people...I guess this all goes back to my not being able to understand why we won't help Africa in the simple ways that Africa needs to be helped. Their IDPs die because of no access to clean water and latrines.

Nothing to Us...Everything to Them...

2005-07-18T18:35:00.000-07:00

For the last month, I have been going out of my mind wondering what Corporate America does with its discarded technological equipment. A few books and articles on the International Criminal Tribunals of both the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR), combined with my own work place (one of the largest investment banking companies in the world) inspired me to search out the answer. Having been unsuccessful in my own search, BBC brought the answer to me.

My firm recently replaced PCs nation-wide. This means we replaced from 25 to 300 PC in each of about 20 North American Offices. We replaced machines that, though slow by current competitive standards, had Windows 2002, Pentium 4, etc etc. But where did they go? I asked my IT guy. I am told that they are shipped off to a PC recycling center in New York (our World Headquarters). So, basically, we scrap thousands of perfectly functioning computers every 3 years or so.

This is UNbelieveable! In researching International Law, the UN, genocide and Africa, I have come to understand that the criminal tribunals charge with the duty of trying and prosecuting genocidaires, lack the most basic office supplies (Administration of the International Tribunal): paper, paper clips, fax machines, printers, etc. Romeo Dallaire, Force Commander during the 1994 Rwanda genocide had ONE suitcase sized laptop and a dot matrix printer on which to write reports to fax to UN headquarters. NO WONDER NO ONE AT HEAD QUARTERS WOULD LISTEN!!! I HAVEN'T BEEN NEAR A DOT MATRIX PRINTER SINCE THE AGE OF 4!! FOUR!!!!!

So what is the answer? Why do we discard these computers local IT guy? To the IT guy's credit, he tried to get these computers donated locally, and that is when he was told "that it is do to security issues" that we cannot donate the computers....oh, I see, so lobing them into a big pile in a junk yard is a whole lot more secure than wiping the hard drive and donating them to people who will ultimately use them for word processing and internet surfing because that is the extent of their knowledge!?!?!?!?!?! I'm pissed.

And then comes BBC (my personal favorite source for world news) with an article about what we SHOULD be doing with these perfectly useful PCs. The organization is Computer Aid International. I suggest EVERYONE give this website to the head of their company. Personally -since I have been cock blocked by my local IT guy as to whom I would actually need to ask about this situation- I intend to write an email to one of the most praised CEOs in America if not Internationally...and do you know why? Because if the people with the passion will not make the people with the power listen, the world would be a useless sad place. My power is my passion....as is yours. I am not an activist (I don't even like activists because they quite frankly annoy the hell out of me) I DO, however, feel that we must never bow to money or intimidation in hoping for a world that actually does care for humans on a human level.

Bowling for Columbine Comes to Kenya

2005-07-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

All Americans remember April 20, 1999 as the day when two students at Columbine High School opened fire killing 19 students and teachers and wounding 23 others before turning the guns on themselves (High School Shooting Stats). This deeply painful incident was completed in a manner of precise execution allowing time for the eyes of each victim to be searched by the teenage murderers. Since then, many of us have become familiar with the documentary "Bowling for Columbine" as written and directed by Michael Moore. This informative and moving film paints a portrait of gun slinging Americans and their propulsion towards the use of fear to manipulate the masses. Millions of Americans viewed this film and felt enlightened about our media-driven society. A significant reduction of crime over past years, has seen media reportage sore to 600%. How can we possibly feel safe as the media searches for the most grotesque of stories to blow out of proportion in order to contain the public within this "culture of fear"?

This brings me to Kenya. On the morning of Tuesday July 12, 2005 "Hundreds of armed men surrounded a primary school and nearby houses and opened fire as children were making their way to school" in Turbi Village, Kenya. Of the 76 people killed, 22 were children (mostly under the age of 10) wearing pristine school uniforms.

Tell me now what happened to the media frenzy and over blown reportage common to such an incident should it have occurred in the US or Europe. Tell me now how two teenagers with legal, federally registered semi-automatic weapons have the ability to frighten the people of the most powerful nation in the world into feeling "unsafe." And tell me now how the petty fight over the "personal injury" caused to the brother of Oklahoma City Bomber Terry Nichols, James Nichols by statements of fact made in the documentary "Bowling for Columbine," causes more of a media fuss than the Turbi Village Primary School killings.

Rwanda Today

2005-07-12T09:40:00.000-07:00

Though it is never my intention to point fingers at specific countries just for the purpose of placing blame, I do find it necessary to call each and every country out on their humanitarian debacles. Such mishaps can always easily be avoided with the use of a collective moral conscience void of political ambition. Yet, on April 6, 2005 (the 11th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide), France was once again called to the forefront of investigations of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) which is based in Arusha, Tanzania. For more information on France's involvement in the preparation of the Rwanda genocide of 1994, please visit La Voix Humaine Historique for the "Domestic Analysis of the Rwanda's 1994 Genocide."

Africa's Children

2005-07-11T13:12:00.000-07:00

Children flock to cameras with smiling faces and uninhibited fascination as western photo journalists rummage their way through refugee camps. These smiling faces give hope to citizens of war torn countries that someday their people will prosper. In our western minds, we have blanket associations regarding the inherent innocence of children. We believe the very definition of "child" to be synonymous with "sheltered," "protected," "carefree" and "valuable." If anything, children of African countries such as Rwanda, the Congo, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Somalia and Cote d'Ivoire who have all seen major conflict within the last 10 years, survive in three categories completely disassociated from the above western synonyms of childhood. There are (1) the privileged, (2) the scarred and (3) the corrupted.

(1) Considered privileged are those granted US citizenships as their birth right or those able to escape the conflict without being caught up in the deluge of refugees frantically jumping borders. In the case of citizenship, the child born in the US bears the role of family savior from a very young age. They have little to rejoice in and will never forget that they are first and foremost African, but their birth within the borders of a powerful country at least ensures their family's survival. In regards to remaining in Africa but avoiding a traumatic plight, families are usually tied to powerful leaders (corrupt or otherwise) within bordering countries and are flown out as a reaffirmation of that tie.

(2) The scarred children of Africa are so many and so tragic. They sit and watch family members die and endure torture in the most grotesque of situations. They lose mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and friends. No one sits down with them to explain the meaning of death, no one dares offer a reason why people kill one another for they themselves cannot understand and nor are they taught that death and destruction is not supposed to be a common occurrence. They are sponges upon which everything around them is poured and they live with a deep sense of helplessness. However, the scarred, unlike the corrupted, are able to somehow maintain their innocence and overcome their hardship. A large portion of these can be found in refugee camps.

(3) Deeply disturbing is that insurgents and corrupt dictators use children to fight their battles. They recruit orphaned boys (usually this means that the regime has killed the child's family and abducted the boy for soldering or the girl to serve as a "rebel wife"), force them to partake in drug use, ensure their addiction which further ensures their dependency on the regime. This cycle starts from as early as 7 years old. By the age of 10 the children are expected to fight in the front lines using AK-47s. They are purposely used at the forefront of battle so as not to waste the more valuable adult soldiers who hide behind the inevitably mowed down children.

Angelina Jolie recently adopted a baby daughter from Ethiopia. Many, I'm sure, wonder why and if such an endeavor is meaningful. I assure you, to that one child, such an action is enormously important. We cannot weigh the value of people in numbers. If you have the ability to save only one, then you have done exponetially more for humanity than you could imagine. We must learn to value even just one person as deeply sacred and deserving of love, hope, peace and a prosperous life. I hope that Zahara will cling to her ancestry and the rich ancient culture of her people even as she is to live in the throws of an uber-industrialized nation. Until we can view others as valuable, no matter how many children rush to cameras with smiling faces, we will never see them. We will only see the conflict that has categorized them.

Can the West Ever Understand Human Rights?

2005-07-10T11:31:00.000-07:00

The answer is no. The standards inherent in Western leaders are impossibly color conscious and geographically specific. The core of human rights as a philosophy and as a discipline of international public law is that each and every person is a valuable being and deserves a life free from oppression and abuse on all levels. After the US reluctantly intervened in the first and second world wars, it was named "the great humanitarian": then came the second half of the twentieth century.

As humanitarian wars took the forefront of international conflict, the US was suddenly unavailable as presidents began to forget their ideological foundation: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, equality, yadda yadda. The West has proved that it cannot understand human rights because it has a selective conscious. Though it took the Clinton Administration months of ethnic bloodshed, an unprecedented number of resignations within the Department of State and the promise of primary military support from NATO, the US did end up intervening in the genocide of the former Yugoslav nations. The situation there was that Muslim men and boys were being torn away from their families, isolated in detention areas, murdered and buried in mass graves that to this day have not fully been recovered. The approximations of deaths in Bosnia range from 8,000 to 10,000. Regardless of the actual number of deaths in former Yugoslavia, it remained in the thousands and the Clinton Administration decided to intervene. Yet when it came down to assisting a tiny, impoverished African country, we refused to even acknowledge its occurrence.
"In 1994 Rwanda, a country of just 8 million experienced the numerical equivalent of more than two World Trade Center attacks every single day for 100 days." Yet in this case, the Clinton administration not only ignored direct and fully incriminating evidence about the planning of the Rwanda genocide ("The Dallaire Fax"), but they made it administration policy not to discuss or intervene in the actions of a rogue government nor dirty their hands with peacekeeping efforts (PDD 25). Hence, when a million people died in Rwanda we made it POLICY to let it happen, but we intervene in a FAR lesser genocide in Europe. And we only did that after standing by an arms embargo on the Muslim victims; preventing them from defending themselves. This in turn forced them to seek help from Islamic extremists, including Osama Bin Laden himself. West values the human rights of those who they consider valuable. That is a gross perversion of the core of Human Rights.

As Simple as That...

2005-07-08T19:11:00.000-07:00

In many parts of rural Sub-Saharan Africa, the prevention of malaria boils down to keeping children under 5 years old protected from mosquitos as they sleep and providing villages with clean ground water. What good could such simplisitic solutions do? Prevent up to 80% of malaria cases.

In acknowledgement of the US failure to prevent the Rwanda genocide of 1994, the U.S. ambassador in Kigali, during the Clinton Administration, David Rawson, stated "Most of us thought that if a war broke out, it would be quick, that these poor people didn't have the resources, the means, to fight a sophisticated war. I couldn't have known that they would do each other in with the most economic means" (i.e. machetÃ©es and garden utensils). George Moose, then Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, agreed: "We were psychologically and imaginatively too limited."

Africa is a continent far more simplistic than any western power can imagine. We look to fix a '74 Pinto with the parts of an '05 Mercedes. Though it will be beneficial, would it not be less expensive, less intrusive and more practical to fix the Pinto with Pinto parts? Even if we forgive 100% of their debt , give them billions of dollars in aid and go home feeling like the saviors of the universe for throwing money at problems that are direct consequences of our irreverent behavior in the past: who will actually get the money? The leaders will use the money to build government buildings, pay government salaries, the salaries of soldiers and to build roads. This is what western nations see as progressive; yet, what of all of the displaced, diseased and impoverished? They don't come to visit the capital of their country, they don't have cars to drive on the roads, and now the corrupt and brutal leaders and soldiers will be able to rule them comfortably.

"It takes two days of an engineer's time and about two days to build." As simple as that. I say Halaburton, Vought Aircraft, Lockhead, and Rand Corporation fly a load of engineers over to Africa (in coach) with one C-130J Hercules full of privately donated mosquito nets and another C-130J full of industry donated hand pumps and large plastic bowls stolen from Corporate America's plethora of crappy SWAG items and save the bloody continent! I'll even coordinate it!

C130-J Hercules

2005-07-08T19:00:00.000-07:00

....That could fit a lot of SWAG...