Blog Action Day - World Poverty
I caught some wind on the web about “Blog Action Day” and the topic, World Poverty. To me, it’s important to know the facts - outside of the stories of poverty; to me my imagination runs with statistics, and I try to imagine what it would be like to be in the situation based on the following numbers:
- 80% of the global population lives on $10(US) or less per day
- The poorest 40% of the globe accounts for 5% of the global income
- Based on enrollment data, about 72 million children of primary school age in the developing world were not in school in 2005; 57 percent of this measurement were girls.
Alright, that’s plenty to build on.
For story sake, let’s take some unlikely averages: my rent alone costs me about $50 a day on average; my eating habits cost me about $6 to $10 daily, depending on where I eat, and what. Mixing in the Internet, electricity, cellphone and various bills on a daily average, I need an additional $12 a day to simply make payments. This is without a car payment, mortgage, HOA, or credit debt… Like most Americans hold today, since that would complicate this mess.
With these numbers, I’d need to clear $2200 roughly to sustain life. So, to back up for a moment and imagine making due with $300 a month. Granted I’m in Southern California, so I’ll imagine being in the backwoods of Australia, since I’ve always wanted to go and kick it with Aborigines. I imagine being part of an undeveloped global sub-culture wouldn’t actually require too much spending money, so scratch the Aborigines, I’ll say, I’m trying to live in Sydney.
Let’s bring in the “childhood” factor. Money is the root of the problem, in this case, because at the point where making so little means so much, the priority is that you need to sustain. The catch 22 is, in order to do so, you need to work. Work comes from knowing, knowing comes from learning & thus the school factor comes into play…
What a mess.
I can imagine what it would be like to grow up without school, and imagine where I’d be today if I hadn’t been educated. What would I have done with those 9 years I spent in college? What about the downward spiral of feeling left behind from society as the world moves on through the Information Age; me without a means of benefiting from that information?
The brutality of the human imagination probably can’t even muster the actualities tied to the true cases of this… and it’s the majority. The majority of our planet’s people live every day, sustaining life til the next, making due and pushing on. In that regard, it’s much like being a freelancer, pushing forward to make due and make progress. The difference lies in the eduction (and the root of it is lacking in the funding to do so):
Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
That’s a huge chunk. 1/6th of the global population. That’s the entire country of China or India. Staggering statistics like these make it hard to grasp, and make it even harder to believe that one person can help.
The interesting thing is, on the basis of charitable donation, it is possible to help, you just have to make sure you donate to the cause that will distribute your donation fairly and accurately. As f**ked up as it sounds, there are non-profits out there that take advantage of other people’s misfortunes for their own short-term gain. You’ve seen this interesting human behavior if you’ve ever been part of any large group wherein a specific gain can come from the blood of others (Corporate America is a great place to witness this).
The point of my post is this. Helping is possible, but you have to be careful. The facts are simple - people need our help. Try to imagine what it’d be like if you couldn’t afford the screen your staring at, or anything on the table around you, and imagine what it would feel like.
There are plenty of other factors in the World Poverty mess:
- Disease
- Death
- Famine
- War torn nations
- STD’s
- Sociological barriers
- Political corruption
Ever since the birth of advanced civilizations, the growing issue has been those left outside of it. As a result of the lack of all things we benefit from. The starting point is money, but the end result needs to be cultural shift to maintain life… Gotta start somewhere though.
Children’s Museum and Pat
On May 5th, the new Children’s Museum opened it’s doors on First and Island in downtown San Diego. Walking by it you can see a VW Beetle layered with about a thousand gallons of paint and some great rooms for kids to explore and learn. I’ve always wanted to drag my nephews to this place, I think they’d love it.
Well, tonight - Sarah (@nomatophobia) and I were sitting at home, just wrapped up watching a Batman movie, and started to work a bit when we hear Pat Benatar, or what I thought was a cover band. Sarah’s savvy took her to the Google, and as a result - “IT IS PAT BENATAR!”, she said.
So we did what anyone spending a quiet night in, out of the chill, would do. Grabbed a sweater, put on our shoes, and did this:
Turned out, we caught the finale. Living in downtown is full of surprises, this was one of the more random ones.
‘Down’ Jones Industrial Average
This afternoon I decided to look into the stock market, as while I was out and about, I heard the word “economy” and phrases like “holding off on buying things” and “I need to raise my credit limit” from virtually everyone that was within ear shot.
First thing, looked up DJIA on Google and asked it for the past 10 years. I hovered over September 2001, and shockingly enough, today marked itself as lower than the post 9/11 economy.
After looking at the graph a few more seconds to find the lowest it’s been in 10 years, we have a big ol’ nasty trough through July 2002 at 8019.26 through Jun 2003 at 9062.79, the lowest point being October 4th, 2002 with a staggering 7528.40.
Since that time, we’ve seen the market climb to over 14,000, the highest it’s ever been in the US ecomomy, ever - on October 12, 2007 with 14093.08
What does this mean?
Well, first off - I don’t really recall hearing too much about shitty economic “depression” worries between 2002 and 2003, mainly because that was part of the height of the housing market’s fake inflationary “good times”; look where that got us. As equity rose in those purchases for the next few years, so did the DJIA - of course. Well, now we’re in the whiplash of the greed of mortgage lenders and banks, as well as those people treating real estate like a “sure thing” gold rush.
Overall, this really means - we’ll live. It’s not as bad as it could be - who knows it may get there. But overall, the market tends to bounce around, toward the ground (so to speak), in election years and when turmoil between political opinions of our society are at their peak.
We’re also dealing with a market (both consumer-side and business-side) with very low self-esteem. Investors are freezing their lending and spending, businesses are cutting back the fat (employees) through lay-offs and other fun things like axing fringe benefits and company parties (except AIG, of course)… and so on, and so forth.
I usually keep my insights on the economy to friends around a coffee table, but maybe sharing what I see in a general view through a blog will do some good for folks that read it. Expect the market to stay a course of down-turn until the end of 2009. The housing market is still bottoming out, which is affecting us a great deal. The turn will be in summer of ‘09, and in the fourth quarter later that year, you’ll see it start to level out, and perhaps rise by the start of the second quarter 2010.
Until then, keep a mindful eye on your purchases, and just play the market smart, if you’re going to. Otherwise, invest in gold, that market doesn’t spike nearly at all, in either direction.
Liberal Scum and Republican Rednecks
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been paying more attention to politics than usual. Normally when I look at the crap Washington is chucking at the American people from either side of the fence I either distance myself more from the government willingly by talking shit about The Hill to my friends, or I simply disregard it as though it was some crap-tastic reality show on some Viacom network.
Lately though, the debacle that’s somehow being called a Presidential race has stirred up the views and opinions of everyone I know, right and left. I’ve noticed some pretty childish things during all of this, with “facts” being pulled out from the assholes of the deep rooted inner 4th grader in everyone, and some of the best examples of tribal knowledge you could ever witness from people who have otherwise succeeded at presenting themselves as professional, educated Americans.
Here’s what bothers me
Republicans say
“McCain and Palin for the win!” - I’m sorry, but for 8 years, I’ve been saying, “Wow, I’d love to see if Washington could ever do any worse than George W. Bush.” With the lowest approval rating for any president in history, I figured he is the bottom of the barrel. Senator McCain… You know, he wasn’t all that bad until “the hero” pulled this wretch Sarah Palin out of the bowels of the one of the SMALLEST STATES (by population) in the US. With 20 months on the punch card as a governor, and corruption accusations from the pagents to her $50,000 tanning booth cloud this completely frightening and self-righteous hypocrite’s past. To make matters worse, she’s more obvious about being oblivious than our buddy George.
“She’s just like us” - What? I’m educated, I know what magazines I read, I don’t think I’m a cut-throat, back stabbing asshole out to get everything I can from as many people as possible by any means possible. I’d like to think that women of the future of America couldn’t relate to her even a little. She’s dishonest, she’s clearly a marketing stunt by McCain to gain a female vote, she’s clearly being used by the campaign to gain some level of “get it” factor to the otherwise clueless McCain ticket. I’d hope that women of America would be strong, independant, intellectual, and HONEST women, working towards the betterment of humanity, just like everyone else on Earth should be doing, unlike Palin.
“Root for America for once, you Liberal scum” - Which America are you fucks referring to? If you’re talking about the war-machine that’s sitting amidst a second great depression, no thanks. If you’re inferring that I should praise the fact that we were founded on a mass of rape and murder of the indigenous people who inhabitted America first, I’ll pass. If you’re referring to the government that goes to war in countries such as Iraq to overthrow dictators for the below reason, I don’t think it’s right:
Oil control is the number one cause for the war in Iraq, not a dictator, not the war on terror. China produces it’s own, but also relies on oil from Russia. In order to maintain a growth cap on China, it is required for the United States to maintain a level of interest in their next door neighbor, Saudi Arabia.
Califonians - Not only does nearly 100% of our oil products come from California, we also supply nearly 1/3rd of the nations oil. Kern River is your Google search term of the day to fact check. Now, let’s try to relate the war to rising gas prices.
Republican generalizations
Republicans don’t understand humanity, nor global society, outside of international conflict and abortion rights. Republicans are notoriously exclusionary, this is natural, as they’re more powered by organizations such as military and religious organizations. Organizations are meant to exclude and dislike: homo-sexuals, persons of a different religious sect, hold negative opinions about other branches of military, but share a common overall dislike for common civilians. They do not believe in globalized economies, nor the greater good of humanity as a whole. They support inferior domestic automobile manufacturers over foreign, regardless of superior engineering in both performance and economy, domestic beers, soccer and F1 racing versus NASCAR are also some prime example of what Republicans end up ostracizing themselves from in order to “root for America”.
Liberals say
“Obama is the best man for the job” - At this point, sure. But keep in mind that this man didn’t, and possibly still doesn’t, like America at ALL. I can see wanting change, but disrespecting our nation? That’s absolutely ridiculous. Oh, he wears a pin on his suit now, congratulations. What gives him the right to turn his back on our Nation, regardless of the state it’s in. I’ll talk shit about Americans who are close minded by the system, politicians who are corrupt, desire change and progress in the digital age, even want to take off to a foriegn country to get away, but America is still my home, and I’ll never see it as lesser because of the shit that’s piling up in the corners.
“Republicans are uneducated rednecks” - Though this might be true for some people, it’s not true for others. There was a time when Republicans knew nothing of George W. Bush. Businessmen, military families, and everywhere in between, being a Republican versus a Democrat really only addressed how the budget was going to be spent. Somewhere in the past decade, it turned into a pissing content between you whiney liberals and those stupid rednecks. The war in Iraq - hope for peace, vote accordingly, protest at will, but belittling your fellow American, and disregarding those that serve the Nation? It’s no wonder a majority of you liberals don’t give a shit about Obama not saluting the flag. Hell, you’d probably praise him for it.
“Obama’s inexperienced, but Biden’s got his back” - Awesome! When’s the last time you heard from Cheney? How often did you year about Gore before he ran for president, or got Earth-crazy with sustainability? Face it, Obama simply has balls and some high stakes ambitions. He’s pretty much going to attempt what most techs commonly see in the job place when a new hire comes aboard, “Change everything to make it better”, which I can tell you right now, will work… only sometimes. But his “change” promises are going to be listened to about as much as you’d expect any n00b to be listened to in a board meeting at a new job.
Fact of the matter
It’d be great if we remembered that we’re all Americans on a planet filled with non-Americans that rely on America when we’re making decisions about our Nation’s and thus Planet’s future. It’d be great if we were all playing on that same team FIRST, before our partisan bullshit games. It’d be great if we remembered that people need to be accountable for the decisions they make, as well as be able to trust one other in times of need… It would be. But as I can tell by the reactions that I’m anticipating from all the prejudice and close-mindedness out there… It won’t.
… I’m going to go watch the debate now, and eat some Cheez-Its, mmmm tasty.