Without a doubt, political profits from poverty are deplorable, exploiting the very people who need help the most. As three white congressmen stumbled along the muddy, winding paths of Kibera, East Africa’s largest slum, on walking tours guided by residents in flip flops, the absurdity of their presence was as egregious as the contrast in skin color. Without a doubt, their change in schedule, their inclusion of a trip to the slum, like their closing remark of, “Thank you for the work you are doing here, ” was a calculated maneuver. That said, their visit was invaluable; for people to change poverty, they don’t need to just watch videos or read brochures, they need to smell what it means not to have a toilet.

As part of a “democracy building initiative,” seven U.S. representatives visited Kenya, Liberia, and Lebanon during July, meeting with ministers of government in an attempt to better understand the headline issues: poverty, AIDS, corruption, etc. Five minutes in Kibera and it was obvious that neither the headlines nor the text of their briefs understood the reality on the ground. Dire poverty, yes. Despair, no. Warm welcomes were extended to the visitors who wore their trepidation in the furrow of their brow. Despite the accompanying security detail, the congressmen were clearly out of their comfort zones, pushed to the brink of political neutrality by the stench of human feces constant in the hot air. That said, you can’t let a good PR moment pass; a photo opportunity with children from the slums is surely something worth painting on a smile for. So, flashes flashed.

The flashes continued to flash, no less nervous, but clearly aware of the media mileage bound up in such an excursion, the congressmen posed and postured. With each click, it was as if you could see the prints being uploaded onto their websites.

Surely their visit was dominated by handlers and armored cars, power suits and post-colonial English, but their time in Kibera is in and of itself a necessary step in combating Western ignorance when thinking of solutions for global poverty. People need to see it. Without tasting the actuality of the figures, the idea that 40,000 people die each and every day from preventable diseases is unfathomable. However, maneuvering around a carpenter diligently staining coffin after coffin nails it home.

One young boy asked one of the aides not to take his photo. Brushed off because she didn’t understand and young African boys don’t count anyway, the aide took the photo. Political profit from poverty. A horrendous idea. Another congressman treaded carefully. When he got back to the office, he said: “This is simply unconscionable. ” Thus, it is clear that travel alone is not a strong enough impetus to change. It can drive people to change, but it is not sufficient. Seeing the reality on the ground allows people to better understand the nightly news, but disconnected slum tourism and photo opportunities often lead to stories that quell the conscious, not to follow-up.

Congressman Clueless proved that you just don’t get it until you travel, but you really don’t get it unless you want to.

Aaron Charlop - Powers

For those interested in following the escalating war between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, Seige of Lebanon provides commentary, photographs, and local accounts of the situation.  

Israeli firepower far outweighs that of Hezbollah, and the death toll is telling: 203 Lebanese and 24 Israelis have died. Israeli attacks, including air strikes that are reaching further north into Lebanon, have killed 190 civilians; Hezbollah rocket attacks have killed 12 Israeli civilians.

Mimi Hanaoka

We have an immense problem…of development…If we do not develop Africa, if we do not make available the necessary resources to bring about this development, these people will flood the world.

— French President Jacques Chirac, addressing TV audiences on Bastille Day.  Chirac warned against the international ramifications of poverty in African nations and implored — however inarticulately — developed nations to contribute to the economic development of the African continent.  Chirac underscored the potential economic impact of the continent and its 950 million residents, half of whom are under the age of 17; the population of the continent is expected to reach approximately 2 billion by 2050.  

Mimi Hanaoka

Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal featured a small article on last year’s lobbying figures, noting that the overall tally jumped from $2.14 billion in 2004 to $2.36 billion in 2005.  The number seems a bit on the high side considering the scandals that have tarnished Washington’s operating image as of late; but in order to best understand the way government spending works, you need only look at the $223 million originally put aside towards the Alaskan “Bridge to Nowhere” in last year’s highway spending bill.  

There was another article in the same issue of the WSJ reporting on a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in February.  The study found that discontinuing the use of antidepressants during a pregnancy will increase a woman’s chances of relapsing into depression.  This went against the previously held theory that hormonal changes during pregnancy would naturally reduce a woman’s depression.

This seems to make sense.  Women who stop taking antidepressants become more depressed.  Why is that important? And what does this have to do with lobbying?

It turns out that most of the study’s authors are actually paid by companies that produce antidepressants.  The study’s lead author is a consultant for three pharmaceutical companies, a speaker for seven, and has received research grants from four.  None of this was disclosed when the article was originally printed.

A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine around the same time reported that a baby born to a mother taking selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, a type of antidepressant, will have a nearly six times greater chance (six to 12 per 1,000 births vs. one to two per 1,000) of being born with a potentially lethal breathing problem.

Not surprisingly, a number of experts on the subject refuted these results.  Once again, the experts were paid by pharmaceutical companies.  

So you see, your laws aren’t the only items being openly bought and sold these days.  Your health is a similarly lucrative commodity.

Who’s right here?

As is usually the case, each side probably has some valuable input regarding the safety of antidepressants.  Depressed women don’t want to stay depressed, and one would hope that mothers are generally concerned with their children’s health.  

Facts are facts (most of the time).  How these facts are interpreted is a different matter.  

It is slightly worrisome when one of the researchers mentions, “I don’t see how any kind of relationship we have with a pharmaceutical company plays a role in that…I don’t believe there is a conflict of interest.”  Well, there’s not, except for the part where her study’s results encourage women to take antidepressants when it might not actually be in their best interest to do so, whereas it’s always in the interests of her employer.

The researchers may well be correct in stating that antidepressants bear little to no risk to prenatal infants and only serve to help depressed mothers.  Before people hit the streets encouraging doctors to prescribe more antidepressants, however, it might be wise to see the results of some additional studies from less interested parties.

M R

Talking recently with an acquaintance who, among other things, is a public relations consultant and environmentalist, the subject of Bush’s environmental policy (or lack thereof) based on his Christian beliefs came up.

I’ve heard this argument before; i.e., Bush disregards the destruction of the environment, perhaps even encourages it, because we are nearing the Biblical prophecy of the end of the world. But since I’ve caught only bits and snippets of this theory, I decided to do a little unscientific Internet search on the subject.

According to TheocracyWatch.org, “The Bush administration is waging a virtual war on the environment.” The president’s belief in the “end of times” allows him to take liberties with the environment and even help hasten the Biblical predictions he and the Religious Right adhere to.

Whether or not we are at the “end of days” or even believe in the Christian construct, the troubling issue is that the president bases his environmental policy for the country on his religion.

There are many leaders who believe that they are divine instruments of God, but the most infamous ones are dead (Jim Jones or David Koresh, anyone?).

Does Bush fancy himself a tool through which divine decree is done? Does he believe that destroying the earth’s natural resources will hasten Armageddon, thus ensuring him his rightful place in heaven as a holy steward?

It’s a thought.

Obviously, we know that no person, president or not, is unbiased in his or her decision-making. But when you’re deciding for millions of people, many of whom don’t share your same religious beliefs, how do you justify decisions that place them directly in harm’s way due to the effects of those decisions?

Do you dismiss the damage of global warming, pollution, and reliance on nonrenewable energy sources? Are you unconcerned about the extinction of wildlife, the destruction of rainforests, and the obliteration of precious natural terrain? Or are these the sacrifices one must make to ensure God’s will will be done?

Having been familiar with the Bible in younger years, I’m not quite sure why Bush and Co. have interpreted scripture to mean that we are not responsible for our environment. What I’m reminded of, though, is a passage in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, describing the days of Earth’s creation (Genesis 1:20-21):

20. And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.”

21. So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Desiree Aquino

We need to talk about the taboos, and we need to cancel the word “taboos” from our lives — we need to talk about everything to become better. If we don’t, if we hide everything in denial, how are we going to become better?

— Marwan Hamed, director of the film adaptation of Cairene dentist Alaa al-Aswani’s best-selling novel, The Yacoubian Building, speaking about the recent commotion that his film caused. Alaa al-Aswani’s novel portrays a changing Cairo through the inhabitants of the Yacoubian Building (which really exists in downtown Cairo) and features a cross-section of Cairene society: a corrupt and wealthy politician, a sexually harassed woman, an intelligent but poor youth who is lured into mosques and militant Islam when he is rejected from the police force for being poor, as well as a gay and urbane newspaper editor.  The novel rocketed onto the charts as a bestseller in the Arabic-speaking world when it was first published in 2002, and it has subsequently retained its popularity.

One hundred and twelve MPs who have been frothily debating the film since it opened in Egypt over two weeks ago have registered their complaints about The Yacoubian Building. Mustafa Bakri, the MP spearheading the campaign against the film, stated that it is “spreading obscenity and debauchery.” The committee established by Parliament must now review the film, take the editorial machete to it, and produce a less “profane” version of the film, which would effectively amount to etching out the scenes explicitly featuring a gay relationship.  

Egypt is no stranger to either suppression or denial.  Accused with importing “perverse ideas” from Europe, scores of gay men who were on the Queen Boat — a nightclub housed in a boat that floats on the Nile — were arrested, tried, and no doubt violated in 2001 when police raided the nightclub; the men where portrayed as “satanists.”

Mimi Hanaoka

Administration officials, however, asked The New York Times not to publish this article, saying that disclosure of the Swift program could jeopardize its effectiveness.

This statement was published by The New York Times on June 23rd.  A number of people, upon reading this, probably asked themselves: So why was it published?

Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, publicly responded two days later.  Speaking of the country’s founders, he noted that, “They rejected the idea that it is wise, or patriotic, to always take the President at his word, or to surrender to the government important decisions about what to publish.”

Mr. Keller certainly has a valid point in that a free press should act as a “protective measure against the abuse of power in a democracy.”  The question in this particular instance, however, is not whether the press has the right to publish these types of stories but whether publishing such stories actually serves as the protective measure it is supposed to.  

One could make the argument that during the Civil War, the public had a right to know the Union’s locations at all times since the day’s happenings were a matter of public interest.

But would this really have been wise?  

If you are not of the opinion that terrorism is a real threat, then pick up a copy of today’s newspaper or yesterday’s newspaper or tomorrow’s newspaper when it comes out, and read about some of the violence that occurs on a daily basis.

Terrorist groups, by nature, operate and act in a covert manner.  One of the most efficient methods of reducing their success is to monitor them in a similarly covert manner.  Permission for the Swift program was apparently obtained using entirely legitimate means, removing any scandalous element concerning its legality.

This program is not the Iraq War.  It is not resulting in American deaths; it is not causing innocent civilian deaths; it is not inflammatory.  Furthermore, it appears to be the type of program that is actually an effective battle in the War on Terror: stopping violence without using violence or creating violence.

Until the ideologies that cause the formation of terrorist groups are rooted out, something must be done to ensure a degree of safety against the ones already in existence.  There is a difference between using the fear of terrorist threats for alleged political gain and acting to prevent future attacks.

The original article quoted one official, who considers the program to be valuable, as saying that, “The potential for abuse is enormous.”  If the program also results in our potential for living to increase, then it might be at least worth a shot.

M R

China plans to use the railway to transport Chinese migrants directly into the heart of Tibet in order to overwhelm the Tibetan population and tighten its stranglehold over our people…. (The railway is) engineered to destroy the very fabric of Tibetan identity.

— Lhadon Tethong, a Tibetan living in exile, decrying China’s new Qinghai-Tibet railway as an opportunistic colonialist ploy. The railway runs from the Chinese capital of Beijing to the traditional Tibetan capital of Lhasa for 4,000 kilometers, the final 1,110 kilometers of which links what was until July 3rd the final frontier of the Chinese rail system to the Qinghai-Tibet railway and into Lhasa. The final 1,110-kilometer segment of the railway takes passengers through the ether of Tanggula Pass, which stands at 5,072 meters (16,640 feet) and makes the railway the world’s highest, complete with oxygen tubes and controlled oxygen levels, windows with UV filters to deflect the sun, and a budget of $4.2 billion to build.

While China touts the railway as a lifeline that will bring opportunities and accessibility to the region, some Tibetans condemn the project as an attempt to import ethnic Han Chinese immigrants into the region to further obliterate the Tibetan culture.  The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan community, has been living in exile in India since 1959, nine years after the People’s Liberation Army marched into Tibet to occupy the nation in 1950.

Mimi Hanaoka