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| Since Kolkata, I have been thinking and reading about useful responses
to the kind of destitute poverty there. Here's an interesting
observation from Viv Grigg, a New Zealander who has spent many years
studying global urban poverty from within it.
I will spare you the outdated stats, but he says:
"Short-term rehabilitation focuses on employment, because poor people
[specifically in Kolkata] need workk more urgently than they need
accommodations, or anything else. Short-term rehabilitation
programs may thus provide specialized training to upgrade skills,
vocational and non-formal education to street-children, and perhaps
shelters for rickshaw pullers, hand-cart pullers, and
day-laborers."
It's nice to realize that there is something useful we can look for,
consider, pray for, and hope for to alleviate some of the poverty.
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| We just bought new Papasan chairs for our large common room. For
those of you who don't know, Papasan chairs are the ones with the
wicker base and dish-shaped frame lined by a thick cushion, that you
just collapse in. They are very comfortable.
We bought them from Pier 1 Imports. Curious, we wondered whether
that was just a name or whether these really had come from another
country. Well, they had. The wicker frames were made in
Indonesia, and the cushions in Thailand. Both are useless without
the other, so what must the workers think who make these things?
Do they wonder what they are for? Why do you have a chair whose
only two components are made in different countries? It's
interesting to sit in chairs with more knowledge of the world than I
have.
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| I try to put up with backseat drivers. I have this odd sense that
perhaps if I put up with them, other people may be more willing to put
up with my obnoxious traits. But when the person starts to ask,
"Do you see the turn coming up?" I begin to think: "Hey, the steering
wheel's in my lap, and I'll take or miss the turn if I want to," or,
"You've been talking and not paying attention this whole trip while I
glued my slowly drying eyeballs to the yellow line. How do you
get to give me directions out of that situation?" It's irritating.
So what about backseat politics? It seems sometimes that the
farther away we are from an issue, the more strongly we feel about it
and the more willing we are to take a position on it. The AIDS
epidemic in South Africa? That's terrible! It's because the
Catholic Church keeps resisting sex education (forgetting that the
Catholic church also resists sexual promiscuity, prostitution, and--I
think--drug use). Kidnapped children in Uganda? Let's have a
rally and create a movie about it. SUVs on Texas
roads?...mm...Mental illnesses among the homeless?...mmm...Depression
and alienation in elderly homes?...mmm...
Why do these issues not stimulate attention? Why do we not rally
about the SUVs our parents drive and the isolation of our elderly
grandparents? We're in the driver's seat for these issues.
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| One year ago, I left the US for Rome, and WHAM! New Orleans was smacked
by an unfriendly hurricane. My family moved to Ohio in the
meantime, and when I came back, I lived in a different part of the
country. This is my first trip back to New Orleans since the
hurricane, and I have many thoughts and feelings.
1. Wow! We drove in from East New Orleans, which had the
least levee protection, and it was still very hard hit. Walls
were knocked down, shopping malls were empty of people and filled with
piles of trash, blue tarps still covered roofs.
2. Interesting! Visiting New Orleans is quite different
from living there. I never actually merely visited NO before, and
it was quite fun to consider all the many great restaurants to
visit. In our short lunch time, I had a delicious plate of
crawfish tails and a bubble tea, discovered three ice cream shops
(didn't stop, though), found a Vietnamese restaurant (I love Vietnamese
food!), and saw at least three other places I would like to have
lunch.
3. Sad. We drove through Lakeview and along the 17th Street
canal, which broke, and the area remains completely deserted.
Almost every house was gutted down to the studs, front doors swinging
wide open, orange Xs still on the siding to show whether the search
team had found any bodies there or not. There were no houses in
front of the breach. They were gone.
More later.
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| I'm actually feeling quite well, thank the Lord. Despite being within close proximity to TB patients, and patients with all kinds of unknown and undiagnosed diseases, it appears that the Lord has spared me from all of those, and even from most stomach sicknesses, parasites, blood poisoning, AIDS, Dengue Fever, Bird Flu, SARS, Ebola, and Bubonic Plague. In short, I am well. Have a nice day! | | |
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