Archive for category human rights
Dear Prudence
Posted by zoboxrox in charity, economy, health, human rights, international, science, tragedy on January 18th, 2010
Haiti, 2008
While the images coming out of Haiti since the January 12th earthquake are heartbreaking, images of Haiti before the massive devastation are nearly as appalling. For many, just one week ago, it was simply easier not to look.
Haiti has long been the pariah of the Western Hemisphere, deemed the poorest country, many Americans don’t even realize it shares an island, Hispaniola, with popular hot spot the Dominican Republic. With HIV rates unheard of on this side of the world, not to mention Malaria and a killer strain of drug resistant Tuberculosis, and levels of poverty we have only seen in Hollywood films, Americans have found it surprisingly easy to overlook Haiti’s hellish existence in the past, despite its close proximity and dire need for aide. And while there are those who have dedicated their lives to moving mountains in this forgotten place (Paul Farmer and his Partners in Health comes to mind most immediately, but there are certainly others as well, many with little to no recognition at all), there is no question that Haiti has been more or less abandoned by the rest of the world.
While the media provides us with day to day body counts and relays gruesome details of injuries and loss, forcing us to see what we’ve ignored for so long, racking up donations from the college student text messager to the saintly celebrity givers, I can only wonder, if this Disaster Relief had poured in years ago, would we be facing the situation we are facing today?
Jian Lin, a WHOI senior scientist in geology and geophysics, said that there were three factors that made the quake particularly devastating: First, it was centered just 10 miles southwest of the capital city, Port au Prince; second, the quake was shallow—only about 10-15 kilometers below the land’s surface; third, and more importantly, many homes and buildings in the economically poor country were not built to withstand such a force and collapsed or crumbled.
When there are no roads, no hospitals, no doctors, no reliable government, no one to really trust, how far can the money go? Perhaps the lesson here is of prudent giving — spending money earlier, before its too late.
A Twinkie in California
Posted by zoboxrox in human rights, justice, politics on January 11th, 2010
Oh god no. Why this man? Eyebrows over here, Paul Katami, and his partner, Jeffrey Zarrillo, are among a group of plaintiffs going to court over the recent ban on gay marriage in the state of California, Proposition 8. Somehow, out of all the homosexuals in San Francisco, this is the one who got to do the talking when the time came. And here is what he had to say:
“[It's] like putting a Twinkie at the end of a treadmill and saying, ‘You can only have a bite,’ ” testified Paul Katami, one of the plaintiffs. “And you want the whole thing. … All I want is to be married.”
Hey Paul — are you fucking kidding me? That’s the best you could come up with? First of all, Paul here obviously knows N-O-T-H-I-N-G about the history of his state, most notably, the late great Harvey Milk, who fought so vigorously for gay rights in the very same city Paul and Jeffrey call home. If Paul had studied up a little more, he’d know not to bring Twinkies into the fight (unless Paul is brilliant, and is purposefully evoking the painful memories of Milk’s tragic ending, thereby arousing some deeply closeted heterosexual guilt).
Complete and total mental lapse aside, this is simply not the right argument to be making. While how you feel is always very important to yourself, this will not sway a judge in a court of law, nor will it make all those evangelicals in California suddenly feel bad enough to change their minds. You must evoke the sensation of being denied a basic right by your government — you must shine light on the absurdity of this situation, which is clearly the most prominent case of persecution so far this century.
Who Deserves the Best?
Posted by zoboxrox in health, human rights, malfunction, politics on September 10th, 2009
First of all, South Carolina should probably just go ahead and secede all over again. They’re track record so far this year is about as impressive as Lindsay Lohan’s. This latest incident is hardly even surprising. In fact, I would say they were due for another serious embarrassment. South Carolina, I hear you’re trying to fire your governor — while you’re at it, why don’t you just get rid of your whole legislative body and start over again. Or better yet, merge with North Carolina and let them do all your voting for you.
Watch Joe Biden after Joe Wilson shouts out “You Lie” to the President. It looks like someone just ran over his German Shepard puppy Champ. I’ve never seen a grown man look so sad. And I get it. He’s thinking, “the times they are a changing,” because, before last night, nobody ever really shouted at the President (besides this guy).
One thing that I don’t understand about the Health Care debate, and maybe I’m being insensitive now, but why do senior citizens automatically deserve better (and freer) medical care than the rest of us? Its not that I don’t think they should be insured, but why them and no one else? Why not children? Why not students? I like the way this guy puts it:
The President [gave] a great speech last night and outlined his points for why we need universal health coverage in America. In case you missed it, here it is in a nutshell: you cannot call yourself the greatest country in the world if you don’t have it.
True that!
Its been a while. I apologize.
Posted by zoboxrox in crime, human rights, justice, tragedy on August 31st, 2009
In the meantime, I’ve achieved the dream aka employment aka data entry (hazzah!), Ted Kennedy died (RIP old Lion), 60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt died (sad), John Hughes died (sad), Les Paul died (um, sad?), Dominic Dunne died (he was still alive?), DJ AM died (…) and Jaycee Dugard, a 29 year old woman who has been missing for 18 years, was found and “rescued” from her “alleged” abductor, who also happens to be the father of her two daughters, aged 15 and 11 (unbelievable). Now I know I should be writing about Kennedy, as this is a political blog, but I just can’t stop reading about this young woman’s unimaginable life.
There are a lot of bizarre details. For instance, the kidnapper and rapist, Phillip Garrido, had a record and was on parole for a previous abduction and rape charge from the late 1970s. Despite being convicted of heinous crimes, his 50 year sentence was reduced:
Katie Callaway Hall thought about him every day since November 22, 1976 when he asked her for a ride at a supermarket in California, before handcuffing her, binding her and taking her to a mini-warehouse in Reno, Nevada, where he raped her.
Garrido was convicted for kidnapping and raping Hall, but was released after serving just over 10 years of a 50-year sentence. He was labeled a sex offender and put on lifetime parole.
So, not only did they let this guy go, they also neglected to check up on him, despite his “lifetime” parole status. If they had been more attentive, perhaps they would have noticed the three young women, living in shacks in the Garrido’s back yard. In fact, in 2006 neighbors called to report that young girls appeared to be living in tents on the property, and an officer visited the house, but never made it into the back:
…a California sheriff admitted today that his officers booted a chance to rescue Jaycee nearly three years ago.
“We missed an opportunity to bring earlier closure to this situation,” Contra Costa County Sheriff Warren E. Rupf said in a news conference today, “I am first in line …. to offer my apologies to the victims and accept responsibility for missing an opportunity to rescue Jaycee.”
Rupf said that a woman called 911 on Nov. 30, 2006 complained that people, including children, appeared to be living in tents in the backyard of Phillip and Nancy Garrido’s house in the town of Antioch, Calif. “The caller also said Garrido was psychotic and had a sexual addiction,” he said.
How awful. Can you believe there was a wife the whole time?!
But you know what no one’s really talking about, which I think is maybe the worst part of this whole situation: this man is these two girls father, both genetically and, more importantly, paternally. While I can’t even try to imagine what this must be like for Jaycee Dugard, there is a whole other level of grief involved for the children because being discovered, which to the outside seems like a miracle, is in reality destroying the only family they’ve ever had. This is way beyond Stockholm Syndrome.
Its the kind of situation where there’s no right answer, the ultimate Kobayashi Maru.
Not to make light or anything. I just don’t know how to handle such heavy shit.
Why why why why why?
Posted by zoboxrox in corporate america, economy, health, human rights, international, malfunction, politics, religion, tragedy on August 17th, 2009
So, the major problem with American Democracy is that it is representative: we elect people who we feel will represent our views within the legislative body upon which they sit – we do not participate in our democracy directly — we are not always privy to the actual truth. Majority rules, and so depending on where you are and who won your local elections, this means you may not be represented at all. If your guy lost, then basically, you’re voice remains silent as your elected representative fulfills the needs of most of the people, which could be as little as one percentage point over half, in your district/county/state.
The reason this is a major problem, it seems pretty clear to me now, is that the majority of Americans are at worst stupid, and at best simply irresponsible, ignorant, gullible, stubborn, and set in their ways. What always amazes me is the fact that people actually vote against what’s in their own best interest: fiscally, the Republican Party only benefits around 5% of the population.
With Universal Health Care we meet a similar problem. Many of the people who’s lives would be improved by it, are being lied to and misinformed. Take this guy, for instance, who if you can believe it, is actually a Senator, Chuck Grassley of Iowa. He doesn’t even come close to answering the question he’s been asked, and then he lies, repeatedly, to those who he is supposed to be representing:
Come on Chuck. LETS BE TRUTHFUL!!
So here are the Top 5 lies about some of our health care options, and the one truth standing in its way:
LIES:
1. Single Payer Health Care is the same thing Socialized Medicine: NOT TRUE
Socialized Medicine doesn’t actually exist, but if it did, it would still be different than Single Payer System. Under “socialized medicine” the doctors work for the government directly. Single Payer simply means there is a single fund or insurance company which is making payments aka “centralized payment”:
Single-payer health insurance is a term used in the United States to describe the legislated insurance of individuals by way of centralized payment of doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers and facilities…. The administrator of the fund could be the government but it could also be a publicly owned agency regulated by law
2. Socialized Medicine leads to Socialism: NOT TRUE
We currently have socialized the following industries, and I’m pretty sure most every American, red-blooded or blue, would like to keep it this way: The Police Department, The Fire Department, The United States Postal Service, The Public Education System, The Public Library, and Neighborhood Parks and Recreational Services.
Imagine the outrage if we decided to privatize fire services, and unless you had insurance, your local department, no matter how close or how able, would simply let your house burn down. And we don’t talk about a government run Fire Department - it has not communalized our way of life, nor taken control of our personal liberties. It is simply something no American could imagine living without, which is exactly how they feel about health care in the countries where it is free.
3. Universal Health Care would be more expensive than our current system: NOT TRUE
Turns out, we spend more right now, both individually and as a nation, than we would in a government funded option.
A 2003 study examined costs and outputs in the U.S and other industrialized countries and broadly concluded that the U.S spends so much because its health care system is more costly. It noted that “…the United States spent considerably more on health care than any other country…[yet] most measures of aggregate utilization such as physician visits per capita and hospital days per capita were below the OECD median. Since spending is a product of both the goods and services used and their prices, this implies that much higher prices are paid in the United States than in other countries.
Perhaps it has something to do with the $71 Billion that Pfizer raked in last year, or the $61 Billion Johnson & Johnson made on pharmaceutical products alone.
4. Health Care in countries with a Universal System suffers in quality as a result: NOT TRUE
Not only is health care in the United States more expensive than it is in any other “first world” country, it turns out, its also not as good. I have this argument all the time: “Oh but we have by far the best health care in the world…” or “I’d rather be in a hospital in America than anywhere else….” Funny. The World Health Organization disagrees with you. As do over half of the citizens of Western Europe.
See here. Or here. Or here. Or here.
5. The government wants to create “Death Panels” in order to kill your elderly grandmother or your disabled child: JUST SO NOT TRUE
While a “death panel” more or less already exists, its called an insurance company, this particular piece of nonsense actually stems from a bill, written by a Republican member of Congress mind you, which requested that, part of health care reform would include end of life counseling for those approaching death. The horrors!
A couple months ago I had the opportunity to see New York Times contributor Jane Brody speak on her newest book, Jane Brody’s Guide to the Great Beyond: A Practical Primer to Help You and Your Loved Ones Prepare Medically, Legally, and Emotionally for the End of Life. As someone who, throughout her entire career has focused on living well and prolonging a healthy life, I can truly say Jane Brody is not the kind of person who would kill your grandma. She is, however, knowledgeable enough on the subject of death, that I trust her when she says the following: receive End of Life counseling, have a living will and a health care proxy, if you are in a situation where death is a possibility, acknowledge that!
So if your little old grandma is sitting at home alone, listening to conservative talk radio, clutching her shotgun and trembling in fear for her life, please just bring her a newspaper. If she can’t see the tiny print, read it out loud to her! Because right now, the people she’s supposed to be able to trust, well they’re lying and it ain’t helping granny out one little bit.
The Irony of Truth: Its Better Than Fiction
Posted by zoboxrox in health, human rights, politics on August 12th, 2009
Its really too bad that Michael Moore made all those other movies before he made Sicko. While I personally don’t have a problem with Mr. Moore, and tend to agree with a lot of his opinions, I do realize that he is neither the most popular, nor the Most Trusted Man in America, and I’m afraid that because of previous films like Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko does not get the recognition it deserves. I believe that of all his films it is the most informative, least divisive, and exhibits the greatest compassion and humanity.
While it could easily have focused upon the plight of the nearly 50 million uninsured Americans*, it is instead about those who have insurance, and get screwed anyway.
Interviews are conducted with people who thought they had adequate coverage but were denied care. Former employees of insurance companies describe cost-cutting initiatives that give bonuses to insurance company physicians and others to find reasons for the company to avoid meeting the cost of medically necessary treatments for policy holders, and thus increase company profitability
In one particular case, an interviewee is denied coverage for the surgery necessary to treat her brain tumor, and dies within the time it took to make the film. For this reason, I find the whole “Death Panels — Obama wants to kill your Grandma” excitement unforgivable, because in reality, this is a policy that presently exists. Under current health care options, people who ALREADY HAVE INSURANCE are often denied access to treatments — which their doctors recommended for them — because they are considered too costly, or too experimental.
From Daily Kos:
You might ask yourself why, of all possibilities, reforming America’s health care system is the thing that “tramples on the Constitution” or “leaves the existence of the Republic at risk.” You might ask this, because you’re probably not insane. But again, this matches what we’ve been seeing in every “deather” protest so far –people angrily denouncing government intervention and “socialized medicine” — but they all love Medicare. They don’t want government to supposedly decide who’s too expensive to keep alive, with visions of “death panels” and the like — but insurance companies are doing that now, all the time, and there’s nary a peep about that. The opposition, in other words, doesn’t know the first damn thing about the thing they’re supposedly protesting.
*people will argue this number is exaggerated, which I think is ridiculous — when we already know the unemployment rate is at a high, shouldn’t the uninsured numbers also grow?
A Futile War: Part I
Posted by zoboxrox in War on Drugs, crime, human rights, justice, tragedy on July 28th, 2009
In honor of the late great Walter Cronkite, the Most Trusted Man in America, Part I of my look at the War on Drugs focuses on the following snippets from an article he wrote for The Huffington Post in March 2006 (my comments are in orange).
When I wanted to understand the truth about the war on drugs, I took the same approach I did to the war in Vietnam: I hit the streets and reported the story myself. I sought out the people whose lives this war has affected. Allow me to introduce you to some of them… [there is an entire website dedicated to the innocent victims of the drug war, their ages range from 8 months to 88 years].
…Jan Warren, a single mother who lived in New Jersey with her teenage daughter. Pregnant, poor and desperate, Jan agreed to transport eight ounces of cocaine to a cousin in upstate New York. Police officers were waiting at the drop-off point, and Jan - five months pregnant and feeling ill - was cuffed and taken in.
Did she commit a crime? Sure. But what awaited Jan Warren defies common sense and compassion alike. Under New York’s infamous Rockefeller Drug Laws [recently dismantled by Albany legislature and Governor David Patterson, who is quoted as saying “I can’t think of a criminal justice strategy that has been more unsuccessful than the Rockefeller drug laws”], Jan - who miscarried soon after the arrest - was sentenced to 15 years to life…
In Tulia, Texas, an investigator fabricated evidence that sent more than one out of every ten of the town’s African American residents to jail on trumped-up drug charges in one of the most despicable travesties of justice this reporter has ever seen [here is a link to this story, even more info here]….
…[The Drug War] surely hasn’t made our streets safer [see graph below*]. Instead, we have locked up literally millions of people…disproportionately people of color…who have caused little or no harm to others - wasting resources that could be used for counter-terrorism, reducing violent crime, or catching white-collar criminals.
Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on this effort - with no one held accountable for its failure.
Amid the clichés of the drug war, our country has lost sight of the scientific facts. Amid the frantic rhetoric of our leaders, we’ve become blind to reality: The war on drugs, as it is currently fought, is too expensive, and too inhumane
Why I Love Jimmy Carter
Posted by zoboxrox in human rights, politics, religion on July 21st, 2009
There are actually a lot of reasons I’m a big fan of this ex-president, but here’s a new one:
Link to Politics Daily article titled “Jimmy Carter Leaves Church over Treatment of Women.”
After more than 60 years together, Jimmy Carter has announced himself at odds with the Southern Baptist Church — and he’s decided it’s time they go their separate ways… the former president called the decision “unavoidable” after church leaders prohibited women from being ordained and insisted women be “subservient to their husbands.”
In his own essay entitled: “Losing My Religion for Equality” (so hip, using an R.E.M. title), he writes:
It was… an unavoidable decision when the convention’s leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be “subservient” to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.
At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.
It is simply self-defeating for any community to discriminate against half its population. We need to challenge these self-serving and outdated attitudes and practices - as we are seeing in Iran where women are at the forefront of the battle for democracy and freedom.
Don’t be sad Jimmy. Right now, you’re my hero.
Imagine That
Posted by zoboxrox in human rights, international, justice, politics on June 22nd, 2009
Imagine you are a citizen in a country that doesn’t recognize your rights: steals elections, lies to its populous, makes politically bad desicions on behalf of your nation, puts you and everyone you know in harms way. Imagine conservative religious leaders take over the political sector, and dictate the law based on archaic beliefs which benefit a small but powerful minority of elite and secretive rulers. Imagine living in a state of fear and frustration — if you cannot dictate who your leaders are, based on fair and honest elections, how can you ever hope for freedom or peace? Imagine being beaten and arrested for protesting the obvious corruption and militaristic nature of your government.
Where do you imagine you are?
The above photographs were taken in the past five years in Seattle, Washington and San Francisco.
The following were taken this past week in Tehran, Iran.
Hopefully it will work out better for the Iranians than it did for us. After all, we got stuck with the wrong guy for a long time. And what happened next wasn’t pretty.
Why You Wanna Break My Heart?
Posted by zoboxrox in church and state, human rights, justice, malfunction, politics, tragedy on June 16th, 2009
I realize I haven’t been completely objective (not that I ever claimed to be), and for a while there, I was a member of the Obama cheer-leading squad, but I’ve got to say, for me at least, the honeymoon is now officially over. Its not that I expected the new administration to do everything right, especially considering the seemingly insurmountable trouble they are faced with; its just, I never thought they would do something so clearly wrong.
To be fair, lets give a little context.
The Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA as it is known, was a bill signed into law by President Clinton – NOT President Bush — on September 21, 1996. It basically says that no state can be forced to recognize other state’s same-sex marriages and that the federal government is required not to. So yeah, its pretty bad.
No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship.
In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ’spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife
Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer, a gay couple who were married in California before Proposition 8 and had taken the two bans on marriage to Federal Court, were fought by the Obama Administration’s Justice Department. While it is rare for an administration not to defend the current laws (though not unheard of), whether or not they agree with them, it makes matters worse that Justice Department has written a brief which makes arguments comparing gay marriage to incestuous relationships.
The brief insists it is reasonable for states to favor heterosexual marriages because they are the “traditional and universally recognized form of marriage.” In arguing that other states do not have to recognize same-sex marriages under the Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause, the Justice Department cites decades-old cases ruling that states do not have to recognize marriages between cousins or an uncle and a niece.
This is not a direction I expected this president to go in. For someone who travels the globe, preaching tolerance and understanding, he should make more of an effort to practice it at home.
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