Mass. Demonstration: If you ever meet a copy editor whose job at a newspaper is to write headlines, you're in for a treat -- so long as you consider unbearable puns as treats. I've always thought that they have one of the most fun jobs in journalism, dreaming up witty headlines. (I envy the movie reviewers, too. I sit in dreadful committee meetings all day while they get paid to go to movies and make fun of them.)
The New York Times was definitely going for the double entendre with this headline for an AP article: Gay Marriage Ban Is Rejected in Mass.
Puns only work if they ring true. And in this case, the Massachusetts Legislature really did reject a homophobic amendment en mass: 157 to 39.
Republicans claim that they don't want "activist judges" making decisions about gay marriage, that it should be left up to the state legislatures. Well, here's one legislature that made the right decision, and made sure everyone knew.
Update: Apparently some NYT editor with no sense of humor changed it to the dry, "Mass. Lawmakers Reject Gay Marriage Ban".
Now What? Bush has quickly gotten rid of a top administrator largely believed to have ineptly handled the federal disaster relief effort. And now the president has taken full responsibility for any federal mishaps during the Katrina rescue.
Let's see whether critics ease their complaints, especially since they always accuse Bush of not admitting that anything goes wrong or punishing incompetence in his administration.
I'm still not sure what people were expecting to happen when we were suddenly forced to evacuate an entire U.S. city, after it had been completely flooded, for the first time in history. Most major cities' traffic grinds to a hault at 5 p.m. every weekday as workers flea to the suburbs. Yet somehow we were supposed to empty out an impoverished city after its transportation infrastructure had been decimated.
Hopefully we can get some lessons out of this for next time. But I honestly believe that when the next big event happens, we'll be on our own for awhile before our government can come and rescue us, no matter who's in charge.
Not Bad: Everybody has been commemorating the fourth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. While it's important that we never forget that fateful day, let's also take notice that we have not had a terrorist attack on this country in the past four years.
The reasons for such fortune are debatable. I attribute much of it to taking the fight overseas. Al Qaeda sees the action in Iraq as a much more desperate situation for them than the need to conduct attacks here. Combine that with vigilant law enforcement on this end, and we've succeeded far beyond what we thought we would have accomplished four years ago when we began the War on Terrorism.
That being said, we will be attacked again. It's just too easy to commit violence in a free society. So the presence of any attack in the near or distant future won't necessarily signal any vast failure on our part, just the determination of our enemies. And even though this country is fractured politically, let's hope that we meet future threats and attacks with a solid front that cannot be broken.
Gun Fight: Officials in New Orleans are confiscating guns from residents being rescued (Hat Tip, Volokh Conspiracy). The article doesn't say exactly why firearms are being collected, but I imagine the thought is to limit incidents of rescuers getting shot at.
I'll hold off on the debate as to whether this is constitutional (Normally I'd say no, but emergency situations sometimes call for temporary moratoriums on certain civil rights). However, this is bad policy, period.
The thugs aren't just shooting at the rescuers. They are holding up residents all over the city. And those citizens have a right to protect their homes and themselves from such a threat. This is especially true now since the police are largely occupied with rescue efforts and can't maintain law and order.
Disarming law-abiding citizens only puts more people's lives in danger as criminals hold onto their guns. If we've learned anything from this incident, it's that sometimes the government can't be there to take care of all the problems that arise. It's counterproductive to confiscate the tools people need to take care of themselves.
Same-Old Politics: I support same-sex marriage. None of this "civil union" half-way stuff, but legitimate marriage. So you can imagine how disappointed I was when I heard that California Governor Schwarzenegger has decided to veto the first bill ever passed by a state legislature to legally recognize same-sex marriage.
His excuse: the voters of California passed Proposition 22 in 2000 defining a marriage as being between one man and one woman.
Well, he's right. And I can't help but think that, as short-sighted as that vote was, that's the way the process works. Just imagine if the situation were reversed. If the voters passed a proposition legalizing same-sex marriage, and the legislature overturned it, that would be a disastrous abuse of legislative authority.
All that said, this as a civil rights issue -- meaning homosexuals should have the same rights as everyone else, regardless of how the populous votes. If the public voted to outlaw interracial marriage (again), I believe the courts should overturn that under the 9th and 14th Amendments, as they did in the past.
So although the Governator made a sound principled decision, he still made the wrong decision. And I believe the courts in this country would be correct to protect the rights of homosexuals by granting them the civil rights they deserve, just like it was largely the courts that pulled us out of the Jim Crow era.
Hopefully the California Legislature's action will keep this issue in the spotlight, and Californians will overturn their own proposition soon. This will take time, but it's a fight worth fighting.
Imagine: What if the situation in New Orleans lasted for years? What if the National Guard troops were murdering civilians instead of rescuing them? Well, then it would be almost as bad as the situation in Darfur. And I guess that would mean that the news media would immediately stop covering it:
Darfur in the Dark
Two weeks ago, the "Be a Witness" campaign reported that it couldn't even pay TV networks to cover the genocide in Darfur:American Progress created a television advertisement for BeAWitness.org, our netroots campaign that calls out the television news media for their deplorable coverage of the genocide in Darfur. Over the last few days, three Washington DC television affiliates, NBC-4, CBS-9, and ABC-7, informed us that they refuse to air the ad.While this is obviously inexcusable, it is at least somewhat understandable that TV networks would be reluctant to run ads criticizing their own failings.
Since the major networks seem to have their hands full covering stories like Natalee Holloway and the Runaway Bride, the ad does what the media won't -- puts the spotlight on Darfur, and suggests that genocide warrants increased coverage.
ABC News broadcast just 18 minutes of Darfur coverage in its nightly newscasts in all of 2004 -- "and that turns out to be a credit to Peter Jennings," as Nicholas Kristof pointed out. NBC News featured five minutes, and CBS only had three, "about a minute of coverage for every 100,000 deaths." Now they won't allow us to pay for 30 seconds to urge better coverage of the genocide.
What is odd is that the networks' collective refusal to run this ad generated almost no print media coverage. And judging by the print media's own lack of coverage of Darfur, it is easy to see why.
A search of US newspapers for the number of stories that mentioned the word "Darfur" at least 2 times over the last 19 months shows how coverage of the genocide increased during 2004, only to all but disappear in 2005 (we looked for stories that mention Darfur at least twice in order try to eliminate pieces that mentioned it only in passing)January 2004: 8The most staggering thing about these numbers is that they reveal that there has been a nearly eight-fold decrease in the number of stories about Darfur between last August and this August.
February 2004: 20
March 2004: 29
April 2004: 72
May 2004: 186
June 2004: 327
July 2004: 713
August 2004: 891
September 2004: 659
October 2004: 369
November 2004: 517
December 2004: 269
January 2005: 397
February 2005: 271
March 2005: 240
April 2005: 275
May 2005: 199
June 2005: 227
July 2005: 260
August 2005: 115
The other amazing thing is that, on August 1st of this year, former Sudanese rebel leader John Garang died in a helicopter crash. Garang, who only three weeks earlier had been sworn in as vice president under the terms of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended two decades of civil war between North and South Sudan, was seen by many as a man who might be able to bring peace to Darfur. Yet, despite his death and the implications it holds for the future of Darfur, coverage of Darfur plummeted.
Nearly one year after the United States called the situation in Darfur "genocide" and the United Nations found overwhelming evidence of "serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including crimes against humanity or war crimes" in Darfur, the genocide is receiving less print coverage than it did before many had even heard the word "Darfur."
We cannot "be a witness" to the genocide in Darfur if the media continues to keep us in the dark.
Heartbroken: I'm a Texan, but New Orleans has always been my favorite place on Earth to visit. The food, the music, the culture, the fun, and the women -- absolute Heaven.
Now it's almost all under water. Thousands are feared dead. I know the city will bounce back. But it breaks my heart to see such a disaster.
Of course, we can't have a widespread catastrophe without a good controversy. An entire large American city has been destroyed and has had to be evacuated, and unfortunately things aren't going swimmingly. Even though this is a purely natural disaster, people can't help but blame somebody.
I've been on vacation away from the Internet, so all I've gathered about the controversy is from tidbits reported on cable news -- which never seems to offer much analysis or comprehension, just allegations.
I'm sure that our government agencies could have done a better job in handling the crisis. There's always room for improvement. But there seems to be this idea that government can magically solve big problems. Sure, the United States has more resources than any other country. But if those resources can't make it to the intended destination, they won't do any good. And after they get there, it takes time to make it work.
Remember, Katrina initially missed the New Orleans bull's eye. At first people thought we dodged a bullet. Then the levees broke and the flood waters began rising.
When we realized that we really did have a crisis, we couldn't just drive in supplies. Interstate 10 was broken and battered, along with much of the rest of the transportation infrastructure. And boats don't have easy access. Crushed buildings and other floating debris clogged most routes. It would be like trying to drive a boat through a swampy junk yard.
People are even trying to throw in racial accusations, considering that most of the neglected are black. Well, the ones hurt worst by this tragedy are poor, and most of the poor in New Orleans are black. While that is a significant problem on its own, that can't be fixed next week by the National Guard.
Wealthy white people were able to get out. Poor black people could not easily escape before Katrina landed. As far as I can tell, the rescue missions are helping everyone they can. And from day one rescuers were able to help save thousands of people and send them to surrounding states and cities. Yes, it's unfortunate that some people were left behind. But we only have the capacity to move so many people at a time, especially under such dire circumstances.
And the violence in the affected areas will continue to hamper rescue efforts. A rescuer can't rescue anybody if he is hurt or killed -- in fact he becomes a serious liability. So with so many rescuers being shot at, you can expect delays.
(On the issue of crime, though, I'm confused about this whole notion of "looting". Some people are stealing televisions and stereos from stores. Yes, that's looting, especially since there is no electricity for such appliances. But other people are taking food, clothing, and medicine. Let's give these people a break, please.)
With all that said, bring on the investigations. Let's figure out what went wrong and what went right. We can learn from this incident for next time -- and there will be a next time. But we need to maintain proper perspective and realistic expectations.
Economics 010: I find these sorts of things to be entertaining.
At the McDonald's by my office, a 4-piece Chicken McNugget costs $1. The 6-piece costs $2.39.
That's not the first time I've seen that sort of misappropriated pricing. Once at a Burger King, the value meal cost more than buying the hamburger, fries, and Coke separately. Only about 15 cents more, but I still decided to buy the burger there and get a Coke somewhere else.
So I picked up a 20 oz. bottle of Coke from a machine, which cost me $1. It's then that I realized that I could have bought two 12 oz. cans of Coke for 50 cents each. What ever happened to bulk discount?
Anyhow, I'll be out of the office all next week. Y'all take care.
I Fart in Your General Direction: If anybody wants a legitimate reason to hate the French, forget Freedom Fries and UNSCAM, look at the way they're treating Lance Armstrong. They treat him like dirt not in spite of his being a cancer survivor, but because he is a cancer survivor. That, they claim, is reason enough to suspect him of doping in order to win the Tour de France seven times.
We stand with you, Lance. We're proud of what you've accomplished, and hopefully someday you can leave these jokers behind for good.
Duty to Die: Scientists discover a hormone that extends the lifespan of mice. The researchers hope to use this to help humans live longer.
Question: Haven't we extended the lifespan of humans enough? Barring major illness or disease, people regularly live past 100. If you want immortality, look into religion. Otherwise, don't try to hold onto life forever.
It's Up to Blogs: The Center for American Progress reports that NBC, CBS, and ABC affiliates in the DC area are refusing to run the center's Be a Witness ads about the genocide in Sudan. An article on the center's blog, Think Progress, explains the disappointing development with the title, Apparently you can't even pay TV networks to cover genocide.
The Coalition for Darfur also has a post about how military intervention can do some good against the genocide, even if the action is limited and only one country is involved.
Genocide and Statistics
Last week, International Studies Quarterly published a study by Matthew Krain, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the College of Wooster, examining "the effectiveness of military action on the severity of ongoing instances of genocide and polititcide."
According to the press release:The study reveals that only overt military interventions that explicitly challenge the perpetrator appear to be effective in reducing the severity of the brutal policies. Military support for targets, or in opposition to the perpetrators, alters the almost complete vulnerability of unarmed civilian targets. And these interventions that directly target the perpetrators were not, on the whole, found to make matters worse for those being attacked ... He finds that even military intervention against the perpetrator by a single country or international organization has a measurable effect in the "typical" case.In the introduction to the study, Krain notes:
When a single international actor challenges the aggressor, the probability that the killings will escalate drops while the probability that the killings will decrease jumps. Each additional intervention by another international actor raises the chance of saving lives.Policy makers faced with situations like those in Rwanda or Bosnia, Kosovo or Darfur, are forced to rely on past experience with interventions in other types of internal conflicts, often with disastrous results. This study is a step toward a better understanding of the effectiveness of potential responses by the international community to genocides and politicides.Krain goes on to examine various intervention methods of dealing with on-going genocides and politicides (the "impartial intervention model," the "witness model," the "bystander model," etc...) and notes that not one of them is capable of reducing the severity of such situations.
After conducting a statistical analysis of the various models, Krain concludes:Policy maker concerns that intervention on the behalf of target populations will escalate the killing appear to be unfounded.He then discusses his finding as they relate to Darfur, writing:
The only overt military interventions that appear to be effective in reducing the severity of genocides or politicides are those that explicitly challenge the perpetrator.Intervention against the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed within the first year of the genocide would likely have had a measurable effect on the severity [2003] of state-sponsored mass murder in the following year.Kraine does not claim that military intervention is the "only" option. In fact, he notes that "policy makers have a range of options available to them in the face of an ongoing genocide or politicide" and that his study "only examines one of those options."
Keeping that in mind, it is hard to argue with Kraine's basic conclusion:If actors wish to slow or stop the killing in an ongoing instance of state-sponsored mass murder, they are more likely to be effective if they oppose the perpetrators of the brutal policy.
Geto Boy: I'm sure everybody saw Pat Robertson's calling for the assassination of Venezuela's president. This man is an ultra-religious political wannabe who has no political sense and no grasp of religious meaning.
I'm not a Christian, but I can tell the difference between somebody who claims to be a Christian and someone who actually practices it. I honestly can't remember the last time I read or heard a sentence that began with "Pat Robertson said ..." and ended with anything good.
Eh: I got sick of the Blogspot comment system, so it's gone. I'm sticking with HaloScan, even with all its faults. I'll just have to accept that the HaloScan system will not always display the correct number of comments in the parentheses, and that the comments will completely disappear after a few days. Joy ...
Misery: There's something about extremism that breeds fear and hate and leaves the followers miserably glum. This liberal video is beyond parody. I'm sure some people find it inspiring, and that's what is so sad. I just want to ask them, What's wrong with you that you ignore the good around you and only see darkness and depression?
A word of advice. Bitterness does not garner respect. (via Southern Appeal)
Nowhere to Hide: Saudi police have reportedly killed the Al Qaeda leader in that country. 'Bout damn time Saudi Arabia has joined the crackdown on Al Qaeda. It still seems like the Saudi royalty is getting an undeserved pass from the "with us or against us" doctrine. But now that Saudi leaders are taking out the Al Qaeda hierarchy, and even calling the group a Jewish conspiracy, that helps limit my distrust for Saudi Arabia -- somewhat.
By the way, the Saudi police found the severed head of an American killed by the Al Qaeda members. The terrorists kept it in their freezer(!).
Bogged Down: Instead of deciding what to do about the mass murder and starvation in Sudan, the international community got caught up with whether to call the situation "genocide". Not that it matters -- the United States has already declared it genocide, and still nothing is being done. While the outright murder has subsided somewhat, people are still dying. Yet, we're still worrying about labels. The Coalition for Darfur explains:
Plagued by Technicalities
Last week, David Loyn of the BBC wrote about the crisis in Niger and asked "How many dying babies make a famine?"Famine is a troublesome word with a very specific meaning to the professional aid community.The debate over "famine" is much the same as the debate over "genocide" in Darfur:
It is usually taken to define a situation in which a high proportion of the general population is vulnerable to death by hunger-related disease.
This describes a much more intense situation than the loose way that famine is generally understood -- and the pictures of starving babies in Niger certainly look like "famine" to the outside world.
In technical terms Niger's President Mamadou Tandja may be right to say that this is not a famine."For those who are dying from acute malnutrition and related diseases, the debate about whether there have been enough deaths to justify the famine label, and the extent to which this exceeds the normal hungry season mortality rate is not helpful.Last September, the US declared that genocide was taking place in Darfur, but three months later, the report (PDF file) of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur concluded that it was not, though it also stipulated:
"Avoiding the famine label has often been convenient for those seeking to justify slow or failed responses."The conclusion that no genocidal policy has been pursued and implemented in Darfur by the Government authorities, directly or through the militias under their control, should not be taken in any way as detracting from the gravity of the crimes perpetrated in that region. International offences such as the crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed in Darfur may be no less serious and heinous than genocide.But the press responded, not with headlines reading "Massive Crimes Against Humanity in Darfur," but rather with headlines such as "U.N. report: Darfur not genocide."
But the point was essentially moot, as one thing quickly became clear: overwhelming evidence of massive crimes against humanity could not get the world to act, nor could a genocide declaration. In fact, it seems that nothing could prod the global community to act to address the situation in Darfur, be it genocide, quasi-genocide, or "merely" crimes against humanity.
As Loyn reports of Niger, warnings of an impending food crisis have been raised since November, but nobody paid attention until it was too late:They did not respond to the requests on paper as they did to pictures of dying babies.The reverse is now occurring regarding Darfur. It has become, in the words of Eric Reeves, a "genocide by attrition," and the world has stopped paying attention.
Last month, the UN reported that violence in Darfur had diminished over the past year, mainly because militia have run out of targets after destroying hundreds of villages.
As Reeves has written, the genocide in Darfur is now:[M]ore a matter of engineered disease and malnutrition than violent killing. In other words, disease and malnutrition proceeding directly from the consequences of violent attacks on villages, deliberate displacement, and systematic destruction of the means of agricultural production among the targeted non-Arab or African tribal groups became the major killers.It is entirely possible that Darfur will not begin to receive sustained coverage again until this "genocide by attrition" has taken the lives of tens of thousands more and footage of dying babies in Darfur begins to show up on the nightly news.
And then, in lieu of actually addressing that problem, we can have a debate about whether or not this new situation meets the technical definition of "famine."
Stuck in the Middle: Wow, I'm having to rethink my idea that we can trust the police with a little racial profiling. As more information leaks out about the Brazilian man who was killed in Britain as a suspected terrorist, it's becoming apparent that the police really fucked up on this one.
Despite earlier accounts, the victim didn't vault over any turnstiles. He was only wearing a denim jacket, not a heavy coat. And he only ran to catch a train, as anybody who has ever ridden the subway has done before, not to evade the police.
Still, when the police caught him, they held him down and shot him seven times. They didn't try to yank him out of the train for questioning. They just opened fire.
Again, I only argued that police should spend more time questioning tan young men than pasty old ladies. There's nothing wrong with searching a few bags before someone gets on a subway or plane. But we have to trust the police that they won't become overzealous -- otherwise I may be the next one you see running from the police.
Under Construction: I've been having some issues with HaloScan, so I'm giving the Blogger comment service a try. If it works, I will eventually trash all of HaloScan, which is no big deal because they erase all comments after a few weeks anyhow. Let me know if you have an opinion. Thanks for your patience.
Too Sexy for the Web: President Bush is opposed to the creation of the .xxx domain for Internet sites. That Internet suffix would allow porn sites to be clearly recognizable and easily blocked.
But Bush doesn't want to give porn sites a safe haven or virtual red light district. Apparently separating all the porn from the rest of the Net could be harmful to "families and children".
This is ludicrous, because the porn is already there. Sex is everywhere on the Internet, and you can't get rid of it. But the .xxx domain could help regulate it. That would actually provide more protection to families and children.
There's something kooky in general about conservatives and sex. It's like they don't want to admit it exists. Most mainstream movies don't include nudity or sex like they used to. The whole mantra of "sex sells" has been disproven as most movies rated R and NC17 draw fewer people to theaters. This partly stems from social conservatives' railing against sexual images.
Yet, while Righties can't stand sex, they don't seem to mind the violent images that remain in our movies. Battles and gore are glorified, but sex is hidden.
I'm not arguing that either should be removed from the big screen. I think Americans should have the choice to see what they want, and the disclaimers and warnings are adequate in protecting those people who are easily offended. But if I had children, I would be more comfortable seeing two people loving each other than killing each other. For some reasons conservatives would rather have the opposite.
Hot Topics: August sure is boring. And that's generally a good thing. Our government isn't actively screwing anything up at the moment. And it's warm enough to go swimming.
Of course, even though our government takes time off to recuperate, our news organizations do not. So we must fill time and newsprint with utter nonsense.
Enter Cindy Sheehan. The attention given to this woman is unreal. But with nothing important going on, she gets full command of the spotlight.
The truth is, she's just another nutty protester. There are 1,800-plus parents of dead soldiers and Marines. Some of them support the war, some of them do not -- eerily similar to the overall mood of the country.
While we all feel for her loss, we also know that a parent who just lost a child is not the most rational. Just like the father of a dead Marine who set fire to a Marine Corps van after hearing the news of his son's KIA, we sympathize and make excuses for odd behavior.
But this doesn't give anybody moral authority over anything. In fact, if Jenna were to be kidnapped, Bush would probably be removed from office under the XXV Amendment. (I think that was the theme of a West Wing episode.)
Ms. Sheehan has already met with the president once. That's more than many other military family members got. Now that she has the attention of the news horde, she spouts off anti-Israeli ramblings and conspiracy theories.
She has the right to speak her mind. But she doesn't have the right to make any of us listen.
Update: (via Centerfield) Newsweek has an article about how Bush has met with more than 900 family members of more than 270 troops who died in the war -- and Cindy Sheehan was already one of those members. Some of them were supportive, others showed up to give the president a piece of their mind. Just about all found Bush to be a caring and compassionate man. That may not mean much to you if you don't support the War in Iraq. But I just wanted to let you know nonetheless.
Did it Matter? The Coalition for Darfur notes that Bush's declaration of the situation in Sudan as a genocide hasn't produced any positive results. It's already been a year:
Since then, an estimated 400,000 people have died, Doctors Without Borders is warning that millions of lives "hang in the balance," and the International Committee of the Red Cross is warning of "chronic instability."Eugene gives us a post he wrote over a year ago, arguing that not only should we call the mass murder in Darfur a genocide, we should respond to the genocide.
Say The Word
On January 11, 1994, Lt. General Romeo Dallaire, the UN Force Commander for the United Nation's Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) sent an ominous fax to UN headquarters in New York. A high level informant within the ruling party informed UNAMIR that he had been training the Interahamwe militia and had been[O]rdered to register all Tutsi in Kigali. He suspects it is for their extermination. Example he gave was that in 20 minutes his personnel could kill up to 1000 Tutsis.Dallaire informed New York that he intended to act on the information and seize various illegal arms caches before they could be distributed to the Interahamwe. The UN prohibited him from doing so. And as Dallaire's executive assistant Brent Beardsley explained:We lost the initiative. We lost this fantastic opportunity, an absolutely incredible opportunity to maybe get this thing off the rails, take this train of genocide and knock it off its rails, get the initiative; maybe rally the moderates and be able to prevent what they obviously wanted to do, what [the informant] told us they wanted to do, which was exterminate Tutsis.The 1994 slaughter of one million Rwandans was not some spontaneous outpouring of uncoordinated evil. Rather, it was an orchestrated, well-planned and systematic campaign to kill every Tutsi in the country.
It did not come out of the blue, but the various warning signs were routinely ignored and the US and the international community intentionally refused to legally recognize that genocide was taking place. As a result, during a horrific 100 days in 1994, hundreds of thousands of innocent people were slaughtered.
Ten years later, a similar crisis is again unfolding in Africa. Only today, hundreds of thousands of people are threatened with destruction, not via neighbors with machetes or screwdrivers, but rather by famine and disease.
The government of Sudan is currently engaged in a genocidal campaign against black Muslim farmers and villagers in the western section of the country. In Darfur, Arab militias backed by government bombs and troops are systematically wiping out thousands of villages and their inhabitants. Hundreds of thousands have fled into neighboring Chad, while millions more have been internally displaced.
The regime in Khartoum has vehemently resisted Western pressure to reign in the militias and grant access to humanitarian NGO's seeking to alleviate the suffering of some 2-million people who have been forced from the homes.
Just as in Rwanda, the crisis in Darfur did not come out of nowhere. Activists have been warning about the potential humanitarian catastrophe for months, but to no avail. While the looming crisis was more or less ignored as the international community focused its efforts and attention on the peace agreement between Khartoum and rebels in the South, the situation in Darfur deteriorated to the point where U.S. Agency for International Development chief Andrew Natsios warned:We estimate right now if we get relief in, we'll lose a third of a million people, and if we don't, the death rates could be dramatically higher, approaching a million people.In other words, if NGOs could gain immediate access to those in need, the best case scenario was that "only" 300,000 people were going to die. And that was three weeks ago -- and they didn't get access.
Though the Bush administration claims that the crisis in Darfur is a "matter of highest priority" for the United States, they have been unable to get the UN to take a strong and vocal stand on the issue. Everyone seems to be operating under the assumption that someone else ought to take the lead.
The US and everyone else points the finger at the UN and the UN points the finger right back at them.
As it stands now, hundreds of million of dollars have been allocated for relief efforts, but the supplies are not reaching those in need as the government of Sudan has failed to control the Arab militias and continues to throw up procedural roadblocks in order to prevent access.
For months, the international community has been hoping that it could pressure Khartoum into stopping its genocidal campaign and for months they have resisted. All the while, the situation grows more and more dire. The lives of hundreds of thousands are at risk and every day the rainy season grows nearer. And once the rains begin, even if the humanitarian organizations do manage to get access, tens of thousands will be beyond their reach.
It is widely accepted that Darfur is the world's worst humanitarian crisis. It didn't get that way over night.
Physicians for Human Rights has warned that "a genocidal process is unfolding in Darfur." The United States Holocaust Memorial's Committee on Conscience has issued a "genocide warning." The U.S. war-crimes ambassador, Pierre-Richard Prosper, has testified that "indicators of genocide" exist in Darfur.
How many "indicators of genocide" do there need to be before the genocide is officially recognized and the international community fulfills its legal responsibilities?
Let it not be said that, for want of the courage to utter this one word, hundreds of thousands died in vain.
Kids These Days: A new survey came out that says high-school students want harder work to do and to be challenged more by their teachers.
Apparently 9 out of 10 kids surveyed would work harder if they were expected to, and more than two-thirds don't think that their high schools set high enough standards. Oh, and they seem to like the high-stakes graduation tests.
I don't know what to make of this. I was in high school 10 years ago, and none of my friends complained that we didn't have enough to do. Maybe that's indicative of the crowd I was hanging around -- or maybe my friends just didn't want me to know.
Well, kids, good for you. Just be careful what you ask for.
Sign of the Times: Sometimes irony can be a good thing. News of the Weird reports that the Virginia Employment Agency, which handles unemployment compensation, had to layoff 400 of its workers, due to the growing economy and the drop in residents who are out of work. Hopefully that means there are plenty of jobs out there for them to choose from.
Another Tragedy: As you probably heard, Sudanese vice-president John Garang died in a helicopter crash last weekend. As a former rebel leader, his task was to help bring peace in the 20-year civil war. His death adds yet another impediment to that end.
The Coalition for Darfur has highlighted some articles on this topic. One highlights the further violence that followed Garang's death. Another analyzes the effects of Garang's death in the long run. And a third one brings attention to a report on Sudan that was overshadowed by the other news. They are all worthy reads.
It's a War After All: You know, flip flops are more tolerable when you eventually flop in the right direction. But it still doesn't do much for overall confidence.