Archive for October, 2007

More reading, friends.

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Here’s an update on the climate in the American south. Apologies to Natalie Merchant.

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When I was still teaching high school, I was asked to teach a subject on dissent to a group of year 11 girls. As part of the subject, we studied Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, and I wanted to make it relevant for the girls, so I asked them to read this article from The New Yorker about an American General’s dissent against the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. We also read some of the transcripts from the McCarthy hearings in the US Senate. In our discussion, once they got their head around the idea that people within the army knew about the torture in Cuba and were silenced, they could not understand why the US was allowed to continue torturing people while the whole world knew about it. I can remember one of the girls shouting: “They should stop the US from doing that!”

My response: “Who is ‘They’?” read on »

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Lincoln and Sarmad have whetted our appetites with their two cents on the massive issue of the environment. On October 15, the world will speak at once on this theme, in a virtual onslaught of opinion and reflection pieces for the inaugural Blog Action Day, an inspired initiative of a small group of creatives, spearheaded by a young Aussie Baha’i couple. Cyan and Collis, well done as always! The Neocrats will represent.

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Apparently, there’s a drought in the Southeastern US. There’s a drought here in Australia, too. After the recent torrential rains and flooding we’ve had, one headline mentioned that after the flood it was right back to the drought for many farmers. All of this drought in countires and regions where I have lived has me thinking about droughts in places where I haven’t lived, or even been.

I haven’t been to Africa, but I know that water is a scarce resource in many countries there, and that farmers are struggling to cope with changing weather patterns that leave them without the prmary resource they need: water. I have seen pictures of large disappearing lakes in Africa. I imagine it is not the same everywhere there, that there are places receiving rain and able to support themselves from agriculture. I have also read about severe drought in Western China, coupled with contemporaneous devastating floods in a neighboring province. Again, I imagine that this is not the same everywhere in China, that many regions receive appropriate amounts of rainfall and reap at least adequate harvests. read on »

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