Book of Negroes and Expectations

*I originally wrote this on my writing blog... but it's really themed more around romance and humour. Whereas this site is for the depressing topics. So I transplanted it here. ;-)

__

One of the best books I've read on writing fiction is actually a dense and difficult little volume called The Fiction Editor, the Novel and the Novelist by Thomas McCormack. I've read it twice, and will read it again, because his ideas require a certain amount of unpacking; but there are some good ideas that have stuck.

Among other things, he goes into great detail about setting up reader's expectations, and then fulfilling them. In a more sophisticated way than the classic Gun Introduced In Act One example. And I'm thinking about that right now, and about the expectations I have as a reader before I even open the book. Expectations set by the cover art, the reviews on the back, whether the book won awards, what genre it is, whether it's been recommended to me, etc.

If I start reading a book that's won literary praise or awards, that's the bell that sets off my Pavlovian panting for a rich reading experience. The characters can have every sort of horror happen to them, or all die by the end, but I expect (a) strong writing; and (b) to be moved, or have something deep to think about, or for the book to stay with me for awhile, etc.

I'm thinking about all this because I finished The Book of Negroes this week, and experienced a mild letdown. After seeing all the 5 star reviews, and its winning Canada Reads, and after having it recommended to me... I expected to be left with a stronger impression. Like... a heavy meal in my stomach, lots of digesting still to be done.

I suspect Oprah has this kind of sense, because the two Oprah picks I ever read were fantastic: Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible and Mistry's A Fine Balance. I recommend the latter all the time, because I just loved those characters so much, and really really cared about what happened to them.

But Book of Negroes has left me feeling mildly indifferent. The book starts off strong, and it was as page-turning as a thriller. Hill obviously researched the bejeezuz out of this material (the Atlantic slave trade, slavery in Southern Carolina, the lives of free blacks in Nova Scotia, and the colonization of Sierra Leone), and the wealth of detail is what makes the first half of the book so engrossing.

The last half or quarter, however... meh. I was really interested in the lives of freed slaves in Nova Scotia, since I'm Canadian and so is the author. I mean, we all sorta *know* how horrific slavery was in the American south, but I've never studied the early black communities in Canada. And I've never studied the colonization of Sierra Leone, or other Back to Africa movements. But it feels like, by the time he got to these sections, he was exhausted or overcome by the breadth of the novel. The Sierra Leone section is especially rushed.

And through all this rushing from one city to another, one decade of this woman's life to another, I lost touch with her. Not to mention she's--I hate to say it--what in Fantasy circles would be called a Mary Sue. I understand the desire to show a smart, educated black protagonist, suceeding despite her circumstances... but after awhile she became so exceptional, so universally loved, so accomplished, I sort of stopped worrying about her. "Aw whatevah, she'll be fine. But what happened to this woman? Let's follow her instead!" I missed many of the characters who dropped away because the heroine moved on, or the author randomly killed them off.

And when a book is this long (it's not long in terms of pages, but in terms of how much time is covered), I expect a heavy-deep ending to creeeep up on me. If anything, the theme of the book was too obvious to be interesting. The author used one of my fave Bible quotes at the beginning: I hate set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life," and the theme was present throughout. It was about surviving no matter what; about clinging to life even when death is so tempting. But I feel like the message could have been more delicately interwoven through the book; or the idea could have been challenged by other characters; or it could have been an idea the heroine really struggled with. And it's the same with the other themes--about having a recognized identity, and origin. I felt sort of bludgeoned over the head with them.

I've never read Toni Morrisson, but I watched the movie version Oprah made of Beloved, and which people didn't exactly flock to see because it's a long, dark, creepy and difficult story. And even though the book takes place sort of post-slavery--it's about a horrible act committed by a woman to keep her children from being enslaved, and the after effects of that--it left a much deeper impression on me than Book of Negroes. Ah well... maybe it's not fair to compare anyone to Morrisson.

Anyway. Just needed to think this out. ;-)

Want to know how The Other Half lives?

In detail? From a NYTimes article on the lifestyles of the kind of people who would be affected by Obama's proposed $500 000 salary cap:

If a person is married with two children:

1. Weekly deductions on a $500,000 salary are:

federal taxes, $2,645;
Social Security, $596;
Medicare, $139;
state taxes, $682;
and city, $372,
bringing the weekly take-home to $5,180, or about $269,000 a year

2. Living expenses:

2 vacations a year, a winter trip to the sun and a spring trip to the ski slopes: Total minimum cost: $16,000.

three-bedroom apartment (purchased for $1.5 million)
monthly mortgage $8,000
co-op maintenance fee of $8,000 a month

summer house in Southampton (cost $4 million)
monthly mortgage payments of $20,000.

cars and drivers:
chauffeur’s pay: $75,000 - $125,000 a year (the higher end for former police officers who can double as bodyguards)
garage for car: $700 a month.

A personal trainer at $80 an hour three times a week comes to about $12,000 a year.

Charity galas: $10,000 - $15,000 on a dress --> 3-4 dresses/year

Each Brooks Brothers suit costs about $1,000

Children:
private school $32,000 a year per student.
additional tutoring (needed for those private schools) $125-175 / hour
SAT tutors are about $250 an hour.
Nanny: $45,000.

$425 every 10 days on groceries

Restaurants.
Dry cleaning.
kennels for the dog when the family is away
summer camp,
spas and other grooming for the human members of the family,
donations to charity
frozen hot chocolates at Serendipity ($8.50 each)
TOTAL: about $790,750

A Blue Christmas

I've been hiding out from the news of the world all month, doing Nanowrimo (write a novel in one month.) Having gone to political science, I know a lot of news junkies--people who couldn't get away from their newspaper reading if they tried. I've never been like that. I like to know what's going on in the world, but I also accept that if I escape from it all for a little while, they won't notice I'm gone. What's sort of depressing is when I tune back in and find everything's the same!

The stories I couldn't avoid were the Mumbai killings and the shopper rampage at Walmart. Not a very merry start to the Christmas season.

:-(

On the other hand, withdrawing from the negative can sometimes help to refocus on the positive. No matter what anyone around me believes or tells me, I still think humans are just as capable of beauty as they are of ugliness. But we kinda hafta make that choice every day.

On that note, I'll post here The Most Depressing Christmas Song I Know. (It's not overtly Christmas, but it appeared on Judy Collins' Christmas album.) I had to upload it to youtube myself, and for all I know it'll get taken down--depends how Princelike she is. ;-)

Selling out like a rock band baby!

I'm a big believer in gradual change. I didn't become a vegetarian or vegan overnight, and I don't believe that if I'm not doing something Perfectly (being vegan or eco-friendly etc.) I should just throw in the towel. By tuning out, we don't have to change a thing about the way they live -- wee!

The argument against making small changes is that the changes we make won't make a difference (to animals, the environment, poor peeps....) I've never understood this argument for two reasons:

(a) What if--in theory--everyone else also wanted to make these changes to their lives, but didn't because they think the same way you do. It's silly. Be the change you want to see in the world;

(b) What about having principles? Why can't you do something because you just know it's right, even if things never change? It's called having integrity--trying to bring your actions and beliefs in line with each other.

Again, I think it's just an excuse we give ourselves so we won't have to be Uncomfortable. If you're not at least trying to live a life in accordance with how you wish the world was, then you're--in rock and roll terms--selling out.

Instead of swinging between the extremes of Perfect Person and Slacker Dude, try what the Green Living Tips blog calls: Transitional Ethics. I think it's better to make little compromises that get you closer to the end goal, than the one big compromise of trading in your values for material comfort.

"I've gained the world and lost my soul
Maybe it's because I'm getting old
All the people that I know
Have gained the world and lost their souls"

Thermodynamics and Local Eating

I've never been against international trade, though I believe the playing field needs to be equalized in order for the system to be just. I also thought that increasing world trade was inevitable, and therefore "making the best of the situation" seemed like a more realistic approach than "down with foreign trade." However the heightened cost of fuel is calling that inevitability into question.

Here's an interesting article in the BBC that measures the economy in terms of energy put into production:

"Even before its sea voyage, the calorific value of US wheat is only twice the amount of calories expended to produce it. Compare this with cassava production in Tanzania where 23 times the calorific value is gained for each calorie of human energy input.

Is it energetically sound, socially advisable and economically sensible in the long term to encourage and sustain such long two-way supply chains that evolved in a low-cost energy ere? ...

Could it be more sustainable and cost effective for donors to pay farmers a "fair" price to develop food production for local markets - based on costs of fuel, importing food, the risk of the supply chain collapsing or moving to another country, and so on?" (Dr Peter Baker is a commodities development specialist at CABI, a not-for-profit agricultural research organisation)

Where is all my peeps?

I haven't attended church in many moons... maybe about 10 years? I've always thought I'd go back to one--or to some spiritual gathering type meeting up thingy--if I ever came across Just the Right Thing. I'm not going to go looking at this point.

But I'm starting to feel, for the first time, like I need a Hippie Gathering. Where are all the old hippies, and gray-haired vegans? I know lots of people in their 20s who are concerned about ethical issues such as extreme income disparities and such (I was studying developing areas after all--the campus is full of them) but where are the people who are still trying to live with these ethics in mind in their 30s? 40s?

When I told a school friend that I was vegan she was surprised because: "I've never met someone over 25 who was a vegan."

I know they're out there. They write cooking blogs.

Nothing's better than More?

When I was shopping in the village a couple weeks ago I ran into a woman who used to work with. She'd just returned from a trip to South America and was still adjusting. I asked her what was the weirdest thing about being back.

She said--as soon as she got back to Toronto she noticed that, though we have so much here, everyone is so stressed. Whereas in the countries she visited (I forget which ones) so many people have so little, but she found they were much more easy going.

Certainly goes with the Thoreau pieces I've been re-reading this month. He tried to figure out how little you can live with, and still enjoy life, and he found it to be very little. I'm not trying to imply that poor people are happy cause they're poor--I have no personal experience of poverty. But I think I can say with confidence that, your basic needs having been met (regularly), there is no direct correlation between Money and Pleasure. (Which according to this book, is backed up by studies.) And maybe it's in part because of what my ex-coworker noticed... that we stress out over everything. What's the point in having more, if you just worry more?

Local chemist *answer guy* Dr Joe Schwarcz made a similar point in a recent article addressing the "toxic shower curtain" scare:

"While most of the scares about living in a "chemical soup" are exaggerated, the stress they cause is real. People have become so scared of dying they forget about living. And if worrying about trace amounts of chemicals being released from shower curtains makes news, then living today is pretty good. So relax."

***

Reminds me of this tongue-in-cheek Stephen Sondheim song:

I got rhythm, music too, just as much as before
Got my guy and my sky of blue
Now, however, I own the view
More is better than nothing--true
But nothing's better than MORE MORE MORE
Nothing's better than more.

The Residential Schools Apology

cbc.ca asked readers who went to a residential school, or had family members who did, to write in about their experiences. I’ve just been reading some of the 134 comments, and it's interesting how similar many of the comments are.

If you think about the fallout that comes when any one person is abused—the effect not only on their lives, but their parents, siblings, family, spouses, children—it’s staggering to think of the damage that has been done to entire communities. Even if you just think of children being raised, perhaps from the age of 6 until 16 (with maybe one month back at home per year), in a cold and non-family environment, imagine what kind of parenting skills they would have. It's really a case of the state/church raising society's children, like a sci fi story.

As one woman wrote, speaking of her mother: “She was never shown how to care or love others, not even her own children. This is what was robbed from us - a caring and nurturing family, and the knowledge of who we were and pride in that.”

Below I pasted some of the comments along these lines. Obviously it's a bit long to read, but I posts anyway... if only for myself to reread in future.

***

“I never understood why my mother could never show affection, and never said she loved us, her children. Her problems with alcohol, depression and anger I now know were fueled by her lonely, regimented, and cold-hearted, childhood experiences. …I honor my Mother and all of her siblings, who also endured the residential schools- my uncles with the biggest 'hearts' and the kindest smiles but saddest of eyes,who ruined themselves with alcohol. It is a similar story with almost all aboriginal families. And I ask for strength for all; to rise above the vices that have been used to hide or mask the deep pain so that our people can again be proud and have dignity.”

From a social worker in a native community: “I had many clients who attended this residential achool, and I heard many accounts of sexual and physical abuse. The most frequent and most hearbreaking stories came from the long buried stories of acute loneliness, and feelings of abandonment….Much of the media coverage has focused on elderly survivors, and the early days of residential schools. But this young women and many others like her still struggle to raise their families with damaged self esteem issues and long burried anger and despair.”

“My mother has taken these words from the federal goverment very hard.... her wounds have been exposed again and her pain is real... she is far from understanding how to heal...the only way i know to heal, is to forgive and this I know can be trying, but its based on the individuals choice to do so. I am responsible to my children and thier children not to allow the legacy of the residential schools have any more power over our lives. If I was to feed into the pain i would only be giving this tragidy momentum to contiues to destroy more generations within my family, I must break the chain of disfunction and sorrow rise above to be proud of who and what I am... and for this I am responsible...”

“the legacy it has left our family, is that we, the seven children, don't even talk to each other anymore. We all have such deep hurts, we don't talk about it, we don't support each other in any way. We are all educated and do very well in our jobs, but we do not have a complete life. … I have been a victim of sexual abuse. I have three grown children now, all have excellent education, excellent careers, and yet, tho proud, I am not truly happy with my life. I was an alcoholic, and now I gamble my life away, quite literally. I have lost so much, yet I still keep on this path of destruction. I cannot stop myself. I have been suicidal many times. I wish I was dead still.”

“The day I felt in my heart that it finally happened was June 11, 2008. The chains have been broken because for the first time someone other me had taken responsibility for the years of abuse at the hands of my entrusted family members that attended these schools.”

“I am a "survivor" but not in the familiar sense. I didnt attend residential school: My family members did. I have to reconstruct who I am daily as a result. Key to his message should have been meaningful recognition of youth like me who have the burden of putting the pieces back together. Key to this picture is the intergenerational impacts of residential school.”

“The common characteristics most families like mine all share are that there has been a lack of love and affection, there were no 'I love you' words, no hugs and no kisses…. I am the last child in my big family, I am now 40 years old and I never had children of my own because I feared I could not love them properly.”

“I got wipped, beaten, hair pulled, and thrown around many times as a kid for no God damn reason, because this is the kind of Discipline they were taught.”

“I have seen my mother, destroy herself and have never known the parent she was meant to be... for she did not aquire the skills of parenting, because she had never been parented herself. I've watch her try to live up to expectations pushed on her from years before- she would wash the floors and would be sure to get into the cracks "WITH A TOOTHBRUSH" like she had been taught in her childhood. No matter what she did she would never be enough and this was instilled in her, just for the simple fact that she was NATIVE.”

“I myself suffered many horrible beatings (practically daily) and mental abuse as well as sexual abuse from relatives who attended residential school…. I myself had passed on abuse to my children when they were young, until I had sought therapy. …Between the depression and working, my kids knew that they had a mother that just existed and was not really living life. … My family didn't know how to apologize so they didn't apologize to each other. …Accepting someone’s apology doesn't mean that you condone the behaviour or actions that the person or people have done but that you forgive yourself for holding on and release yourself from the ties that bind you to the misery. It means freedom inside of you. This is just my opinion.”

“My aunt told me that the schools wouldn't let them even touch each other and yet they would stare at each other across the room, longing to hold each other and feel some element of family love that was so strongly absent in that place.”

“I'm a product of the 60's scoop, where Native kids were all taken from their families, and put into foster care or adopted by white families, because either their parents were inadequate or they were "deemed" inadequate …I wound up in care. I was raised in care, 21 homes by the time i was done...before 16.”

“One thing I am waiting for is an apology from the Roman Catholic Church. The priests and nuns took away my family. My younger brother committed suicide in 1968, followed by my sister who committed suicide in 1974. My mom died of alcoholism in 1979. She went to residential school. My older brother could not handle being abused by a priest. He drank and was run over while crossing a highway and many say that was suicide.
No Roman Catholic priest or nun has ever come to me to apologize. “

[My understanding, from a brief Google, is that other churches have apologized in the past, and the Catholic church has left it up to each diocese to apologize.]

“These priests and nuns represented God to these children (although a false one) and therefore it was spiritual abuse as well; how many children suffered and died believing that even God hated and disapproved of them.”

Banana Woes

So I've been eating bananas now, which is all very New to Me. But now their price is going to go up! Hmph!

If curious, read the NYT article on the history of banana-eating. ;-) (Or see an excerpt below.)

On the side... I found a funny blog all about bananas. They report a story about some high school seniors who called in sick to school, and then showed up (in costume) as a bunch of bananas being chased through the hall by a gorilla. And they got suspended for a week! What's with that! Harmless and hilarious, what more could you ask?


*
"Once bananas had become widely popular, the companies kept costs low by exercising iron-fisted control over the Latin American countries where the fruit was grown. Workers could not be allowed such basic rights as health care, decent wages or the right to congregate. (In 1929, Colombian troops shot down banana workers and their families who were gathered in a town square after church.) Governments could not be anything but utterly pliable. Over and over, banana companies, aided by the American military, intervened whenever there was a chance that any “banana republic” might end its cooperation. (In 1954, United Fruit helped arrange the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Guatemala.) Labor is still cheap in these countries, and growers still resort to heavy-handed tactics.

...bananas have always been an emblem of a long-distance food chain. Perhaps it’s time we recognize bananas for what they are: an exotic fruit that, some day soon, may slip beyond our reach."

Cyclone-ness

Oh la. Poor Burma. I wonder how recovery efforts will work out, considering this is one of the strictest military governments in the world.

From our own "developing area"

Some passages from:

An open letter on residential schools to the Prime Minister from Chief Phil Fontaine

Apr 22, 2008 04:30 AM

Phil Fontaine

*

In the Oct. 16, 2007, Throne Speech, your government promised to apologize for residential schooling for First Nations, Métis and Inuit children which led to profound harms. Every expression and word of the apology will be of great importance to our peoples and will be carefully studied, as will its timing and place. After 150 years of waiting, nothing less than a complete, unencumbered and honest apology for this dark period in our shared history will do.

An apology acceptable to survivors must be offered in the House of Commons where the Prime Minister will address Parliament, the nation and the world. It must be an event as significant and meaningful as the apology to our brothers and sisters of the Stolen Generations of Australia, and our fellow Japanese Canadians. It must incorporate the ceremony and dignity that such a symbolic and historic occasion requires. The galleries must be filled with survivors, their families, as well as church and government representatives who will bear witness.

It should specify that several generations of children were deprived of day-to-day parental love and support; that mothers, fathers, grandparents, extended family members and communities were equally deprived of their children; that health care, nutrition and emotional needs of the children were neglected; that many lost the ability to speak our languages, practise our cultures; that thousands were scarred for life from deliberate physical, sexual and psychological abuse; and that some never returned home leaving their families to mourn their passing not even knowing where they were buried.

Canada must apologize for ignoring our treaty rights and our ancestors' pleas for a good education for their children, acknowledging they were provided inferior education which detrimentally affected employment opportunities and livelihoods for generations.

As National Chief and a residential school survivor, I sincerely hope that by Canada saying sorry for all of these wrongs, my residential school brothers and sisters will be able to move on with their lives. I hope they will be able to accept the apology and find it in their hearts to forgive. I hope that as a result of the apology, the residential school era may eventually be remembered by all of us without bitterness.

Sincerely,

Phil Fontaine
National Chief
Assembly of First Nations

More on food scarcity

From the New York Times:

In Cairo, the military is being put to work baking bread as rising food prices threaten to become the spark that ignites wider anger at a repressive government. In Burkina Faso and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, food riots are breaking out as never before. In reasonably prosperous Malaysia, the ruling coalition was nearly ousted by voters who cited food and fuel price increases as their main concerns.

“It’s the worst crisis of its kind in more than 30 years,” said Jeffrey D. Sachs, the economist and special adviser to the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. “It’s a big deal and it’s obviously threatening a lot of governments. There are a number of governments on the ropes, and I think there’s more political fallout to come.”

...In Haiti, where three-quarters of the population earns less than $2 a day and one in five children is chronically malnourished, the one business booming amid all the gloom is the selling of patties made of mud, oil and sugar, typically consumed only by the most destitute.

Food shortages for the poor - greeeeat

In the last month I've read of both wheat shortages this year, and rice shortages. The latter is connected to global warming, I don't know about the former. But they're predicting large-scale famines for developing areas, and scientists are trying to find alternate crops. (Eg. Apparently potatoes are now being grown in new places, because of the warming.)

From BBC:

"We're talking about a major challenge here," said Louis Verchot of the World Agroforestry Centre (Icraf) in Kenya, a member institute of CGIAR.

"We're talking about challenges that have to be dealt with at every level, from ideas about social justice to the technology of food production," he told the BBC News website.

"We're talking about large scale human migration and the return to large-scale famines in developing countries, something which we decided 40 or 50 years ago was unacceptable and did something about."

Tibet-aroo

I was watching a short news piece last week on how some Chinese in Canada are starting to fight back on the whole Tibet thing--they were accusing CTV of a pro-Tibet bias, so CTV was interviewing them etc. And I thought: Well alright, I'm willing to listen to anyone's side on anything.

But holy crap, did you see this story in New York Times? Two groups of students at Duke University were facing off recently, with their respective pro-Tibet pro-China demonstrations; and a girl with friends on both sides tried to mediate between them and get them to talk. The next day someone on the net called her a traitor and posted her personal information and her parents' address in China. It's gone like wildfire around Chinese boards. Her parents have gone into hiding, and people have written the most horrible threats against her.

Nice.

Pollyanna Moments

Most of the time when I open the BBC news page it's depressingly business as usual. When the occasional big change happens, I indulge in a little Pollyanna moment--a hope that something will improve. Alas, the death of Arafat hasn't yielded anything exciting. Too soon to tell about Castro's retirement. And now I'm hoping that Mugabe really is stepping down; and that if he does, it won't lead to worse things. Heavens to bitsies, the Zimbabweans deserve a break!

[He actually looks like Pollyanna in this photo.]

Haiti and Iraq and Depression

Oh la, oh sigh. The New York Times has a story about people in Haiti yearning for the Good Ole Dictatorship Days. Well that's no surprise, and the same feeling's been around in Iraq for years now. Saddam had a horribly repressive regime, but if you weren't in his bad books, you at least had electricity and food and could send your kids to school and go to work without getting kidnapped.

Apparently rampant kidnapping is happening in Haiti now too, as it did in Iraq. I guess kidnapping for ransom becomes a really common thing when people are poor and desperate and security sucks.

Yea Aulde Pres Bush can go on as much as he wants about the invasion of Iraq being the right decision--even IF you were to suppose it was the right thing to do, it was executed HORRIDly. Larry Diamond said this admin is at least guilty of criminal negligence, and I agree completely. You can't just overthrow a dictator and his gross sons, if you're leaving the country in a complete shambles because you were too proud and STUPID to take any advice from experts beforehand.

Oh. Bleh. Might as well stop myself, cause it makes me so frustrated. Siiiigh. Iraq and Haiti. Two of the most fucked up countries in the world, and no sign that they're getting better. Depressing.

De-worming food ?

"Kraft Foods, the conglomerate built on macaroni and cheese, is working on a new and unusual product line — food that is not only tasty, but kills intestinal worms.

It is not intended for sale in the United States, but is aimed at rural Asia, Africa and Latin America, where worms leave millions of children lethargic, dangerously anemic and, sometimes, passing blood."

"...the Tang drink it sells in Asia and Latin America has extra vitamins. And the Eden brand cheese it sells in the Philippines is fortified with iodine. Iodine deficiency is the leading preventable cause of mental retardation, and it also leads to stunting and goiters."

New York Times article

Those Poor Africans--in the movies!

Saw the movie The Girl in the Café. Good acting and writing but... I never really like being preached at by movie (Kevin Smith, I'm talking to you!) and this movie was very much about the message: Push the Millenium Development Goals through!

One of the main ideas in it was--it isn't complicated, and it's a more important talk than anything else that politicians haggle about, and it just needs to Happen. But the thing is... the whole How to deal with Poverty issue is really complicated. That's not just something politicians say, it's the truth.

For example, I'm all for working on trade barriers to make free trade more equal (since I think a global economy isn't going away, and has potential to help some countries), but I recognize that there are still people who would be hurt by lowering trade barriers. One of the movie's characters makes a point about how subsidized British cows are, versus the humans dying in Africa (in the movie it was the usual all-encompassing "Africa" which I swear makes people think the continent is one country). But the reality is that British FARMERS are subsidized, not cows.

There's a reason why, when people vote, their more interested in issues about the local economy rather than the economies of "Africa." How much can you expect people to make personal sacrifices in order to save strangers? Is some Farmer Dude willing to live with his family on welfare? It might be, in a utilitarian sense, fair--to increase the poverty in part of the world, in order to reduce the poverty in other parts--but can you expect people to give this sort of mandate to their politicians?

This movie did absolutely nothing to address that problem. The baddies were the politicians (esp the Americans)--they were portrayed as the only obstacle to Feeding the World.

I'm not against such a preachy film in principle--if someone watches this movie and learns something about the unbelievably immense level of poverty on the planet, then great--though I doubt there's a single poverty factoid that hasn't been in a World Vision Sad Children commercial for the last 20 years. They'll learn about the Millenium Project, which is good. (Though I'm sure there are critiques to be made about that too.)

*
HBO: Richard, tell us how this all came about.

Richard Curtis: What happened is my life took a strange turn, which is that I decided about eighteen months ago that I'd stop writing and sort of dedicate my time to a bit of almost activist politics.

...

HBO: Do you feel it's possible to reach the millenium development goals by 2015?

Richard Curtis: Well, there are huge reasons we need to. The main reason for doing it is basic simple humanity. You cannot have fifty thousand people dying a day from avoidable poverty, which none of us would notice, it wouldn't alter the texture of our lives one jot. It wouldn't be like closing down the transport system. It wouldn't make any difference to us. And yet it would save a continent

Living With Hegemony

I was doing research and came across a funny Thai site, with an article on learning to sleep at night when American hegemony is keeping you awake... This was my favourite bit of advice:

"Rule number 3. Be mindful of the present. AS long as no one is currently screwing you. You're fine. Don’t worry about who the Americans have already screwed. You can’t help them. Let others worry about international laws being broken. Really. What can you do about it? And forget about developing that nuclear weapon. You're gonna get us all killed."

Running around with orphans

This is pretty sketchy indeed.

*

Chad Holds French Citizens Who Took 103 Darfur Children

The charity, l’Arche de Zoé, or Zoé’s Ark, a three-year-old French nonprofit organization that aims to help orphans, said it had taken the children from Sudan to neighboring Chad and was planning to fly them to France, where it had lined up host families that had paid nearly $3,500 per child.

The group said the children, age 1 to 9, were orphans from the western Darfur region in Sudan. It said the operation had the support of President Nicolas Sarkozy and his former wife, a claim Mr. Sarkozy’s office denied.

*