Choices

DeeMack sends us news of the death of Robert McCall, the so-called "Picasso of the Space Age". My fellow space nerds may recognize some of his work:



Last night, I was a proud participant in one of the "Climate Justice Teach-Ins" that are peppering campuses across North America. Thanks to all who came out, and to my fellow professors who represented climate change perspectives in social science and chemical engineering.

I've written about Climate Change issues in this space many times before: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

I laid bare my anti-green lifestyle in my article about mass drivers and power satellites. It's not that I don't believe that ecological responsibility is better and more moral, it's just that I am weak and selfish.

More to the point, there's a common environmentalist attitude that I'd like to take issue with. Very often, the onus is placed on the common citizen to transcend his so-called greed and his innate tendency to make decisions that are immediately and personally beneficial in favour of options that are, presumably, better for society on the whole.

For instance, the choices not to drive, or to turn off more lights, or to eat locally grown foods, are considered ecologically superior choices because they impel lighter carbon footprints. The problem, of course, is that it's hard to walk rather than to drive. It's inconvenient to turn out more lights and to huddle under blankets rather than to turn up the heat. And it's more expensive to buy many local products, rather than to rely on cheaper, foreign-made products. I mean, there's a reason we Ontarians import our salads from California: somehow, they manage to get it to us more cheaply than do the farmers down the road.

The reason they are able to do so cheaper is that many such products and practices are subsidized, eithr directly by government programs, or indirectly through the weirdness of our economic system. For instance, the deleterious ecological impact of the CO2 emissions of the trucks used to transport my salad from California does not show on the price of the actual salad; the so-called "commons" of group environmental ownership absorbs these immense costs which, on most accounting sheets, only shows up as something economists call "externalities".

So environmentalists' call for individuals to make these extraordinary choices is in fact an appeal to the human animal to regularly choose options that are, in the immediate and tangible sense, disadvantageous to said individual. We are not very good at making such decisions. For proof of this, all we have to do is look at the global obesity epidemic. We would rather choose the fatty foods for short term pleasure, than the healthy foods for long term health, even though we all know what we should choose.

I've been trying to think of an historical example of an instance in which a society deliberately chose an option that was immediately economically deleterious because it was more moral to do so. The only one I can think of is Britain's decision to abandon slavery in the 1830s. This was a remarkable moment in world history: the call to dissolve the British slave trade was, to the best of my knowledge, the result of the British people's moral choice to distance themselves from a practice that, while immensely profitable, was nonetheless distasteful. For some decades afterwards, they paid an economic price, as goods such as sugar became harder to produce without paying labourers to replace free slave toil.

So what am I trying to say? I'm saying that environmentalist appeals for voluntary changes in individual behaviour are bound to fail on a large scale, because it is not reasonable to expect the common man to make decisions on a regular basis that are economically disadvatageous to himself and his family.

The solution has to be a governmental one and a macro-economic one. Specifically, governments must decide that products and behaviours must bear the real financial price that they truly represent. My California salad cannot be cheaper than my Ontario salad, because the price of the former must reflect the price of the gas to transport it, and the price of the ecologic damage caused by said gas. In this way, when individuals are compelled to make choices that are not only moral but economically wise, a behavioural change of sufficient magnitude may be effected to result in genuine gains in the battle against Climate Change.

End of sermon.

Bread And Circuses

Apparently there was a hockey game tonight, something to do with the Olympics. Judging from the noise on the street outside, I gather the favoured team won.

I don't really care. Seriously, I don't care.

I don't begrudge any of you your joy; that is your right. This post is not about me being a curmudgeon and wanting the noisy people outside to quiet down so I that can finish writing the grant that's due tomorrow. People need to celebrate occasionally; I get that. Rather, this is about something a bit more disturbing.

Last week, back when the Canadian men's hockey team lost to the Americans (or so I'm told; I didn't watch it), the great national soul-searching that resulted was rather sickening. One particular Toronto newspaper had on its cover, in 4 centimetre high red letters, "OUR NATIONAL PRIDE IS AT RISK," or something like that. What followed were 6-10 pages of sports coverage and endless analysis about whether Canada would be able to rise above the shame of having a group of its favoured millionaire adolescents lose at a game.

All right. Fair enough. Whatever. I watch cartoons, German porn and reality TV. I'm in no position to pretend to be more sophisticated or enlightened.

But we are a lucky society indeed if our "national shame" is defined by a game. You know what else happened over the same time period that this "national shame" was getting 'round-the-clock coverage? The public supplement to the Iacobucci Report was released.

The Iaocobucci Inquiry's report is an official study of the complicity of the Canadian government in the illegal detainment and torture of Canadian citizens Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou-Elmaati and Muayyed Nureddin. You can read it at www.iacobucciinquiry.ca.

Not surprising to any of us familiar with the present government's xenophobic tendencies, the Iacobucci Inquiry found that "Canadian officials likely contributed" to the "mistreatment and torture" of the named individuals. I won't go into the details of how they contributed; you can read that bit yourself.

But here's the thing: In the thorough, brow-wiping analysis of our gripping "national shame" (i.e., hockey game) that the aforementioned newspaper examined with such gravitas, was there a single mention of the Iacobucci report or its findings? None that I could see. In fact, I barely heard tell of it any of the mainstream media outlets that I follow, whereas discussion of the hockey game has been fairly overwhelming.

In this same period, a UN report on the status of women found that Canada had dropped from 10th place to 73rd place worldwide, among nations striving for the equality of women.

In this same period, Canada still has a prorogued Parliament, quite contrary to the overwhelming desire of the populace. Yet, our "hard working" Prime Minister can be seen nightly in the stands of the Olympics in his ridiculous red-and-white sweater, mouthing the national anthem. Get back to work, ya bum!

So you'll forgive me if I'm not filled with "national pride" right now. You'll forgive me if I'm not inspired to wave the Canadian flag and hoot and holler down the street with the rest of the revellers. I have a hard time swallowing the pablum of manufactured patriotism while no one seems to care that the same society that produces millionaire medal-winning hockey players also formally engages in the criminal torture of its own citizens, the degradation of the status of its women, the cynical stymying of its Parliament, and yet suffers no repercussions for this transgression.

Bread and circuses indeed.

In Memory of Bo

No, not this Boe:




But rather, this Boa:



Boa was the last living speaker of the language Bo, named for the tribe of Bo, of the Great Andaman peoples who once populated the Andaman and Nicobar islands off of India.

If this link works, you'll be able to see a video of Boa singing in her now extinct native language.

Maybe it's hard for a non-academic pointy-head to appreciate the singular tragedy of Boa's passing, but give it a shot. Beyond the sad tale of military decimation by the British, then the effects of paternalistic colonial-style policies by both the British then the Indian governments, leading to the literal extinction of complete races of these aboriginal peoples, there remains the tragedy of our lost links to human pre-history. Yes, as with all things, the passing of Boa is being characterized first and foremost as a loss to the selfish modern world, and not so much as the legacy of a brutal crime committed by the modern world.

Very few anthropological links remain to human prehistory. It's remarkable how little we actually know about how the human animal lived, felt and thought prior to the innovation of writing and thus the recording of history. To examine such times would help answer some of the most fundamental questions of human existence having to do with what is natural and what is constructed. The perhaps thousands of years of human language prior to the advent of civilization a mere 6-10 thousand years ago reflect a sentient mind emerging from the grace of naturalism and into the realm of instrumentalism and exceptionalism.

With the passing of Boa goes one of our last connections to a language that reflected that ethic. In fact, it's believed that the language of Bo predates the Neolithic period, thus pre-dating what we define as civilization.

The continued paternalistic treatment of the surviving Andamanese concerns me greatly, as does modern civilization's treatment of extant tribal Aboriginals globally. In my review of the movie Avatar, some commenter made the annoying and all too common criticism, "I’m wondering why we don’t call Europeans in Europe with family ties dating back centuries aboriginals as well".

Well, fool, we don't call them that because the word "Aboriginal" refers both to a lengthy historical attachment to a place (typically lasting thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years) combined with a modern political, geographical and cultural marginalization of that extant and threatened race. I'll never understand why so many people feel threatened when the plights of such vulnerable peoples so rarely manages to make it onto the public agenda.

Species, peoples, cultures, languages, religions and ideas all go extinct. That's the way of things. But, you know what? It's not necessarily the fact of it that should worry us. It's the how of it. The Andamanese tribals are the victims of centuries of genocidal policies. As far as I can tell, one tribe remains.

You know what the first image I found when I Googled "Andaman"? This one:



Yeah, it's a British tourist ad. Boa is dead. Her race is extinct. And her ancestral land is now the domain of drunken, shagging chavs from England.


In Other News

My latest article is up at India Currents.

And I've begun to archive my haikus!

A Christmas Video

Earlier this month, I commented negatively about the growing intimacy between the UFC and the US military.

I'm pleased now to forward a tweet redirected by UFC commentator and stand-up comedian Joe Rogan. Here's the video, which I believe is quite relevant for today:




Merry Xmas.

Leaving The Right

A "right wing" friend recently asked if I was still "left wing". I was a bit taken aback by this, since I don't consider myself one political stripe or another. I believe in smaller government, socialized medicine, low taxes, corporate regulation, environmental responsibility, the right to (ethically) become wealthy, strict market oversight, no foreign military adventures except for humanitarian purposes, gun control but the right to arm oneself, secularism, extreme personal freedoms, etc. What does this make me? I have no idea.

But in the quest to figure this out, I found Andrew Sullivan's now famous blog post about why he will no longer call himself a right wing American conservative. Here are his reasons:

"I cannot support a movement that claims to believe in limited government but backed an unlimited domestic and foreign policy presidency that assumed illegal, extra-constitutional dictatorial powers until forced by the system to return to the rule of law.

I cannot support a movement that exploded spending and borrowing and blames its successor for the debt.

I cannot support a movement that so abandoned government's minimal and vital role to police markets and address natural disasters that it gave us Katrina and the financial meltdown of 2008.

I cannot support a movement that holds torture as a core value.

I cannot support a movement that holds that purely religious doctrine should govern civil political decisions and that uses the sacredness of religious faith for the pursuit of worldly power.

I cannot support a movement that is deeply homophobic, cynically deploys fear of homosexuals to win votes, and gives off such a racist vibe that its share of the minority vote remains pitiful.

I cannot support a movement which has no real respect for the institutions of government and is prepared to use any tactic and any means to fight political warfare rather than conduct a political conversation.

I cannot support a movement that sees permanent war as compatible with liberal democratic norms and limited government.

I cannot support a movement that criminalizes private behavior in the war on drugs.

I cannot support a movement that would back a vice-presidential candidate manifestly unqualified and duplicitous because of identity politics and electoral cynicism.

I cannot support a movement that regards gay people as threats to their own families.

I cannot support a movement that does not accept evolution as a fact.

I cannot support a movement that sees climate change as a hoax and offers domestic oil exploration as the core plank of an energy policy.

I cannot support a movement that refuses ever to raise taxes, while proposing no meaningful reductions in government spending.

I cannot support a movement that refuses to distance itself from a demagogue like Rush Limbaugh or a nutjob like Glenn Beck.

I cannot support a movement that believes that the United States should be the sole global power, should sustain a permanent war machine to police the entire planet, and sees violence as the core tool for international relations."

The UFC and the US Armed Forces: Strange Bedfellows Indeed

Dana White, President of UFC

I was living in Washington, DC, in the eras of 9/11, the start of both recent US wars on/of terror, the Beltway sniper and the now fabled anthrax attacks. One day my friend Andrew J. and I went to see a movie. At the start of the movie was the now common US Marines recruiting ad. I looked over to Andrew and saw that he was visibly saddened.

"What's up?" I asked him.

"They've won," he said. I asked him to explain and he said, "There was a time when the military recruiting ads would come on and everyone would boo because we all saw through it. Now we all sit in silence." And indeed, some seemed to sit in not only silence, but in reverence. "They've won."

Fast forward to present day. In the past couple of weeks, I've watched a lot of UFC. I love the sport of MMA and I love the way that UFC has helped the sport to grow. I've blogged about it here, here, here and even here. In this post, I wrote:

"I've argued many times that MMA is a civilized sport, that it exalts in the purity of the human spirit and strives to make a man confront his true self. The battle is, in many ways, irrelevant to the character-building journey that minimal-rule fighting represents."

A weird thing has begun to happen in the last few months, particularly in the last few weeks --or maybe I've been to blind to notice it before: the ever-growing intimate relationship between MMA --the UFC, in particular-- and the US military. This relationship, sadly, may somewhat invalidate my quote above.

At least one entire UFC pay-per-view (PPV) event was completely sponsored by the US military and was put on specifically for US military personnel. At last month's finale of The Ultimate Fighter, UFC's reality show, it was announced that one of the competitors was leaving for Afghanistan in a few days. The fight commentator, Mike Goldberg, was almost in tears, emoting on how this young man was fighting in the octagon, but would soon be abroad "to fight for our freedoms".

At UFC 107, which I finished watching last night, it was announced in the ring that one of the fights (that between Kenny Florian and Clay Guida) was being "brought to us" by the US Marine Corps. Both fighters then gave the corps a standing ovation, and the camera panned to shaven-head men in uniform in the audience, whooping it up.

In the past, UFC has sent its fighters to tour US soldiers in the field, such as Rampage Jackson's trip to Camp Pendleton. The relationship between UFC and the US military is an increasingly intimate one.

Well, what's the big deal? Ordinarily there wouldn't be one. In my world, any legal entity is allowed to sponsor any legal event and reap the rewards of sponsorship. And it's certainly any citizen's right to express his patriotism in any legal way he sees as appropriate. I may not like the recruitment methods of the US military, and I certainly don't like the way in which armed men have begun to be revered in some parts of society; but I do not deny the military's right to sponsor events and the UFC's right to accept such sponsorship. And, as I'm sure has occurred to many, there is a certain congruence in two brands of violence finding love in one another's tattooed arms.

Admittedly, it makes me uncomfortable that an erstwhile global brand like the UFC is visibly tying its philosophies, fortunes and values to the political dynamic of a single nation, the USA. I wonder what that says of the company's attitude toward fighters from nations not sharing American geopolitical ideologies. The company's newsworthy inability (or unwillingness) to sign Russian heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko, considered by many to be the pound-for-pound greatest living fighter in the world, might be indicative of an inability to fit competitors from non-NATO nations into their conceptual dynamic. Even so, if UFC wishes to tie its fortunes thusly, as did many professional wrestling companies, I suppose it is their right to do so, however unattractive to me their brand becomes.

But let me be absolutely clear and say that this post is not about bashing the military. Not at all. In other posts, I will gleefully offer my criticisms of US (and increasingly Canadian) military fetishism, and of the thinning line between soldierdom and policymaking, and of immoral and politically inappropriate use by government of the instruments of war and security. But no one should take any of this as criticism of the individuals who serve in the military. All of my interactions with members of the latter have always been pleasant and cordial.

Rather, the big deal, for me, arose when I received a Twitter tweet from UFC President Dana White, acting, not as a private citizen, but as the President of the UFC. The tweet was this:

danawhite http://www.tinyurl.com/yd22h4b Read the story then you decide. They have my support. I hope they have you too.

Click on the link he forwarded. It's a Facebook page asking for political, emotional and financial support for "two elite Navy Seals" who are facing courtmartial for allegedly abusing an Iraqi detainee in their custody. According to the page, the charges are of "impeding the investigation and dereliction of duty in failing to safeguard a detainee."

I don't know the facts surrounding the incident beyond those reported in the Facebook page. The page itself exists to garner public, and therefore political, support for a sociopolitical perspective, specifically that the rights of the detainee are less important than the need to honour the Navy Seals in question. To quote the page:

"The proceedings against these heroes are an outrage to all the brave Americans serving in uniform to defend this country, especially those deployed in harm's way."

Their rationale is that prosecution of alleged abusers plays into the master plan of "terrorists" to diminish soliders' morale. This is followed by:

"The supposed victim, Ahmed Hashim Abed, was the mastermind behind killing, burning and mutilating four American contractors in Fallujah, Iraq, in March 2004. His followers hung the desiccated corpses high on a box-girder bridge over the Euphrates River. Mr. Abed was run down by the SEALs on a covert mission in September 2009."

I hope it's clear to anyone reading this that the charges against a detainee (who has yet to face trial, by the way) has no bearing on whether or not his custodians are allowed to strike him. This is the nature of accepting the responsibility of custody. This is how it works in every legal system in the Western world. And as an aside, my congratulations to the US military for convening such a courtmartial; it goes a long way to reclaiming their image as a law-abiding agency worthy of international respect.

So what makes me uncomfortable about this whole thing? It's the fact that UFC President Dana White, in his capacity as President of a corporation, is sharing this website address to UFC fans and adding the qualifier, "They have my support. I hope they have you too. [sic]"

It's one thing to accept sponsorship from an arm of the government, on behalf of your company, and to further state your support for the policies and practices of that governmental arm. (After all, that's what allowing the military to embed itself so closely within your commercial activities means: that you associate yourself with that agency's policies, practices and philosophies.) It's quite another thing to brazenly advocate for the preferential slackening of criminal law on select transgressors where such slackening coincides with the larger agenda of your sponsor.

In other words, Dana White, private citizen, can do whatever the heck he wants. Dana White, corporate head of UFC, has no business encouraging UFC fans/customers to advocate for the vitiating of selected criminal proceedings.... That is, unless that it is indeed the will of UFC, Inc.

I wonder what the UFC Board of Directors has to say about this? And if indeed it is official corporate policy to take a side in this particular matter, then UFC needs to spell this out clearly. And, of course, they will have lost me as a fan, and perhaps many more like me.

I'm surprised that no one else has been commenting on the growing intimacy between the UFC (the fastest growing brand in sports) and the US military. A Google search brought me just two hits: this peace activist has a more angry stance than me; and this exchange on a fight forum has already been deleted, only accessible, it seems, through Google cache.

Many people reading this will respond with several predictable tropes. As in the cached exchange, some will reply with, "From the entire U.S. army, Go **** yourself." Others will say, "Well what did you expect, that's their demographic."

The former is par for the course. The latter is simply saddening. What I "expect" is irrelevant. What is important here is what we choose to tolerate. How comfortable are we as a society with our corporate leaders using their corporate heft to influence consumers to not only accede to certain political philosophies (nothing new there) but now to overtly advocate for the vitiation of criminal proceedings in favour of the abuse of an individual?

Strange --and critical-- times indeed.

Bits of Tid

Mysterious lights appear over Norway. Clearly, an alien space ship opened a hyperspace jump gate in the upper Earth atmosphere. Judge for yourself:



In unrelated news:



In even more unrelated news, a student who shall remain unnamed has honured me (I hope it was an honour) by naming her pet mouse somewhat after me. Introducing.... "Rayrat":



Apparently, Rayrat lives in a cage with three lovely lady mice. It's important to me that my namesake is, as the kids say, gettin' some.

Lastly, D-Mack sends us the Top 10 Science Fiction Disappointments of the decade. The article is retarded. Yeah, I said it.


Today's Real Topic

Now, in today's serious bit of news, I just came from the press conference for the unveiling of my artist friend Jenn Farr's newest project, a very important depiction of the cell in which Canada's recent "extraordinary extradition" victims were kept and tortured while being held in Syria. The endeavour is spearheaded by Kerry Pither, author of Dark Days.

It's one thing to read about modern torture and to have polite, fashionable discussions of it at cocktail parties and on the Internet. It's another to physically experience the actual conditions. If you can get a chance, visit the installation. Here are a couple of quick pics snapped on my Treo:




The installation is called "El Abbar", which means "the grave", and is a precise recreation of the cell in which several Muslim Canadians were held and tortured by Syria, with collaboration (as concluded by the Iacobucci Inquiry) by Canadian agencies. Those held include Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and, of course, Maher Arar.

The cell is tiny and dank. The walls are thin enough to overhear the torture of those held in adjacent cells. Sometimes so many would be stuffed into a single cell that they would take turns sleeping. I'm told that cats would pee on the prisoners from the grate above, and of course the odours of filth and decay were ubiquitous. One of the artist's intents was to re-create the smell of the place, as well, but that was eventually not pursued.

It's ironic that the press conference for the unveiling of this object was coincident with one by Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter McKay, someone I would charge as complicit in the abuse of the men held in these cells.

I think it's important for all Canadians to recognize firstly the horror of these conditions, and the fact that innocent men were held there against their will and tortured repeatedly; and secondly the extent to which Canadian authorities were --and continue to be-- complicit in these ongoing abuses.

Munk'd

A few days ago I hunkered into a lecture hall at the University of Ottawa to watch the most recent Munk Debate, this time between the teams of Nigel Lawson & Bjorn Lomborg vs Elizabeth May & George Monbiot, streamed live from Toronto. Had I known the debates could be accessed from the web, I would have stayed home to watch it with several strong glasses of port. But no....

The topic: Be it resolved, Climate Change is Mankind's defining crisis, and demands a commensurate response.

Nigel Lawson came across as a fussy old fuddy-duddy, underinformed and full of ideological bluster.

Elizabeth May I've never really taken a liking to, given her screechy delivery and overly confrontational demeanour. However, she at least said the one thing that needed saying: that these four are the not the experts; the scientists are the experts. This lack of true expertise hindered further substantial debate, I think. She is a lawyer/politician. Lawson is a journalist/politician. Monbiot is a journalist. And Lomborg is a statisition cum self-promoter.

George Monbiot has been a favourite figure of mine for some time. What an eloquent, passionate and well informed speaker. His website's earlier incarnations were actually the model for the direction my own website eventually took, so I admit to having a slight bias for all things Monbiot. Having said that, even the great George came across as slightly unscientific, given his background as a journalist. His famous self-imposed travel ban, meant as a gesture to encourage minimal carbon footprints worldwide, was suspended for this special occasion, allowing him to physically be in Toronto. I always felt this self-restriction to be a bit precious, if you know what I mean.

Bjorn Lomborg, meanwhile, is no stranger to this blog. I have discussed him in the March 5, 2004 post, the Jan 14, 2005 post, the Aug 31, 2007 post, and the Oct 17, 2007 post. In short, I detest everything Bjorn Lomborg stands for. I will not mince words here. The man is insidious and, in my opinion, simply for sale. His landmark book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, was the Climate Change denier's bible for years, effectively used as ammunition to slow down change on the policy front.

In recent months/years, Lomborg has begun to rehab his reputation. He no longer denies that Climate Change exists, is a big deal or is human-caused. This is rather convenient, now that the book has made him insanely wealthy and positioned him as a preferred champion for the anti-Climate Change business sector. There is speculation, implied by May during the debates, that his position earns Lomborg a pretty penny. Instead, Lomborg's new mantra is that:

(a) there are more important things we can be focusing on; and
(b) since we don't seem to be making headway on Climate Change, why not apply these energies and monies to --I dunno-- eliminating poverty or disease?

On the face of it, this is not a bad position to have. Indeed, his position seems to have won over many in the audience. The debate statistics show that public response was thus:



In essence, more people changed their minds in favour of the Lomborg/Lawson position than in favour of the May/Monbiot position.

Apparently, Time Magazine once listed Lomborg as one of the most important 100 intellectuals in the world, according to his intro during the Munk Debate. This surprises me, given his brazen anti-intellectual behaviour during the debate itself. Lomborg's position, as I summarized above, is fundamentally untenable, and I'm afraid May and Monbiot did a poor job of explaining this to the audience. It comes down to this:

It doesn't matter that poverty and disease remain as plagues upon the world. Climate Change exacerbates those things, making them increasingly worse. And it doesn't matter that pro-environmental legislation slows down economic development. What is the point of creating wealthy nations if there's no food or water left to buy with your newly created wealth?

These were the basic aspects of environmental and health science poorly conveyed during the debate. I proudly commented afterward that I'm certain my undergrad students could have debated Lomborg into a corner, given how much I've tried to encourage them to think in terms of interrelated networks and systems.

Let's look at Lomborg's claim that we are better off tackling global health than Climate Change. The world needs to understand that many of the problems in global health are either as a direct result of Climate Change, or will be exacerabted beyond repair as a result of Climate Change. As Stephen Lewis once commented during a live address in Ottawa, "I fear we are looking at an Apocalyptic event."

When Monbiot (or was it May?) commented that Climate Change makes HIV/AIDS worse, Lomborg gave us his theatrical hands-in-the-air disbelief pose. "How is that even possible?" he demanded to know. Sadly, only Monbiot bothered to explain a mechanism, but only told part of the story. The incident, though, causes me to ask whether Lomborg is really so uninformed (causing me to wonder how Time would dare list him among the world's top intellectuals) or is he instead disingenuous. If the latter, then he is insidious and dangerous indeed.

Monbiot's mechanism was basic: Climate Change is causing droughts, which forces men off the land and into the company of prostitutes, hence spreading sexual disease, including HIV. In truth, it's more than this. Drought leads to poor nutrition, which prevents proper uptake of the anti-viral drugs that treat HIV (which need good nutrition to work properly). Environmental collapse causes economic collapse and produces more disease issues, further overwhelming healt care systems and prventing a society from addressing its HIV epidemic.

The ecology of much of the developing world, including sub-Saharan Africa, which has the greatest HIV burden in the world, is already operating at the margins. The crops there already subsist at the very edge of tolerance for temperature and humidity perturbations. With Climate Change comes more dramatic perturbations and thus a certainty of widespread famine in those regions.

No amount of structural adjustments, as Lomborg champions, will give such nations the economic might to overcome such famine, not when most of the region is similarly affected.

In short, unlike crises in the past, Climate Change represents humanitarian challenges that one cannot buy one' s way out of. Again, you can't buy water that does not exist. In response to Lomborg's assertion that human societies will develop adaptations, Monbiot powerfully retorted (and I paraphrase): in these parts of the world, the only adaptation is the AK-47.

There are many other mechanisms by which Climate Change exacerbates health, and thus wealth. Among them:

The changing of vector behaviour. Mosquitos and their like determine their ranges by temperature and humidity. As these factors change, the nature of related diseases will also change.

Water quality. Because rivers are changing paths and rainfalls are misscheduling, the predictability of the safety of drinking water is uncertain. Already, 2 million deaths a year, mostly among young children, are due to diarrhea, directly caused by unsafe water. WHO estimates that today 2.4% of diarrheal deaths are due to climate change. (WHO uses very conservative methods to reach these estimates.)

Changing agriculture. Agriculture is affected by temperature, precipitation and soil quality. According to a 2008 article in Science: southern Africa could lose more than 30% of its main crop, maize, by 2030. In South Asia losses of many regional staples, such as rice, millet and maize could top 10%.

Migration. There is a long established intersection between migration and health. The sudden stress of large numbers of people is ecologically bad. Environmental refugees must be fed, sheltered and cared for, and the world has a poor track record of caring for mass migrants. According to a 2007 article by Christian Aid: "The growing number of disasters and conflicts linked to future climate change will push the numbers far higher unless urgent action is taken. We estimate that between now and 2050 a total of 1 billion people will be displaced from their homes."

Insecurity. Ecological collapse can cause war. According to a 2007 report by The Pentagon:
Global warming constitutes a security threat to the USA, as there will be wars based on diminishing fresh water supplies, refugees, and higher rates of famine and disease.

Economic effects. Less money means less spent on health and poverty reduction. As an example, according to a 2008 article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Coral bleaching can lead to collapse of the world’s fisheries in a matter of decades.

Air pollution. One US model predicts that by 2050, due to global warming, ozone-related
deaths will increased by 4.5% and there will be 60% more alert days.

Heat waves. According to WHO, heat deaths in California alone will double by 2010.

Natural disasters (floods and storms). According to WHO, flooding will affect 200 million people by 2080.

Here is an interesting little graphic showing deaths due to Climate Change in the year 2000, almost a decade ago. The truth today is much more daunting:



There are a lot more data and many more details. There is no dearth of studying on the topic. I don't know how anyone who's familiar with even a fraction of the data can conclude anything other than Climate Change is indeed the single most important crisis facing humanity now and in the next two centuries. More than the threat of nuclear war, and possibly on par with the threat of direct cometary impact, runaway greenhouse affect might very well drive civilization itself into the dust within our lifetimes.

Current Events Quiz

This past week I gave my 4th year global health class a brief quiz on current events related to issues in global health and development. They were instructed to monitor major news sources daily since the start of term, with specific attention to stories that might have a direct or cursory connection to global health and development. This might include stories relating to war, politics and economics.

The reason for scheduling the test is that I was concerned that we are doing a disservice to our students by not making their education more relevant to the current state of the world, and by not engendering in them an appreciation for the daily happenings of society. This is particularly important in global health, a subject that changes hourly and that is dependent on an interdisciplinary familiarity with the changing nature of law, politics, science and general knowledge.

The intent is not to punish lack of knowledge, but rather to encourage the valuing of knowledge. Part of the lesson is to be able to asses one's own level of general knowledge relative to the overall level of knowledge in our society.

Therefore, to provide some hand-waving data for discussing the quality of these questions, I'm doing something I ordinarily would not do. I'm publishing the quiz on this website. You will find the questions below, with the answer key immediately after.

You are, of course, welcome to take the test yourself. I would further encourage you to input your score to an online service by clicking this link:

http://doodle.com/yw6gz78tyb2x6kks

Please note: this is not a formal academic study, and therefore has not undergone any ethics clearance. These data will not be published, though they will be discussed in my class. If you enter your results, those results will be visible by everyone. Feel free to enter a fake name, if you'd prefer. But I would like you to enter your true profession, if you feel comfortable doing so. It goes without saying that this is a strictly voluntary exercise.

Also, please don't cheat. This is not a contest.


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1. In 2009, the Nobel Peace Prize was controversially awarded to what person?

A. Nelson Mandela
B. George W. Bush
C. Barack Obama
D. Al Gore
E. The Dalai Lama


2. In early November, 2009, the people of Germany noted the 20th anniversary of what?

A. The death of Adolf Hitler
B. The fall of the Berlin Wall
C. The founding of NATO
D. Germany’s entrance into the European Union
E. The assassination of Chancellor Angela Merkel


3. Who is Dr. Abdullah Abdullah?

A. One of the candidates in a recent Presidential election in Afghanistan
B. Head of one of the larger semi-legal organ trafficking rings in India
C. The scientist who led the development of an experimental HIV vaccine in Africa, currently undergoing limited clinical trials
D. Recently appointed Deputy Director General of the World Health Organization
E. Author of a controversial study recently published in The Lancet, about excess deaths in the wake of the US invasion of Iran


4. On November 11, 2009, a joint report by the American Cancer Society and Global Smokefree Partnership was published. The report predicts that cancer deaths due to smoking will double in 12 years in what region or population?

A. The Caribbean
B. China
C. India
D. Africa
E. Aboriginal communities in the Western hemisphere


5. Who is the current Director General of the World Health Organization?

A. Margaret Chan
B. Ban-ki Moon
C. James Orbinski
D. John Baird
E. Aung San Suu Kyi


6. In October, 2009, Desire Munyaneza, the first person to be convicted under Canada’s War Crimes Act, was sentenced to life imprisonment after a court found him guilty of seven charges relating to what?

A. The Rwandan genocide
B. The Sudanese (Darfur) genocide
C. War crimes committed during the Congolese civil war
D. The selling of counterfeit HIV drugs in sub-Saharan Africa
E. War crimes committed during the NATO peacekeeping activities in Somalia


7. In December, 2009, representatives of 192 countries will meet in Copenhagen to discuss what?

A. The on-going humanitarian crisis in Darfur
B. The global threat of terrorism
C. Pandemic influenza
D. Global food production
E. Climate change

8. In November, 2009, this man’s war crimes trial at the World Court in The Hague was postponed till March, 2010, to give his new lawyer time to prepare.

A. George W. Bush
B. Radovan Karadzic
C. Wanderlei Silva
D. Slobodan Milošević
E. Ramush Haradinaj


9. In what year is Canada is scheduled to withdraw the bulk of its troops from Afghanistan?

A. 2010
B. 2011
C. 2012
D. 2013
E. 2014


10. After the May, 2009, conclusion of civil war lasting over two decades, the government of this country has just agreed to release the remaining 136,000 refugees forced to live in government refugee camps.

A. Democratic Republic of Congo
B. Nicaragua
C. Sri Lanka
D. The former Yugoslavia
E. Sudan

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Answer key: 1c 2b 3a 4d 5a 6a 7e 8b 9b 10c

Those Dyin' British Actors

I just learned from Rondi that Edward Woodward is dead. Most of you will remember him from that great American TV drama, The Equalizer. That show represented something sorely missing from current entertainment media: recognition of the skills of the middle aged. Rather than a team of models-cum-martial artists, all with genius IQs and deep histories going back decades beyond their actual ages, The Equalizer was about a retired British secret service agent who righted wrongs on the tough streets of the USA.

I loved Woodward in one of the creepiest of understated British horror films, The Wicker Man (the original, not the ridiculous Nicholas Cage remake). His son, Peter Woodward, is also a successful, though lesser known, actor, most noted in my world for his excellent and creepy portrayal of Galen, the "technomage" in the Babylon 5 spin-off, Crusade.

You also may not know that Edward Woodward had a key role in the recent (2007) Simon Pegg comedy, Hot Fuzz. Edgar Wright, the director of that film, has a tribute to Woodward on his website. Wright links to this Youtube clip of the opening of one of Woodward's early UK dramas, Callan. As Wright put it, "Edward Woodward was badass".



I find it pretty cool when serious British actors pop up in bit roles in their twilight years. Another example of that was the late great Patrick McGoohan's role as British King "Longshanks" (Edward I) in the Mel Gibson epic, Braveheart.

I will always lump the two with Richard Harris, who in his twilight years played Dumbledore, far more convincingly, in my opinion, than his replacement, Michael Gambon. I always thought Heath Ledger was on track to become the next Richard Harris.

Many people don't remember that Richard Harris was the voice behind the 1970s epic song, McArthur Park. For some reason, I can never disassociate this fact from the 1981 parody of his performance on SCTV. Here's Dave Thomas playing Richard Harris doing McArthur Park:




In terms of classical British actors in their twilight years, who does that leave? Peter O'Toole, of course, most recently seen in a gloriously creepy role as amoral Pope Paul III in The Tudors.


In Other News

Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin claims that Canadian forces engaged to some degree in the illegal detainment and torture of Afghans. Conservative Ministers McKay and Baird deny such allegations and turn to questioning Colvin's very character. Thus, despite opposition demands, the government has refused to initiate any inquiry into possible abuses.

Hmm, you know what would really help to clear up any of these misunderstandings and allegations? I dunno, evidence of some sort, a smoking gun.... maybe some photos. Because, as we all know, when photos of crimes are taken, any truly responsible and democratic government would enter such photographic evidence into the public record, so that wrongdoers can't hide behind slandering their accusers or by erecting the wall of denial.

And we all know that no responsible, ethical and democratic government would ever seek to, I dunno, conceal such photos because that would be illegal, unethical, tantamount to criminal conspiracy, and plain old wrong.

Just sayin.

Obama's Suppression of Those Photos

Jan 21, 2009

The way to make government responsible is to hold it accountable. And the way to make government accountable is make it transparent so that the American people can know exactly what decisions are being made, how they’re being made, and whether their interests are being well served.

The directives I am giving my administration today on how to interpret the Freedom of Information Act will do just that. For a long time now, there’s been too much secrecy in this city. The old rules said that if there was a defensible argument for not disclosing something to the American people, then it should not be disclosed. That era is now over. Starting today, every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information but those who seek to make it known.

Let me say it as simply as I can: Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.

-President Barack Obama, Jan 21, 2009

Yesterday's post, about Obama's moral failures during his first year in office, focused on the administration's decision to block the release to the ACLU of photos depicting prisoner abuse by US military officials. My argument is that Obama's 180 degree change in position on this matter constitutes a serious breach of his convenant with the voters and with his allies -- that of accountability, transparency and duty to the Constitution, characteristics which, at the time of the election, held him in wide dissimilarity with George Bush, and thus close to the bosom of all humanity.

To my horror, at least one reader recounted the tired neocon trope, first voiced during the Bush administration's frantic scramble to suppress evidence of abuse at Abu Ghraib, that banning of the photos is necessary to avoid anti-Western reactions abroad.

I think it's important to discuss exactly why that argument is a senseless one, and why Obama's actions are profoundly serious and damaging in the long term.

Let's recap the series of events first. During the Bush administration's term, abuse of prisoners of war, including torture and sexual assault, was performed by many US military personnel in detainment centres around the world. The most famous instances of this were revealed in the Abu Ghraib photos now widely recognized. The extent of these abuses strongly suggests a systematic, top-down program of crimes perhaps reflective of official government policy. In other words, the photos were evidence that the US government was engaged in eggregious criminal activities.

About 2000 additional images, including a few that many believe to be the most horrendous examples of flagrant criminal actions by US officials, were not published.

The ACLU requested access to the photos under the US Freedom of Information Act, in an attempt to gather evidence in their investigation of a wrongful death activity. A US lower court ruled that the ACLU should indeed be given access to the photos.

During his candidacy, Barack Obama preached that transparency and accountability were to be the hallmarks of the new America (see his speech above), a way to regain the world's trust after 8 disastrous Bush years. Upon his election, he declared that he would support the lower court's ruling and release the materials to the ACLU.

However, after campaigning by Bush supporter Joe Lieberman and Bush-Obama Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, Obama reversed his position, repeating the baseless neocon trope of the pictures would "further inflame anti-American opinion" and "put our troops in greater danger."

Indeed, to sidestep the ACLU's clear and legal right to the photos, Obama signed into action a new law specifically for this purpose, apparently quietly slipped into a Homeland Security spending bill, to avoid vigorous debate on the House floor.

The ethical problems with this development are manifold. Let's list some of the observations:

1. First, it's certainly possible that publication of these photos might elicit anti-Western sentiments abroad. But you know what also elicitis anti-Western sentiments? Invading other countries, bombing civilians, running illegal detention centres, torturning people, raping detainees.... and covering it up.

In other words, those who care already know that the photos exist and that they show some awful stuff. Releasing the actual photos does three things:

• it might incite them by confirming what they already know;
• it provides limits to prevent the creation of tales that might go beyond what the photos show;
• it provides hard proof that the new America is responsible and law abiding, thus providing assurance that no further illegal activities will occur.

Failure to release the photos does the exact opposite: it confirms that America is not law-abiding and is therefore unwilling to acknowledge and thus prosecute its criminals who abuse innocents, particularly those detained during the War on Terror. I can't imagine a scenario more likely to incite anti-Americanism.

In the words of Thomas Eddlem:

"Obama's suppression of the photos has arguably made it more dangerous for soldiers serving in Iraq. Instead of releasing the photos into a one-day firestorm, Obama seems to want to fuel conspiracy theories about treatment in Abu Ghraib in the Muslim world. And if we're still covering up what happened at Abu Ghraib, covering up worse things than those crimes we've already acknowledged, Muslims around the world might reasonably ask: 'What else is the U.S. covering up in other prisons?'"

2. So, some argue, we acknowledge that abuse happened. Is this not transparent enough? Why the need to actually see the photos?

Clearly, people have short memories. When reports of the first Abu Ghraib abuses first surfaced, the pro-war apologists immediately started downplaying their significance. Fox News blowhards even claimed it was "not as bad as fraternity hazing". It wasn't until actual photos were revealed that the world was forced to take notice.

Simply knowing about the abuses would have resulted in no prosecutions taking place and none of the centres being audited and closed. The images were everything. Without the images being published, torture would still be going on as an industrial interest in many of those places, and not just in the shadows where they still unquestionably linger.

Even so, deniers insist that the abusers did nothing seriously wrong. Well, the unpublished photographs are said to provide visual evidence of rape, beatings, murders and other such heinous acts committed by US soldiers on defenceless detainees. Until the photos are released to an impartial third party, like the ACLU, no one will take seriously these crimes, and no one will know if the true perpetrators have been brought to justice for the true extent of their crimes.

Need some more convincing? Some foreign media, such as The Guardian have already published written descriptions of what the photos might depict. Obama's defenders say that this is quite enough transparency, thank you.

But wait... White House Press Secretary then said of the published descriptions, "the article is wrong and mischaracterizes the photos that are in question…. None of the photographs in question depict the images described in the article. Again, I think if you do an even moderate Google search, you're not going to find many of these newspapers and truth within, say, 25 words of each other."

By preventing impartial examination of the actual photos, the government empowers itself to be thus duplicitous, to admit to abuse but also to deny the seriousness of that abuse. In short, a body that commits a crime cannot be trusted to impartially steward the evidence of that crime.


3. The principle of conspiracy is well enshrined in American law. It is possible to be party to a conspiracy after the crime has been committed, if one acts to inhibit the investigation of that crime.

BushCo is likely guilty of instigating a system of widespread torture, rape and possibly murder; we don't know the truth or extent of this because Obama won't let us know. By concealing the evidence, ObamaCo becomes, in the eyes of some interpreters of the law, complicit in the conspiracy surrounding BushCo's crimes.

In this highly defensible view, President Barack Obama and his advisors might be considered guilty of conspiracy to commit rape, torture and murder, inasmuch as President George Bush and his advisors might be, as well.

Do not doubt for a second that these moves to conceal Bush era government crimes will come to light in the next election season.


4. From the pages of Mother Jones:

"The new FOIA exemption that the Obama White House sought and obtained has one obvious result: shielding evidence of government lawbreaking, abuse, and torture under the Bush administration from public scrutiny. So much for Obama's claim that 'transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.' There's a name for what the Obama administration did... It's called a coverup."

5. As Mother Jones further reports, the special law passed by Obama doesn't just prevent specific photos from being released to the ACLU, it offers blanket immunity to the photos for all Freedom of Information Requests. Thus it seems unlikely, perhaps impossible, for the photos to ever be used in evidence against the perpetrators they depict. Thanks, Barack.


6. As Salon's Glenn Greenwald put it:

"What kind of a country passes a law that has no purpose other than to empower its leader to suppress evidence of the torture it inflicted on people?"

No good will come of this. In the short term, the suppression wins Obama some time to not have to deal with the public outcry that will result when the true horror of US prisoner abuses surfaces. He also wins favour with the neocons and hawks. But the price is a serious blow to his credibility and, more damaging, the credibility of the USA as a rebuilding force for good in the world.

What many need to realize is that this is a critical moment in the history of the USA. Presidential "business as usual" --American exceptionalism, more to the point-- is no longer tenable in a world where US might is no longer supreme. The need to build good will, not just with temporal enemies, but with traditional allies short on trust, has never been more important. Obama might be their last opportunity to make a good impression, lest the world conclude that Bushism is the new American norm.

Instead of worrying about what a handful of insurgents might do if incited by some photos, Obama should worry about the unmistakable message he has sent to his allies: that his grand promises of philosophical change and adherence to the rule of law only apply so long as he finds them convenient.

Obama's Failures

Yes, I wept on election night. I was an Obama supporter. Heck, pretty much everyone in the world who wasn't an old Southern racist or a blood relative of John McCain was an Obama supporter. But here we are, almost a year after the inauguration, and despite one Nobel Peace Prize, what has the Big O actually done?

Luckily, I don't have to do the work. The dudes over at Politifact.com have done it for all of us. Their "Obamameter" as of today looks like this:



On the face of it, this does not look like a bad record. Only 7 promises have been broken, 54 have been kept, and the vast majority we just don't know about yet.

But the analysis assumes that all promises are equal. They are not. Under "promises broken" we have both his failure to "Create a $3,000 tax credit for companies that add jobs" and his failure to "recognize the Armenian genocide."

I would argue that the former is a failure of his ability to sway Congress, a procedural point, and maybe an indication of compromises to win other battles. The latter, however, is a failure of personal morality. Recognizing a genocide is more than a political position; it's a stance of character, and character is what he campaigned on. Basic goodness and decentness is what we expect of him, and in this respect he has failed miserably.

I would consider the Armenian genocide question a "leading indicator" of the quality of his Presidency. I would add to that list his failures to allow MediCare to import Canadian drugs (as was promised) and his inability thus far to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (as was promised).

Most disappointing for me is the Obama administration's decision to block publication of US military abuse photos. The reasons given, that publication would incite further terror acts against Americans, are disingenuous: people who hate America already have sufficient reason to do so. What transparency does, however, is reveal to the world that the new America does not hide from its failings, but takes responsibility for them. Official caching of the evidence serves to make the government post-facto parties in a conspiracy to commit the crimes that the photos depict.

This was supposed to be a signature of the new America, one of the key reasons the world embraced Obama. This decision is a great letdown for many. And this happens while the abuse of prisoners by military personnel continues. Meanwhile, at least House Democrats see the shallowness of Obama's move, calling it an ill-conceived decision for short term political gain.

This fellow puts it this way:

"He's not George Bush, we'll give him that. But no President in history was as bad as George Bush, an outlier's outlier (not to mention just a plain liar). So not being as bad as Bush is a stupendously low bar to meet."

The irony is that Obama could do with a little Bush in him. The health care bill that was put forward is a neutered bit of anti-choice nonsense. Bush would have said "fuck y'all" and followed his ideological bent, to hell with the political consequences. I wish Obama would do some of that now.

We haven't even talked about the so-called War on Terror yet. I'll give him some time where that is concerned. But he has failed tremendously in at least one respect: failure to close down Guantanamo Bay prison. BBC put it best:

"Mr Obama has previously denounced the Bush-era judicial system... [He] halted the controversial military commissions as one of his first acts on taking office in January, saying the US was entering a new era of respecting human rights. "

And yet in May, he revived the Bush-era military tribunals, the same ones he spent so much time (rightly) condemning.

It was completely within his personal power to stop them and to place those subjects into the traditional American criminal system. Once more, his failure to act on this matter constitutes, in my mind, a profound moral stumble that he cannot blame on an uncooperative House or citizenry.

Today President Obama announced that he intends to close Guantanamo "next year". This is a move worthy of some commendation. But colour me skeptical.

He has found the will and resources to ramp up the prosecution of ill-advised foreign wars, and even to essentially start a new one in Pakistan. Yet somehow important moral moves that would cost few resources and the responsibility for which would rest solely with him have failed to find his approval.

He remains my candidate and I am glad for his Presidency. But please let's stop worshipping at his virtual temple and recognize his failings, especially the ones that indicate failures of courage, honour and morality.

In Praise of George W. Bush....?

Image stolen from BBC News

Ever read Maximum City? It's one of the best non-fiction books I've read in decades. It's about life in Bombay (Mumbai). I had the pleasure of meeting its author, Suketu Mehta, a couple of years ago in Ottawa. There, we talked about a scene in the book in which Suketu is given "one hit for free" by the leader of India's biggest organized crime syndicate. That's right: he's got a coupon for one free assassination. When asked to whom the crime lord should turn his attentions, many thoughts in the room flirted with members of the outgoing Bush administration.

(Very important disclaimer, for any members of US security reading this: I advocate violence against no one, not the least of which a sitting US President. So please don't send scary men with guns, body armour and baseball caps to my door.)

Fast forward to 2009 with Bush gone and the saviour Obama in his place. Much has been expected of Obama and, I must say, the fellow has not quite delivered. This is particularly true for US involvement in global health and development initiatives around the world.

So it was with great interest that I invited superstar epidemiologist Ed Mills to give a guest lecture in my 4th year global health class this past week. I knew Ed would drop the following bombshell on the students, that no one has done more for HIV/AIDS victims in Africa than one George W. Bush. The man is a hero in sub-Saharan Africa. And while Obama has personal, familial, political and racial connections to Africa, the current President has actually dialed back some of Bush's more impressive accomplishments in the region.

As summarized in this blog post, it was largely through Bush's PEPFAR program (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) that he effected what appears to be widespread positive change. Apparently, after a $15 billion investment, the AIDS mortality rate in 12 of the 15 targeted PEPFAR countries (the other 3 were outside Africa) declined by 10.5% over 5 years.

Even Bob Geldof said of Bush's commitment to AIDS: "There are no votes in helping the poor of Africa, but Bush did it anyway."

In the words of Dustin Dehez:

"[George Bush] elevated development assistance to Africa to a serious foreign policy field. Indeed, due to Bush's Africa policy, development now complements the other two d's: diplomacy and defence. Under his leadership development assistance has more than doubled from a marginal 10 billion to more than 22 billion. And his anti-AIDS programmes have fostered progress in countering the disease, indeed they are ideal types of how bureaucratic hurdles can be bypassed to make development assistance more effective. Like it or not: In Africa President Bush saved thousands of lives."

Here is an African voice singing similar praises. How did Bush achieve this feat? Mostly by allowing his investments to focus on ARV (anti-retroviral) access. There are all sorts of barriers to poor HIV stricken people accessing these life-extending drugs, some of them valid and others less so: patent protection driving up drug prices, distribution challenges, lack of trained personnel to dose them accordingly, suspected poor adherence to the drug regimen, poor food quality diminishing the drugs' ability to be absorbed, the inability to store them long term in a tropical climate, local corruption preventing free and easy access, and so on. PEPFAR funding, it seemed, succeeded to some extent in overcoming these barriers.

But hold on.... is all this praise really well founded? It's based, after all, on the assumption that declines in AIDS mortality rate have to do with PEPFAR monies. Leaving aside the always present problems with assigning causation, are the mortality data even accurate?

I don't know. But Mead Over seems to think they are not. As Over details in this article, the mortality data used to pronounce the glories of PEPFAR were based on UNAIDS projections. This is a widely performed and acceptable strategem, since such data are slow to return. However, Over suggests that in this case the data are inappropriate for evaluating PEPFAR success.

Then there are ethical issues with PEPFAR in general. The conditions for receiving PEPFAR money include the inclusion of abstinence as a pillar of prevention and refusal to fund needle-exchange programs. Both conditions were lifted in 2008, but after years of implementation.

In addition, PEPFAR only funded branded drugs, rather than cheaper generic drugs, but started allowing the latter after 2005.

Full criticism of PEPFAR is available here, and an easy to read description of PEPFAR can be accessed here. Obama is continuining the program, but with a few changes.

So what's the bottom line here? Is George Bush the saviour of Africa? Well, I don't think it's wrong to acknowledge that the man seemed to care a fair amount about the plight of HIV victims in Africa, and managed to push through policy directives which, while flawed and beset with ideological caveats, nonetheless managed to improve the lives of tens of thousands of people. For that, he should be applauded.

But let's not forget that Bush also disassembled many civil liberties domestically, pushed his nation into the deepest debt it has ever seen, started two fruitless wars, invaded a country that posed no threat to him or his people, lied repeatedly to his citizens, and, according to at least one study, is responsible for the deaths of half a million Iraqi children.

Give the devil his due. But let's not ignore the horns.

Norwegian Nonsense

Here's Norway's Datarock. This is not what I'm talking about:



No, this is what I'm talking about: Barack Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize. As I tweeted upon hearing the news, "Um... I like Obama as much as the next guy. But don't you have to DO something before winning the Nobel prize"?

Then someone sent me the guidelines for winning the prize, with special attention to this bit (emphasis mine):

"Myth: The prize is awarded to recognize efforts for peace, human rights and democracy only after they have proven successful. More often, the prize is awarded to encourage those who receive it to see the effort through, sometimes at critical moments."

If this is the case, then I submit that the prize is more-or-less worthless. Now, I know it's not Obama's fault that he won it. And I don't really care what the motivation was for awarding it to him. (Seems that it was likely intended as a slap in the face of Bush II.) What matters to me is that this signals yet another step in the devaluing of what was once the finest honour in the history of the world.

It follows on the heels of wins by Henry Kissinger, hardly a harbinger of peace, and Yasser Arafat, a symbol of violence for many in the world. A truly deserving candidate, like Jimmy Carter who brokered the Camp David Accords, was not given the prize till decades later, and then for a lifetime of labour on behalf of the dispossessed.

As Howard Zinn put it best:

"I was dismayed when I heard Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on wars in two countries and launching military action in a third country (Pakistan), would be given a peace prize....

"People should not be given a peace prize on the basis of promises they have made (as with Obama, an eloquent maker of promises) but on the basis of actual accomplishments towards ending war. Obama has continued deadly, inhuman military action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"The Nobel Peace Committee should retire, and turn over its huge funds to some international peace organization which is not awed by stardom and rhetoric, and which has some understanding of history."

Additionally, it appears as if the deadline to submit a nomination is Feb 1st (link stolen from Rondi), which means that the rationale for Obama's candidacy was based on his many honourable and eloquent promises of new doctrine, new America and new world. However, in the time it took for the Nobel committee to make its decision, surely they could have seen that Obama has, thus far, lacked the ability (I say ability and not desire, for I still believe he wants to do the right thing) to make good on grand promises of peace and progress.

Instead, Obama has increased his military presence in Afghanistan and started actions in Pakistan. He has extended Bush's campaign of domestic wire tapping. He still has not repatriated terror "suspects" held illegally without charge. He has not reduced military spending. He has reversed his position on the release of all documentation relating to US prisoner abuse. He has not explored fair trade policies that could dramatically reduce global tensions. And while he's done some nice things, like issuing a friendly video to the Iranian people, he has not made good on his promise to negotiate a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear "crisis".

And I can't help but remember his rhetoric during campaign season, that he would seek out "and kill" Osama bin Laden. Not "apprehend" or "bring to justice", but kill. In my mind, this is not the verbiage of a proper recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize.

Now, if the prize serves to kick him in the ass and get him to actually make good on his promises of peaceful progress, then I will happily eat my words and bow before the Nobel committee. But until then, colour me skeptical.

In Other News...

To Deonandia regular "Brad Parker",who wrote, "Droogies cannot survive on tweets alone", I say, "Dude, I'm trying!"

Ow!!

Arrrrgh! Almighty Zod really doesn't want me to walk. My L4/L5 lumbar disc has re-herniated and I am in agony.

But enough whining.

Two things come to mind today. Have you heard the recent news about Hilary Clinton? Video here:



Essentially, a Congolese university student asked her about what Bill Clinton's opinion on something would be, and Hilary snapped back annoyedly: "My husband is not secretary of state. I am... You want me to tell you what my husband thinks? If you want my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channelling my husband."

There are several thoughts that arise from this event. First, the fact is that the student had actually asked about President Obama's opinion, not President Clinton's opinion. The translator had screwed up, apparently. One hopes that the student received an apology for undeservedly receiving Clinton's wrath.

Second, now we see why Obama could never have chosen Hilary as his VP. The spectre of Bill would have always been present. It would have been a three person administration, with Obama's being the smallest personality!

Third, yes, it was a sexist question... maybe. If it had been asked of any other woman, it would certainly have been a sexist question. But, Zod amighty, your husband is Bill Freaking Clinton! Everyone wants to know what he thinks about anything vaguely political! Hilary, your husband might not be Secretary of State, but I don't think anyone doubts he would be an excellent one. This has nothing to do with your abilities, or with your status as a woman, but more to do with Bill's enormous shadow and diplomatic greatness.

If Margaret Thatcher's husband had risen to the equivalent post in the UK, you'd better believe he'd be constantly hectored about what Margaret would have thought, as well!

Lastly, the Secretary of State is supposed to be the USA's top diplomat. A diplomat is supposed to be sensitive to the ways of thinking of othersrs. While visiting the Congo, Hilary was asked a question by a Congolese that is not an untoward question in that culture. Yes, she has a right to be offended, but surely she could have expressed her unhappiness a little more.... diplomatically?

If I were more clever, I'd work in a "ducking from sniper fire" comment somewhere. Instead, I give you leave to insert your own joke.

Item two today is the Chris Kattan miniseries vehicle Bollywood Hero. I haven't seen it, and maybe it's good. What I do know is that in New York last week, I saw the miniseries pushed heavily in the media. It was particularly heralded by Indians as further evidence of their "arrival" into the mainstream, that an SNL regular would choose to star in an overtly Indian vehicle.

The story, such as it is, concerns a failing American actor who chooses to restart his career by starring in a Bollywood production.

My problem is that this has nothing to do with the "arrival" of Indianness. It's more of the same Orientalism dressed up in miniseries clothing. The star is not Indian, but American. It's not even a real star, but a C-list Chris Kattan. The heart of the story is not the Indian production, but the journey of the white American. It's the Razor's Edge and City of Joy all over again, but without the depth and importance.

Okay, gotta go lie down again.