Today....and tomorrow

Two things about today ....

Today is the last day of the long holiday weekend, and like most end-of-holiday weekend, I greet the evening with a mixture of sadness that it is over and relief that is. Sadness because visiting family have returned home, the trappings of the weekend put away, my son has departed to go back to school, and Thanksgiving is over for this year. Relief for much of the same reasons. Sometimes the break from the routine, even when you enjoy it, is too disruptive. While I would relish a few additional vacation days -- I'm down to only a few more that I can take off from work -- there is something about the rhythm of the normal routines.

Today is the first day of Advent, the start of the Christian holiday season. While retailers have been promoting the secular Christmas for what seems like weeks, the official 'kick-off' of the season generally starts on the day after Thanksgiving. The lights have gone up on trees and houses around the neighborhood. Our neighbors across the street have decorated a very, very tall evergreen with white lights. Not to be outdone, the house next to them have strung lights on two tall oaks. On one multi-colored lights merely twist around the trunk towards the top branches. On the other, white lights encircle the trunk, while green lights at the top form an outline that makes the tree look like a palm tree. I'm not sure that there is any symbolism to a palm tree, but I like the idea of something reminiscent of warmer climates on the snow-sprinkled slope of a ravine in the heartland of the country where palms are only found inside conservatories.

Light: it seems a natural that many people in northern latitudes would have celebrated the idea of light during a time when the hours of sunlight decrease so dramatically in the weeks before the solstice. How could one not recognize that rhythm of the earth? No wonder that as the Roman Empire spread throughout Northern Europe, church officials co-opted the feast of Saturnalia to fit their new religion. The cycle of light - dark - light, paralleling the fertile - fallow - new growth patterns of crops, is so obvious to a casual observer, much less people whose lives were ruled by the seasons, any effort to block out such celebrations would have been futile. Even knowing the origin of the light and new birth symbolism in the Roman's Saturnalia, I can embrace these metaphors as part of my faith because they make sense to celebrate. Nor was this concept of light and illumination vs. darkness unknown to the early Christians; one can find it in the Hebrew Scriptures as well. If you're interested in such things, you may want to check out Jan Richardson's blog, The Advent Door during this season of liturgical preparation for Christmas.

Two things about Tomorrow...

Another kind of light, that of the night sky, will provide a treat tomorrow. Jupiter and Venus will be in conjunction, appearing close together in the early evening sky. This occurs twice (once in morning sky, once in evening sky) every two years. Tomorrow, December 1, not only will they be in conjunction, but they will form a triangle with a slivered crescent moon. If the sky is clear enough, you will be able to see the rest of the moon as well. Sometimes referred to as earthshine, the phenomena also is called the old moon in the young moon's arms. Isn't that a lovely description of it? Read more about the conjunction and the brilliantly lit trio at Space.com or see this Yahoo article. Here is a picture of how the moon, Jupiter and Venus will be aligned tomorrow.


On a more serious note, and quite the opposite of light and life, tomorrow is World AIDS Day. UNAIDS estimates that there are an estimated 33 million people infected with HIV. 22 million of those infected live in sub-Saharan Africa. While AIDS can be a manageable disease that one can live with in the West, in developing countries, it remains a death sentence for most. If you read or hear anyone saying how there is too much money going to AIDS, that the infection rates have slowed and that people can now live with this disease, don't accept that at face value. That is true if you exclude Africa. What is the difference between AIDS in the West and Africa? Money, access to appropriate healthcare, treatment. Educate yourself about the facts. Avert.org is one place to start. Read the executive summary of the 2008 UNAIDS report on the global AIDS epidemic. An excellent book to read is 28 stories of AIDS in Africa by Stephanie Nolen. You can read about a remarkable program in Eldoret, Kenya here.

What can you do to recognize World Aids Day? Educate yourself and others. Raise Awareness. Raise funds. Donate.

Fractal Patterns

A few days ago I posted about patterns and mentioned the designs at Alhambra among others. The next day my spouse told me about a video he watched at the TED site. This is cool. Video is about 15 minutes. Professor Ron Eglash, discussing fractals in African village design:



I am fascinated by this idea of mathematical patterns having a spiritual aspect. Wish I understood more about it.

From the Amazon web site:

Drawing on interviews with African designers, artists, and scientists, Ron Eglash investigates fractals in African architecture, traditional hairstyling, textiles, sculpture, painting, carving, metalwork, religion, games, practical craft, quantitative technologies, and symbolic systems. He also examines the political and social implications of the existence of African fractal geometry. His book makes a unique contribution to the study of mathematics, African culture, anthropology, and computer simulations.

African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Designs, Ron Eglash, Rutgers Univ Press, 1999.

This book is now on my wishlist.

If you aren't familiar with TED, go here. Pretty amazing stuff! This is one of those sites I can't click to at work. Not that it isn't safe; it isn't conducive to getting the stuff done I need to do. I could spend hours listening to these lectures. And they add more all the time. I'll never catch up!


*****
My 3 beautiful things today:

Mathematics

Finding my forgotten Wine Notebook which reminded me I've bought some pretty great vino in the past. Fermented grapes are a wonderful thing.

Spending the afternoon "watching" football with husband. Translation: he watched; I napped. A wonderful lazy afternoon.

$1/Day, Child-headed Households, 28 Million, A Continent Dying....Don't Look Away: Part II

I wrote yesterday that I would post a list of books about global poverty, the UN Millennium Development Goals, and Africa. These are books that I have read or am in process of reading. There is much more information out there. Reviews are from Amazon's web pages (linked).

On global poverty:

The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Times Jeffrey Sachs, Penguin, 2005.

From Publishers Weekly:
Over 18 chapters, Sachs builds his case carefully, offering a variety of case studies, detailing small-scale projects that have worked and crunching large amounts of data. His basic argument is that "[W]hen the preconditions of basic infrastructure (roads, power, and ports) and human capital (health and education) are in place, markets are powerful engines of development." In order to tread "the path to peace and prosperity," Sachs believes it is encumbant upon successful market economies to bring the few areas of the world that still need help onto "the ladder of development." If there is any one work to put extreme poverty back onto the global agenda, this is it. (Mar 21).

Ending Global Poverty: A Guide to What Works, Stephen C. Smith, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005,

"We have an opportunity, in this generation, to reduce global poverty, both through acts of charity and by working as citizens to influence public policy. Stephen Smith offers reliable information, stories of success, and good advice on how to get personally involved in this important fight. Read it, and then take action. " --David Beckmann, President, Bread for the World

What One Person Can Do, Sabina Alkire, Church Publishing, 2005.

What Can One Person Do? confronts a poverty-stricken world, and with clarity of purpose offers practical steps to create lasting change.

Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty, Muhammad Yunus, Public Affairs, 2003.

It began with a simple $27 loan. After witnessing the cycle of poverty that kept many poor women enslaved to high-interest loan sharks in Bangladesh, Dr. Muhammad Yunus lent money to 42 women so they could purchase bamboo to make and sell stools. In a short time, the women were able to repay the loans while continuing to support themselves and their families. With that initial eye-opening success, the seeds of the Grameen Bank, and the concept of microcredit, were planted.

On the AIDS crisis in Africa:

A Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa (CBC Massey Lecture) Stephen Lewis, 2006, House of Anansi Press

"We have an opportunity, in this generation, to reduce global poverty, both through acts of charity and by working as citizens to influence public policy. Stephen Smith offers reliable information, stories of success, and good advice on how to get personally involved in this important fight. Read it, and then take action. " --David Beckmann, President, Bread for the World

28 Stories of AIDS in Africa, Stephanie Nolen, Walker Publishing Company, 2007.

From Booklist:
Nolen puts a very human face on HIV/AIDS in Africa, verbally and visually. A photograph accompanies each of the book's 28 personal histories (one subject stands for one million infected people in sub-Saharan Africa). The faces in the photos appear no different than faces of everyday Americans, but that appearance belies the horrific reality of lives shredded by devastating disease.

There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children, Melissa Fay Greene, Bloomsbury, 2006.

From Publishers Weekly:
Not unlike the AIDS pandemic itself, the odyssey of Haregewoin Teferra, who took in AIDS orphans, began in small stages and grew to irrevocably transform her life from that of "a nice neighborhood lady" to a figure of fame, infamy and ultimate restoration. In telling her story, journalist Greene who had adopted two Ethiopian children before meeting Teferra, juggles political history, medical reportage and personal memoir.

On African Politics:

The Fate of Africa, Martin Meredith, Public Affairs, 2005.

From Booklist:
Meredith is a journalist, biographer, and historian who has written extensively on modern African history. His massive but very readable examination of African history over the past century unfolds like a drawn-out tragedy. Of course, the arrogance and ignorance of European masters planted the seeds of many of Africa's current problems. But Meredith refuses to let Africans off the hook for the endemic violence, corruption, and political repression that plague so many African states. While he pays tribute to icons like Mandela and Senghor, his contempt for the venality and worship of power that has characterized so many leaders from Nasser to Mugabe is palatable and justified by extensive documentation.

Long Way Gone: Memoirs of A Boy Soldier, Ishmael Beah, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.

From Publishers Weekly:
This absorbing account by a young man who, as a boy of 12, gets swept up in Sierra Leone's civil war goes beyond even the best journalistic efforts in revealing the life and mind of a child abducted into the horrors of warfare. Beah's harrowing journey transforms him overnight from a child enthralled by American hip-hop music and dance to an internal refugee bereft of family, wandering from village to village in a country grown deeply divided by the indiscriminate atrocities of unruly, sociopathic rebel and army forces....Told in clear, accessible language by a young writer with a gifted literary voice, this memoir seems destined to become a classic firsthand account of war and the ongoing plight of child soldiers in conflicts worldwide. (Feb.)

$1/Day, Child-headed Households, 28 Million, A Continent Dying....Don't Look Away: Part I

I had in mind that I would write about several books that I have read recently on Africa sometime this month. Today, I read (un)relaxeddad's post which led me to Charlotte's posts on AIDS in Africa (here and here). If you haven't read Charlotte's posts, you need to. I don't have a firsthand story about the crisis in Africa like what is posted on Charlotte's blog -- I can't even pretend that I could capture such emotional impact. I don't know how one can read Charlotte's post, or any of the heart-wrenching stories coming out of Africa and not be moved to action. Once you are aware of the conditions in Africa -- and the ways some think we can find workable solutions -- it is an offense to the dignity of others to ignore.

Currently more than 1 billion people -- more than 1/5th of the planet -- live in extreme poverty. This means living on less than $1/day or having to travel (usually by foot) more than 2 kilometers to get clean drinking water. In an effort to eradicate such poverty, the UN adopted (187 countries!) the Millennium Development Goals (MDG's) in 1998. From the UN's website:

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 – form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest.

What are the 8 MDG's?

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases (including TB which is epidemic in Africa)
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development.

For additional information on each of these goals, see this website

To help meet these goals the economic powerhouses of the world committed to contributing 0.07% of GNP in foreign aid. The US - and several other large countries -- have failed to meet this contribution. We have reached the 1/2 way mark to the target date of 2015, and progress towards the goals is slow moving. Consider:
* 10.1 million children under age 5 died from mostly preventable effects of poverty.
* 2.9 million people died from AIDS in 2006.
* 15 million children had lost one or both parents to AIDS in 2005.
* 1/2 of the population of the developing world has improper sanitation.

I could continue to bedazzle you with facts, but cold numbers do not have as great an emotional impact as personal stories. Read Charlotte's post; read books like 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa; or Jeffry Sach's The End of Poverty. Think what it means that there were 15 million children orphaned from AIDS. Some estimates cite that there will be 25 million AIDS orphans in Africa by 2010. 25 million children without a mother or father to hug them each day, to feed them, to love them, to show them how to grow into loving, caring adults. Many of these children are being raised by their elderly grandparents. Many live in what the UN has termed 'Child-Headed Households'. How can we life in a world were there is a term for that? How can one not be moved by such a horrific situation?

Below are a few sites where you can learn more. Tomorrow, I'll post a listing of several books that you might be interested in reading that discuss this pressing issue of our time and what we might do about it.

Millennium Development Goal Indicators
UN Millennium Development Goals
Make Poverty History
Millennium Promise
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa)


The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.