Fundamentally Green
Yesterday on National Public Radio, they did a segment on evangelical churches going “green”, i.e. environmentally conscious, and the problems it was causing the Republican party, who count on fundamental support.
Many of the churches are focusing on our stewardship of the environment, and setting up all kinds of recycle programs, calling in their “environmental tithe: (10% of your income.)
The problem is, the Democratic party is the party focused on the environment. So with the November elections coming up, NPR was examining how the shift in thinking will influence the voting.
There are other issues on which Democrats and Republicans differ – my guess is that those issues will have more influence on how people vote. But it is interesting that the “green” issue was raised – it could be a growing influence. The baby-boom generation are still a big voting bloc, and things may shift as they near retirement, and focus differently.
National Public Radio
I like BBC, but most of the time I find I don’t like listening twice to the same program. When you get tired of BBC, here is an alternative: National Public Radio.
You can stream National Public Radio through your computer, and listen to All Things Considered, The Beat . . . all kinds of things you never knew existed. National Public Radio was the only local American station to broadcast Ramadan and Eid greetings, and carried a lot of coverage of the season – objective and factual.
One of my favorite shows is “Wait! Wait! Don’t Tell Me!” which is a cafe-style conversation between very witty people discussing the news of the week. They really skewer politicians who have said stupid things, sing funny songs parodying events, and you just can’t help but laugh out loud when you listen.
Cutting Edge News in Kuwait
Watching the evening news tonight, as they discussed the possibility of another nuclear test by North Korea, they dramatically showed the night photo of North and South Korea featured in DonVeto’s blog, right here in Kuwait – FOUR days ago!
I’m still learning this linking thing. Click on the blue words below to go to the north/south Korea photo:
You saw it first here in Kuwait. And yes, Don Veto, your source was reliable. Way to go.
We Make a Difference: Incremental Change
Here is what the experts have told us:
Germany and France can never live in peace with one another.
Northern and Southern Ireland can never live in peace.
Germany reunite? Unthinkable. They are too far apart.
Black and white will never be able to live together in South Africa.
The Serbians and the Moslem Croatians will never find a way to live in peace.
The European Union will never work.
The Soviet Union is impregnable.
Kuwaiti women will never get the vote.
There will never be peace in Lebanon.
These were not lies. The experts who told us these things were wise people, making their best guesses. When experts say things, we tend to believe them.
And here is what I saw – before the fall of the Soviet Union, things didn’t work. Toilet paper was rationed. There were no lightbulbs in the lamps. There were no hangers on hotel closets. In the market was only cabbage, sausage and tuna fish. The people were told that the West was failing, and that the supermarkets and stores were fakes, “Potemkin” villages, special effects to fool good Communists in a desperate attempt to make them think Democracy was working. But in every hotel room, when you checked in, the TV was already on – the chambermaids watched CNN, and then went home and told their families what was REALLY going on in the world.
And word of mouth, the truth spread.
There are some wonderful things happening in the world, technologies that could be used for good or for evil.
Cameras. Video cameras. Cell phones. Cell phones with cameras and videos. Google Earth. The Internet. It’s hard to cover up the truth when people can freely share information.
With these tools, we can hold ourselves, our leaders and our society accountable. Keep your cameras handy. Blog. Share your thoughts, your suspicions. Hold your leaders accountable for their actions. Read the news, and read the blogs from other countries. Refuse to believe there is no hope in appearantly hopeless situations, no matter what the “experts” tell us.
Here is what some experts are telling us today:
There is an imminent clash of cultures between East and West.
The Palestinians will never live in peace with the Israelis.
We can’t do anything about global warming / There is no global warming
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
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There are small things we can do, right now, to make incremental changes. Pick up a piece of litter. Buckle your seat belt, and buckle up your children. Give an enemy the benefit of the doubt. Smile at your neighbor, and greet them. Stop and help that poor man broken down by the side of the road. Feed a stray cat. Donate clothing to the poor. Do one small thing, every day. Hold ourselves accountable in small ways, and the overall effect tilts the balance in larger ways.
Dharfur: We can No Longer Pretend We Don’t Know
Today, in his blog, Ogle Earth, which discusses new developments with Google Earth, Stefan Geens says the following about the new hi-res maps of the Sudan made public today in Google Earth:
Those circles aren’t animal pens. They’re burned-down gottias, circular mud huts that had straw roofs, and they’re what’s left of Dalia, a village in Sudan’s Darfur region, one of hundreds of villages that have been destroyed by the Janjaweed in a program of depopulation that has killed perhaps 400,000 civilians since 2003.
Today, Google added recent high resolution imagery of Darfur to Google Earth, taken by DigitalGlobe in January-March 2006. It serves as an unequivocal indictment of the Janjaweed, and of the Sudanese government whose implicit support it has enjoyed, because in these new images each and every burned-out gottia is visible. This is the kind of evidence that puts paid to the claims still coming out of Khartoum that the ethnic cleansing is not widespead, and that accusations of genocide are a mere pretext to wrest sovereignty away from Sudan with the deployment of UN peacekeepers.
Read the blog entry for yourself here.
He goes on to say “we can no longer pretend we don’t know.”
He’s right. It’s there, in high resolution, for all to see.
Props to the hard working young man at Google Earth who has been slaving to get all the detailed maps together. It’s a fine mission, ibn uckti, and we are all so proud of you and the hours you put in to make this possible.
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