Post-Stephen Lewis Thoughts...

A new free-trade deal between the EU and India may block access to generic antiretroviral drugs (ARV), the drugs needed to control HIV. Currently a years supply of generic ARV's cost $137 per person, per year. The spread of HIV is somewhat on the decline in Africa, and UNICEF has released a report stating that an HIV-free generation is possible if mother-to-child prevention drugs (which prevent the disease from being transmitted from a mother to her unborn child...obviously) are made accessible. So why are 1,000 babies a day in Africa still being born with HIV? With 22.5 million people in Africa living with HIV, this is an achievable goal. That's less then the populations then Canada, and we all get free healthcare, which is a hell of alot more social spending then $137 a year. But how to go about advocating for it? Canada has committed 1.7 billion towards maternal healthcare...to provide each person with ARV drugs for a year it would cost about 3014000000, which is 3 billion if I'm counting the zero's correctly, and using a calculator correctly. Only twice as much as Canada committed. And all together the G8 committed 7 million. So where is this money going.
Thoughts? Ideas?

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/kenyans-rally-against-eu-india-deal-on-aids-drugs
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/hiv-free-generation-achievable-unicef/

December 2nd

“After all, the preferred definition of ‘lead’ is to ‘show the way to’; only the secondary definition is to ‘cause to follow’. Likewise, the preferred definition of leadership is ‘the position or guidance of a leader.’ Only the secondary definition is ‘the ability to lead’. One can be a leader, at least in moral terms, without exerting controlling or decisive influence.”
(Forsythe, David. “Human Rights, The United States and the Organization of American
States.” Human Rights Quarterly)

It takes alot of pressure off to know that, by definition, to be a moral leader you should not be strong arming world leaders into being moral. That's sinking to their level.

November 22 2010

Make us sure of the good we cannot see and of the hidden good in the world. . . . Save us from ourselves and show us a vision of a world made new - Eleanor Roosevelt
A day is coming when people will sing,
"Give thanks to the Lord! Call for him to help you! Tell all the nations what he has done! Tell them how great he is! Sing to the Lord because of the great things he has done. Let the whole world hear the news. Let everyone who lives in Zion shout and sing! Israel's holy God is great, and he lives among his people." Isaiah 12 4-6

An Oldie

May 5th 2010

Back and forth, soft and low they speak urgently to one another, excitement fills the voices of the Watchers.

They lean forward, eager to see outcome of the story;

The Conductor taps his staff, pauses and raises his arm: there is a deep intake of breath from those playing the wind instruments;

The sky is dark, the sole noise is that of one lonely bird patrolling the darkness. He does not call, only the flapping of his wings beating away night breaks the stillness;

The land lays flat and untouched by vegetation, warm and waiting for rain to give it growth.

The Silence is broken by the noise of a thousand instruments playing the most beautiful song ever written, the Sun bursts forth, rising like this is the first time it has greeted the world, a flower raises its face to the sky, joyfully basking in the warmth and the Watchers sigh in contentment, beholding the happy ending they saw written in their dreams.

November 10th

My heart is broken into thousand of piece.

I clutch them to me, trying to hold them together.

Clutch them to my chest.

The tighter I hold on, the more they slip through my fingers.

They scatter in the wind, thrown down a new life course.

I look at my empty hands in despair as they drip with blood, my blood pouring out through the hole where my heart use to be.

Slowly I slip from my knees to the ground with a groan, curl into the fettle position and weep for all that I have lost.

My knees drawn into my chest.

I weep for my childhood.

I weep for my soul.

I weep for my lack of perspective.

I weep for my sanity.

On the wind I hear the beating slowly stop, like the wind whipping a memory in my direction and then yanking it away again..

Brain function silences.

The wind stills.

In the quiet there is something like soft laughter.

Near the ground points of light begin to illuminate, lifting their faces rejoicing to the silent sky.

Near my face they illuminate slowly, and then like brush fire the lights seem to spread, gathering speed, gathering strength, hundreds, thousands, millions, billions, drawn to a rotting corpse.

They fill the gaping hole, the light blinding.

Gasping breath.

I was never lost.