Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Oxfam Hunger Map
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In the last year, international food prices have reached record peaks. In many countries, high food prices have contributed to unrest, instability, violence and increasing inequality and poverty. While volatile food prices impact everyone, the impacts vary across the globe with the poorest and most vulnerable people often getting the shortest end of the stick.
To shed more light on the impacts of food price spikes, Oxfam has created an interactive map of Food Price Volatility Pressure Points. This map shows the impacts of price spikes in some of the countries where food prices have complicated the lives of poor people and offers a chance to take action on to help address price volatility.
The map shows are areas that are highly vulnerable to price spikes, countries that have had extreme weather events contribute to global price hikes and places that have seen price spikes contribute to violence or unrest that has shaken the foundation of global stability. While this map alone does not tell the full story of how price spikes have impacted our world, it offers a global snapshot to give us a better understanding of what is happening in communities near and far.
Put this map on your website or blog
Copy and paste the code below to add this map to your own site.
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/articles/food-price-spikes
ShareThis Email this page Print this page
In the last year, international food prices have reached record peaks. In many countries, high food prices have contributed to unrest, instability, violence and increasing inequality and poverty. While volatile food prices impact everyone, the impacts vary across the globe with the poorest and most vulnerable people often getting the shortest end of the stick.
To shed more light on the impacts of food price spikes, Oxfam has created an interactive map of Food Price Volatility Pressure Points. This map shows the impacts of price spikes in some of the countries where food prices have complicated the lives of poor people and offers a chance to take action on to help address price volatility.
The map shows are areas that are highly vulnerable to price spikes, countries that have had extreme weather events contribute to global price hikes and places that have seen price spikes contribute to violence or unrest that has shaken the foundation of global stability. While this map alone does not tell the full story of how price spikes have impacted our world, it offers a global snapshot to give us a better understanding of what is happening in communities near and far.
Put this map on your website or blog
Copy and paste the code below to add this map to your own site.
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/articles/food-price-spikes
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
David "Honeyboy" Edwards: "Sweet Home Chicago" RIP
[David "Honeyboy" Edwards, the son of a sharecropper, the grandson of a slave and — for an extraordinary 80-plus years — the voice of the Delta blues, died Monday at his home in Chicago, said his longtime manager, Michael Frank. He was 96 and had been in declining health with heart problems.
Edwards picked cotton and pulled corn on Mississippi Delta plantations from age 9, living the hard life that the blues were created to address. As a young man, he hoboed across the South with a guitar on his shoulder, rode the rails, got thrown in prison for vagrancy and on various trumped-up charges and, along the way, made music with the founders of the art form: Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, Son House, Tommy McLennan, Sonny Boy Williamson and Big Joe Williams.]
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/obituaries/la-me-honeyboy-edwards-20110830,0,968212.story
Edwards picked cotton and pulled corn on Mississippi Delta plantations from age 9, living the hard life that the blues were created to address. As a young man, he hoboed across the South with a guitar on his shoulder, rode the rails, got thrown in prison for vagrancy and on various trumped-up charges and, along the way, made music with the founders of the art form: Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, Son House, Tommy McLennan, Sonny Boy Williamson and Big Joe Williams.]
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/obituaries/la-me-honeyboy-edwards-20110830,0,968212.story
Rick Parry Making Money the Old Fashioned Way: Insider Business Deals With Cronies
[BY AMAN BATHEJA
THE FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
Since his first race for office more than a quarter-century ago, Gov. Rick Perry has emphasized his roots as a rural farmer.
Yet Perry's bank account no longer reflects those humble beginnings as his bottom line has soared in recent years, records show, thanks largely to a handful of real estate deals that critics allege were achieved through the presidential candidates' political connections...
While much of the scrutiny has focused on land deals Perry made while a statewide official, "real estate investor" doesn't properly capture all of his recent financial activity, just as "farmer" is too simple a description of Perry's earlier years...
Perry bought 10 acres of undeveloped land in 1993. That property drew interest from Michael Dell, a computer magnate who needed Perry's tract to connect his new home to municipal sewer lines. Dell took the property off Perry's hands for $465,000, more than triple what Perry had paid for it two years earlier. Perry reported a $342,994 profit on the sale in his 1995 tax return.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/29/2379942_p2/texas-gov-perry-became-a-millionaire.html#ixzz1WWR4s5tz
THE FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
Since his first race for office more than a quarter-century ago, Gov. Rick Perry has emphasized his roots as a rural farmer.
Yet Perry's bank account no longer reflects those humble beginnings as his bottom line has soared in recent years, records show, thanks largely to a handful of real estate deals that critics allege were achieved through the presidential candidates' political connections...
While much of the scrutiny has focused on land deals Perry made while a statewide official, "real estate investor" doesn't properly capture all of his recent financial activity, just as "farmer" is too simple a description of Perry's earlier years...
Perry bought 10 acres of undeveloped land in 1993. That property drew interest from Michael Dell, a computer magnate who needed Perry's tract to connect his new home to municipal sewer lines. Dell took the property off Perry's hands for $465,000, more than triple what Perry had paid for it two years earlier. Perry reported a $342,994 profit on the sale in his 1995 tax return.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/29/2379942_p2/texas-gov-perry-became-a-millionaire.html#ixzz1WWR4s5tz
Monday, August 29, 2011
RepubliKKKans Kill Kids
[...To balance the budget, state lawmakers slashed funding for county health departments, and along with other federal cuts, it resulted in $55.6 million being cut this year from the health agency's $2.9 billion budget.
Already, 172 county health department workers have been targeted for elimination statewide. Some have already been laid off, left or switched jobs, including doctors, nurses and support staff.
Another round of layoffs will happen next month and raise those statewide totals, including 30 staffers in Orange County. Osceola County laid off 37 workers earlier this year, shrinking its staff to 200, and dozens more health workers will be let go next month in departments across Florida....]
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-health-department-layoffs-20110826,0,820970.story
Already, 172 county health department workers have been targeted for elimination statewide. Some have already been laid off, left or switched jobs, including doctors, nurses and support staff.
Another round of layoffs will happen next month and raise those statewide totals, including 30 staffers in Orange County. Osceola County laid off 37 workers earlier this year, shrinking its staff to 200, and dozens more health workers will be let go next month in departments across Florida....]
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-health-department-layoffs-20110826,0,820970.story
Sunday, August 28, 2011
"Killer python's (sic) owners get 12 years"
25 August '11 page A3: "Killer python's (sic) owners get 12 years," misusing the apostrophe to make the snake "own" the owners.
By doing so, the print edition, however, felt fine rewriting the rules of grammar, logic, and metaphysics by inverting possession.
Online headline actually grammatically correct: "Reptile-loving couple sentenced to 12 years in prison in killer python case."
Will wonders never cease?
[By Stephen Hudak, ORLANDO SENTINEL
7:40 p.m. EDT, August 24, 2011
BUSHNELL — A reptile-loving couple convicted of manslaughter for failing to protect a toddler from their pet python was sentenced today to 12 years in prison, but their lawyers believe jurors in the case were influenced by the verdict in the Casey Anthony trial.
"I don't think after watching one Central Florida accused child-killer walk free…that they wanted that to happen to anyone else accused (in a child killing) whether they fully believed the case was proven to them beyond a reasonable doubt or not," said J. Rhiannon Arnold, defense lawyer for Charles "Jason" Darnell.]
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/os-killer-python-sentencing-20110824,0,6052469.story
By doing so, the print edition, however, felt fine rewriting the rules of grammar, logic, and metaphysics by inverting possession.
Online headline actually grammatically correct: "Reptile-loving couple sentenced to 12 years in prison in killer python case."
Will wonders never cease?
[By Stephen Hudak, ORLANDO SENTINEL
7:40 p.m. EDT, August 24, 2011
BUSHNELL — A reptile-loving couple convicted of manslaughter for failing to protect a toddler from their pet python was sentenced today to 12 years in prison, but their lawyers believe jurors in the case were influenced by the verdict in the Casey Anthony trial.
"I don't think after watching one Central Florida accused child-killer walk free…that they wanted that to happen to anyone else accused (in a child killing) whether they fully believed the case was proven to them beyond a reasonable doubt or not," said J. Rhiannon Arnold, defense lawyer for Charles "Jason" Darnell.]
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/os-killer-python-sentencing-20110824,0,6052469.story
Food or Shelter?
Great Jumpin' Jehosaphat's ghost, has anyone thought that this happens to folks in A-Merry-Ca?
Anyone in political office?
Anybody?
Take the facts that mortgage companies intent on producing maximum profits created the last bubble: selling Adjustable Rate Crap, and qualifying buyers by fabricating higher income than people actually had.
Country Wide in particular failed to do due diligence by auditing the actual mortgages, and Bank of America now stands liable for damages after buying assets and liabilities. For those who preach the morality of all individuals taking care of themselves, hungry children creates a moral if not legal crisis.
Banks got trillions in bailouts, which saved the world economy.
Well whoop de do; hungry humans, especially children who need nutrition for brain development, need to eat or they die.
[Irish families are going without food in order to meet their spiraling mortgage costs as the recession grips.
The reality has been exposed by a letter writer to the Irish Times who revealed the full torment of his family’s situation.
Writing as MP Mac Domhnaill from Tralee, the man revealed how the cost of a $120,000 mortgage has left his family with nothing to eat but bread and cereal.
The writer described his family’s predicament as a new torment as he struggles to pay his lender.
He wrote of the "anxiety and pain” as his $1,000 a month dole payment is used to fund the mortgage.
The Sunday Independent reports that such cases are not unusual in modern day Ireland as calls grow for mortgage debt forgiveness.
The paper reports that there are currently up to 60,000 mortgage holders in arrears in Ireland.
Economist Morgan Kelly, the man who predicted the downfall of the Celtic Tiger, told the paper the Irish state ‘must move’ on mortgage debt forgiveness.
“There are measures the States must introduce to end the anguish of many ordinary Irish families”, said Kelly.] emphasis added
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Irish-families-starve-their-children-in-order-to-make-mortgage-payments-128552818.html
[Citigroup Inc. (C) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) were the reigning champions of finance in 2006 as home prices peaked, leading the 10 biggest U.S. banks and brokerage firms to their best year ever with $104 billion of profits.
By 2008, the housing market’s collapse forced those companies to take more than six times as much, $669 billion, in emergency loans from the U.S. Federal Reserve. The loans dwarfed the $160 billion in public bailouts the top 10 got from the U.S. Treasury, yet until now the full amounts have remained secret.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s unprecedented effort to keep the economy from plunging into depression included lending banks and other companies as much as $1.2 trillion of public money, about the same amount U.S. homeowners currently owe on 6.5 million delinquent and foreclosed mortgages. The largest borrower, Morgan Stanley (MS), got as much as $107.3 billion, while Citigroup took $99.5 billion and Bank of America $91.4 billion, according to a Bloomberg News compilation of data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, months of litigation and an act of Congress.] emphasis added
http://blog.feedingamerica.org/2011/08/client-story-momi-from-las-vegas/
Anyone in political office?
Anybody?
Take the facts that mortgage companies intent on producing maximum profits created the last bubble: selling Adjustable Rate Crap, and qualifying buyers by fabricating higher income than people actually had.
Country Wide in particular failed to do due diligence by auditing the actual mortgages, and Bank of America now stands liable for damages after buying assets and liabilities. For those who preach the morality of all individuals taking care of themselves, hungry children creates a moral if not legal crisis.
Banks got trillions in bailouts, which saved the world economy.
Well whoop de do; hungry humans, especially children who need nutrition for brain development, need to eat or they die.
[Irish families are going without food in order to meet their spiraling mortgage costs as the recession grips.
The reality has been exposed by a letter writer to the Irish Times who revealed the full torment of his family’s situation.
Writing as MP Mac Domhnaill from Tralee, the man revealed how the cost of a $120,000 mortgage has left his family with nothing to eat but bread and cereal.
The writer described his family’s predicament as a new torment as he struggles to pay his lender.
He wrote of the "anxiety and pain” as his $1,000 a month dole payment is used to fund the mortgage.
The Sunday Independent reports that such cases are not unusual in modern day Ireland as calls grow for mortgage debt forgiveness.
The paper reports that there are currently up to 60,000 mortgage holders in arrears in Ireland.
Economist Morgan Kelly, the man who predicted the downfall of the Celtic Tiger, told the paper the Irish state ‘must move’ on mortgage debt forgiveness.
“There are measures the States must introduce to end the anguish of many ordinary Irish families”, said Kelly.] emphasis added
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Irish-families-starve-their-children-in-order-to-make-mortgage-payments-128552818.html
[Citigroup Inc. (C) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) were the reigning champions of finance in 2006 as home prices peaked, leading the 10 biggest U.S. banks and brokerage firms to their best year ever with $104 billion of profits.
By 2008, the housing market’s collapse forced those companies to take more than six times as much, $669 billion, in emergency loans from the U.S. Federal Reserve. The loans dwarfed the $160 billion in public bailouts the top 10 got from the U.S. Treasury, yet until now the full amounts have remained secret.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s unprecedented effort to keep the economy from plunging into depression included lending banks and other companies as much as $1.2 trillion of public money, about the same amount U.S. homeowners currently owe on 6.5 million delinquent and foreclosed mortgages. The largest borrower, Morgan Stanley (MS), got as much as $107.3 billion, while Citigroup took $99.5 billion and Bank of America $91.4 billion, according to a Bloomberg News compilation of data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, months of litigation and an act of Congress.] emphasis added
http://blog.feedingamerica.org/2011/08/client-story-momi-from-las-vegas/
For Long Life, Drink Irish Whiskey
[One of America’s oldest citizens, still sharp as a tack, has claimed Irish whiskey is the key to her longevity.
The 103-year-old Marguerite Kuebrich told fifty of her closest friends that her Irish heritage also helps.
“No one knows how old they’re going to be,” Kuebrich said. “(But) I have no idea why I lived so long. I usually tell them it’s good Irish whiskey. I’m Irish and I’m proud of it.”]
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Irish-whiskey-key-to-long-life-says-one-of-Americas-oldest-citizens-128552608.html
The 103-year-old Marguerite Kuebrich told fifty of her closest friends that her Irish heritage also helps.
“No one knows how old they’re going to be,” Kuebrich said. “(But) I have no idea why I lived so long. I usually tell them it’s good Irish whiskey. I’m Irish and I’m proud of it.”]
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Irish-whiskey-key-to-long-life-says-one-of-Americas-oldest-citizens-128552608.html
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Just When I Thought I Had Things Figured Out
God, Goddess, Allah, or deity of your choice smacks the Earth down with a hurricane, Irene.
Who Knew?: I thought Switchfoot a country band
[For Jon Foreman, lead singer and songwriter for Grammy Award-winning band Switchfoot, inspiring people to action through music is a gift not to be taken lightly.
But writing songs and singing about hope is not enough for him, he said. It is partly the “faith without works is dead” theology. But to Foreman, it just seems disingenuous to sing about hope and not get involved.
For years, Habitat for Humanity has been one of Switchfoot’s favorite ways of putting their faith into action.
“There are a lot of great organizations doing great things for people, but one of the things I love about Habitat is it’s a way for people to connect with the heart of what we’re singing about, which is hope. A lot of organizations need money or need skill. Habitat will teach you how to swing a hammer, how to put up siding and put in sinks. I love that. With Habitat, you can directly connect with the organization with your sweat rather than pocket.”]
http://www.habitat.org/stories_multimedia/volunteer_stories/Vol_Switchfoot_July2011.aspx?tr=y&auid=9374118
"I want to spend the rest of my life alive."
But writing songs and singing about hope is not enough for him, he said. It is partly the “faith without works is dead” theology. But to Foreman, it just seems disingenuous to sing about hope and not get involved.
For years, Habitat for Humanity has been one of Switchfoot’s favorite ways of putting their faith into action.
“There are a lot of great organizations doing great things for people, but one of the things I love about Habitat is it’s a way for people to connect with the heart of what we’re singing about, which is hope. A lot of organizations need money or need skill. Habitat will teach you how to swing a hammer, how to put up siding and put in sinks. I love that. With Habitat, you can directly connect with the organization with your sweat rather than pocket.”]
http://www.habitat.org/stories_multimedia/volunteer_stories/Vol_Switchfoot_July2011.aspx?tr=y&auid=9374118
"I want to spend the rest of my life alive."
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