Poverty. Starvation. Oil dependency. AIDS. Inequality. Climate change. Energy crisis. The list of global problems can go on and on, with little hope of permanent solutions. What if we were able to take one giant step towards solving all these issues?
"Over 1 billion people live on $1 a day, the benchmark of absolute poverty." I found this to be a frightening statistic while I was reading the weekly Economist today.
Think about that: One billion people.
The thought of a world language that could be spoken and understood in any country is quite a formidable subject of discussion. There are a few developed alternative languages but so few people speak them that it really isn’t worth mentioning them. Esperanto is the most widely used alternative language in the world although the majority speak it only as a hobby.
A young woman dying of AIDS lay in the bed before me. Staring at her frail, disease-stricken body, the words of a family friend echoed in my head, "Why is Kellie going to Africa? Does she really think that one person can make a difference?"
Quite an intriguing question to be asked; what is “progress?” Before I ramble on about what progress means to me, I feel that defining the term itself may help in understanding its importance. Progress is any positive movement. Moving beyond the limits of whatever is considered to be status-quo. Growth where growth is needed is what defines progress.
Is it possible that the United States of America will have a female president?
Is it high time or too early?
Is it possible that the United States of America will have a female president?
Is it high time or too early?
Poverty, what is it? Shipler’s article gives at least a hundred direct examples of societal inequalities. These things don’t necessarily define poverty in a textbook sense- but they pull at us as ironies. The copy editor of your textbook has not been to the dentist in a decade. The woman who cashes checks has $2.02 in her own checking account. A man who sells dog food yet cannot feed his family. Things that shouldn’t be. Things that don’t seem right. The people who live in the margins of the world, pushed to the side, ignored, unwanted--no one is concerned about them. The U.S. government’s definition of poverty is simple: “An annual income, for a family with one adult and three children, of less than $18,392 in the year 2003.”(Shipler)
