Two cups of coffee
Alright, I promise, no more posts till I'm done exams. This is a short one anyway, where I want to briefly mention World AIDS Day (today) and the UN appeal for aid to help victims of war, famine and natural disaster.
There are over 40 million people in the world suffering from AIDS today, about 5 million of them who were newly infected this year, with Africa the hardest hit. Canada, in the lead up to the largest ever conference in the fight against AIDS - AIDS 2006 - to be held in Toronto next August, has a golden opportunity to provide an example for other rich countries of the world in how to help counter the spread of this disease.
Meanwhile, the UN is asking for $4.7 billion in humanitarian aid for over 30 million people, an amount that is said to be equal to 48 hours of global military spending. If you do the math, it looks like global military spending per year exceeds an astounding $1.7 trillion. There's something not right when the world can fork out that much money for arms, but has trouble meeting UN targets.
Here's a quote that hit close to home:
"We are asking exactly the amount of 48 hours of military spending in this world, or we're asking for the equivalent of two cups of coffee per rich person. If they all gave the equivalent of two cups of coffee, we would cover all the needs for these 31 million people in a desperate situation."Jan Egeland, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator
9 comments:
Quick, albeit, materialistic reminder. If you want to help out with Nelson Mandela's AIDS organization simply go to his website. There is a ton of snazzy paraphenalia one can purchase that helps out this worthy cause. And if anyone wants to buy me a ringer t-shirt, my size is a large and thank you.
Sorry everyone. Here's the link to Nelson Mandela's organization: http://46664.tiscali.com/
Tisk tisk Salman -- such blunt opportunism...
:)
Ali, I knew you could not resist posting on your self-imposed blog strike :)
we're asking for the equivalent of two cups of coffee per rich person
The above statement is quite propounding. You hear these figures all the time about our spending habits in the West.
I found the following quote interesting about our habits:
Going out to nice restaurants, buying new clothes because the old ones are no longer stylish, vacationing at beach resorts - so much of our income is spent on things not essential to the preservation of our lives and health. Donated to one of a number of charitable agencies, that money could mean the difference between life and death for children in need.
Our consumption habits here in North America are quite awful. The fact that SUV's and pick-up trucks are becoming increasing popular further highlights this fact.
Unfortunately, I don't see people here changing their habits anytime soon. Tis the season to spend .. right?
On a somewhat totally unrelated topic, since we both share a love for coffee, studies show that coffee improves short-term memory and improves reaction time. I don't think we need a study to prove this fact, but it’s comforting to know that our caffeine is going into good use.
Ozair, I figured I can't be studying 24/7, so another breach of strike wouldn't hurt.
I wonder whether it is right to consider the rich morally blameworthy for spending on things not essential to the preservation of life and health. Things like going out to nice restaurants and spending on expensive vacations and designer labels might not be morally praiseworthy, but are they wrong?
Distribution of wealth through taxes, welfare and the usual charity is great, but should failing to do anything beyond that be held against us, even if it is giving up two cups of coffee in order to save a life? Maybe. But where do we draw the line?
I remember writing a post about this type of stuff when I first started blogging. Here it is.
I agree with you Ali, that line to draw is diffult. I don't think we can blame all our issues on the rich for not spending.
Bill Gates and his wife have their foundation which they spend a lot of their money helping out the poor in Africa. It's always easy to say that they could do more, but at the same time, if you have the wealth, there is nothing wrong with purchasing some of the more extravagent items. I know this sounds like I am contradicting my earlier statement, but I think the point that I was trying to get at was our consumption in the west is a cause to some of the worlds poverty. It all comes down to moderation, and thinking about it now, I think I should have put that quote referenced into the appropriate context.
After reading your previous post on the diamond in a martini, it reminded of this article I read today about how UAE built a snow park.
Hopefully they will become better skiers than hockey players.
Ozair, even if they're not much better at skiiing than at hockey, that's still more than good enough for a desert nation that was not fifty years ago nomads, traders, pearl divers and fishermen.
Omar, thanks for your comments. Of course charity and self-restraint are worthy qualities in any human being, rich or poor.
Putting aside for the moment the fact that not everyone who reads this blog is a Muslim (or even a theist), and so might not find your appeal to Islamic rationale as attractive, I still wonder whether your idea of 'developing an intuition about "gray areas"' doesn't fall into the same trap of relativism. Just like, as you said, one person's moderation is another's excess, people's intuitions about various things can and do vary. Your gray area might be narrower than mine, or broader. No?
Ali, I was being sarcastic on my jab at the UAE hockey team, I guess next time I will insert more emoticons in my comment.
Ozair, I realize you were being sarcastic - my reply didn't mean I was being overly defensive of UAE (although I see now how it might seem like that).
Please do NOT insert more "emoticons" in your comments! Smileys and net abbreviations like "lol" and what not are great conveniences while instant messaging, but hopefully we can keep our blogs relatively free of them.
As for coffee, there are a lot more benefits to it than just what you wrote about. Keeping that in mind, I had a rather strong blend called Guatemala Antigua as well as I believe three cups of tea through the day, plus lots of water. You know what that means - an unusually high number of trips to the bathroom!
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