| LIFE-NET NEWS |
| by Ret Z. |
| Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices |
| 2004 March 17 | No Profit; No Proceeds |
| Volume 7 Number 24 | All-Volunteer |
| "Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal; give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life." |
| World Water Update |
|
Over the past half-century the scale and pace of human
influences on freshwater systems has accelerated rapidly,
along with population and consumption growth. Worldwide
water demands roughly tripled. The number of large dams
climbed from 5,000 in 1950 to more than 45,000 today -- an
average construction rate of two large dams a day for 50
years.
The impacts of rising water consumption are increasingly visible. Water tables are falling in many countries from the overpumping of groundwater. Major rivers like the Amu Dar’ya, Colorado, Ganges, Indus, Rio Grande, and Yellow now run dry for portions of the year. Worldwide, freshwater wetlands have diminished in area by about half. At least 20% of Earth’s 10,000 freshwater fish species are at risk of extinction or already extinct. One out of five people in the developing world -- 1.1 billion in all -- face daily risks of disease and death because they lack "reasonable access" to safe drinking water. Yet providing universal access to 50 liters per person per day by 2015 would require less than 1% of current global water withdrawals. Indoor water use in US homes is estimated to average 262 liters per capita per day. People living in the United Kingdom use only about 70% as much water as the most water-thrifty Americans do. The massive US draw-down for lawns and landscape irrigation, meat-based eating, and electric power make the US, through indirect use, an even bigger glutton for water. Recent projections indicate that by 2025 numerous river basins and countries will face a situation in which 30% or more of their irrigation demands cannot reliably be met because of water shortages. The majority of the world’s 16 mega-cities -- those with 10 million or more inhabitants -- lie within regions experiencing mild to severe water stress. As urban water demands increase, the pressure on agricultural and rural interests to sell or surrender their water rights will intensify. Industries account for about 22% of the world’s total freshwater withdrawals, but they claim a far higher share in industrial countries (59% on average) than they do in developing ones (10%). In addition to using rising quantities of water, industries generate large volumes of wastewater; in developing countries, much of this is currently released untreated into nearby rivers and streams, polluting scarce supplies. Source: Worldwatch Institute |
| LNR Speakers on the South Camden Situation |
|
Faced with several stories surrounding the giant meeting
held in South Camden (NJ) on Monday, I decided on a crude
cutting procedure: Use quotes only from individuals LNR
has interviewed personally, and let the word-picture color
itself:
From last week: "This is nothing more than an excuse to grab land for industry," said the Rev. Michael Doyle, a priest at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Waterfront South. "All we've ever asked them to do is to fix what they started. It was government who put all the facilities here, and it's their job to fix them. "I've been here for 29 years, and this is the first time there's been any talk about health." ... Not every Waterfront South resident is a critic of the city's approach. The Rev. Al Stewart, who runs the Camden Rescue Mission on Broadway in Waterfront South, was a vocal opponent of the St. Lawrence Cement plant over the years. Now, the minister says remediation "would be too little, too late," and residents' best hope is to relocate. ... The leader of South Camden Citizens In Action, Geneva "Bonnie" Sanders, died of cancer at 56 last month. When Doyle came to give her the last rites, he said, she demanded that they instead talk about the neighborhood's most important battle yet. "She couldn't bear the idea that the city was writing off the neighborhood, that they weren't just going to ignore the industry that was already there, but actually wanted more of it," said Camden lawyer Olga Pomar, who represented Sanders and other residents in court. "The problem is what they'll do with the people here. The city won't buy out all 1,700 people," she said. "They'll just let it become more intolerable for the people who stay." Source: Philadelphia Inquirer From yesterday: The evening started with a march from Sacred Heart Church, where the Rev. Michael Doyle has served as pastor and has been an anchor of the community for 29 years. "We're in a time of tyranny," Doyle said last night. "We are here tonight to challenge a high-powered vehicle ... it needs ... the voice of the people." Source: Philadelphia Inquirer "It seems to me that the long-term strategy is to wipe out Waterfront South and create a corridor of industry," said Father Michael Doyle, pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Camden. "How can you say to us that it's irresponsible to provide any public money to fix a rat-infested house that's next to a house with growing children?" Source: Courier-Post Monsignor Doyle was keynote speaker Monday. Life-Net Radio on March 24 will air highlights of the meeting. |
| US Stands Alone at Hemispheric Conference |
|
Health officials from all but one of the 40 countries of
the Americas reaffirmed their commitment on Friday to an
international program on family planning and reproductive
health at a hemispheric population conference in Chile.
Only the USA refused to join the final communique.
By acclamation, over US objections, the more than 300 participants at the Santiago Health Conference added language that reaffirmed and expanded the so-called "Cairo Consensus," the program of action endorsed by 179 countries, including the US, at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development. The Consensus asserts that promoting women's reproductive and sexual rights and services is central to reducing poverty and promoting economic development. "This is a very clear document, a consensus that reaffirms Cairo in every dimension," said Marisela Padron, Latin America director for the UN Population Fund, one of the Santiago conference's sponsors. "The procedures were impeccable," she added at the conclusion of the four-day meeting. In its statement the US delegation, headed by Lucy Tamlyn, objected to the procedures as well as the substance of the final document. "There are numerous statements in the declaration to which we cannot subscribe," said Tamlyn. "There are also significant omissions. Therefore the United States regretfully disassociates from the declaration." This was the third recent international gathering of population and health decision-makers to reject efforts by the Bush administration to both distance itself from the Cairo Consensus and try to persuade other nations to recast the 1994 declaration in terms more compatible with its positions, including its stand against abortion. Source: One World |
| Who Benefits From Bush Tax Cuts? |
|
The Left Says:
"Tax cuts for the wealthy come first -- before jobs, before schools, before health care, before poverty, before the war on Iraq, before dealing with the deficits." (Jesse Jackson in the Chicago Sun-Times, 2/3/04) What Conservatives Think: Who needs a job more, a rich man or a poor man? The poor man, of course. President Bush realizes what many on the left apparently don't: Spur the economy through tax cuts and America's working families will benefit most. But the benefits of tax cuts aren't all indirect: Lower- and middle-income Americans benefit directly as well. The most recent federal tax cuts (the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, signed into law by the President on May 28, 2003) increased the child tax credit and expanded marriage penalty relief, among other provisions, while dramatically reducing taxes on capital investment for business. Specifically, the legislation increased the child tax credit from $600 to $1,000 per child in 2003 and 2004; increased the alternative minimum tax exemption for married taxpayers filing joint returns and surviving spouses from $49,000 to $58,000, and for unmarried taxpayers from $35,750 to $40,250; and increased the taxable income levels for the 10% tax bracket for single individuals from $6,000 to $7,000, and for married taxpayers filing joint returns from $12,000 to $14,000, among other reductions. According to the President, the legislation provided "substantial tax relief to 136 million American taxpayers." Said Bush when he signed the bill: "This combination of income tax rate reductions, a higher child credit and a reduction in the marriage penalty will make a difference for families in every part of this country. A family of four with a total income of $75,000 will receive a 19% reduction in federal income taxes, saving $1,122 per year per family. A family of four with an income of $40,000 will see their income taxes drop from $1,178 to $45, a 96% tax cut. And under this new law, 3 million individuals and families will have their federal income tax liability completely eliminated. Altogether, 34 million families with children, including 6 million single moms, will receive an average tax cut of $1,549 per year." [I wonder if the President would also consider raising the micro-biz-inhibiting Self-Employment Tax threshold of taxability from $400 to $7,000? Imagine the micro-entrepreneur after such a tax change: "If I make enough money that my income's SE-taxable, then I've gotten my biz off the ground!" -- RZ] Source: National Center for Public Policy Research |
| McDonald's Fires Worker for Speaking Her Own Language |
|
A photograph of Abeer Zinaty shows the 20-year-old student,
from the mixed Arab and Jewish city of Ramle in central
Israel, wearing a T-shirt branded with the logo, "Excellent
Worker 2003 -- McDonald's Israel". Less than a year later
she is unemployed, fired by the world's most famous fast
food company. Her misconduct, according to the branch
manager: she was caught speaking Arabic to another Arab
employee.
Zinaty's treatment at the hands of the Israeli management of McDonald's is what Jafar Ferah -- director of Mossawa, a political lobbying group for Israel's one million Palestinian citizens -- calls a stark illustration of an ever-swelling tide of discrimination against Arab workers. Nominally, Arabic is an official language of the State of Israel, but it has been long-standing practice in many Israeli firms to ban its use among staff. It is the first time, however, that a company of McDonald's stature has implicitly acknowledged that speaking in Arabic provides grounds for dismissal. The decision to fire Zinaty for speaking Arabic was confirmed by McDonald's Ramle branch manager to Al-Ittihad, a local Arab daily newspaper, last month. In a subsequent letter to Mossawa, the company's human resources director Talila Yodfat said that all workers are instructed "to use only Hebrew when talking among themselves or in front of customers to avoid uncomfortable situations". However, faced with threats of legal action, Yodfat is now also arguing that the ban on Arabic was not racist in intent but to avoid possible "miscommunication" between staff of different ethnic groups. Source: Al-Ahram Weekly |
| Says Ret Z: Israel Must Obey Her God |
|
In pondering current issues that involve Christians, I
assign great weight to how the people who identify
themselves as Christians are behaving or not as our
Instructor teaches. Similarly, when considering
Israel/Palestine, I keep an eye out for how those who call
themselves Jews may or may not be obeying the Supreme Being
according to their own Law, especially the Torah (the Books
of Moses), which I, too, revere.
When ancient Israel, from time to time, fell into idolatry, oppression, and violence, it got into national trouble of one sort or another. They were then disobeying the beautiful set of laws The Being had given them, among which you can find a cornucopia of dicta enjoining fairness and compassion. (Social justice is not a liberal or "progressive" invention.) I especially think here of the statutes regarding resident aliens. In that area, Israel is reminded that they themselves were aliens in the land of Egypt and how terribly they suffered in servitude, and that they must have empathy for the resident alien. Pogroms and the Holocaust serve to underscore that emphasis. Add the fact that many Jews in lands other than Israel feel like resident aliens right now, and the obligation of empathy seems most intensely imposed. Regardless of how the Palestinians see themselves, they deserve at least the same level of treatment that a resident alien is entitled to in the Torah. Let me give you a sampling. Space permits only references: Ex. 22:21; 23:9,12; Lev. 19:10,34; 24:22; 25:35; Num. 15:15-16; Deut. 1:16-17; 10:17-19; 24:14-15,17-18. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but if I'm hearing these sacred words right, then the Most High is listening to every Palestinian who suffers maltreatment in Israel and prays to Him about it. Regardless of what the US or anyone does or thinks, the All-Knowing will bring about justice in the end. I earnestly hope that Israel will be found on the side of fairness and neighborly love. I wish I could believe that they -- and my evangelical and fundamentalist Christian brethren -- were already there. Source: Retiarius Zogreso, Editor/Host |
| Advocates Push for Extra $330M for the Poor |
|
After preserving several key anti-poverty programs during
last year's state budget process, said advocates for the
poor last week, they will push for an extra $330 million in
funding for housing, welfare and health assistance this
year. Members of the Anti-Poverty Network said they would
visit all 120 lawmakers and urge them to add 8,000 rental
assistance grants and 8,000 child care stipends, and
enroll 25,000 more adults in FamilyCare, the low-cost
state medical insurance program for the working poor. The
group's "People's Budget" also proposes raising the
monthly welfare grant for the first time since 1987.
"It is time for us as a state to say that it is our moral responsibility to fund programs ... that provide for people to be lifted out of poverty and have a decent life," said the Rev. Bruce H. Davidson, director of the Lutheran Office of Governmental Ministry of New Jersey and a network member [and the guest executive producer of Life-Net Radio's upcoming episode on affordable housing, March 24]. He said current programs do not provide enough money to sustain poor people, and the funding would make a difference in the lives of thousands of people. During the Statehouse news conference, Dawn Walker of Brick said she has been on a waiting list for "Section 8" rental assistance for seven years and a waiting list for subsidized child care for two years. And when she tried to enroll herself and her 4-year-old daughter in FamilyCare, "they lost our paperwork for about two years." Charmaine Knight, a 25-year-old mother living at the St. Joseph Transitional Living program in Jersey City, said she tried finding an affordable apartment, "but you have to be on welfare in order to get any help." And the welfare grant "is way too low to live on," she said. Currently, a mother and child receive $322 a month; an adult individual receives $140. The group said the state can generate extra money for programs by raising the income tax on richer residents and charging more in transfer taxes when million-dollar homes are sold. The realty transfer tax proposal is already part of the budget plan. Last year, Davidson said, the network and other social service organizations helped restore $70 million to FamilyCare and $25 million for state housing programs. Source: Newark Star-Ledger |
| Life-Net News Extras |
| Medicine's Malady |
|
Adapted from a column by WHYY public radio commentator Dan Gottlieb:
Medicine is sick. I know. I just spent nine days in the hospital. Now we are at a point where it is commonly accepted that hospitals are dangerous places. It used to be that hospitals were places of healing and respite. When someone had surgery, they were better off spending a day or two in the hospital away from their stressful lives. Now their stressful lives are an improvement. One of the symptoms of Medicine's illness is emergency care. At one point, a nurse told me there were 110 people in the waiting room, many of whom use the emergency room as their primary-care physician. There are many reasons for this, including inadequate health insurance or none at all. Worsening the problem is the fact that many hospitals that provided emergency care to uninsured people have closed, so the few that remain are overcrowded. And we all know that physicians have left the state because of the malpractice insurance crisis. During my hospital stay, I caught eight medication errors that would otherwise have gone undiscovered. Why? Nursing supervisors or hospital administrators would say there are no excuses, but we know there are too few nurses and too many patients to make hospitals as safe as they should be. Because I need long-term intravenous antibiotics, I needed to have a PICC (peripherally inserted central catheter) line put in, a procedure typically done by technicians in the radiology department. These kind and competent technicians stuck my arms six times before calling in the radiologist, who ran the line on her first attempt. This policy of having patients stuck six times before more expensive and sophisticated equipment can be used is certainly cost-saving. And although this policy may contribute to keeping that particular radiology department in the black, will it contribute to fixing medicine? Certainly not, because the problem has been misdiagnosed. Medicine thinks its diagnosis is Financial Insufficiency and the treatment is More Money. Certainly, money is part of the problem. Many managed-care companies have essentially become robber barons dictating to hospitals how much they will pay, while executive staff, chief executive officers, and boards of directors make fortunes. Medicare is certainly part of the problem as it has become so top-heavy with bureaucracy and so politicized that many of its policies are unfathomable and illogical. Not to mention the fact that most hospitals could not survive if they relied exclusively on Medicare reimbursements. Health-care institutions large and small have become overburdened with meaningless and expensive programs such as HIPAA which cost fortunes to implement, yet do nothing real for patient protection of their confidentiality. And of course the sky-high medical school tuitions and fees for malpractice insurance simply lay the groundwork for doctors to charge outrageous fees. Because we have learned so much in medicine and because we so value technology, most medical schools overvalue technical skills and undervalue compassion and kindness. Almost all the direct-care people in hospitals went to school to learn their trade because they care. And, now, they have no time to care. Too many obligations; too many responsibilities; and too little time to sit and talk with people who are ill, most of whom are in desperate need of their caring and compassion. My diagnosis? The people who care about money have too much power. The people who care about people don't have enough. Source: Philadelphia Inquirer |
| Human Health in a CO2-Enriched Warmer World |
|
The idea that CO2-induced global warming will exacerbate a host of human maladies has
become entrenched in popular culture. Hardly a heat wave passes, for example, but what
climate alarmists are quick to blame global warming for any excess deaths that may have
been associated with it, while grim prognostications of the warming-induced spread of
tropical diseases conjure up visions of deadly epidemics poised to engulf the world.
A new report from the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change reviews
these and other similar claims, finding them to be wholly without merit. In fact, it finds that
people would likely be healthier and live considerably longer in a world of higher
temperatures and atmospheric CO2 concentration.
The report Enhanced or Impaired? Human Health in a CO2-Enriched Warmer World reviews numerous scientific studies that have looked at the entire range of temperature experienced by earth’s inhabitants. These studies clearly demonstrate that an across-the-board temperature increase would save the lives of many more people at the cold end of the temperature spectrum than it would kill at the hot end, in both cold and warm climates. In addition, the majority of the studies find that numerous deaths attributed to heat waves typically would have occurred a few days to weeks later, even in the absence of the spikes in air temperature. Deaths due to cold spells, on the other hand, generally do not show this "early harvesting" effect, demonstrating that warming is far to be preferred above cooling or even the status quo. The provocative report also describes a number of non-climatic effects of atmospheric CO2 enrichment that positively impact human health, including the concentration enhancement of various health-promoting constituents of food and medicinal plants. These are phenomena about which the world’s climate alarmists say very little; for they tend to enhance people’s quality of life. Last of all, the new study reviews the history of human lifespan and how it has risen dramatically over the past two centuries, during which time the air’s CO2 concentration and temperature both rose substantially and should therefore, according to climate-alarmist thought, have wrought a multitude of ills upon humanity. Source: Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change |
| Most material here is adapted, not quoted. Views expressed do not |
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