Clipmarks | abailart's 'poverty' clips

Scottish Earthquake Stuns Labour

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:29:41 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: In the history of UK politics this a major event. The result brings the reality of the disintegration of the United Kingdom. At the same time it marks a stunning message to the UK quasi Labour government's abysmal record on addressing poverty and the forgotten constituencies of those mired in the excrement of Gordon Brown's economic policies.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

The Scottish National Party has pulled off a stunning by-election victory by winning Glasgow East, one of Labour's safest seats, by 365 votes.

The SNP overturned a Labour majority of 13,507 to win with a swing of 22.54%.

The SNP polled 11,277 votes in the contest, while the Tories came third with 1,639 and the Lib Dems, with 915 votes, came fourth.

SNP candidate John Mason said the victory was "off the Richter scale", while Labour expressed disappointment.

"It is an epic win and the tremors will be felt all the way to Downing Street."

Tags: snp, uk politics

Poor Americans

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 09:41:16 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

A man who described himself as a conscientious worker who has always pinched his pennies wrote the following to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont:

“This winter, after keeping the heat just high enough to keep my pipes from bursting (the bedrooms are not heated and never got above 30 degrees) I began selling off my woodworking tools, snowblower, (pennies on the dollar) and furniture that had been handed down in my family from the early 1800s, just to keep the heat on.

“Today I am sad, broken, and very discouraged. I am thankful that the winter cold is behind us for a while, but now gas prices are rising yet again. I just can’t keep up.”

A 55-year-old man who said his economic condition was “very scary,” wrote: “I don’t live from paycheck to paycheck. I live day to day.”

working Americans have been taking a real beating, said Senator Sanders.

millions of Americans have lost health insurance coverage, lost pensions, and become deeply mired in debt.

Tags: poverty

Coming soon? or not?

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 08:19:24 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.softmachines.org

Are we imminently facing The Singularity? This is the hypothesised moment of technological transcendence, in the concept introduced by mathematician and science fiction writer Vernor Vinge, when accelerating technological change leads to a recursively self-improving artificial intelligence of superhuman capabilities, with literally unknowable and ineffable consequences. The most vocal proponent of this eschatology is Ray Kurzweil, whose promotion of the idea takes to the big screen this year with the forthcoming release of the film The Singularity is Near.

Kurzweil describes the run-up to The Singularity: “Within a quarter century, nonbiological intelligence will match the range and subtlety of human intelligence. It will then soar past it … Intelligent nanorobots will be deeply integrated in our bodies, our brains, and our environment, overcoming pollution and poverty, providing vastly extended longevity … and vastly enhanced human intelligence.

Tags: singularity, ray kurzweil, technological transcendence

The New Deadly Sins

Thu, 01 May 2008 08:23:01 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: 4. Authenticity. Please do your best to be someone better than who you truly are. Deep down inside we're ravening beasts. This is the meaning of original sin. Everyone's authentic self is horrid. God's message to man has always been, "You can't really be good, but you can fake it. Really."

5. Caring. This takes so much time and effort that it necessarily results in the opposite of doing something. And notice that when someone says, "I care about the war in Iraq," he almost always means, "I want to lose it." Also there's a bullying logic among those who care. I care more about diddledydum than you do. Therefore I'm a better person than you are. Because I'm a better person than you are, I have the right to order you around. And vote for Hillary on November 4th.

6. Opinion. It's the reverse of fact. Listen to NPR or AM Talk Radio if you don't believe me, or, better yet, read the opinion page of the New York Times. (I'm talking about you, Paul Krugman.) Some people have facts, the

Clip Source: www.weeklystandard.com

Busy times for us sinners--there are now an additional Seven Deadly Sins. The fresh abominations in the eyes of the Lord were announced by Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Vatican body that oversees confessions and plenary indulgences. This organization goes by the contrition-inducing name of the Apostolic Penitentiary. In an article in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Bishop Girotti detailed the seven new ways we can go to hell or, at the minimum, be sentenced to afterlife in purgatory at the Apostle Pen. The bishop's supersizing of the mortal transgression catalog is thoroughly up-to-date (as translated by the Times of London):

1. Drug abuse

2. Morally debatable experimentation

3. Environmental pollution

4. Causing poverty

5. Social inequality and injustice

6. Genetic manipulation

7. Accumulating excessive wealth

I pretend to no expertise, let alone authority, in religious matters. However, I can't resist the temptation of having a go, myself, at The Seven Deadly

Tags: deadly sins

The Stings of Poverty

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 14:15:22 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Article about an argument by Charles Karelis that traditional economics do not apply to poor people.

He outlines his argument in The Persistence of Poverty: Why the Economics of the Well-Off Can't Help the Poor.

Clip Source: www.boston.com

In the community of people dedicated to analyzing poverty, one of the sharpest debates is over why some poor people act in ways that ensure their continued indigence.

Karelis, a professor at George Washington University, has a simpler but far more radical argument to make: traditional economics just doesn't apply to the poor. When we're poor, Karelis argues, our economic worldview is shaped by deprivation, and we see the world around us not in terms of goods to be consumed but as problems to be alleviated. This is where the bee stings come in: A person with one bee sting is highly motivated to get it treated. But a person with multiple bee stings does not have much incentive to get one sting treated, because the others will still throb. The more of a painful or undesirable thing one has (i.e. the poorer one is) the less likely one is to do anything about any one problem. Poverty is less a matter of having few goods than having lots of problems.

Tags: poverty, charles karelis, sociology, economics

Ethics Updated

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:37:03 GMT

clipped by: skwirlinator

Clip Source: ethics.sandiego.edu

Ethical Theory	Resources	Applied Ethics
Aristotle and Virtue Ethics	Ethics Videos	Abortion
Contemporary Anti-Theory	Ethics Reviews	Academic Integrity
Ethical Egoism	Ethics Surveys	Animal Rights
Ethical Relativism	Case Studies for Discussion	Bioethics and Reproductive Technologies
Gender and Moral Theory	Philosophers on War, Terrorism, and Peace	Computer & IT Ethics
Introduction to Moral Theory	Guide to Writing Ethics Papers	Death Penalty & Punishment
Justice	Classic Texts in Ethics	Environmental Ethics
Kant and Deontology	Glossary	Euthanasia
Pluralism & Meta-Ethical Concerns	The Ethics Calendar	Gender and Sexism
Race, Ethnicity, and Moral Theory	Ethics across the Curriculum USD	Poverty and Welfare
Religion and Ethics	PowerPoint Presentations	Race, Racism and Ethnicity
Rights Theories	Ethics Consortium of Southern & Baja California	Sexual Orientation
Theories against Theories	The Values Institute	War, Peace, and Terrorism
Utilitarianism	About the Site	World Hunger

Tags: worthy, ethics, humanity

David Hume's epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, 1734

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 22:27:05 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: In his early 20s, the great Scottish philosopher, David Hume, wrote this "letter to a physician" (unidentified, but probably Arbuthnot) giving an account of his melancholic symptoms and his efforts at self-treatment.

Clip Source: serendip.brynmawr.edu

David Hume: A Letter to a Physician

A Coldness and Desertion of the Spirit

"I was continually fortifying myself with reflections against death, and poverty, and shame, and pain, and all the other calamities of life. These no doubt are exceeding useful, when joined with an active life...in solitude they serve to little other purpose, than to waste the spirits, the force of the mind meeting with no resistance, but wasting itself in the air, like our arm when it misses its aim"

"I found, that as there are two things very bad for this distemper, study and idleness, so there are two things very good, business and diversion"

Tags: history, philosophy, psychology, primary_source, religion

The Sad Terrorist

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 09:10:00 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: Nicholas Shakespeare reviews Blood & Rage: a Cultural History of Terrorism by Michael Burleigh.

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

the moral squalor, intellectual poverty and psychotic nature of terrorist organisations, from the Fenians of the mid-19th century to today's jihadists - the latter group, especially, being composed of unstable males of conspicuously limited abilities and imagination, and yet who pose "an existential threat to the whole of civilisation" with their crusade to realise "a world that almost nobody wants", all in the hope of an afterlife featuring 72 virgins and rivers foaming with honey and beer.

sour, lazy nobodies, ugly, of febrile imagination and indifferent talent, who can only become somebody by blowing others, inevitably persons more talented and intelligent, up.

Blood & Rage is in all sorts of ways an outstanding book; it is also fuelled by the manic energy and focus of someone accelerating a truckload of intellectual high-explosives into the gates of a "stunningly" credulous soft-liberal establishment, composed of "colluding" human rights lawyers and "celebrity useful idiots"

Tags: terrorism

Depression can be Good for You

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:01:57 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: There is serious depression that needs help. There are poverty, abuse, bad circumstance that need addressing. But for most of us, a bit of depression, the article suggests, is a catalyst for refelction, change and growth

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A leading psychiatrist says that depression is not a human defect at all, but a defence mechanism that in its mild and moderate forms can force a healthy reassessment of personal circumstances.

Dr Paul Keedwell, an expert on mood disorders at the Institute of Psychiatry, argues all people are vulnerable to depression in the face of stress to varying degrees, and always have been.

The fact it has survived so long - and not been eradicated by evolution - indicates it has helped the human race become stronger.

"Psychological unease can generate creative work and the rebirth after depression brings a new love affair with life."

Aristotle believed depression to be of great value because of the insights it could bring. There is also an increased empathy in people who have or have had depression, he says, because they become more attuned to other people's suffering.

Tags: depression

Haiti’s poor resort to eating mud as prices rise

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 02:21:45 GMT

clipped by: wiccantexan

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums and Charlene Dumas was eating mud.

With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies.

Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau.

The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal.

Still, at about 5 cents apiece, the cookies are a bargain compared to food staples. About 80 percent of people in Haiti live on less than $2 a day and a tiny elite controls the economy.

Tags: haiti, food, poor, diet, poverty

Fifth of UK population below low income threshold

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 19:16:08 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: Not much has changed for the poor during the monetary miracle of the world's fourth richest economy.

Clip Source: www.poverty.org.uk

The most commonly used threshold of low income is a household income that is 60% or less of the average (median) household income in that year.

The latest year for which data is available is 2005/06

In 2005/06, almost 13 million people in the UK were living in households below this low income threshold. This is around a fifth (22%) of the population.

This 13 million figure is an increase of ¾ million compared with the previous year, 2004/05. It follows six uninterrupted years of decreases from 1998/1999 to 2004/05 and is the first increase since 1996/97

The UK has a higher proportion of its population in relative low income than most other EU countries: of the 27 EU countries, only 5 have a higher rate than the UK.

The proportion of people living in relative low income in the UK is twice that of the Netherlands, and one-and-half times that of both France and Germany.

Tags: income, poverty

Blaming the Poor for Poverty

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 07:38:52 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Social attitudes are ever-changing. So who is up and who is down now we are a supposedly more tolerant nation?

As little as two decades ago, many Britons frowned on sex before marriage, single mothers and gay people.

But there is no corresponding shift in attitudes towards immigrants and the poor.

This begs the question: can we be simultaneously tolerant and intolerant? Chris Creegan, one of the report's authors, believes that we pick and choose who to approve or disapprove of. We tend to like those with whom we have regular contact, and be less understanding of those whom we don't.

While one-third of the 3,000 people surveyed still believe that poverty is "an inevitable part of modern life", a rising number lay the blame squarely on the poor themselves - 27% think that poverty is due to "laziness or lack of willpower", up from 19% in 1984.

Separate lives

Tags: poor, poverty

Laura Bush Condemns Burmese Government

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 10:15:54 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: www.voanews.com

U.S. First Lady Laura Bush has issued strong criticism of Burma's military leadership, on the country's 60th anniversary of independence from British colonial rule.

In a statement Friday, Mrs. Bush said "instead of celebrating their freedom, the Burmese people live in fear, poverty and oppression under General Than Shwe and his military regime."

Tags: burma, laura bush

Tribalism, Violence and Poverty

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 08:17:09 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: The suggestion is that people being ruthlessly exploited by an appeal to their traditional loyalties will, in times of confusion and suffering, shelter first in their family, then in their 'tribe'.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

"Tribal violence spirals in Kenya," screams the front page banner in the International Herald Tribune. "Kenya plunges into interethnic violence," says Le Monde.

But headlines can be misleading.

A more complete headline might be: "Tribal differences in Kenya, normally accepted peacefully, are exploited by politicians hungry for power who can manipulate poverty-stricken population."

The reality of life on the world's poorest continent is that most people live a marginal economic existence and rely enormously, for survival, on those nearest to them.

Rural villagers rely on each other, for example, to bring in the crop, or to share food in difficult times.

Urban dwellers often organise themselves to provide common services like schools because their governments are either too poor or too incompetent to deliver.

In these circumstances the people nearest to you - whom you can trust - are first, family, and second, tribe.

Tags: tribalism, violence, poverty

Soup Kitchens: good or bad?

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 08:07:15 GMT

clipped by: abailart

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Gary is one of an estimated 500 people who sleep rough every night in England.

"It's really horrendous. Believe me, it's freezing," he says.

"You go to bed freezing and you wake up shaking in the morning. And that's even with a sleeping bag. And you see people without sleeping bags, and they're just shaking all night. They don't sleep."

"It's vital because most people would die if they didn't have soup runs."

But according to Westminster City Council, soup kitchens are drawing former rough sleepers out of hostels and back onto the streets.

Conservative Angela Harvey, the council's cabinet member for housing

"When you see 50 to 80 people waiting for a soup run, they are not homeless people by and large.

"The majority will not be rough sleepers... you see them going off with large carrier bags stuffed full of food which is for them and their house mates. We know they are in work and housed."

We feed our homeless people on the streets. It is barbaric

Big Issue founder John Bird

Tags: homelessness, poverty