called off from work today. kerri and i each have one puking child to care for. about every half hour there is more laundry to do. sad to say, but it's so bad that this is the first day i've done laundry in maybe 7 years.
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currently playing:: tom waits
1.31.2005
1.30.2005
brunch
i met mark and kelly one day at stauf's. it was a beautiful spring day and they were enjoying a patio seating. so was i. I've seen him there occasionally since then. last week we sat and talked for about an hour and I invited him and kelly over to our house for brunch today. it was a great time and Kerri made some excellent quiche.
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currently playing:: joseph arther - redemption's son
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currently playing:: joseph arther - redemption's son
1.04.2005
US Cutting Food Aid
NYT - In one of the first signs of the effects of the ever tightening federal budget, in the past two months the Bush administration has reduced its contributions to global food aid programs aimed at helping millions of people climb out of poverty.
With the budget deficit growing and President Bush promising to reduce spending, the administration has told representatives of several charities that it was unable to honor some earlier promises and would have money to pay for food only in emergency crises like that in Darfur, in western Sudan. The cutbacks, estimated by some charities at up to $100 million, come at a time when the number of hungry in the world is rising for the first time in years and all food programs are being stretched.
Officials of several charities, some Republican members of Congress and some administration officials say the food aid budget for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 was at least $600 million less than what charities and aid agencies would need to carry out current programs. Ellen Levinson, head of the Food Aid Coalition, said the best estimate for the amount of food that was not delivered in November and December was ''at least $100 million.''
I read this article a week before I heard the news of the tsunami... that whole week I began thinking of the number of children who die every day of PREVENTABLE hunger and disease.
While the number of the world's people who go hungry is rising for the first time in years, the Bush administration can find no better way to reduce spending than to cut $600 million from global food aid programs aimed at helping millions of people climb out of poverty.
That belt-tightening of $600 million doesn't make much of a dent in a federal discretionary budget of $965 BILLION (it's 0.0001 percent), but in the developing world, it's emergency food to prevent the starvation of millions, and long-term agricultural development to help people feed even more people themselves.
Or put another way, it's 1/60th of the $35 BILLION that remains in the budget to maintain America's Cold War nuclear weapons equivalent to 150,000 of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima.
This is so outrageous that there's now a BIPARTISAN effort in Congress led by Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Missouri) to convince the administration that global food aid should not be cut.
I am not aware at the amount of money the Bush administration has promised to the tsunami victims in asia. I can only hope that they keep this one. it comes as no surprise to me that the kingdom of this world would offer aid only when something is in the headlines... as a way to save face... so not to appear "stingy", However, I hope that for me at least, this is a wakeup call to the 40,000 preventable deaths happen each day.
That death toll will be 160,000 by Saturday.
With the budget deficit growing and President Bush promising to reduce spending, the administration has told representatives of several charities that it was unable to honor some earlier promises and would have money to pay for food only in emergency crises like that in Darfur, in western Sudan. The cutbacks, estimated by some charities at up to $100 million, come at a time when the number of hungry in the world is rising for the first time in years and all food programs are being stretched.
Officials of several charities, some Republican members of Congress and some administration officials say the food aid budget for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 was at least $600 million less than what charities and aid agencies would need to carry out current programs. Ellen Levinson, head of the Food Aid Coalition, said the best estimate for the amount of food that was not delivered in November and December was ''at least $100 million.''
I read this article a week before I heard the news of the tsunami... that whole week I began thinking of the number of children who die every day of PREVENTABLE hunger and disease.
While the number of the world's people who go hungry is rising for the first time in years, the Bush administration can find no better way to reduce spending than to cut $600 million from global food aid programs aimed at helping millions of people climb out of poverty.
That belt-tightening of $600 million doesn't make much of a dent in a federal discretionary budget of $965 BILLION (it's 0.0001 percent), but in the developing world, it's emergency food to prevent the starvation of millions, and long-term agricultural development to help people feed even more people themselves.
Or put another way, it's 1/60th of the $35 BILLION that remains in the budget to maintain America's Cold War nuclear weapons equivalent to 150,000 of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima.
This is so outrageous that there's now a BIPARTISAN effort in Congress led by Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Missouri) to convince the administration that global food aid should not be cut.
I am not aware at the amount of money the Bush administration has promised to the tsunami victims in asia. I can only hope that they keep this one. it comes as no surprise to me that the kingdom of this world would offer aid only when something is in the headlines... as a way to save face... so not to appear "stingy", However, I hope that for me at least, this is a wakeup call to the 40,000 preventable deaths happen each day.
That death toll will be 160,000 by Saturday.
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