In the poor rural villages of the developing world, the most basic of health clinics are scarce. Often, providing a clean environment for childbirth, or treating the most basic illnesses and injuries are close to impossible. In the communities where Tia works, most family homes have dirt floors and no doors or windows. A daily struggle to raise enough food using unmechanized farm tools just to feed the family occupies much of their time. Village farm families live up to a twelve hour walk from the nearest hospital and vehicles are nonexistent. Women still die in child birth and young children are lost to diseases compounded by undernourishment.The lack of essential services can mean the difference between life and death, not only for an individual, like a subsistence farmer, but also for the vulnerable family. For that farmer, the arduous long journey over rough mountain roads to the nearest medical care means that a major laceration or fracture can be a death sentence. The loss to his family compounds with the resulting downward poverty spiral of malnutrition and disease. With a trained health care technician who has a modest medical kit, the farmer can be sufficiently stabilized to endure the trip to a regional hospital, thus mitigating the risk to the susceptible family.
To guarantee long-term village health, the most effective way is to train local health care workers and give them the essential tools necessary to treat common illnesses and injuries. The key to long-term solutions involves implementing a sustainable program that teaches villagers the skills they need and provides them with links to necessary local resources, so they can become self-determining.
The individual in charge of the Tia Foundation is a friend of mine, Laura Libman. I met Laura nearly 30 years ago when we served together on the district board for Key Club International, the world's largest high school service organization. Even as a high school student, Laura was a smart, committed leader and someone who believed in teaching people rather than simply dropping a check or a care package on someone's doorstep. Laura started Tia because she has spent a lot of time in Mexico and has seen firsthand what the challenges are. The Tia Foundation is doing great work. I'd encourage to to check their website and see for yourself.
Nick, I think this is a wonderful opportunity for you. It would be a shame to see your voice be stilled just because the economy has hit a rough patch. What would the Archbishop do without having you around to correct him on doctrine? How would the structural engineers and infrastructure experts cope without having you around to contradict them? Dammit, you're needed. Don't just take the abuse from those mouth-breathers at Avista -- seize the moment. Carpe diem, baybee!
What have you got to lose? Pick up the phone, Nick. Give Mr. D a call.
Cross-posted at True North
I've long since come to the conclusion that Rod Blagojevich is clearly the stupidest governor in all of our 50 states, and he may be the stupidest governor I've had occasion to write about in the four decades when I've been co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. And a stupid man (or woman) in high political office can be very dangerous to all concerned. I have long said that as a political operative I would prefer a smart opponent to a stupid opponent. If you're pretty smart yourself, you should be able to figure out what another pretty smart person will do. But whether you're smart or stupid, it's hard to figure out what a stupid person will do. That's even more true when the stupid politician is your political ally. Stupid people do all sorts of things that are against their own interests. Like tell the press on Monday that you wouldn't mind being taped, even when (as we learned on Tuesday) that you've been saying all kinds of things that you should have known could easily send you to the slammer.
"The most fascinating part is yet to be told," Jennifer Rubin writes, "how someone this unhinged gets to be governor and gets re-elected without anyone blowing the whistle." Well, the short answer is that this is Chicago, and Chicago politics is unique, as I argued in this blogpost, which starts off with an examination of the question how the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers thrived in the Chicago civic establishment or what I call le tout Chicago. The answer to the question of how Ayers and Blagojevich rose is family connections. Ayers is the son of a former Chairman of Commonwealth Edison (now Exelon). Blagojevich is the son-in-law of 33rd Ward Democratic Committeeman Dick Mell. Ward committeemen are hugely important in Chicago politics: Dan Rostenkowski and his father had been the 32nd ward committeemen from 1935 to 1995; the ward committeemen from the 11th ward since some time in the 1940s have been Richard J. Daley, Richard M. Daley and John Daley; the 13th ward committeeman Bill Lipinski, retiring suddenly from Congress in 2004, was able to get the Democratic nomination for his son Dan Lipinski from a group of ward committeemen despite the fact that Dan Lipinski was a political science professor at the University of Tennessee and hadn't lived in Chicago for years.
"I should say if anybody wants to tape my conversations, go right ahead, feel free to do it," he said. "I appreciate anybody who wants to tape me openly and notoriously, and those who feel like they want to sneakily, and wear taping devices, I would remind them that it kind of smells like Nixon and Watergate."
President-elect Barack Obama added sweep and meat to his economic agenda on SaturdayMmm.... sweep and meat. That's good eatin'.
