Reading, reading, reading … it’s about time I read a feel-good novel … Norwegian, perhaps … But alas, at the moment in a stack down there on my floor, Chomsky, Klein, Johnson and Galeano are glaring up at me, a menacing four to be reckoned with (particularly since I have to bring them along in my backback if I don’t finish them within a few weeks). Here’s Galeano again, from Upside Down:

So The Deaf Will Hear

The number of malnourished children in the world is growing. Twelve million children under the age of five die every year from diarrhea, anemia, and other illnesses caused by hunger. A 1998 UNICEF report, full of such statistics, suggests that the struggle against child hunger and death “become the world’s highest priority.” To make it that, the report turns to the only argument that seems to work today: “The lack of vitamins and minerals in the diet costs some countries the equivalent of more than 5% of their gross national product in lives lost, disability, and lower productivity.”

A sensible argument.

I just came across this website, osocio.org, ‘social advertising and non-profit campaigns.’ The photo is from a post on Blog Action Day (October 15). I’ve just begun checking out the site, but it seems really worthwhile and worth sharing. Yay!

I’m reading the book Upside Down by Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, one of Latin America’s most eloquent voices and fiercest denouncers of the effects of globalisation and the free market on social injustice and poverty in the world. His style of writing is kind of like having a boxing glove covered in something sweet and pretty pounded into your head and you’re beggin’ for more, and you can put your finger on just about anywhere in Upside Down, and there’ll be some amazing quote about the state of the world. I thought I’d highlight this one.

From Eduardo Galeano: Upside Down. A Primer for the Looking-Glass World:

The upside-down world rewards in reverse: it scorns honesty, punishes work, prizes lack of scruples, and feeds cannibalism. Its professors slander nature: injustice, they say, is a law of nature. Milton Friedman teaches us about the “natural rate of unemployment.” Studying Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, we learn that blacks remain on the lowest rungs of the social ladder by “natural” law. From John D. Rockefeller’s lectures, we know his success was due to the fact that “nature” rewards the fittest and punishes the useless: more than a century later, the owners of the world continue to believe Charles Darwin wrote his books in their honor.