Congo

There's an article in this month's British Marie Claire about women survivors of rape in the Congo. It was one of those articles that I had to read in bits and pieces because the stories are so graphic. A photo they included stays in my mind--a woman whose skin is so mutilated with burns that she can't use her arms to do work anymore.

As I compare that article, in a fashion magazine of all places, to news stories of consumer spending and the economy, it strikes me that we are not really sane. If we were, the entire media and all government efforts worldwide would be put towards this problem of preventing further brutal rape. And then toward other pressing global and domestic issues, like violence and hunger. In a truly healthy society, I think we'd hit these problems with everything we've got--all the love in our hearts and all of our taxes. We'd move from the most devastating problems to the least, until mass genocides and rapes were unheard of. Nonprofits are doing work the government should, and sensitive editors in fashion magazines are putting forth stories that should be on the evening news.

There is a nonprofit I found that is dedicated to helping women in countries of war rebuild their lives, and one of those countries is the Congo. Women for Women International has received many accolades--CNN, Oprah, 60 Minutes, so it is trustworthy. They offer a woman-to-woman sponsorship program through which you can build a relationship with one of the women from these countries. I think you need to be female to be a sponsor, but men can make one (or several)-time donations. And for a really beautiful audio look at what is going on, here is Alice Walker's take.

An Inconvenient Reminder

Last night as I paid my electric bill, I happened to read the enclosed pamphlet about how to save water. Southern California is in the middle of a water shortage, nothing new, and the pamphlet advocated taking five-minute showers, washing dishes only when the dishwasher is full, and other simple but easy-to-forget things. A little drawing of a water supply gauge showed our water supply dangerously close to the crisis level.

And so the water crisis reminded me of an even larger and easy-to-forget crisis, that of global warming. I went to Blockbuster last night and rented "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's compelling documentary, which I had seen when it first came out. I remember the facts and figures being upsetting to the point where it felt like trying to fix anything was pointless. Ice caps melting and Florida, Shanghai and San Francisco going half underwater. Hurricanes doubling in the past ten or twenty years. Human population alarmingly growing.

But I decided to watch it more closely this time. The first time, I saw it in the theater. But this time, I had it on DVD and so I could rewind every time I missed something. And one thing I missed the first time was that Gore says that my reaction is common, people go from a state of denial to resignment, without concentrating on the crucial middle step of action. More pointedly, he says that we already have the science and tools at our disposal to solve the crisis. We don't need to wait for anyone to save us--we can do it by changing our lifestyles and becoming politically active. One thing that had bothered me was that even if the U.S. makes strides toward solving the crisis, there is still China and other populous countries that we can't control, that could contribute more as they develop. But in the movie, it shows that Americans have the highest carbon footprint, and have the highest influence on global warming percentage-wise. So really a lot can be done just by changing what happens in this country.

"An Inconvenient Truth" is very worth putting on the Netflix cue. So you can rewind, pay closer attention, and get active.