hunger

  “We never tried to wake our children up on weekends: the more they sleep, the less they eat.” -Natalia Recently, the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet got flooded with personal photographs from the 1990s. I first took note of them on my own Facebook feed. Some appeared expectedly funny—imagine the hairstyles!—others were nostalgic. Yet what seemed like … Continue reading If You’re So Smart, Then Why Are You So Poor? Russia’s 1990s Revisited.

A few years ago I was walking with my dog on one of the many forest trails in this area, when we crossed paths with a man I knew only by sight.  He was a distant neighbor.  Since we were going in the same direction we fell into step and engaged in small talk about the weather and recent news events.  When it became obvious we had somewhat similar views about the world I said I was upset that reliable sources estimate 32,000 children die every day in the world, from hunger and hunger-related diseases when there is enough food to feed them.  He replied, “Oh, I don’t want to think about that,

With Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at US $ 2.94 trillion (2014), the UK has the fifth largest economy in the world after Germany and Japan. It also suffers from acute income and wealth inequality and, according to Oxfam, who know all about poverty, “one in five [or 20%] of the population live below our official poverty line, meaning that they experience life as a daily struggle.”

He will judge between the nations, and will render verdicts for the benefit of many. They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nations will not raise swords against nations, and they will not learn warfare anymore.
– Isaiah 2:4

The latest book by Naomi Klein is essentially a call to share the world’s resources, but its thesis on social transformation is missing a crucial factor: a profound awareness of the reality of hunger and life-threatening deprivation. While Pope Francis’ recent encyclical calls on us to prioritise this global emergency in our efforts to combat global warming, Mohammed Mesbahi proposes a people’s strategy for how we can finally end the moral outrage of extreme poverty amidst plenty.
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Image: Minister of the Crown 'Fluffy' Mundell makes his escape from the back door into a waiting car.
 

It was not your usual celebration to mark the launch of a new venture. While Secretary of State for Scotland David ‘Fluffy’ Mundell was opening a food bank upstairs from a baker’s in Dumfries town centre, noisy demonstrators gathered in the street outside demanding he came down to explain himself. But ‘Fluffy’ chose to treat his constituents with contempt and slink out the back door under police protection and into a waiting car.
Photo by Stuart Littlewood

The Catholic Church has embraced a radical position on sharing the world’s resources, one that we would all do well to heed and ponder. But the real significance of Laudato Si’ is its powerful message on the centrality of ending poverty for healing the wider crises of climate change and environmental degradation.
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Once a recipient of food donations from around the world, Bangladesh has now become a model for reducing food hunger. By supporting small farms and women, the country has reduced the number starving citizens significantly.
A recent UN report outlines how Bangladesh, a South Asian country who was once among the poorest in the world, has turned the corner when it comes to eradicating poverty and hunger – a huge step since the country was rampaged with devastating floods in the 1970’s.

As we stand in line for security checks at airports, we may have the distinct feeling that we are being herded like cattle. Air travel has changed, and has become much less pleasant, since the fear of terrorism replaced the fear of communism as the excuse that governments give for diverting colossal sums of money from desperately needed social goals to the bottomless pit of war. Innocent grandmothers, and their grandchildren, are required to remove their shoes and belts. Everyone is treated like a criminal. It is a humiliating experience.