Enough

This video gave me a little excitement about local actions, thought I’d pass it along.

From Indu, a message about how to donate and what is going on:

**please forward widely**

14 million people have now been affected by the flooding in Pakistan. Recent reports state that the carnage is worse than the 2004 Tsunami and the earthquake in Haiti.

The situation is getting worse by the hour as monsoon rains continue and water is washing down from the Himalaya Mountains. The international response to the flood is underwhelming, the UN has launched an appeal for $459m, to date, five countries – Britain, the US, Australia, Italy and Kuwait – have committed or pledged more than $5m in new funding. Currently, the amount of international aid that is committed does not scratch the surface of the need on the ground. (more…)

I thought this PBS story about people living in small houses might be of interested to some. It is a rare opportunity to see discussion about the difference between “need” and “want” in the media.

My colleague at Seattle University, Tayyab Mahmud, was featured at a symposium in Cleveland.  You can watch his presentation by scrolling forward to 1:02 in the video. His slides are packed with interesting information and statistics, they are slides 832-938 and you can scroll through them on the right.  One quote of particular interest that he included:

“The 2008-2009 bailout ‘has turned out to be one of the largest redistributions of wealth in such a short time in history…’” (quoting Joseph Stiglitz, slide 905).