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| A Larger View |
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A Bi-Monthly Newsletter of the Inner Outer Partnership |
| Volume IX Edition 5 |
September/October |
2004 |
The Political Campaign:
Seeing Through What We're Told
We've all endured it and we're all weary of the status quo. Money, the so-called mother's milk of politics, increasingly dominates the election process and to insure the investment it represents is in many cases used to meet the agendas of the donors, not the public. As the campaign advances, rhetoric and accusations border on demagoguery; and what is meant to be a process informing voters about candidates' stands on issues instead tends to become a self serving, finger pointing (even when done subtly) exercise that does nothing but reinforce our divisions and prejudices.
So what are we as average voters to do if we are to avoid being the losers in this basic application of our democratic rights? For one thing we are going to have to work hard. Yes supporting and volunteering are important, but the work called for goes deeper than that. It calls for the deepest inner reflection that we are capable of, the kind evoked when we meditate or sometimes when we pray. As inner reflection reaches deep within us it sets us on a course to at least sense if not see what lies beneath what we hear and are told. It also helps us grasp what is really there and penetrate beyond groupthink. Inner reflection, is usually not easy, it means going through all our defenses and rationalizations, it means making the time for whatever will trigger it within us. More than likely it also means being alone with ourselves, something hard for so many. The results, however, are worth the effort. Perhaps we will uncover new meanings to what values really are, and that in turn that will help us to avoid being drawn into definitions based on political expediency. Perhaps too, we would then have a keener grasp of what it would mean for the United States as a country to have an open heart, how we could get there and how such openness could even out inequalities in the world and lessen the suffering they imply.
No matter what inner reflection means to us, whether we do it in a group or alone, it is something we owe both to ourselves and to our country. Nothing else will guide us to see beyond the miasma of politics and to vote intelligently.
From Rodeo Drive To Rwanda:
Not Any Easier
Rodeo Drive, one of the world's most posh shopping areas had a face-lift. The street was widened. New trees were planted. More lights were installed. New stores were added. The $40 million new Prada store is said to have glass dressing rooms that turn opaque at the touch of a button. In keeping with the renovations, rents have increased and are now $25 a square foot. The size of Prada, for example, is 9000 square feet. The luxury market, some experts say, is booming.
At the other end of the financial spectrum, in what seems another universe, the web site of the World Food Programme, one of the United Nations' largest relief agencies, now has an interactive world hunger map (www.wfp.org). It's color coded by country according to the percentage of hunger in each. Thus Afghanistan, Mongolia, Rwanda, and most of sub-Saharan Africa are dark red meaning 35% or more of their populations are hungry or malnourished. The next category is orange meaning 20 to 34% hunger and includes countries such as Iraq, Laos, India, Niger, Senegal, the Philippines, Papua-New Guinea. The next category is yellow indicating 5 to 19% hunger and includes Nigeria, Thailand, and almost all of Southeast Asia. Together the yellow and the orange categories cover perhaps two thirds of the world. As one would expect, North America (save for Mexico), Western Europe, and Australia have little hunger. They are green, meaning the proportion of their population who are hungry is 2.5% or below. There was a happy surprise Cambodia is chartreuse because the percentage of its malnourished or hungry population is between 2.5 and 4%. As a whole though, the map, which allows one to zoom in and out of given countries, is a stimulus to one's conscience and a slap to one's complacency.
Most of us live in neither poverty nor great luxury. On a daily level we are far from either extreme, and probably have no reason to bring the rich or the poor into our consciousness. Living in the wfp's green zone, we are surrounded by people with at least a modicum of affluence. Still, proximity has its limitations, for we may not even be familiar with the poor neighborhoods of our own city, probably have no cause to go there, and their lives remain as abstract and as unreal as the hardships of those who must eke out survival on less than a dollar a day. Yet, we are all humans and it's doubtful that poverty is any easier for the millions we do not know as it would be for us if we were in their shoes.
Homelessness - Thinking Long Term
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who not long ago made a name by championing gay marriages (although the legality of his authority for doing so was later overturned), is now fulfilling a campaign pledge to aggressively attack the problem of homelessness. He's announced a 10-year plan to replace homeless shelters with permanent housing that also includes social and supportive services.
A few days before New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg had himself announced plans to shift the focus of the city from "emergency shelters to long-term solutions." New York city's shelters are home to some 38,000 people each night. That, Bloomberg said, has become an expensive way to provide housing. In the last decade the city spent $4.6 billion on building and maintaining a network of emergency shelters for 416,000 men, women and children. "Money and manpower now used to manage homelessness will instead be devoted to ending it," Bloomberg commented.
Funding for the San Francisco project is trickier and seems to reflect a larger problem. Congress is debating a $70 million program, the Samaritan Initiative, providing money to cities with strong homeless 10-year plans, and San Francisco's has somehow gotten Washington's attention. Philip Mangano, director of the administration's Interagency Council on Homelessness was on hand during Newsom's announcement saying that if it succeeds the approach could have an impact across the country. But the amount the city would receive would only answer a tiny part of the need. In addition the initiative itself has garnered criticism given that the Bush administration is calling for $1.6 billion cut in Section 8 housing subsidies, which have stood between many low-income people and homelessness.
Since decision makers finally recognize it is economically efficient to address homelessness on a long-term basis, funding will eventually be worked out. In fact, other cities, like Los Angeles, which has one of the largest homeless population in the country, are also considering long-term plans. Regardless of motives and the funding issues that need resolving, cities are thinking in the right direction and that deserves our support.
Forced Marriages - Finally A Step Toward Redress
Forced Marriages are alien to modern Western culture, and certainly to contemporary lifestyles. Yet, in some Muslim, Middle Eastern, Chinese, African and Asian cultures they are very real and often curtail a woman's chances for a better life. Falling in love with someone from another religion or another culture, or not obeying one's father's choice for a husband can be sufficient ground for abuse and often death. More and more young women-since women are usually the victims in these situations-are trying to seek better lives, with more of the opportunities than the traditional lives such marriages normally bring. While women living in rural India or Pakistan may feel helpless, many in the West are trying to escape their fate. In London, for example, shelters now exist for young women, usually between 16 and 30, who are fleeing forced marriages or the possibility of one. What adds to their hope of succeeding is that the British government now recognizes so-called honor crimes, crimes usually involving violence against those who are perceived to have dishonored their family. Men are also involved. When a young couple fall in love and decide to be together, they can end up like fugitives, going underground and living in hiding from those in the young woman's family who seek to kill her or both as a means to regain family honor.
The British authorities handle about 250 cases a year and realize that the problem is more widespread than the reported cases. "We have to act on honor crimes within the framework of existing laws on crimes like intimidation, harassment, domestic violence or kidnapping," said Ruth Shulver, press officer on a Scotland Yard racial crime task force working on crimes arising from forced marriages. Still the police, there as anywhere else, tread a careful line not to be seen as interfering with cultural traditions.
When seen beyond the confines of their cultural norms, forced marriages are retrograde and harmful. They preclude growth and development and add to the struggles of usually already difficult lives. Forced marriages are one instance where self-determination and free will ought to supersede cultural traditions.
Web Site of Interest: www.phrases.org.uk/
The Meaning of Common Phrases
phrases.org gives the meaning and origins of common phrases. "Like the dickens," for example, has, as one might surmise nothing to do with Charles Dickens. It refers to a euphemism for the devil, probably derived from "devilkin". It, of course, means a lot, and is found as early as in the works of Shakespeare who used it in The Merry wives of Windsor. The phrases included in this site are from proverbs, sayings, biblical references, quotes and even popular fallacies. A list of books from which the origins and meanings are derived is provided-and so is the opportunity to buy them. The site, which offers a subscription service, Phrase Thesaurus, useful for writers and others using language, is chuck full of little gems. The entry for "the smallest room in the house", referring to the bathroom, tells us how Winston Churchill used it in reply to a letter he obviously didn't value. "Dear Sir," he wrote, " I am in the smallest room of the house and your letter is before me. Very soon, it will be behind me."
To Ponder On
We Do Learn
We may be as divided as we were during the Vietnam war, yet one of the few things about which we agree, is that those who fought in that war were not sufficiently acknowledged, thanked and honored for their valiant service. And, today one of the common links uniting us regardless of how we stand on the war in Iraq is our expression of support for the young men and women who so courageously face odds and hardships.
A Larger View is published by the Inner\Outer Partnership, a tax-exempt educational organization probing how spiritual principles can be agents of individual and societal change. We are funded through donations. Please send yours - as well as any comments - to P.O.Box 1293, Pac. Pal. CA 90272-1293. Also contact us by email at innerouter@earthlink.net or call 310-8367710 or visit our web site at www.innerouterpartnership.org
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