Snips

"My attitude is, if they're still writing about (number) one, 43 doesn't need to worry about it." --George W. Bush, on his legacy, Tipp City, Ohio,19,4.2007

I should know more about Bjorn Lomborg, who according to his website,  is "One of the world's 75 most influential people of the 21st century - Esquire, 2008", "One of the 50 people who could save the planet - UK Guardian, 2008", "One of the top 100 public intellectuals, Foreign Policy & Prospect Magazine, 2008", and "One of the world's 100 most influential people - Time Magazine, 2004".

And I should know more about Global Warming because much of what Lomborg says makes sense to me.

His point is basically that we should use the money we have to maximise its effects, take the money that you are putting into Kyoto Protocol and use it to give sanitation and clean drinking water to the third world. Quite refreshingly, he says, "Just because there is a problem doesn't mean that we have to solve it, if the cure is going to be more expensive than the original ailment."



And today, in The Economic Times Guest Column, I found this:

"By implementing the Kyoto Protocol at a cost of $180 billion annually would keep two million people from going hungry only by the end of the century. Yet by spending just $10 billion annually, the United Nations estimates that we could help 229 million hungry people today. Every time spending on climate policies saves one person from hunger in a hundred years, the same amount could have saved 5000 people now."

The language is somewhat confusing, but you get the general idea.

And I suppose Arundhati Roy, in her article in Guardian- if you look past all the bombast- meant something similar: Why do you address the problem of terrorism at the cost of equitable development?

"Homeland Security has cost the US government billions of dollars. Few countries, certainly not India, can afford that sort of price tag. But even if we could, the fact is that this vast homeland of ours cannot be secured or policed in the way the United States has been. It's not that kind of homeland. We have a hostile nuclear weapons state that is slowly spinning out of control as a neighbour, we have a military occupation in Kashmir and a shamefully persecuted, impoverished minority of more than 150 million Muslims who are being targeted as a community and pushed to the wall, whose young see no justice on the horizon, and who, were they to totally lose hope and radicalise, end up as a threat not just to India, but to the whole world. If ten men can hold off the NSG commandos, and the police for three days, and if it takes half a million soldiers to hold down the Kashmir valley, do the math. What kind of Homeland Security can secure India?"

Her language has some hysteria in it,  and I find it repugnantly full of venom, but the issue she raises, has to be addressed, not with rhetoric, but cold facts.

For I find online in The Times of India:

"According to the data (catalogued by the Zilla Parishad health department).as many as 337 children died of malnutrition between April and November in the tribal belt of Melghat. Out of these 337 malnutrition deaths, 230 kids were from 0-1 age group while 80 from 1-3 years and 27 from 3-6 years age group. Currently, Melghat has a child population of 34,888. Out of these, 13,540 children enjoy good health, 14,131 kids are in stage one of malnutrition, 6,750 children stage two, 417 stage three while 50 kids are suffering from extreme malnutrition. This despite the fact that there are 11 primary health centres (PHCs) in Melghat, various schemes like Child Development Centres, Day Care Unit, Matrutva Anudan scheme, Pada volunteers scheme focusing on the overall health of the tribals."

No one will be holding a candlelight vigil for these children; I will be surprised if any of our news channels report this unfortunate systematic failure.

We could save so many lives by putting a system into place, and keep it in a working condition- but we are not aghast that we have failed to do this. Deaths like this, do not move us.

This is like a man falling into a well and another man dying in a car crash. Spectacular, sensational events grab our attention. Probably we are worried only when something threatens our way of life, our peace of mind or challenges our machismo.

I think once our passions have cooled, we will face the question of the cost of internal security, and we will have to make hard choices. I can guess what it will be.



And speaking of choices, the Arab world is making them everyday, and getting it wrong.

Remember Muntader al-Zaidi, a reporter with the al-Baghdadia television network who shouted, "This is a gift from the Iraqis. This is the farewell kiss, you dog!" as he threw his first shoe, and followed it with another shout, "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!"- and another shoe?

Seems he is a hero there.

A charity headed by Moamer Kadhafi's daughter Aisha has announced that it would award Zaidi an "order of courage" for his actions. It seems almost everyone there is acclaiming his action. And without irony and with unconscionable hypocrisy, the board of Baghdadiyah, the news channel that employs Zaidi, issues this statement: "Any action taken against Muntathar will remind us of the actions and behaviors taken by the reign of the dictator and the violence, the random arrests, the mass graves and confiscations of freedom from the people."

May be they need a reminder? Just to get an idea of those good old times?

Finally three whys of cricket:

"I don't think any century like this one, will be able to compensate the loss people have suffered in the Mumbai attack. Nothing can match their grief, but as cricketers this is what we can do to help. I dedicate this century to the people of India. Personally, it is a very special, very emotional century for me and I would like to give it to the people" - Sachin Tendulkar Why, Sachin why? Why use that cliche- 'dedicate'? How does your century reach people? 'Dedicate" is a word debased by overuse- no one speaks of dedicating his life, time, money, energy... Next thing is, we will have some hero releasing his film, and saying, "I dedicate this film to the nation!" As if that makes it bigger than what it is. "Dedicate" in the sense in which it is used, has become one of those opaque words that you skip over without asking yourself what it means. "Even when he walked out to bat in a World Cup match in 1999 with Australia wobbling at 3-48 chasing 271 (they later secured a famous win), Waugh marched past Cronje at the bowling crease and declared "if you bowl anything on my legs I will bash the shit out of it"." -Robert Craddock (not Peter Roebuck) in Courier Mail Why Steve? How could you dream of 'bashing the shit out'? You probably hit a four every thousand balls! "I have got a fractured rib... There are no dramas. I will deal with it. I don't like injections. I will just take painkillers." - Kevin Pieterson. Why KP., why? Why brave a broken rib with such gay abandon? Seems about two years back, he headed home with a broken rib and got some lip from Border...