Dangerous Outbreak of Sanity

Has someone hijacked the New Times's server? I can't believe I just read this.

Not long ago, the satirical newspaper The Onion ran a fake news story that began like this:

“At a well-attended rally in front of his new ground zero headquarters Monday, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani officially announced his plan to run for president of 9/11. ‘My fellow citizens of 9/11, today I will make you a promise,’ said Giuliani during his 18-minute announcement speech in front of a charred and torn American flag. ‘As president of 9/11, I will usher in a bold new 9/11 for all.’ If elected, Giuliani would inherit the duties of current 9/11 President George W. Bush, including making grim facial expressions, seeing the world’s conflicts in terms of good and evil, and carrying a bullhorn at all state functions.”

Like all good satire, the story made me both laugh and cry, because it reflected something so true — how much, since 9/11, we’ve become “The United States of Fighting Terrorism.” Times columnists are not allowed to endorse candidates, but there’s no rule against saying who will not get my vote: I will not vote for any candidate running on 9/11. We don’t need another president of 9/11. We need a president for 9/12. I will only vote for the 9/12 candidate.

What does that mean? This: 9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.

That's a pretty good mea culpa I reckon. Coming next: the world is round and globalisation needs to be managed?

Good news in the world of international development

It is easy working in international development (or reading about international development, for that matter) to become despondent: it is the failures that stick with you; it is the failures that make for good stories. But it is also worth remembering that there are development successes taking place. A handy reminder of this can be found in this recent New York Times Article.

For the first time since record keeping began in 1960, the number of deaths of young children around the world has fallen below 10 million a year, according to figures from the United Nations Children’s Fund being released today.

This public health triumph has arisen, Unicef officials said, partly from campaigns against measles, malaria and bottle-feeding, and partly from improvements in the economies of most of the world outside Africa...

The most important advances, Unicef said, included these:

¶Measles deaths have dropped 60 percent since 1999, thanks to vaccination drives.

¶More women are breast-feeding rather than mixing formula or cereal with dirty water.

¶More babies are sleeping under mosquito nets.

¶More are getting Vitamin A drops.

There's a couple of stories woven together here. One is the economic liftoff of much of South, South-east and East Asia. The other is public health programmes, often, but not always, funded by aid (remember this next time someone tells you that aid never works),

Actually there's a third story, come to think of it: that is the return to breast feeding. Which is great but it wouldn't even be a story of certain western business interest hadn't promoted (and didn't still promote) milk formula.

Paul Krugman's Blog

Thanks to Norightturn we have news of the demise of the New York Times's pay-wall.

Double good news for Paul Krugman fans is that Krugman also has blog on the Times's website.

Also of interest if Nicholas Kristof's blog. I don't love Kristof's column's themselves but he has some great contributers to his blog at present - there's a good international development focus.

Back! By Popular Demand!

Well back by virtue of three encouraging comments (thank you Tim and Owhiro Lady).