The Season of Giving

Here's an informative and interesting read from the NY Times Magazine about charitable giving (and a lot more) by Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University. A lot of introspective questions came to mind while reading this article, especially since the holiday season is upon us:

• Am I a good person?
• What could I do to improve the world around me?
• Should I really spend another $60 on yet another Xbox 360 game?
• How does social responsibility extend past the immediate future and outside of my immediate community?
  

This article brings up some really interesting points about the responsibility of individuals to contribute to charity, how the U.S. government should be allocating foreign development aid, and just what motivates us as human beings. Quote from Singer here:

In any case, even if we were to grant that people deserve every dollar they earn, that doesn’t answer the question of what they should do with it. We might say that they have a right to spend it on lavish parties, private jets and luxury yachts, or, for that matter, to flush it down the toilet. But we could still think that for them to do these things while others die from easily preventable diseases is wrong. In an article I wrote more than three decades ago, at the time of a humanitarian emergency in what is now Bangladesh, I used the example of walking by a shallow pond and seeing a small child who has fallen in and appears to be in danger of drowning. Even though we did nothing to cause the child to fall into the pond, almost everyone agrees that if we can save the child at minimal inconvenience or trouble to ourselves, we ought to do so. Anything else would be callous, indecent and, in a word, wrong. The fact that in rescuing the child we may, for example, ruin a new pair of shoes is not a good reason for allowing the child to drown. Similarly if for the cost of a pair of shoes we can contribute to a health program in a developing country that stands a good chance of saving the life of a child, we ought to do so.

Remember that we can easily help without even giving money by supporting organizations such as one.org

Gender bias 'increases poverty'

Inequality at home between men and women leads to poorer health for the children and greater poverty for the family, says a new study.

The UN children's agency, Unicef, found that where women are excluded from family decisions, children are more likely to be under-nourished...

Unicef surveyed family decision-making in 30 countries around the world. Their chief finding is that equality between men and women is essential to lowering poverty and improving health, especially of children, in developing countries...

For example, in Ivory Coast and Ghana, it was discovered that when women's income increased for whatever reason, they spent the extra on more food for the family, whereas an increase in men's income made no significant difference, Unicef said.
In many households across the developing world, Unicef found that women are excluded from health-related decisions.

Children in these families are more likely to be undernourished as the family spends less on food, Unicef said.

Gender equality in family decision-making in South Asia would lead to 13.4m fewer malnourished children, a 13% reduction, the report said...

Perhaps the old adage is true; if we ruled the world maybe the world would be a better place.

Fart Bomb Grounds Plane Mid-Air

An American Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing Monday morning after a passenger lit a match to disguise the scent of flatulence, authorities said.

The Dallas-bound flight was diverted to Nashville after several passengers reported smelling burning sulfur from the matches, said Lynne Lowrance, spokeswoman for the Nashville International Airport Authority. All 99 passengers and five crew members were taken off and screened while the plane was searched and luggage was screened.

The FBI questioned a passenger who admitted she struck the matches in an attempt to conceal a "body odor," Lowrance said. She had an unspecified medical condition, authorities said [yea, gas!]…

The flight took off again, but the woman was not allowed back on the plane. The woman, who was not identified, was not charged in the incident.