Jakobo.net

So, too long since my last post. Many things have happened:

Classes are now rolling like the night train- no stops, so you better hang on. So far I enjoy the Prof. in conflict resolution sharing his experiences from mediating in Colombia and getting the nitty gritty detalis of how and why states can breake free or ‘merge’ into one. Economics… Not so much.

BIG DEAL: Peter Singer, world famous philosopher, came by Columbia a week ago. I went to see him with Sahil. He spoke about the rich world’s responsibilty towards the poor worlds. Random facts about the terrible state of the world are always thrown out like rice for the pidgens in front of the Danish churches, but he mentioned one that actually caught my attention (and stayed there): 28.000, yes twenty eight thousand, children die EVERY DAY due to completely preventable and treatable diseases. Because their parents don’t have the money for medicin. Is it really fair, then, that we in our part of the world, spend money on luxury good every day? Even I, who am supposed to be an indebted , poor student, do it. Singer argues we should donate the money we don’t spend on necessities to aliviating extreme poverty. It’s our responsibility. I hated my ridiculous shirt with the little polo player on it..! Really, think about it, though. How is it we justify our consumerism? It is not just an imaginable trade-off: for the money we spend on something, anything, people’s lives could be saved. It’s that easy. So let’s start channeling our bad conscience into the NGOs we trust.

Here are the ones Mr. Singer recommended:
Oxfam
Unicef

Of course, I would recommend Amnesty, but that’s a little different…

Ok, last note on Peter Singer: If you’re interested in such moral issues as abortion, infanticide (yes, the killing of infants), vegetarianism, euthenasia and more, definately check out these short videos on youtube. You wont regret it- he’s veeery interesting!

Ok, that’s it. I will definately try to block again soon as a certain Mr. Ahmadinejad comes by Columbia to speek on… Hm, human rights? Homosexuality? the Holocaust? Israel? Time will tell, and I’ll tell you here afterwards. Wow!

Enjoy this sunny Sunday (probably more so if you’re in NYC than Copenhagen).

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 23rd, 2007 at 3:12 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.