Purchasing Power in 2009
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Showing posts with label pauvreté. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pauvreté. Show all posts
A Message for Barack Obama
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Africa’s Expectations from Obama
By Hany Besada (*)
By Hany Besada (*)
WITH the US administration marking its 100 days in office, Barack Obama has raised sky-scraping expectations for his term as president, not only at home in the US, but also abroad in Africa. The 44th American President is the first with an African lineage and, not surprisingly, his rise to power has triggered a wave of hope amongst Africans as they look towards the West in anticipation of new beginnings in US foreign policy and diplomatic relations.
Examples of African reverence for Obama abound. Kenya has declared 5 November a national holiday in recognition of Obama’s election. Parallels were drawn world-wide between Obama’s inauguration ceremony in Washington earlier this year, as being eerily reminiscent in scale and scope of Nelson Mandela’s inauguration as South Africa’s first black president in 1994.
Will President Barack Obama be able to deliver in accordance with the super-hero status that Africans are bestowing on him?
In the coming months, Obama will be expected to address Africa’s most pressing crises: Sudan’s six-year conflict in Darfur continues unabated with UN forces being woefully understaffed and underfunded, despite former President Bush labeling it as “genocide”; Somalia has now been without a central government for 18 years and has lost more than one million people to civil conflict and famine; and the Democratic Republic of the Congo is struggling to end a five-year conflict with a death toll deemed the world’s highest since World War II. And, of course, there are the longstanding issues across the continent of food security, corruption, access to clean water and basic health care, and the looming threat of climate change.
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>>> Read the full article
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Examples of African reverence for Obama abound. Kenya has declared 5 November a national holiday in recognition of Obama’s election. Parallels were drawn world-wide between Obama’s inauguration ceremony in Washington earlier this year, as being eerily reminiscent in scale and scope of Nelson Mandela’s inauguration as South Africa’s first black president in 1994.
Will President Barack Obama be able to deliver in accordance with the super-hero status that Africans are bestowing on him?
In the coming months, Obama will be expected to address Africa’s most pressing crises: Sudan’s six-year conflict in Darfur continues unabated with UN forces being woefully understaffed and underfunded, despite former President Bush labeling it as “genocide”; Somalia has now been without a central government for 18 years and has lost more than one million people to civil conflict and famine; and the Democratic Republic of the Congo is struggling to end a five-year conflict with a death toll deemed the world’s highest since World War II. And, of course, there are the longstanding issues across the continent of food security, corruption, access to clean water and basic health care, and the looming threat of climate change.
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>>> Read the full article
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Nina Simone was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in 1933 in North Carolina, the sixth of seven children in a poor family. She began playing the piano at age 4 and was classically trained, attending the Juilliard School in New York for one year. She had hoped to attend the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, but was rejected — one of many disappointments she would attribute to racism.
Simone turned to singing jazz and popular music as a way to make money, performing in nightclubs in Philadelphia and Atlantic City, N.J. In the late 1950s Simone recorded her first tracks, including "Plain Gold Ring" and "Don't Smoke in Bed." But she gained fame in 1959 with her recording of "I Loves You Porgy," from the George and Ira Gershwin Broadway musical, "Porgy & Bess." Soon Nina Simone the nightclub singer became Nina Simone the star, performing at Town Hall, Carnegie Hall and the Newport Jazz Festival.
There was a time when Nina Simone was dubbed "the high priestess of soul," a term she hated, not only because it smacked of marketing hype but because it tried to put her in a box she'd never have fit in comfortably. While Simone certainly invested all her work with soul, she blurred boundaries and jumped genres, embracing jazz, pop, blues, spirituals, folk, French chansons, African song and the works of contemporary songwriters like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, the Bee Gees and the Beatles -- Simone's reading of "Here Comes the Sun" remains a transcendent moment of elegance and joy. Simone was also one of the first African American artists to embrace traditional African garb, adding regal bearing to her already dramatic presence.
>>> Read the full bio
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Simone turned to singing jazz and popular music as a way to make money, performing in nightclubs in Philadelphia and Atlantic City, N.J. In the late 1950s Simone recorded her first tracks, including "Plain Gold Ring" and "Don't Smoke in Bed." But she gained fame in 1959 with her recording of "I Loves You Porgy," from the George and Ira Gershwin Broadway musical, "Porgy & Bess." Soon Nina Simone the nightclub singer became Nina Simone the star, performing at Town Hall, Carnegie Hall and the Newport Jazz Festival.
There was a time when Nina Simone was dubbed "the high priestess of soul," a term she hated, not only because it smacked of marketing hype but because it tried to put her in a box she'd never have fit in comfortably. While Simone certainly invested all her work with soul, she blurred boundaries and jumped genres, embracing jazz, pop, blues, spirituals, folk, French chansons, African song and the works of contemporary songwriters like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, the Bee Gees and the Beatles -- Simone's reading of "Here Comes the Sun" remains a transcendent moment of elegance and joy. Simone was also one of the first African American artists to embrace traditional African garb, adding regal bearing to her already dramatic presence.
>>> Read the full bio
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The Economy
By Linda Settles
Living above it
I go on the web and the bad news is posted every day
Our nation and indeed the world, is in a "bad way,"
As my Grandpa used to say.
Banks have failed and panic reigns in the capitals of kings
Homes are lost as markets crumble & wealth takes wings
and vanishes from our life scene.
If our wealth is our power and our primary source of security
We may be tempted to find a window-- as many in the thirties
did and jump from floor thirteen.
Before we open windows and pull up a chair in our despair
We should stop, and reconsider our decision...
All is not lost and poverty is not a prison.
All losses we experience --here-- on this terrestrial plane
Are merely preparation for the treasures we will gain
If we will look beyond the prospect of our pain
We'll see a world that hid behind our wealth and prosperity
Treasures that are unaffected by this world's economy
We'll walk the woods, as Grandpa did.
A simple man, without a B.A., M.A., or PhD
His house was humble, his friends were many
and I knew that he loved me.
The woods, the streams, and even mosquito infested swamps
Were treasures in his eyes, Maybe Grandpa, after all
Knew where to find the prize
Of living well, a simple life that needed few possessions
The sunset, a deer taken, or a turkey call--a few concessions
to his comforts--these were his mansions.
What is there to fear in the instability of our economy
If we live like Grandpa did? In the midst of what some call poverty
He learned to live each day and to be free.
World markets may crumble and the Dow take its plunge
But we won't be affected if our economy is love.
The Economy
By Linda Settles
Living above it
I go on the web and the bad news is posted every day
Our nation and indeed the world, is in a "bad way,"
As my Grandpa used to say.
Banks have failed and panic reigns in the capitals of kings
Homes are lost as markets crumble & wealth takes wings
and vanishes from our life scene.
If our wealth is our power and our primary source of security
We may be tempted to find a window-- as many in the thirties
did and jump from floor thirteen.
Before we open windows and pull up a chair in our despair
We should stop, and reconsider our decision...
All is not lost and poverty is not a prison.
All losses we experience --here-- on this terrestrial plane
Are merely preparation for the treasures we will gain
If we will look beyond the prospect of our pain
We'll see a world that hid behind our wealth and prosperity
Treasures that are unaffected by this world's economy
We'll walk the woods, as Grandpa did.
A simple man, without a B.A., M.A., or PhD
His house was humble, his friends were many
and I knew that he loved me.
The woods, the streams, and even mosquito infested swamps
Were treasures in his eyes, Maybe Grandpa, after all
Knew where to find the prize
Of living well, a simple life that needed few possessions
The sunset, a deer taken, or a turkey call--a few concessions
to his comforts--these were his mansions.
What is there to fear in the instability of our economy
If we live like Grandpa did? In the midst of what some call poverty
He learned to live each day and to be free.
World markets may crumble and the Dow take its plunge
But we won't be affected if our economy is love.
(The poem appeared on authorsden.com)
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