Comments on: 10 Stories

10 Stories

homunculus — Sat, 15 May 2004 00:14:27 -0800

Ten Stories the World Should Hear More About.

By: BackwardsHatClub

BackwardsHatClub — Sat, 15 May 2004 00:35:44 -0800

True story: I'm pretty tired, I opened the link and looked at the titles of each of the stories. I didn't really look at the site or the address, After reading the titles to the stories I thought, "Good Lord, these stories are so politically correct this looks like someone from the United Nations wrote it." Haha, silly me.

By: interrobang

interrobang — Sat, 15 May 2004 00:46:19 -0800

That's a great story, BackwardsHatClub. You should write it down and submit it to publishers.

By: BackwardsHatClub

BackwardsHatClub — Sat, 15 May 2004 00:55:30 -0800

Awww thanks interrobang, you're a great guy.

By: interrobang

interrobang — Sat, 15 May 2004 00:58:58 -0800

And you're smart, clever and well-spoken, with much to say about important issues.

By: e.e. coli

e.e. coli — Sat, 15 May 2004 02:44:22 -0800

Eleven BackwardsHatClub and interrobang, take it outside.

By: effugas

effugas — Sat, 15 May 2004 02:55:59 -0800

This feels awfully Ameri-centric to say, but it's hard not to notice...ummm...the African focus of these stories. The first three cover disasters in Africa directly. The fourth covers disasters averted in Africa, and maybe a few other places too. The sixth discusses Rwandan and Liberian women; the eigth, a territorial dispute between Cameroon and Nigeria. The ninth -- a wholly legitimate discussion about managing fish stocks -- flows directly from a South African conference. Quite literally, there's one discussion about Central Asia (Tajikistan), and another about indigenous tribes in South America, but everything else is African. I'm not saying this is good or bad -- certainly, things are very messy out there, and they're quite underreported. But for a global organization, that's a rather local focus they've got there.

By: David Dark

David Dark — Sat, 15 May 2004 04:06:07 -0800

Lots more on that eleventh story.

By: Pretty_Generic

Pretty_Generic — Sat, 15 May 2004 04:35:16 -0800

Central African Republic: a silent crisis crying out for help The UN obviously don't do Metaphor 101. Still, great link.

By: dagny

dagny — Sat, 15 May 2004 05:43:12 -0800

Is that "persons with disabilities"-story about initiatives to force people to make everything accessible to the "handy capable"? That stuff always seemed like a mockery of the Human Rights concept to me.

By: grabbingsand

grabbingsand — Sat, 15 May 2004 05:49:43 -0800

...everything else is African. I believe that's the point. If you hadn't read the stories there, where would you have read/seen/heard them? They're not on the front page of your newspaper, not on Headline News, not in daily White House briefings, and just generally unspoken all the way around. Unless you're tuned to NPR at just the right time, the latest news from Africa is going to miss your attention entirely.

By: yonderboy

yonderboy — Sat, 15 May 2004 07:01:40 -0800

According to Shashi Tharoor, the U.N. undersecretary general for communications and public information, the list is intentionally not focused on Iraq. In his interview on PBS NewsHour he explains that the list is meant to help bring balance back to the media's coverage of world issues.

By: dhoyt

dhoyt — Sat, 15 May 2004 08:54:27 -0800

Burma?

By: rafter

rafter — Sat, 15 May 2004 09:18:01 -0800

By: dagny

dagny — Sat, 15 May 2004 09:57:43 -0800

rafter: Real individual rights, i.e. the right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness, entail freedom from threats and the initiation of force by others. These new so-called "rights" involve initiating force against others for merely enjoying their individual rights, because they don't do enough for you. (I.e. someone could sue me for NOT providing wheelchair access to my new building, as if they had a claim to my labor, my time and therefore my life).

By: clevershark

clevershark — Sat, 15 May 2004 09:58:44 -0800

Sounds like a bit of quid-pro-quo here -- if the US soft-pedals the oil-for-food scandal, the UN agrees not to bring up the illegality of the Iraq invasion. rafter -- I believe the poster is referring to the idea that changing the words used to describe a situation somehow improves that situation without further action being required.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sat, 15 May 2004 10:19:36 -0800

Burma.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sat, 15 May 2004 10:22:04 -0800

We interupt this broadcast... [Flash]

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sat, 15 May 2004 10:48:50 -0800

BURMA!

By: rafter

rafter — Sat, 15 May 2004 11:02:34 -0800

These new so-called "rights" involve initiating force against others for merely enjoying their individual rights, because they don't do enough for you. (I.e. someone could sue me for NOT providing wheelchair access to my new building, as if they had a claim to my labor, my time and therefore my life). Not to draw upon the most obvious and overplayed analogy (and I realize that we're, to some extent, merely debating the semantics of the term "human rights") but you may as well argue that you can deny access to blacks to your building. Yes, you do not have to do any additional work to allow blacks to enter, as you would with adding elevator or ramp access for the wheelchair bound. But the net effect is that your laziness/inconsideration/frugality effectively denies an entire class of people access to your services/business/building. The drawbacks are miniscule compared to the benefits (big-picture social benefits, as opposed to, say, your personal financial gain, which may not be affected at all if you have no handicapped customers). Is it a human rights violation? That depends on your definition. Ask yourself this: would the routine denial of access to minorities, gays, or women, for instance, be a human rights violation? If the answer to this is yes, then the answer to the former question should also be yes. If not, then we're just talking discrimination, which is likewise immoral, but maybe not appropos for the UN, then, in your opinion. Inconvenience (to you) is not a deciding factor here. Is it right to offer access to the disabled? Yes. Is it inconvenient? Yes. Does the inconvenience outweigh the right? I don't think so. Not even close.

By: dagny

dagny — Sat, 15 May 2004 13:06:43 -0800

Should people be allowed to decide for themselves which outweighs the other? Yes, that's why it's their damn property in the first place.

By: dagny

dagny — Sat, 15 May 2004 13:08:39 -0800

PS: I'm allergic to posting on web sites and hereby demand that Matt come up with some sort of way for me to communicate with rafter without bringing up an allergic reaction. If not, I'll sue, stat! Respect my rights and authoritah!

By: elwoodwiles

elwoodwiles — Sat, 15 May 2004 13:33:55 -0800

Should people be allowed to decide for themselves which outweighs the other? Yes, that's why it's their damn property in the first place. Well, I'd think rights would always trump whats 'inconvenient' to an individual. If we had a system that held rights to be arbitrarily enforced, according to anyone's attitudes, we wouldn't have any rights at all. Actually rafter stated this rather well. If you want your rights to be respected, you're going to have to respect the rights of others.

By: sfenders

sfenders — Sat, 15 May 2004 19:29:01 -0800

rafter: Is it right to offer access to the disabled? Yes. Is it inconvenient? Yes. Does the inconvenience outweigh the right? I don't think so. Not even close. Not even close? Ever? Come on, man, that's just total bullshit. Your analogy to racial discrimination doesn't hold water. Building wheelchair ramps at every dance club, pool hall, and fishing lodge in the country would be nice, but it would on the whole be a waste of resources better spent elsewhere. The "inconvenience," which can involve significant costs, does sometimes outweigh the benefit when you're considering improving people's lives. It's stupid to debate that; the important question is exactly how far one should go in trying to include everyone. That question applies to all kinds of human rights issues. Should we all be spending as much of our personal resources as we can possibly afford to feeding the hungry people of the world? Probably not. But it's not all-or-nothing. Should we be seeing better news coverage of Africa? Probably, yes. But I guess there are about a million other unreported stories in the world that affect your average mefi reader just as much another war in Uganda is ever likely to.