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tanadrin · 7 years

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Utopia: A How-To Guide

So, I picked up "Utopia For Realists" by Rutger Bregman at Dussman yesterday, somewhat intrigued by its title; based on the blurbs inside the cover and the summary on the back, I was expecting something, well, a lot more utopian: a look at crazy pie in the sky ideas which sound terribly interesting but also are ridiculously impractical. In reality, the book is much more modest. It's basically a 250-page, meticulously footnoted argument for a modest progressive political program, written in an informal and approachable style, which has some (fairly restrained) rebukes in it toward leftism that's more about shoring up the identities of activists, or aiming at poorly defined abstract goals than actually improving people's lives. I don't think many people reading this will substantially disagree with the ideas Bregman presents, but he condenses a lot of persuasive arguments in favor of them into a single place, and in a form which I think is likelier to appeal to the average person interested in politics as opposed to the average rationalist-adjacent Tumblr user.

Notes I made and passages I highlighted:

The opening chapter is basically about how much *better* the modern world is than the world of the recent past; this is probably obvious to anybody who's at all sympathetic to Whig history or interested in technological progress/transhumanism, but Bregman is making a larger point here: a lot of the things that were hilariously impossible Utopian dreams in the past we have achieved, and we've achieved them precisely because people were capable of imagining absurd Utopias, and refused to give up on them until they achieved them. In contrast, Bregman contends, most contemporary politics is patching minor deficiencies in the current system--important, to be sure, but this work doesn't provide a structure for forward progress, and we're in danger of stalling out, and letting runaway income inequality and other issues derail our forward momentum as a civilization--and cause a lot of unnecessary pain in the process. I really like the chart on p. 3, which charts life expectancy and per capita income across the world in 1800 versus today; even the most wretched country in the 21st century is doing better than the most prosperous country in 1800. The Netherlands (Bregman's home) and the U.S. had life expectancies of about 40 and per capita incomes of about $3,000 or less in 1800; even Sierra Leone and the Congo are doing better in terms of life expectancy now, and a large but still developing country like India is trouncing U.S. per capita income in 1800. The world has gotten a *lot* better, in other words, even if it still has a long way to go.

p. 7-8: Bregman cites a figure saying that vaccines against measles, tetanus, whooping cough, diphtheria, and polio, which are notable for all being "dirt cheap", have saved more lives than would peace would have in the 20th century. That's a frankly astonishing figure, if true. His source: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/bj-rn-lomborg-identifies-the-areas-in-which-increased-development-spending-can-do-the-most-good

p.9: For people concerned about IQ, Bregman points out that IQ has gone up an average of 3-5 points every ten years due to improved nutrition and education. This reinforces my belief that any attempt to work out whether IQ actually varies significantly among different human populations due to genetic factors is basically doomed from the get-go, since that information is hopelessly confounded by other factors (and because an evolutionary biologist once told me strongly selected-for traits like intelligence is in humans should be expected to vary by very little in any species; if IQ did vary strongly among between populations for genetic reasons, it would be *very unusual* in that regard).

p. 12-15: Bregman wants to distinguish between two kinds of Utopia: "blueprint" utopias, as he calls them, where you decide what the Utopia looks like ahead of time and how to get there, and then spend all your time and energy forcing society to fit that mold--via revolution, dictatorship, terror, etc., whatever means will achieve your ends--verses a more ideal (idealistic?) kind of utopia that's about broadening possibilities of the future. This is more just about not saying "no" reflexively to weird ideas: instead of saying "Ah, UBI is nice but it's a crazy idea," you look at what it *would* take to achieve it. This also entails being able to criticize your own ideas--and to adapt them when they prove not to be working. Honestly, I don't think this is necessarily utopianism at all: I think this is ordinary progressive politics, seeing a critical flaw in society and demanding we work our utmost to change it rather than saying "good enough." If this feels utopian then it's because our standards for what is achievable have fallen sharply in the last thirty or forty years (more on that later).

p. 17-19: Even Bregman is not immune from the occasional tiresome moral panic. Angst about narcissism in a pampered generation; none of this is central to his thesis, though, just shallow culture criticism.

p. 34: Discussion of the Mincome experiment in Canada, which was started by a lefty government in Manitoba, shut down by a righty government that came to power after them, and whose results remained unanalyzed in for decades in the National Archives. The researcher who dug up these files after they sat gathering dust for years and years? Evelyn Forget. You cannot make this stuff up. (@slatestarscratchpad, I know he appreciates this kind of thing).

p. 37-8: I knew about Mincome; I read an article about it a while back, when UBI was just getting into the news. I did not know there were four other UBI experiments in North America around the same time, all in the U.S. The U.S., in fact, for a tantalizing moment in the Nixon administration, was relatively close to implementing something like UBI, as a way of eradicating poverty. For various reasons, including a century-and-a-half old British government report (more on that later), the bill failed; but America came very close to implementing a safety net that by the standards of our present political moment is *very* Utopian. And, I can't stress this enough, this was under Richard Nixon.

p. 55-62: A section entitled "Why Poor People Do Dumb Things," which basically takes various scientific studies and uses them to argue that poverty 1) makes idiots of us all; 2) is self-perpetuating, and as a result 3) is really, really hard to escape unless the immediate cause of the psychological stress it produces--i.e., an acute lack of money--is removed. Also probably a good answer for why poor *societies* continue to be poor; I can't imagine these cognitive limitations Bregman is talking about go away just because more of your society is experiencing them.

p. 58: "So in concrete terms, just how much dumber does poverty make you? 'Our effects correspond to between 13 and 14 IQ points,' Shafir says. 'That's comparable to losing a night's sleep or the effects of alcoholism.'" I don't know much about IQ, but I feel like 13-14 IQ points is *a lot of IQ points.* And again: the fact that this effect is so large makes me think any attempt to search out a genetic source for IQ variation is futile.

p. 59 mentions an interesting experiment to control for individual variation in IQ by comparing the performance on cognitive tests of farmers in India who make almost all their income right at harvest. Just before and just after harvest gives an opportunity to compare differences in performance when cash is tight versus when cash isn't night in the same group of people (the effect found in other experiments, including ones in the developed world, seeemd to hold).

p. 68: Arguments with lefty types like my family often result in somebody bringing up the fact that capitalism necessitates the creation of a poor underclass, to which everyone promptly agrees as if this is the most obvious or well-studied fact in human history. This drives me *nuts*, because it's one of those wild overreaching statements that makes an *empirical assertion* about a facet of economics and society that, being empirical, should be verifiable or falsifiable (or which at least some form of evidence for or against could be acquired). But I've never seen a single study cited in support of this notion; never seen even a lazy historical analogy drawn between societies experiencing similar conditions but with different economic systems to support this argument. It's Aristotle-level laziness about the empirical universe: Capitalism is bad, poverty is bad, therefore capitalism causes poverty. I know I'm the world's worst leftist, but things like this are why: we would rather repeatedly assert a statement which comforts us that we are on the right side of history than critically investigate the assertion (repeated by a legion of leftist political philosophers) that might require us to confront the fact that the leftist understanding of economics is... deficient. To say the least. And that if you are going to make empirical assertions about the structure of society and about its economic organization, you had better know what you're talking about, or you run the risk of creating a leftist empire built on ideology that collapses when it is forced to confront reality. *coughtheentirewarsawpactcough* On p. 68, Bregman cites an *actual* example of an economic system that necessitates the existence of an underclass. It's mercantilism, the system capitalism replaced (and which has been lifting hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty ever since).

Dryly observing the fact that capitalism has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty, of course, gets you tarred and feathered as a neoliberal or even (inexplicably) a fascist in some leftist circles (like my family). It doesn't matter if you still think capitalism has grievous shortcomings; you must participate in the Ritual of Blaming Everything on Capitalism in order to qualify as a real leftist, apparently, which makes me feel like one of those Dutch atheists in the 17th century who had to say "well of *course* God exists" before being able to make my argument as to why burning bushes aren't real and basing your society on a Bronze age ethnic mythology from the Middle East is a terrible idea.

p. 70-71: It's weird to lump Utah and the Netherlands into the same category, but the two polities in the 21st century who seem to have first discovered how to eliminate homelessness are... Utah and the Netherlands. Spoiler alert: giving people homes is relatively cheap.

p. 79: Speenhamland, which sounds like a budget brand of meat spread you occasionally see in the grocery store but never have the courage to try, is really the source of a lot of our problems around just giving poor people money. We can, strange as it sounds, probably blame an obscure, 170-year-old English experiment in basic income, and the inquiry that followed it, for the failure of the idea during the Nixon administration--and, subsequently, the U.S.'s rightward shift toward welfare 'reform,' a revival of the notion that there is deserving and undeserving poverty, and that if you're poor, it's because you're lazy.

Martin Anderson, one of Nixon's advisors, used excerpts from Karl Polanyi's "The Great Transformation"--specifically, the bits about the Speenhamland system--to turn Nixon off his plan for the Family Security System in 1969. Polanyi presented a damning indictment of the Speenhamland system based on the parliamentary inquiry used to justify dismantling it, and indeed the original report was harshly critical of the system. Trouble is, the report was mostly written before the results of the inquiry were gathered; and the numerous surveys and interviews conducted during the inquiry were almost entirely aimed, not at the people who actually benefitted from the Speenhamland system, but clergy and landowners who were critical of it from the beginning. The comissioner responsible for the report had written the draconian Poor Laws he wanted to implement before the report was even begun; even the leftist criticisms (from Marx and Engels) of government assistance were based on the lies of Speenhamland, alienating the left from its natural ally when it came to alleviating the condition of the poor, i.e., the only institution in society powerful enough to solve massive coordination issues like wealth redistribution. Lucky for us, modern leftists don't regard Marx and Engels as writers of scripture whom we dare not criticize for their imperfect knowlede of economics that is 200 years out of--wait, shit.

p.88 spells out for the first time in anything I've read what the demographic transition actually entails; I've always been slightly muddled as to why people want to have less kids when they get richer; if nothing else, if people like having kids and they have more money to support them, why wouldn't they have more? I always figured I was just missing something. And I was! People don't have lots of kids pre-demographic transition because they like having kids; they have lots of kids because that's the only insurance they have that when they're old there will be someone to care for them. More children provide more economic stability; so when society is more prosperous, when you can save money to retire on, and when the government implements a safety net, the birth rate drops--down to a level which more closely resembles how much people *actually like* having children. Having birth control available helps; but sometimes it just means people marrying later, or (probably) having different kinds of sex. This implies 1) modernity isn't 'destroying families,' it's just that people don't like having big families nearly as much as either the traditionalists or the evolutionary psychologists would assume, and 2) the demographic transition is probably permanent, i.e., we're not going to see the birth rate mysteriously start creeping upward in a hundred years in rich societies once we've adapted to our current levels of affluence. (Most) people just don't like having kids as much as we might naively assume.

A lot of bonus stuff in this part from people like Malthus who woefully misunderstood the psychology of poverty. And, sadly, their ideas are actually not all that out of date.

p. 91-2: "Now and then politicians are accused of taking too little interest in the past. In this case, however, Nixon was perhaps taking too much. Even a century and a half after the fatal report, the Speenhamland myth was still alive and kicking. When Nixon's bill foundered in the Senate, conservative thinkers began lambasing the welfare state, using the very same misguided argumetns applied back in 1834.

These arguments echoed in 'Wealth and Poverty,' the 1981 mega-bestseller by George Gilder that would make him Reagan's most cited author and that characterized poverty as a moral problem rooted in laziness and vice. And they appeared again a few years later in 'Loosing Ground,' an influential book in which the conservative sociologist Charles Murray recycled the Speenhamland myth. Government support, he wrote, would only undermine the sexual morals and work ethic of the poor.

It was like Townsend and Malthus all over again, but as one historian rightly notes, 'Anywhere you find poor people, you also find non-poor people theorizing their cultural inferiority and dysfunction.' Even former Nixon adviser Daniel Moynihan stopped believing in a basic income when divorce rates were initially thought to have spiked during the Seattle pilot program, a conclusion later debunked as a mathematical error."

p. 95: "Lately, developed nations have been doubling down on this sort of 'activating' policy for the jobless, which runs the gamut from job-application workshops to stints picking up trash, and from talk therapy to LinkedIn training. No matter if there are ten applicants for every job, the problem is consistently attributed not to demand, but to supply. That is to say, the unemployed who haven't developed their 'employment skills' or simply haven't given it their best shot."

Related: every time I see somebody say something about how all we need to do is train West Virginia coal miners to code, I want to bang my head on a wall. Look, I've never met any West Virginian coal miners, but I have known middle aged people from the South who use a computer maybe for an hour a week, and maybe from within your bubble computer skills are something anybody can easily acquire, because everyone you know is comfortable in that environment and easily navigates the metaphors of, say, object-oriented programming and smartphone interfaces, but I *promise* you the problem is so much harder than you understand. It's a proposal that is at once condescending and infuriatingly naive, and unfortunately it's a general pattern that applies to a lot of the bandaid solutions people have for the growing American precariat. Just give them money. Let them decide what they need. Just give them money!

p. 104: Bergman is frustrated by the shortfalls of GDP as a measure of a country's prosperity--and don't worry, he's not impressed by Bhutan's "Gross National Happiness" either. "Bhutan rocks the chart in its own index, which conveniently leaves out the Dragon King's dictatorship and the ethnic cleansing of the Lhotshampa." (p.118)

He makes some good points--GDP is a more subjective measure than people like to admit; it's hard to measure the produce of certain kinds of work, like Wikipedia which provides tons of practical value to society but is free; in GDP terms the ideal citizen is a compulsive gambler with cancer going through a drawn-out divorce he copes with using massive amounts of antidepressants.

p. 106: "Mental illness, obesity, pollution, crime - in terms of GDP, the more the better [because fixing these problems generates economic activity]. That's why the country with the planet's highest per capita GDP, the United States, also leads in social problems. 'By the standards of the GDP,' says the writer Jonathan Rowe, 'the worst families in America are those that actually function as families - that cook their own meals, take walks after dinner, and talk together instead of just farming the kids out to the commercial culture." OK, there's a little bit of moral panic here, but the broader point is that if your policy goal is maximizing GDP, you're not necessarily maximizing the things people want in their day to day lives; and if the GDP is growing, people aren't necessarily seeing consistent improvement in their lives. The real issue here is careful and nuanced construction of policy, which is probably doable, but kinda tough; Bergman isn't advocating a single alternative to the GDP, and admits even the GDP has its uses (though it most useful moment was probably during World War 2, when measuring the material amount of stuff the country could produce was most urgent).

This chapter also touches nicely on another annoying rhetorical reflex I find among lefties, the whole "resources are finite, the GDP can't grow forever." The GDP isn't a measure of the consumption of finite resources; it's a measure of money moving around in the economy (and hopefully of wealth being created). Non-tangible goods with no or very high limit on the resources they consume, like video games or hours of representation by a lawyer or sex work, all contribute to the GDP, and in an increasingly service-oriented economy the GDP can indeed continue to grow without necessarily substantially increasing resource consumption--especially if we're also making better use of the resources we harvest through, e.g., recycling and renewable energy. You know, things we've been pursuing eagerly for the last half-century. Seriously; do you even *care a little bit* about actually understanding what terms like 'GDP' mean?

p. 107: "The CEO who recklessly hawks mortgages and derivatives to lap up millions in bonuses currently contributes more to the GDP than a school packed with teachers or a factory full of char mechanics." Though I'm not sure how to correct something like this.

p. 108: More on the shortcomings of the GDP, and how in rich countries it's a poor correlate to actual prosperity. In developing countries, though, GDP is still mostly pretty good.

p. 117-119: Some alternatives to GDP, like Genuine Progress Indicator and Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, which incorporate measures of pollution/crime/inequality. "In Western Europe, GPI has advanced a good deal slower than GDP, and in the U.S. it has even receded since the 1970s." Might explain why America feels so crummy compared to Europe whenever I go back there. Like, I don't deny that some parts are fantastically prosperous, but I don't see how anyone who isn't upper middle class can begin to afford to live in most of the U.S.

p. 120: On the absolute limits of economic efficiency. "Unlike the manufacture of a fridge or a car, history lessons and doctor's checkups can't simply be made 'more efficient.'" Well, maybe; there definitely are things in society that can't be, though I think those two are weak examples. He also talks about Baumol's Cost Disease, though in a way different from how I understood it when @slatestarscratchpad was discussing it; if I am understanding him correctly, Bregman says the phenomenon of prices increasing in labor intensive sectors doesn't reflect those sectors actually getting more expensive so much as society choosing to spend more money there, because we have more money to spend as a result of other sectors becoming more efficient.

"Shouldn't we be calling this a blessing, rather than a disease? After all the more efficient our factories and our computers, the less efficient our healthcare and education need to be; that is, the more time we have left to attend to the old and inform and to organize education on a more personal scale. Which is great, right? According to Baumol, the main impediment to allocating our resources toward such noble ends is 'the illusion that we cannot afford them.'

As illusions go, this one is pretty stubborn. When you're obsessed with efficiency and productivity, it's difficult to see the real value of education and care. Which is why so many politicians and taxpayers alike see only costs. They don't realize that the richer a country becomes the more it should be spending on teachers and doctors. Instead of regarding these increases as a blessing, they're viewed as a disease.

Yet unless we prefer to run our schools and hospitals as if they were factories, we can be certain that, in the race against the machine, the costs of healthcare and education will only go up. At the same time, products like refrigerators and cars have become "too cheap". To look solely at the price of a product is to ignore a large share of its costs. In fact, a British think tank estimated that for every pound earned by advertising executives, they destroyed an equivalent of seven pounds in the form of stress, overconsumption, pollution, and debt; conversely, each pound paid to a trash collector creates an equivalent of twelve pounds in terms of health and sustainability."

p. 122: "Governing by numbers is the last resort of a country that no longer knows what it wants, a country with no vision of utopia." I actually disagree here: I think governing by numbers is in principle a fine idea. What's a terrible idea is governing by bad, ambiguous, or useless numbers. A bad measure of national well-being is no better than *no* measure; but you have to have some kind of yardstick or you're just guessing. Responsive policy has to have *something* to respond to.

p. 123-4: On the disillusionment of the inventor of GDP, Simon Kuznets, with the GDP.

p. 134: "But the most disappointing fail? The rise of leisure." I do believe that's the first time I've ever seen "fail" as a simple noun in print. Language marches on, lol.

p. 135-136: On the failure of the workweek to continue getting shorter, even once the size of the labor force increased upon women entering it. I admit that when it comes to a shorter workweek, I have Questions. In principle, yes, a more productive economy means more resources to spread around which means people having to work less; in practice, short of a basic income funded by big taxes on productivity, people working less means less taxable income for the government and less personal income. Nonetheless, the work week getting shorter from the beginning of the industrial revolution to the 70s or 80s or so was accompanied by an *increase* in people's incomes as wages rose. In other words, I'm saying I don't have a good understanding of the economic issues at play here, and I wish I understood them more clearly.

p. 139-140: On the shorter workweek increasing productivity. Henry Ford saw big productivity gains by decreasing his employees' work week from 60 to 40 hours, due to his workers being better-rested and happier. W.K. Kellogg, of cornflakes and masturbation fame, decreased the work day to six hours in 1930 at his factory in Battle Creek; productivity increased so much he hired 300 more people and reduced the accident rate by 41%. "The unit cost of production is so lowered that we can afford to pay as much for six hours as we formerly paid for eight." Nonetheless, there has to be a limit on the gains achievable by this sort of thing? Like, you wouldn't expect a half-hour workday to be commensurately more productive (or even productive at all).

Also the example is given of Edward Heath shortening the workweek to 3 days in 1973 in the U.K. in response to government expenditures rising, inflation, and mining strikes. "On January 1, 1974, he imposed a three-day workweek. Employers were not permitted to use more than three days' electricity until energy reserves had recovered. Steel magnates predicted that industrial production would plunge 50%. Government ministers feared a catastrophe. When the five day workweek was reinstated in March 1974, officials set about calculating the total extent of production losses. They had trouble believing their eyes: The grand total was 6%."

So there is a limit; but it's much lower than I expected. But if you gradually reduced working hours even to the point where productivity began to stagnate a little, this could have positive environmental benefits: one reason we have to worry about global warming is that our fossil fuel consumption is so high. So I dunno, even a really short work week like 3 days might not be such a bad idea, if it was approached gradually.

p. 143-144: Social benefits of less work. Apparently men who take paternity leave not only do more laundry and more housework as a result, but the effect is permanent even after they return to work. An unusual solution to a gender imbalance in unpaid labor, perhaps.

p. 150: For people who worry that lots of leisure time will make people lazy, there's a good Bertrand Russel quote here about how one reason people seem lazy these days when they're not working is because work takes up all their energy: i.e., if you work eight hours a day at a stressful job, maybe all you have the energy to do when you get home is play video games or watch TV. If you want people to do more and more interesting things with their lives, have them work less.

p. 154-155: Another way of looking at Graeber's "bullshit jobs" is as jobs which don't create wealth, but merely move it around.

p. 158-159: Fascinating historical case of a bank strike in Ireland in 1970. "Overnight, 85% of the country's reserves were locked down. ... businesses across Ireland began to hoard cash. ... At the outset, pundits predicted that life in Ireland would come to a standstill."

Spoiler alert: not much happened. The economy continued to grow; the expected paralysis from lack of available money did not appear. Contrast this against the strike by a group more useful to society (garbagemen in NYC) which paralyzes the city in less than a week, this strike lasted six months, and was entirely uneventful.

"After the bank closures, they continued writing checks to one another as usual, the only difference being they could no longer be cashed at a bank. Instead, that other dealer in liquid assets - the Irish pub - stepped in to fill the void. ... 'The managers of these retail outlets and public houses had a high degree of information about their customers,' explains the economist Antoin Murphy. 'One does not after all serve drink to someone for years without discovering something of his liquid resources.'"

Basically, a new, decentralized monetary system appeared overnight, built on the country's 11,000 pubs. The thing that served to help create paper money in Europe in the first place--personal promissory notes and informal networks of trust--served well enough during the strike to maintain the essential institution of paper money, and while it limited the availability of large loans for things like construction projects, it did rather undercut the claim that the financial sector performs some kind of utterly indespensible service the economy can't do without.

p. 161-162: In other words, just because something is difficult and concentrates wealth as a result (finance, say), doesn't mean it's necessarily valuable to the economy as a whole, or that it's creating wealth itself.

p. 165-6: Explicit invocation of Graeber's bullshit jobs. Look, I'm not entirely satisfied with Graeber's notion of the bullshit job; I'd like a more formal examination of how the economy could produce whole industries which are somehow superfluous to its operation. But it's striking how consistently people are willing to declare that, yeah, their own job is essentially bullshit, and thinking about how much genius and skill and knowledge is being soaked up by sections of the economy we could probably do without, and which could be applied to more important problems of human flourishing (like eradicating disease or ending poverty) is kinda terrifying.

p. 169: Bregman's contention is that badly-constructed policy seems to drive the creation of bullshit jobs, like taxing the wrong thing. "A study conducted at Harvard found that Reagan-era tax cuts sparked a mass career switch among the country's brightest minds, from teachers and engineers to bankers and accountants. Whereas in 1970 twice as many male Harvard grads were still opting for a live devoted to research over banking, twenty years later the balance had flipped.... The upshot is that we've all gotten poorer. For every dollar a bank earns, an estimated equivalent of 60 cents is destroyed elswhere in the economic chain." A financial transaction tax, Bregman argues, would get people doing work that's more useful (would create more wealth).

p. 169-171: Bregman touches briefly on one of my pet peeves, in education. The trend of education being tailored to what jobs are in demand (banking, accounting, middle management) and in general treating education like job training, either in the tulip bulbs sense or in a more direct practical sense like the editorial pages of the Economist tend to do, have the tail wagging the dog: education is a means to shape society in positive ways, and we shouldn't necessarily be training people to be accountants unless we think our society is poorer for having fewer accountants. The rule of law, Bregman notes, is not seventeen times more effective in the U.S. than it is in Japan, even though the U.S. has seventeen times the number of lawyers Japan does per capita.

p. 173: Nice coda to his NYC garbage collector strike story: people *really* want to be garbage collectors in NYC these days, because it pays well, even though the hours are long and the work is hard.

p. 195: "Of course, the laborer William Leadbeater may have been exaggerating slightly when he predicted that machines would be 'the destruction of the universe,' but the Luddites' concerns were far from unfounded. Their wages were plummeting and their jobs were disappearing like dust in the wind. 'How are those men, thus thrown out of employ to provide for their families?' wondered the late eighteenth century clothworkers of Leeds. 'Some say, Begin and learn some other business. Suppose we do; who will maintain our families, whilst we undertake the arduous task; and when we have learned it, how do we know we shall be any better for all our pains; for... another machine may arise, which may take away that business also.'" But teach coal miners Java!

p. 200: Bregman doesn't say it, but the impression I get from this book is that we solve a lot of these problems *now*, when maybe--just maybe--they're tractable, or we suffer a lot as things get worse for the next 50 years and end up having a much more chaotic and terrible time trying to fix things once they've broken down beyond our ability to maintain the status quo.

p. 210: On whether it's better to give away mosquito nets or sell them cheaply. Seems to be better to give them away; people used the nets regardless, and even people given nets for free would later buy them if they had the opportunity, i.e., people get used to having nets, not to getting handouts.

p. 215: On the historical recentness of closed borders. Before World War 1, borders seem poised to disappear; border controls were rare, passports seen as a tool of backward countries like Russia and the Ottoman Empire, and people predicted railroads would erase national distinctions. The war, and the closing of borders to prevent spies crossing them, seems to have put the kibosh on that.

p. 216: Let's say you lifted all trade barriers in the world; the productive gains from doing so would be approximately one thousandth that of general open borders. That is a hard number to argue against.

p. 221 ff.: A list of pro-open-borders arguments. Standard fare here: notable stuff includes a discussion of criminality among migrants. It's been noted in some countries, like the Netherlands, immigrants have higher crime rates than the native population, in contrast to countries like the U.S. and the U.K, where the crime rates are lower. "For a long time, research into this question was put off by the dictates of political correctness. But in 2004, the first extended study exploring the connection between ethnicity and youth crime got underway in Rotterdam. Ten years later, the results were in. The correlation between ethnic background and crime, it turns out, is precisely zero. ... Youth crime, the report stated, had its origins in the neighborhood where the kids grow up. In poor communities, kids from Dutch backgrounds are every bit as likely to engage in criminal activity as those from ethnic minorities."

Bregman also argues that, contra Robert Putnam, immigrants don't undermine social cohesion. "Putnam's findings were debunked... . A later retrospective analysis of ninety studies found no correlation whatsoever between diversity and social cohesion." Putnam apparently didn't take into account that African Americans and Latinos report less social cohesion no matter where they live, and controlling for this undermines Putnam's results. Poor communities have less social cohesion, yes, but it's not attributable to the presence of minorities or immigrants.

Another good points is that more open borers promote immigrants' return: when the U.S. patrolled its southern border less strictly, ca. 85% of illegal immigrants who crossed it eventually went back. Seems kind of obvious in retrospect: if you want illegal immigrants to leave... just let them?

I have this prediction that the first developed country that tries open borders is going to get a massive competitive economic advantage against the rest of the world, but I think it'll be a long time before this actually gets tested. Personally, I'm betting on the Canadians.

p. 237: Bregman is willing to discuss some of the doubts he has about his own positions, which is much more than I was expecting from a book of this type. I really, really wish more authors would do this.

p. 240: Bonus Asch Conformity discussion.

Bregman wants to know, can people actually be convinced? And how? His answer's not especially encouraging: it takes a crisis, like 2008. The problem with 2008, though, was that there wasn't a strong counter-narrative in place: there was no alternative to try. Movements like Occupy were nebulous and didn't have a clear set of goals. What was needed was a preexisting political movement or position that was placed to take advantage of people's openness to new solutions. This book is, I suppose, his attempt to spread some of these "utopian" ideas, so when the next crisis hits, they're available as solutions for people to advance. That's a modest goal for a book allegedly about utopian politics, but I don't think he's wrong; opinions change only slowly, and having a realistic view of how to go about changing opinions is important.

p. 254-255: Discussion of the Overton Window, and the left's role in nudging it around. Plus, a slogan I like: "Be realistic! Demand the impossible!"

p. 256: Discussion of leftist parties that seek to quell "radical" sentiment inside their own ranks in order to try to (so they think) remain electable. This is a pattern I see happening repeatedly: in the SPD in Germany, in Labour in the U.K., in the Democrats in the U.S., leaders like Pelosi and the bigwigs of New Labour who think that they have to go as middle-of-the-road as possible and avoid upsetting the status quo, ignoring that the strength of the left is often in expanding peoples' understanding of what society can achieve. It's depressing as hell, and it's not surprising that people are turning toward formerly obscure politicians like Corbyn and Sanders who are willing to actually try new ideas. Trouble is, Corbyn and Sanders have been minor politicians for a long time for a reason: they're charismatic as a couple of day-old fish, and they're not actually that good at uniting their parties.

p. 257-8: "'There's a kind of activism,' Rebecca Solnit remarks in her book "Hope in the Dark," 'that's more about bolstering identity than achieving results.' One thing Donald Trump understands very well is that most people prefer to be on the winning side. ... Most people resent the pity and paternalism of the Good Samaritan. Sadly, the underdog socialist has forgotten that the story of the left ought to be a narrative of hope and progress. By that I don't mean a narrative that only excites a few hisptes who get their kicks philosophizing about 'post-capitalism' or 'intersectionality' after reading some long-winded tome. ... What we need is a narrative that speaks to millions of ordinary people."

And he's not wrong. Bregman argues for reclaiming 'the language of progress,' i.e., meeting the current (neoliberal?) worldview on its own terms and explaining how these goals fulfill its aims, rather than contest them. I'd add to that that I'd like to see a left that actually cares about asking what constitutes effective activism, what actually changes people's minds, and what actually wins election and helps shapes policy, rather than just feeling good and laughing when Richard Spencer gets punched. That second vision of the left isn't just shortsighted; it's depressing, it's small-minded, and it's vicious. It's also selfish: it's about being secure in your own identity rather than *helping people,* and the fact it claims the moral high ground in a lot of debates is just repulsive to me.

All in all, the program Bregman seems to advocate for is startlingly modest, and delightfully specific: he wants UBI, a 15-hour workweek, a financial transaction tax, and open borders; and he's willing to be as incrementialist as possible on all these points. There are some other goals around the edges--a clearer and more purposeful vision of education's role in society, for instance, and a new approach to politics--but these too don't seem to require moving heaven and earth to accomplish them. In some ways, this book disappointed me: there's nothing here that fundamentally upends social or economic relations in the developed world, and it's all pretty consistent with a vision of historical trends in progress just extrapolated a little further into the future. But Bregman writes lucidly and engagingly on these subjects, and he condenses a lot of sources into a single volume. What this book is probably ideal for is giving to your centrist or left-leaning cousin or friend, who might be sympathetic to UBI or a financial transaction tax, or someone you know who is just curious about interesting new policy proposals in general.

Bregman's program would be suitable for a center-left political party in Europe, or a movement within the Democratic Party in the U.S., especially if it was helmed by someone who could talk cannily about these ideas in the public sphere. This book is proof these ideas *aren't* actually that utopian, and *can* be talked about in a way that makes them seem plausible--we just need more people doing that.

#utopia for realists #rutger bregman #basic income #open borders #things i hate about the left #i am the world's worst leftist

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johnmauldin · 6 years

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MAULDIN: 20 Positive Trends That Will Make You Feel Good About the World in 2018

I’m probably one of the most optimistic people you will ever meet. I’m confident in the future of humanity. But I also recognize that we must overcome many challenges to get to the future we ultimately want.

In other words, I try to stay balanced.

For whatever reason, we tend to tune into bad news more eagerly than we do good news. The media is partly to blame, because murders, fires, and nasty weather sell advertising. But something deeper is at work.

It’s an instinctive bias toward watchfulness for danger. This behavior makes perfect sense as the consequences of ignoring bad news are higher. On the other hand, it distorts our collective perception of reality, which creates all sorts of consequences.

Overcoming this bias takes an intentional effort, and to mark the holidays, I’m going to help you do it.

I ran across a great list from the Future Crunch website recently: “99 Reasons 2017 Was a Great Year.” Here, I’ll list some of the best things that happened this year and add my own comments.

Breakthroughs in Medicine

1. This year, the World Health Organization unveiled a new vaccine that’s cheap and effective enough to end cholera, one of humanity’s greatest-ever killers. New York Times

2. Cancer deaths have dropped by 25% in the United States since 1991, saving more than two million lives. Breast cancer deaths have fallen by 39%, saving the lives of 322,600 women. Time

3. In July, UNAIDS revealed that for the first time in history, half of all people on the planet with HIV are now getting treatment, and AIDS deaths have dropped by half since 2005. Science

4. Leprosy is now easily treatable. The number of worldwide cases has dropped by 97% since 1985, and a new plan has set 2020 as the target for eradicating the disease. New York Times (Seriously, did you read that? That’s awesome!)

5. And on November 17, WHO announced that global deaths from tuberculosis have fallen by 37% since 2000, saving an estimated 53 million lives.

I'm bullish on all kinds of life-extension technologies. I really expect to live well beyond age 100 with all my faculties intact.

One by one, killer diseases like cholera are giving way to humanity’s fast-growing medical knowledge. Some of the greatest threats to human beings will be essentially under control within 10 years: Heart disease, arteriosclerosis, cirrhosis, you name it, will have mainstream cures.

And don’t even get me started on induced tissue regeneration, which has the potential to reverse your body's aging to the point where you will be—oh, pick an age—let’s say, 25 again, but with all of the experience you have today.

All these developments are wonderful news from a human standpoint, but also economically. Think of all the potential genius and innovation the world never sees because disease robs it from us. By preserving these lives, we enhance everyone’s life.

A Beautiful World

6. Chile set aside 11 million acres of land for national parks in Patagonia, following the largest-ever private land donation from a private entity to a country. Smithsonian

7. A province in Pakistan announced it has planted one billion trees in two years, in response to the terrible floods of 2015. Independent

8. Cameroon committed to restoring over 12 million hectares of forest in the Congo Basin, and Brazil started a project to plan 73 million trees, the largest tropical reforestation project in history. Fast Co.

9. In 2017, the ozone hole over Antarctica shrank to its smallest size since 1988, the year Bobby McFerrin topped the charts with “Don’t Worry Be Happy.” CNET

Nations and individuals increasingly set aside land for preservation and replant trees by the millions.

The United States is now the major supplier of wood for the United States, and all from renewable areas. We now have more 9 billion more cubic feet of trees in the US than we did in 1953!

That’s 50% more than we had 60 years ago (US Agricultural Service). And the trend is not happening just in the US; Europe and other areas of the world are seeing a real upturn in the growth of forests.

In 1630, roughly half of this country was forest. Today the figure is about 35%, but the bulk of that loss came during the 1800s. Since 1900, we’ve seen overall growth in forests to the point that today we have 820 million acres covered in trees.

Up from Poverty

10. The International Energy Agency announced that nearly 1.2 billion people around the world have gained access to electricity in the last 16 years.

11. In the last three years, the number of people in China living below the poverty line decreased from 99 million to 43.4 million. And since 2010, Chinese income inequality has been falling steadily. Quartz

12. The United States’ official poverty rate is now 12.7%, the lowest level since the end of the global financial crisis. And the child-poverty rate has reached an all-time low, dropping to 15.6%. The Atlantic

Since the turn of the century some 1.2 billion people have gained access to electricity. That’s one of the first steps out of poverty. All the modern technologies that enrich our lives and wallets need electricity to work.

It may be surprising that 12.7% of Americans live below the poverty line. Of course, we define poverty differently than much of the rest of the world does, but we still leave too many people behind through no fault of their own.

Much remains to be done, but I think we've at least noticed the problem now. That’s the first step to fixing it.

The rich are also getting richer. The number of households with a net worth of $1 million (measured in 1995 dollars) grew from 2.4 million in 1983 to 10.8 million in the latest survey in 2017, far outpacing average household income growth.

As a nation, I know we worry a great deal about wealth and income inequality, but in general, we are all getting better.

Endless Energy

13. In the United Kingdom, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, carbon emissions fell to the lowest levels since 1894, and on April 21 the country did not burn any coal, for the first time in 140 years. UK Independent

14. The cost of solar and wind power plummeted by more than 25% in 2017, shifting the global clean energy industry on its axis. Think Progress

The cost of solar has been plummeting 20–25% a year for years now. By 2030, at the latest, we will not be building any natural gas power plants, other than in areas that receive very little solar energy. There are many places in the world where this is possible now with our current technology. But with the improvements that are coming down the pike? Oh my.

15. A new report from the European Union said that between 1990 and 2016 the continent cut its carbon emissions by 23% while the economy grew by 53%. So much for the propaganda of fossil fuel lobbyists.

Something marvelous happened in the UK this year, when that country burned no coal at all on April 21st —the first such day since 1877. How is that even possible? Renewable energy sources are finally stating to show the capacity to displace fossil fuels. That doesn’t mean coal, oil, and gas will disappear in the near future. They’ll still have a place, but as parts of a bigger and cleaner energy menu.

Further, the world’s biggest polluter, China, is beginning to acknowledge the danger and discomfort of living in polluted cities. They are planning to spend $367 billion on renewable energy by 2020 and to make renewable energy 20% of China’s total energy supply by 2030.

Better Life

16. Saudi Arabia said women would no longer need male permission to travel or study. A few months later, women received the right to drive. BBC

I like this new Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. Not saying it’s all rainbows and ponies, but he is doing his best to pull Saudi Arabia into the 21st century.

17. New figures showed that the gender pay gap in the United States has narrowed from 36% in 1980 to 17% today. For young women the gap has narrowed even further, and now stands at 10%. Pew Research

18. Global deaths from terrorism dropped by 22% from their peak in 2014, thanks to significant declines in four of the five countries most impacted: Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. ReliefWeb

19. Rates of violent crime and property crime have dropped by around 50% in the United States since 1990, yet a majority of people still believe they have gotten worse. Pew Research

20. Snow leopards have been on the endangered list since 1972. In 2017, they were taken off, as the wild population has now increased to more than 10,000 animals. BBC

Sometimes humanity is its own worst enemy.

The things people do to each other through war, crime, or simple disrespect hold back progress for everyone. But 2017 brought some improvements.

We see women and minority groups gaining new recognition and equality. Terrorism deaths and crime rates have fallen. Some endangered species have recovered.

Cleaner Water and Air

There is good news on this front, too. As you can see in the chart below, we are using roughly the same amount of water in the US as we did back in 1970, but the population has grown by almost 50%.

We are producing vastly more food, generating more hydroelectric energy, and doing more of all the other things that can only be done with water.

Source: USGS Water Science School

And if you go to the EPA website, you find that carbon monoxide emissions are down 77% since 1990; lead in the air is down 99%; total nitrogen dioxide is down over 50%; particulate matter emissions are down on average about 44%; and sulfur dioxide is down 85%. And that’s just in the last 25 years.

Some of us with a few gray hairs on our heads remember flying into this Los Angeles and not being able to see the city or the Valley for the smog.

Again, you can read the full list for more good news. I might quibble with the authors on some items, as they represent government interventions that may have negative side effects, but most of the 99 items represent welcome progress.

Get one of the world’s most widely read investment newsletters… free

Sharp macroeconomic analysis, big market calls, and shrewd predictions are all in a week’s work for visionary thinker and acclaimed financial expert John Mauldin. Since 2001, investors have turned to his Thoughts from the Frontline to be informed about what’s really going on in the economy. Join hundreds of thousands of readers, and get it free in your inbox every week.

#future #trends #world #global #economy

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raymookie · 7 years

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Living abroad.

...it’s the worst decision I’ve ever made and now I’m stuck, haha. Kidding. That would be an awful way to begin. I’ve received a few messages from people asking me about living abroad, how I’m doing it, what’s it like, etc. I wrote this to answer as many of those questions as possible. I hope it’s helpful and entertaining.

Why do it?

Living outside of the United States has given my life new meaning and a better understanding of the world around me on a macro and micro level. Equally as important as understanding the world around me - the people, politics, relationships and their inter-relatedness - I understand myself a lot more. The most empowered, self-assured, and knowledgeable individuals I have ever met have spent some time abroad which is why I am so adamant that people spend some time abroad. I’m still figuring life out, don’t get me wrong, but because I’ve had so many different life experiences I’m more confident and aware of my capacity as a leader. I’m also more certain of my abilities because they have been demonstrated in domestic and international contexts under varying circumstances. Whenever I have an interview my experience abroad is always brought up, and it serves as the perfect canvas on which to paint the story of my life. So if you want to read people’s minds, make them want you, or find out what makes them tick, book the next one-way ticket to Venezuela and never look back. Traveling will change yo life son!

baby pineapples & mangoes. treat yo body right. food market in vedado, havana.

Connect with the locals

The first time I traveled out of the United States it was to study abroad for a year in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I had never even been to Mexico and it’s right next door! Some people will say that it’s crazy to venture somewhere you’ve never been, especially for a whole year! “But what if you don’t like it?” they say. “I heard it’s dangerous there!” Those same people live in the same place their entire lives, taking their biennial cruise to Ensenada, and staying in a hotel full of Americans each time. That, I don’t understand. I’m not saying you have to dipset to the Congo and live in a hut with the pygmies but get out of your comfort zone. If you’re going to Mexico, hang out with the Mexicans who live there! If you’re going to the Bahamas make a day trip with a Bahamian! Spend time with people from other countries and have experiences that you can’t have at home. There is nothing like spending time with people in their homeland to make you realize how silly our fears and prejudices are. We all have them but it is a choice whether we choose to live with them or educate ourselves. We are all the same in this crazy world! That is my biggest takeaway from living abroad: that we are all essentially the same. You’ve probably heard me say this before but I repeat it because it’s true! We all want to be safe, happy, and have fun but most importantly, we want to be loved. The connections I make with people across the globe continually remind me of this and give me fresh perspectives on the world, so I encourage you to take a risk and travel somewhere new. You won’t regret it!

my friends do it right. ballwall with some cubanos!

because I talk to everyone...rooftop bar on el prado.

A little bit about ya boiii

I graduated from Pepperdine University in 2015 with a BA in International Studies and a minor in Spanish. I speak English, Spanish, Portuguese and I’m currently studying Japanese. I just moved to Kawakami, Nagano in Japan and I am working for the JET Program. Technically I am employed by Japan’s Board of Education but I applied through the JET Program.

International Timeline

2012, September - 2013, April - Studied abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina

2015, April - Graduated from Pepperdine

2015, May - June - Studied abroad in Madrid, Spain

2015, June - September - Went backpacking through Europe

2016, February - December - Taught English in Campinas, Brazil through the Fulbright Program

2016, June - Cuba for two weeks

2017, June - Present - Teaching English in Kawakami, Nagano, Japan

Pepperdine University has several satellite campuses around the world which made studying abroad for me easy. I filled out the simplest application and sent it to the Office of International Relations at my university, and...voilà! OK it wasn’t that simple but it was very easy. I had to write a personal essay and the rest was filling in data about myself, very similar to the Fulbright ETA Program. With that being said, I am not the best resource for study abroad programs but I know of a few post-grad grants and scholarships for teaching or doing research abroad.

me and my woes somewhere in cuba.

pretend that I’m Adam and that plate is a cheap flight. I know you want it.

Is living abroad difficult?

Yes, this shit is hard. A lot of articles you find online will sugarcoat this part but it needs to be discussed more. Depression is commonplace when living abroad for months or years at a time. If you or someone you know decides to move abroad for an extended period of time they are most likely going to become depressed at some point, but there are ways to combat it and even prevent it from happening.

From my experience, there are several reasons why people get depressed abroad.

When a person moves to a new country there is a period of time spent practically in isolation. It is not always physical isolation, however. Even when you’re with people, you’re still kind of...well, by yourself. You’re the new guy/girl and people are fascinated by you. You’re unable to effectively communicate who you are to the people around you who’ve already begun to assign attributes to you. You’re almost like a mermaid - you’ve just rode into shore on this big, crystal wave and everyone is obsessed with you, but no one really believes that you’re real. People just want to look at you, poke you in the belly, listen to your funny accent. You will meet your fans though, the ones who have been dreaming of this day their entire lives. “I LOVE AMERICAAA”, they’ll scream. They might even connect you with their other mermaid friends - the teacher from Canada or the photographer from New Zealand. This can be good because sometimes the transition is too much to bear alone and you need to speaka da English with other gringos. Let it out! But don’t lose sight of the goal: you are there to become fluent in another culture.

You spend a lot of time at home alone in the beginning while you struggle to make sense of the new world around you. You’ll get exhausted from the smallest of tasks, but rest assured, this is normal. Your brain is working in overtime! But get off your ass and get moving. Get involved in something. It doesn’t matter what it is, but sign up and attend, especially if you’re not naturally a social person. The longer you put off getting involved in something, the harder it will be later on. Being active is also very important to your mental health. Running has saved me from the pits of despair on several occasions which is why I always encourage people to join a sports team or fitness group to keep you accountable. You need to release those endorphins! Explore the area you’re living in and don’t be afraid to spark up conversation with the locals. You’d be surprised how many people get excited at the opportunity to practice English. This is also an easy way to make friends and cure your loneliness, even if for a day. Also, just say yes! If someone invites you somewhere, say yes! Even it’s to the grocery store. I’ve been on so many unnecessary grocery store trips abroad just because I needed to get out of the house and be with people. It sounds silly but believe me, any little bit helps and it often leads to another adventure.

las cervezas nunca acaban. still at the rooftop bar

these boys will walk you up the stairway to travel heaven <3

But baby it’s worth it (na na nanana na naaa)

Living abroad, like anything of value in this world, requires hard work and sacrifice. Most importantly, endurance. It’s like I work overtime every day because I am putting in extra work to learn a new language and become culturally competent. I could live like an American while I was away - only speak English, ignore the customs of my host country, act entitled to everything - but I am driven by a desire to understand and unite people. Perhaps this is American...I don’t know, but the reward you get from just trying is priceless. I don’t want to say my life is more fun than yours but it really is...truly (Joannethescammer voice). The lows are low but the highs are really, really high. You have to risk it to get the biscuit! I want this for you, cookie! It seems crazy the first time but once you realize how easy it is you’ll be hooked. My decision to study abroad in Buenos Aires was very spontaneous, especially considering my major was English at the time, but it was the decision that changed the entire trajectory of my life. I’ll be catchin flights ‘til the day I die.

when people ask if I’m cultured...lol. this is before the thunderstorm shut us in! dope place to wait for a storm to pass. museo de arte experimental in old town, havana.

Raymookie Banzo,

over & out

#travel #nomad #nomadlife #study abroad #zoom #canon #canonphotography #cuba #havana #international #blacktravelfeed #afropunk #afro #art #beer #jetset #about me

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lucyvivesnews · 7 years

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Revista Jet Set - August 2016

Where the interest in fashion born?

"Since I was little I had an obsession to disguise me, from there comes the passion to dress me differently. It's a way of expressing that I think is important."

Your arrival at modeling has occurred spontaneously...

"That's right, I started with a taste for photography. In Puerto Rico I posed for some friends artists, I uploaded those photos to the networks and it seems that the photos liked because some photographers began to look for me. Over time I wanted to take more pictures, dress, make-up, it became an exciting subject. Now that I arrived at Bogota, I started working on my portfolio."

Don't you have a taboo with your body?

"Unfortunately I don't have taboos with almost nothing and less with my body. I like to walk around naked, it seems cool to me. It'd be nice that one day no one would realize that one is without clothes and see it as something natural. It's important for me to show that to the people of my generation who need that security. "

How you handle that freedom of being a Vives?

"I am representative of my surname and I never stop having that in my conscience. But it could be worse if my dad and I didn't seem that much, he doesn't have taboos either. Although he is very careful as a father that never crosse the line of morbidity or eroticism. As long as he respects me and makes me respect, I can push my limits a little further."

Today most women look in the mirror and don't like what they see...

"They look ugly, fat, weird, and they wonder how much it costs to have a surgery. I don't feel that way, when I look in the mirror, the most important are my eyes because I realize how I feel, sometimes I look at myself and say: 'Oh, what sadness or what a good day ! because they shine.' "

You have been in the stage to sing with your dad, have you thought about dedicating to music?

"Everything I know I've learned from my dad, but it's a project that worries me because I have a lot of pressure. For the past two years, I've been sitting down and saying, 'I'm going to start my musical project 'and then there's a silence of about 20 minutes and I think,' But where to start?' "

Do you see yourself singing vallenato? “No, although it seems important to me that there is a woman who does it, but I don’t have the gift to sing with that feeling and put a whole soul in it. Although that music seems beautiful to me.”

So which genre would you like to sing?

“My dad always told me that the most important thing is to create a genre, your own sound and that’s what I’m doing. I like jazz, acoustic music and rap, who have an African American background. I try to mix those sounds with instruments that I like like the harp, the violin, the piano, the ukulele.”

What is your favorite song of your dad?

“I have faith (Tengo Fe) and What has the night (Que tiene la noche) that are part of the rock of my people”

When are we going to hear your songs?

“I’m working on my album, let’s go bit by bit. My dad is part of my team, this year he went to New Orleans and we sat down with my producer and heard the five tracks we have. I expected the worst because he’s very honest but he liked it. That gave me an impetus that maybe this is a good material. I composed all the songs, every sound, it’s my baby. The day I release my music I can’t look back. I hope in a year and a half to have it ready.”

How is Carlos as a dad?

He’s overprotective, by any phone I get a message or a photo of him and he says: ‘Look, daddy exists, don’t forget’ I’m the worst with communication, I have to admit it.

Do you look yourself as a singer or model in the future?

“What I want to be is an activist on women's issues, which is one of the things I study at university. There I focus on our right to equality, to freedom. I am against domestic violence and mistreatment from men.”

Where did this concern arise from the female equality?

“I was born in a family full of women and it has always been very interesting to see the difference between us, how we think. In my family, women say what we feel and we make ourselves respected, but for society that’s very rare. What seems strange to me is that they look different to a woman who says what she thinks.”

Why did you decide to study philosophy?

“My father gave me my first book of philosophy when I was very young, in that book Friedrich Nietzsche said that God doesn’t exist. I read it all the book because I loved it. This man said the most absurd things, but he argued them so well that in the end I agreed with his thinking and even ended up being an atheist. There I entered the passion of being able to say things, to express my reasons with arguments and to be able to convince many people.”

Are you still an atheist?

“No, thanks God I read other books of philosophy that convinced me that God exists. I am not very religious but I consider myself Christian. Now I have another vision that is not that evil God who punishes or judges.”

How are you doing at the university?

“I love my career, I’ve been two and a half year and there are four. I am part of many activist groups, I study in a community very open to the racial theme, which in the United States is now in full bloom. I live in a state where most of us are African-American and there’s a lot of jazz and blues. I have joined those groups to know how I can help, I love to be part of the protests. Every year there is a week of talks and in this I had the opportunity to share experiences with Congo women in Africa on clitoral mutilation and the burqa in Palestine. I talked about misogyny in the Hispanic culture. I really like to compare our situations.”

Do you also like acting?

“Yes, all that theme of dressing up and doing another character fills me. I did a lot of theater at school. I remember coming to my house and saying: ‘Mom, tomorrow I am José in the production of Carmen’ and I’d go with a tie and a mustache; And the next day I would say, ‘Tomorrow I am Francis Bacon’ and she was looking for another mustache.”

How did you assume the separation of your parents?

“It didn’t affect me as much as my brother Carlos Enrique. I have always been weird in my way of thinking, when I was 6 years old I wrote a letter to my parents asking them to divorce because to see them fighting wasn’t good. I said, ‘If you are here for me, don’t do it, if we are going to be together but unhappy, it won’t be better.’ For my brother it was different, he said this has to work. Maybe if in that moment I’d think what was going to come later, in the possibility of another woman and children, I would enter in a panic attack like Carlos Enrique. The good thing is that everything came little by little.”

How do you assimilate it now?

“Well, Elena and Pedro have a very fresh mentality on the subject. The other day Elena told me: ‘Margarita Rosa de Francisco is my mom, my mom is my mom and your mom is also my mom’ I said ‘She sees everything as an immense family and why can not it be like that, if at any moment all those people were important in my dad’s life?’ I feel cool and I don’t think that much anymore.

Do you have plans to come and live in Colombia?

“I was thinking about it, I even took my lease until December because I wanted to do another semester and go to Colombia. Sometimes I feel lonely and I think I can be here with my family. But I really don’t think I’ll come back yet. Now I want to see what campaigns I can work on, there are a lot of activist groups that need help with so much that is happening now in Europe, and I am in the age to do it.”

#lucy vives #interview

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joramjojo · 5 years

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SPEECH BY HIS EXCELLENCY FELIX-ANTOINE TSHISEKEDI TSHILOMBO

SPEECH BY HIS EXCELLENCY MR FELIX-ANTOINE TSHISEKEDI TSHILOMBO, PRESIDENT OF THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO AT THE SIXTY-FOURTEENTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE UNITED NATIONS

New York, Thursday, September 26, 2019

Mr. President of the United Nations General Assembly,

In addressing this august assembly, I would like to congratulate you, Ambassador TIJJANI MUHAMMAD BANDE, on your brilliant election as President of the 74th Ordinary General Assembly of the United Nations. United Nations. My congratulations extend to the members of Your Office, and I wish to express to your entire team my best wishes for the accomplishment of this exalting mission.

I would also like to pay tribute to Mr Antonio GUTERRES,

Secretary-General of the United Nations, for his tireless efforts to strengthen our Organization and strengthen its role in finding solutions to the problems that threaten peace, security and prosperity in the world.

Mister President ;

The theme of this Session, which is: To galvanize multilateral efforts for poverty eradication, quality education, climate change and inclusion, is timely at this very difficult time for multilateralism, while humanity as a whole is engaged in an unprecedented momentum, within the framework of the 2030 Agenda for Development. This agenda provides for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, the implementation of the of Addis Ababa Action on Financing for Development and Achieving Targets in the Paris Climate Agreement.

Inequality and exclusion are at the root of the main threats to peace, stability and harmonious development. They feed the uncontrolled migratory flows of entire peoples in search of a better future.

In both northern and southern countries, they accentuate xenophobic reflexes, the rise of populism, and the radicalization of the left behind. The tragic events in South Africa are the worst illustration.

These movements of popular frustrations, which in some regions go as far as nurturing terrorism, hijack the political debate and prevent us from providing concerted responses to the problems that affect us all.

Mister President,

I say from the top of this House that no country in the world can face these challenges alone. Unity, solidarity, tolerance and international cooperation are essential values, reflected by our founding fathers in the Charter of our Universal Organization.

More than ever, the economic and social development and the fulfillment of the peoples of the planet are fundamental and inalienable rights.

As leaders, we carry the obligation to work hard to guarantee these rights.

For decades, our Common Organization has been striving to adapt to the new realities of this ever-changing world.

In order to be better able to sustainably meet the challenges of development in a globalized world, we advocate a comprehensive reform of the

United Nations, including the Security Council and agencies of the United Nations system. The reform process of the Security Council must be completed and take into account the African Common Position set out in the EZULWINI Consensus and in the Declaration of SYRTE.

It is not fair that Africa remains the only region in the world without permanent representation in the Security Council, while most of the demographic, social and environmental challenges of the planet are intrinsically linked to our continent. We want a fair and equitable Security Council configuration, more representative of the peoples of the world in their diversity and accountable for their actions.

Mister President,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Despite the commitments at the highest level that we have made to create the world we want by 2030, nearly a billion people

still live in hunger, malnutrition and extreme poverty, while 118 million people living in extreme poverty will be exposed to drought, floods and heat in Africa by 2030.

We can not accept the simple hypothesis of a possible failure of global commitments by 2030, especially after the very mixed result, particularly in Africa, of the Millennium Development Goals campaign.

The eradication of poverty and hunger is now urgent!

The Democratic Republic of Congo can be part of the solution, with its 80 million hectares of arable land and abundant waters, capable of feeding more than 2 billion people.

The challenge of access to quality education for all, the second subject of the theme of this Session, is of particular interest to us because the experience of the development of the post-independence decades has reinforced our conviction that there is only men.

That is why, since 2011 already, we had made the main idea of the 2030 Agenda to LEAVE NO ONE FOR ACCOUNT (LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND), through our well-known commitment from my compatriots titled: THE PEOPLE FIRST!

Also, the main social priorities of my mandate are defined as follows:

First, to make free primary education in public education as required by the constitution of my country. This commitment has been effective since the beginning of this month throughout the territory.

It will bring, in a year, the share of education spending by 8% to almost 20% of the state budget, a level close to the standards recommended by UNESCO.

Secondly, to promote a better match between education and employment, through an ambitious technical and vocational training strategy, designed and implemented in partnership with the private sector.

Third, advance the worksite of universal health coverage.

We hope that by the end of next year, more than

An additional 8 million Congolese will have access to an effective health insurance system.

On the other hand, the Democratic Republic of Congo has just defined its National Digital Plan, the implementation of which will impact all sectors of national life. In addition, the digitization of the economy will enable the country to make rapid progress in the fight against corruption and various economic crimes.

Mister President,

Our democracies have become particularly demanding and impatient, we must find ways to implement our ambitions that are off the beaten path.

As a result, I have initiated a vast emergency community development program, which will act as a lever to accelerate the reduction of socio-economic and spatial inequalities in cities and territories. It will be a special, multisectoral and integrated program, which I will pilot personally, with a view to making up for the country’s backwardness in its progress towards the achievement of the World Development Goals.

This program will benefit from the strategic and financial support of all partners and support from the United Nations Development Program. It aims to increase people’s access to basic social services, particularly through the promotion of rural micro-hydroelectric power stations, more than 700 of which are already identified.

The program also aims at developing human capital, as well as strengthening the connectivity of territories through rural roads.

Mister President,

The socio-economic development of humanity by 2030 will be sustainable or will not be. In this respect, our fate, whether rich or poor, is more than ever linked. Through its natural resources and demographic vitality, Africa has become the backbone of this sustainability.

In this Africa, nature has made my country the repository for 47% of the continent’s forests, giving it a major responsibility for the survival of our planet.

I have already had to remind him several times; it is imperative and urgent to make available to our continent new sources of energy and new modes of production compatible with the preservation of the environment and the affirmation of our inalienable right to development.

We are firmly committed to protecting our forests. However, the preservation of our natural heritage can not be done to the detriment of our development.

It is incomprehensible that the Congo Basin forests, which are the best conserved in the world, capture only 1% of available funding.

It is imperative that the entire international financial architecture, including the International Monetary Fund in its catalytic role in financing development, further integrates the environmental dimension into its analysis of macroeconomic criteria and challenges, linked to its interventions in different areas. country.

As far as we are concerned, aware of the DRC’s major role in this respect, our Government has relaunched the dialogue with its main partners on environmental issues, particularly those brought together under the Central African Forests Initiative. Responding to the call of Secretary-General of the United Nations, our Government is committed, by my person, to increase the level of its commitments under its Determined National Contribution and to maintain close collaboration among countries of the sub-region, to speak with one voice on all major issues related to forest protection.

My Government has made clean and renewable energy production the first of its economic priorities for the five-year period.

We can, with aggressive investments and an attractive policy to protect these investments, go from less than 10% of electrification currently to 60% in the next 10 years, significantly reducing the consumption of firewood. Also, as part of the realization of our energy mix, to strengthen the fight against deforestation, my Government encourages the development of the use of domestic gas in urban, peri-urban and rural areas.

Ultimately, we want to be the place on the planet where the electric kilowatt hour will be the cheapest, thanks to the exploitation of our capacity of more than 100,000 megawatts in hydropower.

We are willing to further regulate logging and expand natural reserves and parks to increase our biomass and protect our biodiversity. On the other hand, this can only be achieved with, in return, the effective implementation of an eco-responsible industrialization strategy, concentrated around the production and consumption centers, and generating employment for our youth.

Our population, whose average age is 17½, is only slightly older than young Greta and shares some of her concerns and interests.

But how will our young people commit to the same struggle when they have neither water nor light?

I have also decided to gradually move my country out of an archaic agricultural system, with low productivity and destructive of our forest heritage.

To this end, we will promote an agroforestry that maximizes our comparative advantage for certain crops, favoring savannah areas.

I intend to make the environmental issue an omnipresent and cross-cutting concern, which affects all of our policies, strategies, programs and development projects.

Mister President,

As I address the world from this rostrum for the first time, I must remind you of the special relationship our Organization has with my country.

First of all, this relationship inspires me with a sense of gratitude.

Indeed, the Democratic Republic of Congo has often been at the heart of the United Nations, following the many crises it has experienced since independence.

From the tragic death of Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld to the many fallen peacekeepers, to the more recent assassination of UN experts Zaïda Catalan and Michael Sharp, the United Nations, more than any other international organization, lived in his flesh the realities that live millions of my compatriots.

The UN and its many agencies have also deployed significant financial resources to support the Democratic Republic of Congo.

I would like to reiterate the gratitude of the Congolese people who will never forget the support of our Organization.

That being said, I can not help regretting that my country’s history is so painfully linked to the United Nations, which for 24 years 59 years of independence, has deployed a mission of peace.

Why, despite this long presence, most hopes for peace and development have been disappointed? Beyond internal choices and responsibilities, we can not observe the Congo or Africa in isolation from the rest of the world and the interests of others.

What would be the trajectory of Congo without the assassination of Patrice Lumumba?

What would have become of my country if we had allowed it to continue its peaceful democratic learning of the post-cold-war era without going through a war from elsewhere?

And without wishing to go back so far in time, we live every day these shocks of interests that most often explain the recurring fragility of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Today, the biggest challenge of the Democratic Republic of Congo is that of peace, security and stability. Since our inauguration, convinced of the absolute necessity of peace, we have committed ourselves unreservedly to the achievement of this objective, taking into account all its regional and international dimension.

It is in this perspective that I proposed, last July at the 39th SADC Summit held in Dar es Salaam, the creation of a regional coalition in the image of the global coalition against terrorism, to eradicate the plague insecurity created by armed groups of internal and external origin. In the east of my country, our Security Forces are fighting daily, with the support of MONUSCO, determined to eradicate the negative forces that sow death and desolation among our people.

Some of these rebel movements, including the ADF-MTN, are operating in terrorist acts in accordance with their membership of DAESH, which poses a new threat for both my country and the subregion.

As if conflicts and instability were not enough, these eastern regions of the DRC have been affected for one year by an epidemic of Ebola.

Given the seriousness of the situation, I set up last May, a Technical Unit that works under my supervision, made up of internationally renowned experts and led by our compatriot, the Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe, who is the one who identified the Ebola virus and whose research led to the discovery of MB114, a therapeutic molecule for the treatment of this disease.

The new response strategy is starting to take effect, especially in the city of Goma, which is now immune to the virus. Although much has been done, the epidemic is not yet eradicated. The strategy will be strengthened by the introduction of five new approved drugs, in addition to the Ebola vaccine, which will completely eliminate this scourge.

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the solidarity shown by our bi and multilateral partners, particularly the World Health Organization, the African Union, UNICEF, the World Health Organization World Food, MONUSCO and many others.

With particular regard to this UN mission, in this pivotal period of its future in the DRC. Marked by the exercise of a strategic review, I would first like to reiterate the Congolese people’s thanks to the contributing countries for the human and material sacrifices made to date for my country.

I note a convergence of views with the Secretary-General on the urgent need to re-adapt the configuration of MONUSCO to the changing situation on the ground, with a greater focus on the operational response capabilities of UN forces to sides of the DRC Armed Forces. In other words, the DRC still needs MONUSCO, but a MONUSCO non-bloated, well equipped, strong and with a suitable mandate, like the Rapid Intervention Brigade that had once, help defeat the M23 rebel movement.

Mister President,

Like other developing countries, the Democratic Republic of Congo aspires to emergence.

We are convinced that our country, which by its geo-strategic position is at the crossroads of the economic groupings of Central Africa, Southern Africa and East Africa, must play the card of African integration as the driving force of development and vector of peace between nations. That is why we have supported the Continental Free Trade Area project, while being aware that it will be implemented in successive stages. This process inevitably involves the harmonization and disarmament of customs barriers.

It is in this vision that the DRC intends to accelerate the implementation of an infrastructure development program at the height of its immense area of 2,345 million square kilometers, in order to connect the country from West to East and from North to South, to facilitate the transit of goods and people and to liberate the agricultural potential of our provinces.

Mister President,

Today, the DRC holds about 70% of the world’s strategic metals reserves, which are essential for achieving the energy and digital transition that is binding on humanity.

Rather than using its natural reserves of minerals as a source of monopoly rent, my country intends to open up to the world by allowing the regulated exploitation of its subsoil against an accompaniment to the industrialization and the production of batteries and higher value-added components. The world is thirsty for cobalt, coltan, lithium; we want industrial jobs, training, and development.

Finally, the DRC has 53% of Africa’s freshwater reserves, and sustainable management of this potential will one day quench the thirst of a quarter of the world’s inhabitants.

Mister President,

Today we are experiencing a deep crisis of the liberal international order.

The law of the strongest will only reinforce frustrations and violence.

By way of illustration, the recent attacks on oil installations in Saudi Arabia raise fears of a conflagration around the Strait of Hormuz, which would paralyze the world economy.

We have a duty to denounce any form of violent reaction to political problems that can be resolved through dialogue and consultation.

Are we ready to define a new world order in which Africa and the DRC will play the role given to them by the changes recorded?

I believe that a new way is possible, probably the most difficult, probably the most complex, the most demanding, which requires us to think outside the box.

Mister President,

My country the Democratic Republic of Congo, which had just organised democratic and peaceful elections for the third time, had the good fortune to live, for the first time in its history, a peaceful and democratic alternation, while many of observers painted a rather gloomy and pessimistic picture of the outcome of the electoral process.

This historic victory is above all that of the Congolese people, whose intense sacrifices made in recent years have been rewarded by the successful completion of a high-risk electoral process.

It is also an opportunity to thank the international community, especially the SADC countries, Kenya, Egypt and the USA, who, without delay, have encouraged this giant step accomplished by my country in the construction process. rule of law.

Since my inauguration, I am working to consolidate this democratic advance by guaranteeing all rights and freedoms. No one is harassed for his opinions; the DRC no longer has prisoners of conscience; no one feels the need to emigrate to save his life or preserve his security because of his political convictions or his particular associations.

As far as gender mainstreaming is concerned, even though we have not yet achieved full parity, I am pleased to note the progress made in the DRC in this area in all sectors. By increasing the participation rate of women from 6% to 18%, the current Government has reached the highest level of female participation in the history of my country. I have made the gender approach one of my priority political commitments.

Mister President,

At the level of the Region, I have developed an intense diplomatic activity with a view to reaffirming my country’s continued commitment to good-neighbourly relations and to peaceful coexistence, while respecting the territorial integrity and the sovereignty of other nations. In this sense, we African leaders must give our continent a consensual and harmonious voice, based on a truly African policy.

Allow me to express my deep concern about what is happening in the Mediterranean Sea, where several people, candidates for emigration, die every day in inhuman conditions. The waves of refugees and the shocking images we have been experiencing over the last few years on the European coast must challenge our consciences as leaders.

Since the beginning of 2015, more than 500 thousand migrants have tried to reach Europe via the Mediterranean and more than 5 000 of them have died during the crossing. The seriousness of this disaster requires urgent and effective solutions from us. The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, which we adopted in Marrakech in 2018, is our response to the migration crisis. We have a duty to develop, as soon as possible, ambitious national initiatives for its implementation. But our best weapon is to work for development, equity and stability around the world.

I also take this opportunity to claim from this rostrum, the full lifting of the sanctions that still affect the Republic of Zimbabwe, and since 2002. These sanctions are no longer justified when the country has opened a new chapter of its own. history and was open to cooperating with the world. The maintenance of these sanctions is unfair.

It hampers the country’s attractiveness to foreign investment and affects not only Zimbabwe, but also the entire region.

Mister President,

Ladies and gentlemen,

The absolute priority of my action is to offer a perspective of dignity to our populations, to promote job creation especially for young people and to fight against precariousness and exclusion.

And this assembly that wants to reduce inequalities and build a more inclusive world, can be the voice of those leave out.

The challenge is enormous, but what makes us human is our ability to find solutions, even the most improbable, when necessary.

Thank you

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#ADF-MTN #Africa #Congo #Congo Basin forests #Congolese #Congolese people #Democratic Republic of Con

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baonhinguyenblog-blog · 6 years

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First day at Fontys UAS

Well on the first day as a freshman I find a lot of interesting things about this course. To be honest, it was a really exciting experience because I had a chance to meet many new people who from different countries.

When the class began I was really surprised by our lectures especially about Ramon Vullings voice and what I was impressed first was the way he divided the group of students randomly but wisely. I was lucky to be divided in the group which had the students from different nations: Congo, Italy, Thailand so it made my group diverse. The second experience I had a chance to have was going to the Natlab to watch the movie named “The Martian”. It was so weird and it was extremely different from Vietnam. “You go to the university to study why do you have time to watch a movie”- my mother said when I call her. It was pretty ridiculous but it also helped me to learn something about my course and in life. There were some lessons that I really wanted to share with you. From this movie, I learnt from Mark about his attitude when the situation seems hopeless. He didn’t give up he tried anyway, he started doing what he can, then making plan step by step and finding ways to do things. He went ahead with a plan and a purpose. When the problems arose, he knew how to use his practical and theoretical knowledge to solve many engineering problems to survive. He didn’t get stuck in there was the only way to solve the problems, sometimes he didn’t follow the rules, he made up rules by himself. Another lesson that I was really into was when he was left behind on Mars with only minimal support equipment. In this situation, he didn’t blame the Commander and other crews, it’s just a bad luck. Regardless of who you are, what height of your success you achieve, you are also hit by the worst trial of life, so just forgiveness and try hard to find the way to encounter this.

At the end of this day, I find the hardest thing was how to collaborate with the group members. The cultural diversity made me sock at first because I have never worked with foreign people when I studied in Vietnam. Anyway, it was such a wonderful experience in my life.

#firstdayatFontys

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mytiarafitsme · 6 years

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This past weekend I was able to help celebrate the life of my friend Leslie in Cancun, Mexico. Simply put, life was lived and melanin was popping! We booked through Expedia three weeks before our trip! We decided on the amount we did not mind spending for flight and lodging, and booked through Expedia’s travel packages. I must say the trip exceeded my expectations of what I assumed Cancun would be like and Mexico has captured my little travel heart!

Day One. Our first day in we decided to explore Cancun calm night life a little. We asked the hotel concierge for suggestions to just hang. Of course they began with giving us typical places they assume tourist would like to go, but we expressed our desire to go to places they personally like to go. Well lets just say they gave us just that, they recommended going to Plaza de Toros. We chose to dine at Las de Guantos where it took us maybe 20 minutes after being entertained by the most turnt waiter ever, to realize no one at the restaurant bar spoke any English Not even a little! It was more cool than stressful. I work at a school with 85% Hispanic population where I also teach an English class for parents and others in our community. Dining at this bar allowed me to walk in the shoes of the population I serve and advocate for daily, for a second. I say a second because this trip, this experience, could not be compared to their daily experiences in the U.S., but it inspired me more and reminded me to continue doing the work God has set out forth me to do at this moment.

I would like to take a second to thank God & Google! I am a huge google fan, since like tenth grade when I found out you can simply text google for responses. I’ve used it often when talking to clients, it’s not always accurate, but it gets the job done- especially in person. We were using it so much this night that our waiter asked to use the phone and he translated from Spanish to English! The little Spanish we knew collectively was just fine until our taxi never came back to pick us up, and they could not understand that we were stranded. It was all worth the hustle because our taxi ride back was the cheapest ride of the entire trip! Our waiter definitely looked out for us through our language barrier. Exploring is always a risk, and this night was worth it.

Day Two. If I could change any part of the trip it would be the morning we were too nice and decided to listen to the resorts sale pitch on a time share! Ahh, worst decision ever. There was some interest until we realized we had spent over three hours listening to them and that was just too much time to give away for a weekend trip! After that was over we traveled up to Hotel Zone where we hung out at Playa Langosta for a minute. I was able to see friends from back home who were celebrating their birthdays as well, us being in Cancun at the same time was the biggest coincidence! We ended our night celebrating three birthdays at Congo Bar Cancun. Our night was filled with unapologetic live your life moments. We enjoyed an open bar, great music, and overall great vibes.

Day Three. also known as my favorite day of the trip! We began the day with breakfast at the resort followed by quick sun bathing at the beach until our boat arrived at the loading dock. We got onboard of a Catamaran and sailed off to Isla Mujeres meaning Island of Women. Isla Mujeres is an island in the Caribbean Sea. The island’s name originates from the historical findings that priestesses were the first to ever live on the island. It is believed that the women lived there for centuries by themselves. Can you say empowering?

On the way to Isla Mujeres we had an open bar and snacks. The snack consisted of the best guacamole and pico de gallo EVER. We were not expecting that at all, I assumed peanuts or something! We were apart of the sightseeing, snorkeling, and sailing trip that the CATmania Sailing Trip company offers, but due to weather conditions we were only able to sail. I had a few people direct message me about the company we sailed with. We booked through our hotel at a steal price but I found the companies website. Yes, they have private and group options! I would definitely recommend them. The captain and his crew were very interactive and helpful!

The island itself was extremely peaceful, yet entertaining. In its entirety the island is a little over four miles long. I fell in love with the atmosphere here. I honestly plan on going again within the next year or so and actually staying on this island. The people were so friendly and happy! Since the island is so small there were very few cars on the roads. The best way to see the island was on foot, bike, or golf carts. Golf carts are probably the main big source of transportation. It really was not enough room for cars and I loved that! We spent a little time at Playa Norte beach which is one of the top rated beaches in the world. The water is crystal blue, and the sand is sugary white!

Day Four. The last day was our last chance to get sun-kissed! We literally ate breakfast and sat at the beachside until it was time to shuttle back to the airport. It was our chance to relax before our flights back home. Of course we almost missed our ride to the airport because we did not want to leave the beach! Like the weather on our last day was perfect!

Cancun is a beautiful place that I would recommend any one to visit. I will be going back but I definitely plan to stay at Isla Mujeres and maybe sail to Cancun for a day out. I personally enjoyed the energy and quaintness of Isla Mujeres the most!

Cuties Coasting in Cancun This past weekend I was able to help celebrate the life of my friend Leslie in Cancun, Mexico.

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renegadeblog · 6 years

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Ask Alex: Peace in the Office and How to Not Murder One's Kid.

Dear Renegade,

So, I sit next to an angry typer. The office desks at my job are arranged in cubicles. The good thing is that I am located in a pretty quiet corner with views to the outside. The bad thing is that I sit next to someone who seems to get into angry fights over the internet by typing excessively loud on his keyboard. The worst thing is that he has started to up his headset volume from time to time. What is a girl to do to keep sane?

This question is too similar to my own experience that it is scary. Remove your mask, you doppelgänger! In any case, I too have sat next to a seemingly angry co-worker. I mean, it used to arise in me some anger I did not know I had. But you know what, the good thing is that my office space is mobile. I can take my laptop and hang out anywhere else in the office for some quiet and peace. And unless I need the big monitor to look at excel sheets, my ass will do what I can at my desk, and once I hear him abusing the keyboard, I bounce somewhere else. Now I get it, you may not have the luxury of taking your work everywhere you go. In that case, that’s when you wear your big pants and ask ol’ boy to chill with the keyboard as it breaks your concentration. If he replies that he cannot control the force he applies on the keyboard, then you are going to suggest that the company buys him a softer keyboard. Or something.

Last suggestion would be to move to another cubicle. Don’t shortchange your work because you want to keep peace. MOVE if you have to.

Dear Renegade,

My kid is disrespectful. I understand that he is going through adolescence and there are changes that come with it. I was warned. I was told to prepare. But lately, I have had enough. We have taken away his toys, taken his phone and grounded him time and time again. He still likes to pop off. I am no fan of corporal punishment, but I am at this point where I am tempted. Any suggestions before I go to jail?

My cousin went to the Republic of Congo, Brazzaville for the first time when he was 12 years old. It was the first time I met him too. He had come with my uncle to meet the other side of his family. Shortly after, I jetted off to the United States with my parents. I was told years later by said cousin that he had fun. He had a grand old time. Until his father told him that he was NOT coming back to the US. See, my cousin, prior to coming to Africa, was starting to act up. My uncle saw fit that he should have a taste of the African life and to get his life together. He stayed for two years. He came back and he was a law-abiding citizen.

Now, I sure hope you got some family outside of the US because I would recommend that. If not, well, go with an award system. If he does something well, reward him (i.e. give him back some of his toys). If he doesn’t, explain to him how disappointing he is being and take away something he enjoys until the good behavior persists. Another option would be to trace your family and send your kid there. So he could connect with his roots. Like my cousin did. And said cousin is married with one kid, living the dream.

I got nothing else, and am not a parent, so good luck!

Ask Alex: Peace in the Office and How to Not Murder One’s Kid. was originally published on Renegade

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ma-ballin · 7 years

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“What you don’t know can kill you”

Epic Measures by Jeremy N. Smith

Verbatim from Blinkist:

Epic Measures (2015) tells the incredible story of how one man, Christopher Murray, came to build the most comprehensive medical study ever assembled. Find out what motivated Murray and his dedicated team of collaborators to build a worldwide map of every disease and illness known to man – and discover how his remarkable work has revolutionized the face of world health.

What’s in it for me? Follow one man’s quest for better health data across the globe.

Imagine that you’re out searching for a bookshelf that will fit perfectly into a specific nook in your home. But there’s a problem: you don’t have that nook’s measurements. Or, even worse, you have five different sets of measurements but are unsure which, if any, is correct. How, with such poor data, could you possibly select the right shelf?

Now imagine a similar issue – slapdash data – but on a major, and majorly complex, level. Well, that’s essentially what’s plaguing global health.

It might seem unbelievable that something as important as global health was marred with bad and insufficient data, yet that’s exactly what Rhodes Scholar and PhD Christopher Murray found. This is the story of how Murray discovered the lack of reliable data regarding public health and what he did to combat it – all to get an epic measure of and clear perspective on the best ways to allocate money for improving the health of the world.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why reports on longevity could differ by 10-15 years in UN data;

how having UN departments focus on specific diseases left data gaps; and

why both quality and quantity need to be measured to get a correct view of world health.

"What you don't know can kill you."

Christopher Murray’s remarkable childhood taught him important lessons about how to analyze and treat disease.

If you were lucky enough to go on a family vacation when you were ten years old, you may have engaged in pleasant leisure activities, like hiking or enjoying the sights and food of another country. Christopher Murray’s family did trips somewhat differently.

When Christopher was ten years old, his parents took him and his three older siblings on a yearlong sabbatical in Niger. This was no random trip: his father was a cardiologist; his mother, a microbiologist. The family planned to work at a hospital in the Sahara desert.

The hospital needed all the help it could get. When Christopher’s family arrived, the facility was lacking running water and electricity, not to mention staff.

Luckily, the family had brought some portable equipment with them, and Chris served as an errand boy and organized supplies. Meanwhile, his older brothers worked as nurses and aides, stitching and dressing wounds.

The family worked together to fight malaria. After noticing that more people were catching the disease in the hospital than in the villages around it, they started taking blood samples of everyone in the area and studying the health statistics of their patients and visitors to figure out what was going on.

Their research showed that the malaria outbreak had begun when the hospital started distributing vitamin supplements; tests showed that these supplements increased the iron count in patients’ blood. This led the family to the conclusion that the elevated iron levels were probably attracting parasites that thrive on the mineral, which in turn promoted infection and increased the risk of malaria.

The results were published in the prestigious medical journal Lancet. This kind of tenacious research is a perfect example of the kind of work that would stay with Christopher as he grew up, pushing him to work hard to help people.

The Murrays continued to run various mobile clinics throughout Africa and fight disease. These experiences, and the teachings of his father, showed Christopher that one of the most important skills in medicine is careful analysis.

In the 1980s, health organizations used poor and unreliable methods to measure world health.

If you had to travel around the world and measure the health of each country, what factors would you look at?

When Christopher Murray was in medical school in the 1980s, the single biggest indicator of a country’s health was the infant-mortality rate. But this is a misleading index. Though getting a child through its first year of life is important, it’s a small factor in overall health.

In fact, focusing in general on how long people live is not an accurate way to gauge health at all.

A healthy and active person can live to be 80 years old, but so can someone who spends most of his life bedridden and plagued by diseases. If you’re just looking at life expectancy, these two diametrically opposed lives would provide the same result.

Simply counting the number of deaths in an area is insufficient as well, since crucial differences are left out of the equation – those between, say, an infant who dies of malnutrition and a 90-year-old who dies of natural causes.

Making matters worse, these statistics can be measured in very unscientific ways.

In the 1980s, the United Nations used five different methods, producing life-expectancy results that could be off by as much as 15 years.

For example, looking at the life expectancy in Congo from 1980 to 1985, the World Bank estimated it at 60.5 years; UN estimates placed it at 44 years.

Part of the problem was that the UN relied on the answers people gave to questionnaires that were never verified or checked for consistency. Any answer provided was taken at face value.

Therefore, according to the UN, the life expectancy of Pakistanis might dramatically rise while that of people in Gambia might drop by nearly ten years – all in the course of a single year. Furthermore, countries like Mongolia and North Korea were, according to the information the governments provided, "exceptional" places for living a long and healthy life.

Sometimes no information could be obtained, in these cases, they followed a 30-year-old formula from 1955 that suggested a country’s life expectancy should increase by 2.5 years every five years.

Health data was also skewed to justify ineffective work and funding.

As you can imagine, these methods from the 1980s are a statistician’s worst nightmare. And things weren’t much better at the World Health Organization (WHO).

At WHO, 95 percent of staff was organized into different departments based on specific diseases, and they all had tiny statistics teams.

For these teams, statistics were a way to justify whatever they were working on and to get whatever funds they were requesting.

This meant that no work went into alternative solutions. Ask a team what method saved the most lives, and the answer would always be whatever cure they were working on. If asked about the second-best method, no team ever had an answer.

There was also no central oversight between the departments at WHO. This made it easy for different departments to count the same death multiple times and to overestimate on their statistics, which increased the chances of getting more funding.

When Murray compared WHO estimates for infant deaths with UN estimates, he found a 10-million death discrepancy. The numbers provided by WHO for just four diseases (malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia and measles) were already more than the total infant deaths the UN accounted for.

Murray addressed these issues in one of his first published papers. He called it “the 10/90-gap,” which explains how these methods, and focusing on infant mortality, resulted in 90 percent of the world’s health problems receiving a mere 10 percent of the research funds.

Tuberculosis is a great example. In 1990, it infected 7.1 million people per year and killed 2.5 million of them. But since these victims were adults, it went unnoticed.

Murray pointed out that, with early intervention, a brief course of chemotherapy would cure 90 percent of tuberculosis patients for less than $250 per person.

Murray’s paper was noticed by WHO, and they not only endorsed his treatment but put him on the new steering committee for tuberculosis research. Subsequently, the World Bank devoted $50 million to tuberculosis projects in China.

Estimates suggest that these actions saved five million lives in three years.

"Deaths translate into money for child health programs. Deaths are money."

Murray developed a better method for measuring world health by focusing on quality of life and years lost.

With his foot in the door, Murray set about inventing a new way to collect better data. His results would transform the way we look at world health.

For starters, it’s important to consider how many years are lost when someone dies.

So, if a country’s life expectancy is 80 years, then a 5-year-old child dying of pneumonia can be recorded as losing 75 years of life, whereas someone dying of a heart attack at age 70 has only lost ten years.

Murray also developed a new way to rate non-fatal illnesses based on how detrimental they are to your quality of life.

It works by using a scale from 0, which indicates no change in health, to 1, which is considered the equivalent of death.

One non-fatal illness is loss of hearing. This is ranked as a 0.2 illness since it’s judged to take away roughly one-fifth of a person’s perfect health. In other words, it is seen as taking away two years of your life for every ten years lived.

Ranking illnesses can lead to some controversial decisions, but Murray and his collaborators largely avoided this. A consensus was reached by bringing together international experts as well as people from the general public, and sending out surveys to homes around the world.

All this input led to a broad agreement upon the general severity of illnesses, though, of course, environmental factors can definitely make things worse for some people.

And since both of these systems consider how many years an illness can take away, they can be combined to present an accurate picture of overall health.

Murray’s team could now count all of the years lost to both early deaths and non-fatal illnesses and assign every health problem a number called a disability-adjusted life year (DALY).

This information can then be gathered to provide an accurate overall measurement of what is ailing the population of a specific nation, be they young or old. In a way, it’s not unlike finding the health-equivalent of a country’s gross domestic product.

The results of Murray’s study exposed neglected areas and earned him criticism and scorn.

With their new system in place, Murray’s team published the first Global Burden of Disease papers in 1993, using over a decade of data from every country to shed new light on what was ailing everyone, both young and old.

The scope of this work was enormous. Nearly every death in the world was accounted for, including the illnesses responsible for 90 percent of the world’s disabilities.

They conveniently broke things down into three groups: communicable diseases such as malaria and measles; non-communicable diseases like diabetes and alcohol dependence; and injuries, which are caused by things like falls, road accidents or war.

The results were a wake-up call, and not everyone was happy. The study painted a clear picture of which parts of the world were being neglected, and where resources were being misused.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, simple dental problems were as problematic as anemia.

In the Middle East, injuries were causing four times more health issues than cancer.

And throughout Asia, neuropsychiatric diseases, such as depression and anxiety disorders, were taking a much higher toll than malnutrition.

This is just a handful of the many surprises the study provided, and there was a considerable backlash since the findings made WHO look pretty bad at their job; Murray’s numbers showed that 90 percent of their staff was working on issues that impacted less than half of the global health loss.

A good example is injuries. Though injuries accounted for 12 percent of global health loss, WHO only had one person devoted to them.

Since gathering, organizing, comparing and presenting all these statistics from so many different countries was such a significant challenge, many people were wondering if there might be some errors in the work.

But it was also obvious that the previous model was severely inaccurate, and that having one single metric for all the data was a superior way to go.

Eventually, the controversy faded and policy makers now had a clear picture of what areas needed help the most.

Pushed out of the World Health Organization, Murray formed a new institute to improve world health.

If you’ve spent time in the world of science and academia, you’ve probably heard the motto "Publish or perish.” But in bureaucracy they live by another code: "Don’t embarrass the higher-ups.”

Since WHO and the UN are governed by different member states, it was perhaps inevitable that some of these nations wouldn’t be happy with how they were evaluated and ranked in Murray’s reports.

In 2000, WHO released one of Murray’s reports that ranked the health systems of each nation based on how fairly, responsively and effectively they operated. The United States ranked 37th, between Costa Rica and Slovenia.

Eventually, Murray’s boss stepped down at WHO, and the new management got rid of Murray's department and put him in the new role of advisor, which carried no real authority.

In an effort to continue doing meaningful work, Murray looked to the academic community, where he could rely on peer-reviewed scientific journals to ensure that his work continued to be taken seriously.

Eventually, in partnership with the University of Washington, and with private funding from Bill Gates, Murray founded the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in 2007.

Gates was a perfect match for Murray. As a visionary who loves putting data and numbers to use, he saw the importance of Murray's work and had the resources to help bring it to life.

Now Murray had a supportive boss as well as a big staff and a bank of supercomputers at his disposal. This meant he could take his methods to a whole new level and go into greater detail than ever before.

With his new and improved tools, he could produce data that gave a number representing how harmful a certain snakebite or tropical disease was to Afghani men between the ages of 30-34.

Even if WHO decided to ignore or dispute his numbers, there was no one to stop him from becoming a major player in global health.

Murray’s organization now publishes updated and easily accessible versions of the Global Burden Study.

Every year, $7 trillion dollars is spent on global health, and it is Murray’s goal to make sure this money is used in the best possible way.

This is why, in 2012, Murray’s studies began focusing on intervention and including reasons why diseases were breaking out in the first place. And once the root causes for certain diseases were identified, it was also apparent how government intervention could easily help prevent these illnesses.

One example of a leading root cause is household air pollution; it’s the 4th biggest risk factor since many homes still heat and cook with coal, wood and dung, which can lead to many ailments, including an increased risk for stroke and heart or pulmonary disease. One simple but significant step would be for governments to encourage cleaner methods of cooking and heating by offering subsidies.

Murray’s methods also offered insight into how interventions can be adjusted to prevent other problems from arising.

By analyzing relief efforts between 1980 and 2010, Murray saw that while world hunger was being addressed, many countries were subsequently facing a battle against obesity. Over the course of two decades, because the right adjustments weren’t made, diseases related to malnutrition were replaced with increased rates of high blood pressure, high blood sugar and physical inactivity.

Murray’s other goal was to make this increasingly detailed data accessible to the public, so he introduced an interactive online-visualization tool.

It allowed anyone to go online and organize and compare the data they’re interested in and then zoom in or out to focus on whichever area is of interest. This way, world leaders and school children all have access to the same information.

Of course, the media does as well. A reporter can easily see that men in Nevada have the same life expectancy as men in Vietnam and use the evidence provided to generate news stories and create momentum that will hopefully lead to action and change.

The key message in this book:

To really understand how to help humanity, we need to know how every disease and illness impacts us and to be able to track their development over time. Instead of isolating our efforts to treat specific diseases, we need to treat people and adapt to their ever-changing problems. To help achieve this goal, 20 years of hard work, and over 500 collaborators, has produced a remarkable tool that every country can use. With the Global Burden of Disease Study, nations and citizens can effectively identify their risks and align their health systems to fight it.

Actionable advice:

Stay strong and flexible.

The leading causes of disability are very similar all over the world. Chief among them are lower back and neck pain. So, in order to prevent these ailments, take regular breaks and don’t forget to stretch yourself. Exercise your core muscles and consider consulting an expert to help improve your posture.

#blinkist #epic measures

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tusouthafrica · 7 years

Text

Coming out in a ‘Rainbow Nation’

Esther Moila’s parents used to think she would “come to her senses.” After she came out as a lesbian in her teenage years, they held out hope it wouldn’t last. Her parents took action, forcing her to grow her hair long and buying her nice dresses — a sharp contrast from her usual T-shirt and athletic pants. They even attempted to arrange her marriage to a man from the Congo.

Moila’s parents adopted her from Kenya when she was 17 years old. She suspects her father, a pastor in the Alexandra township of South Africa’s Gauteng province, adopted her specifically with the intention of converting her.

“I had to live my life pretending to be something that I’m not, for the fact that I’m a pastor’s kid,” Moila, 21, said.

The more Moila resisted her parents’ efforts to change her, the more they berated her for her decisions. They told her that by dating women, she was refusing to serve God. They told her she had to set an example for the rest of the congregation. They told her that her sexuality would attract the wrong kind of friends.

“It has been so difficult for me,” Moila said. “It comes to a point when it breaks me. I think, ‘They don’t love me.’”

Moila’s experience coming out and living as a lesbian in South Africa — dubbed a ‘Rainbow Nation’ by former Archbishop Desmond Tutu after Apartheid came to an end — has been challenging in many ways. South African LGBT people often experience discrimination from their family members, friends and even passersby on the street.

“We get so scared what’s really going to happen to us,” Moila said. “Most people don’t really love seeing lesbians and gays just chilling. They become violent.”

The laws

The end of Apartheid brought democracy to South Africa for the first time, and with it came new laws to ensure the protection of LGBT people. Many considered these laws far ahead of their time.

The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, adopted in 1996, was the first in the world to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in its Bill of Rights.

Over the course of the next decade, the South African LGBT community won additional legal battles, like overturning sodomy laws and gaining new adoption and health care rights. In 2003, it became legal for South Africans to officially change their gender on government documents. Three years later, South Africa became the first country in Africa to legalize same-sex marriage.

CHART: How do you describe your sexuality?

But LGBT life in South Africa is paradoxical, said Jay Matlou, a master trainer and health officer at the South African LGBT rights organization OUT.

“In South Africa, we’ve got the most amazing, progressive laws that protect LGBT people for being who they are,” Matlou said. “But when you get to the ground, those amazing, progressive laws aren’t necessarily translated.”

At OUT, Matlou works as a counselor for LGBT people. He also leads various campaigns to provide resources to LGBT people and educate South Africans about sexual orientation and gender.

Matlou said LGBT people face two great challenges living in South Africa: physical and verbal violence and poor access to public services.

“When you try to go and access a health care service, we have research that shows that some people get denied services, or some people get treated badly because they’re LGBT,” Matlou said.

“Victimization is a very concerning thing,” he added. “Generally, South Africa is quite a violent society...because of what the country’s been through. We’re quite a young country, in terms of democracy. We’re only about 25 years old.”

Matlou said that while it is challenging to be homosexual or bisexual in South Africa, it can be even harder to come out as transgender.

“Trans issues actually are where gay issues were about 20 years ago,” Matlou said.

Matlou suspects that the gap between South Africa’s progressive LGBT laws and its culture comes primarily from a lack of education. Even with the emergence of an educated and more progressive younger generation, the older generation — raised during Apartheid and largely unaccepting of LGBT people — lives on, and inhibits progress.

With every accepting member of society in South Africa, and with every legal triumph for the LGBT community, there seems to be another act of violence committed against an LGBT person.

“It’s a two-steps-forward, one-step-back kind of thing,” Matlou said.

‘Why can’t you support me?’

Last month, Moila dislocated her shoulder playing soccer. To her dismay, the injury took her out of all practices and games. Her team, the Bluebirds, would have to play without her for a full month.

When she got hurt, Moila’s partner, Carolyn, temporarily moved into her apartment to take care of her. She helps her accomplish everyday tasks like cooking and cleaning.

In September, Moila and her partner will celebrate two years together. Their anniversary comes on the heels of a recent proposal — Moila’s partner bought the couple matching gold rings with each other’s names engraved on the inside, symbolizing a lifelong commitment to their partnership.

Their relationship, though lasting, has been far from easy.

“My girlfriend’s mom, she’s homophobic,” Moila said. “Sometimes I tell her, you just need to choose your mom over me. Let me be by myself.”

“But at the end of the day, you realize you love her,” she added. “You just have to push through until the right time comes.”

Walking on the road in her home township of Alexandra, Moila is often stopped by men who demand her phone number or taunt her by saying, “You know you’re a girl, right?”

If she’s not careful in her responses, the verbal abuse can become physical.

“You either ignore it or something happens,” Moila said. “It becomes so painful when we see our brothers, our sisters, being killed, being raped, being violated, just because of who they are.”

“Some people hate you to such an extent, they’ll really show it,” she added. “They’ll throw stones at you when you’re walking. Why? Why do that to me?”

CHART: Is same-sex sexual activity morally wrong?

The worst part, Moila said, is that her parents have never protected her from the abuse.

“People, they talk so badly about me, and you took me in knowing I’m like this,” Moila said. “I feel like, now you’re going to let people crucify me with their words?”

“I want to bring a woman home,” Moila added. “That’s it. Why can’t you support me?”

Sometimes, young lesbian girls from Alexandra will approach Moila and ask her for advice: When should they come out? What do they tell their parents? How will their sexuality impact their lives?

“It’s so difficult when they ask us questions,” Moila said. “Because even us, we’re still facing that. I don’t want you guys to face the same pain I had, because the possibility is that you guys are going to be disowned, you’re going to be thrown out of the house, because of who you are.”

“I don’t know, it’s difficult,” she added. “It’s really difficult.”

Living in secrecy

Recently, Shawn Sohab found himself digging through boxes of old memorabilia in his childhood home. In his search, he found a letter from his mother addressed to his uncle. The letter was written more than 20 years ago, when Sohab was just a child.

It was mostly small talk — Sohab’s mother wrote that her family was doing well. Each of her five sons was healthy and happy.

But Sohab, she wrote, was “a bit gay.”

The letter took Sohab, now 32, by surprise, because to this day he has never formally come out to his mother. He’s brought partners home to meet his family, but he always described them as close friends or roommates.

“When I read it, I was like, ‘Oh, she knew all along,’” Sohab said.

During his childhood, Sohab said his mother thought he had “bad spirits” inside him. She sought help from their pastor, who performed two exorcisms on Sohab while he was still a child.

“When you try to come out, coming from a religious background, you will be told that gayness is a sin,” Sohab said. “They believe that I’ve got a demon, that that’s not me.”

“When I was growing up, when I came out, I remember I was fighting my feelings because of church,” Sohab said. “I saw a whole lot of people being gay-bashed, people being exorcised, a whole lot of things happening to them when you start saying you’re gay.”

Outside his church, the unfriendly culture for LGBT people persisted. On the streets of his home township of Soweto, Sohab faces constant name-calling. To him, it feels like once people know he’s gay, they stop taking him seriously.

“When you say you’re gay, they put a stigma to you,” Sohab said. “They see you as a half-human. … When they know about your sexuality, they see you as a lesser man.”

Sohab said younger people usually accept his sexuality. He faces more discrimination from older people and people from rural areas. It’s common for people from rural areas — even other countries like Kenya and Zimbabwe — to move to Soweto for work, at which point they have trouble adjusting to the diverse culture of a city.

“When they come here, they come still with that mentality of them not...accepting the minorities of the bigger cities,” Sohab said. “They want to bring that element they grew up with from the rural areas and bring it here.”

There are many LGBT people living in Soweto, Sohab said, but discrimination often forces them to live their lives in secrecy. This makes the Soweto LGBT community look much smaller than it actually is.

Sohab said there are three stereotypes of gay men in Soweto: the “feminine” gay men, who are completely honest about their sexuality and most likely to face violence and street harassment; the “macho” gay men, who are slightly more secretive about their sexuality, and the “after-nines,” who pose as straight men in society but have sex with men after dark.

“There’s a whole lot of men who are sleeping with other men, but because it’s not normal in society, they hide it,” Sohab said. “You’ll find that they are married, they’re having kids, but they’re still sleeping with men.”

“A lot of people, they’re scared of the stigma,” Sohab added. “If you’re a businessman, and they hear that you sleep with men, people are going to start changing and stop supporting that business.”

Sohab identifies as a “macho” gay man. He hasn’t come out to his family, and he prefers to keep his sexuality private except for his closest friends and his romantic partners.

“Most of the time, I even tell my friends, ‘When you introduce me, or when you talk about me, don’t say, ‘my gay friend,’” Sohab said. “I’m not your gay friend. I don’t sleep with you, so don’t use that term. I’m Shawn. My gayness is when I get romantically attracted to somebody. That’s when my gayness comes out.”

“At the end of the day, I’m Shawn. I’m a man. Take me like that.”

A lonely journey

Angelo King was 14 years old when he dropped out of school and started to experiment with drugs. He used cocaine and ecstasy regularly, and he used prostitution to fund his addiction.

“I think it was a means of escaping the reality that you’re living in,” King said. “At the time, it was the thing I needed to do to survive.”

It’s no coincidence that age 14 — when King first began to experiment with drugs — was the same year he came out to his family as transgender. He told his mother that he intended to live the rest of his life as a woman.

“I didn’t really have a support structure where I could speak to someone about how I was feeling, and because of that I just made poor decisions,” King, 40, said. “The reality is that the homosexual lifestyle can be very lonely. I think as human beings, we all just need someone to be there. It’s not the same for everyone, but my journey was very lonely.”

CHART: Is breaking gender dressing norms “wrong” or “disgusting”?

King hoped he could fill his loneliness using drugs, sex and prostitution. If he had more support from his family and friends, he still wonders if he would have turned to those outlets in the first place.

He reached his breaking point in 2009, when he was 32 years old. His excessive substance use ended him up in the hospital, “half dead,” and the doctors told him they could barely revive him.

“Because of my habits and the bad decisions I’ve made, I almost died,” King said. “I needed to make a decision of what I would do, carrying on as a person.”

King asked himself: “How do I stop using? How do I take my sickness away?”

To maintain his sobriety, King felt he needed support from his friends and family. He returned to the gender he was assigned at birth and abstained from sex entirely. Since 2009, King has lived his life as a man — but it hasn’t been easy.

“The struggle is real,” he said. “It’s there every day, in front of your face, you have to make a decision.”

“It’s one of the biggest challenges in my life, trying to avoid this,” King added. “It presents itself all the time.”

Moving forward

Sohab believes that slowly but surely, the culture surrounding LGBT people in South Africa is changing. When he first came out, he said he lost friends who refused to support him.

“Since I lost those friends, a lot of them are coming back because they can see that I haven’t changed,” he said.

About three months ago, Sohab met a man named Oscar on social media. Oscar is from South Africa’s Free State province, and the two have been in a long-distance relationship for two months. Oscar often visits Sohab in Soweto, and the two spend long weekends together.

Sohab still hasn’t come out to his family — or told them about Oscar — but he feels comfortable with himself and his new relationship. Sohab hopes his comfort is reflective of growing acceptance of LGBT people in South Africa.

“For this new generation, we are now having a whole lot of gay people emerging, especially with this young generation,” Sohab added. “You’ll find that a lot of people are living their lives very freely here.”

“We have those that are supportive,” Moila said. “Mostly it’s elderly people that don’t really accept it. People our age, young people, they engage a lot.”

Moila said she feels most comfortable with her sexuality around the men on her soccer team. There, she’s found a group of guy friends who are “really supportive.”

“You feel like, ‘Oh God, at least for once, there are people who really understand me,’” she said.

For King, a new support system has emerged in his life since he entered his sobriety.

“My mom is happy with the choices that I’m making now,” King said. “I think we’re closer than we’ve ever been.”

In the back of his mind, King said he knows this support exists because he no longer identifies as a woman. Still, it’s a comfort to him that his family members, friends and colleagues now accept him.

Although Moila’s family still doesn’t accept her sexuality, she’s excited to continue her life with her partner.

“At the end of the day, I fell in love,” Moila said. “If you really know what you want, and what’s your main goal, you’re just going to have that one person, where if I’m dying, we die together. At the end of the day, we’re going to build our future. We’re going to build our nest of love and be together. That’s it.”

“I’m dreaming big,” she said. “Even if there are no people there to see that.”

Writing and photos by Michaela Winberg.

#michaela #2017 #south africa #lbgt #pride #temple university #winberg #social #michaela winberg #written work #news

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