ND-SMC Observer Letter: "We Owe it to the University"

I had my first letter to the editor published in the Notre Dame newspaper yesterday. Probably easier to get published in ND's paper than in the NYT, when I’m criticizing their reporting on Haiti! Since my "fun" writing is limited, I thought I'd double this as a blog post.

This all started with guest column one of my friends wrote—a plea for more responsible drinking on campus. She wrote about her experience volunteering at a hospital where the nurses hate Notre Dame students because so many come in on weekend nights to get their stomachs pumped, taking away from people who are legitimately sick. Also wrote about stepping in vomit on Sunday mornings. She ended with a fear for the one student who won’t be able to answer her question of “why?”

Then, a (male) student wrote a response. He said that if Ulysses Grant could win the Civil War as a drunk, students could surely afford it. After all, as he said, “students only real responsibility is deciding what time to go to the dining hall.” He then continued with a tirade against the disgruntled “townies” who are just jealous of our fun—ending with an encouragement of the “eat, drink, and be merry” philosophy. In light of his thoughts, I was incited to respond.

“We Owe it to the University”
It is sadly ironic that Patrick McMaster's insights ("Nothing wrong with our 'Reputation,'" March 28) appeared on the same day as a piece examining student apathy. I hope McMaster's jocular tone shows he meant to exaggerate. However, if his letter is even partly based on genuine viewpoints - his own, or of anyone in our community - we have other serious problems on our campus. To be clear, this isn't a tirade against college drinking.

We're all supposed to be adults here: we can make our own decisions. But if our entire social lives revolve around the Bud Lights in our hands, I think we're negatively impacting Notre Dame beyond Friday night. We're disrespecting our futures and those who work to offer us futures. McMaster discusses students' lack of real responsibility, and he's right. I'm not supporting a family or running a country; I can afford to have fun. Time with friends is an essential part of our college experience. However, I hope we're not paying more than $40,000 a year just to get wasted every weekend and attend a few classes in between.

Think of everything else we have to engage us. Academic inquiry and research beyond our normal classes. Creative and performing arts. Service and social action groups working on issues in our local and global communities. These, and much more, teach us to stretch our minds beyond textbook information and to develop an informed worldview - essential qualities for our leadership. Having a couple drinks on occasion probably doesn't prevent us from engaging in what our university has to offer. But we could question whether excessive drinking now keeps us from opportunities we can't buy at a bar. That would be disrespecting our future. Tied in with personal lack of respect is lack of respect for our educators. I'll use the term educator broadly: from professors and administrators to all the service people who run our school.

Don't we understand that everyone here is working for our benefit? I've talked to numerous custodians who enjoy their jobs here because they love to see students inspired. Again, we don't need to forsake all "normal" college social life to respect our educators. However, maybe we should think carefully about how we show gratefulness to people who give us so much. Don't we owe it to ourselves, and our community, to take advantage of the whole Notre Dame experience? To not waste it away?

My greatest personal fear

Is that I’m not strong enough for what solidarity really means for my life. It means sadness, bad smells, hunger, heat, nausea, blood, sores, frustration, fatigue, pain, suffering.

“[Solidarity] then is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say, to the good of all and of each individual because we are all really responsible for all.”
Pope John Paul II in his 1987 encyclical “Sollicitudo Rei Socialis”

When, and how, can I know?

Hip-hop reggae truth

One of my favorite songs, "Yele" by Wyclef Jean...a Haitian who continues to advocate and work for justice for his homeland. He delivered a quite eloquent testimony before the Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere on March 13.

"Si ou gen zorèy, tande,
Si ou gen bouch, pale.
Si se pa sa, peyi nou, li pral koule
tankou yon bato ki plen refije,
Si nou pa chache bondye, ankò"

Literal translation (because I don't feel comfortable yet informalizing):

"If you have ears, listen
If you have voice, speak
If it is not that, our country, it will drown
like a boat that is full of refugees
If we don't seek god, again!"

Do we have ears? Do we have a voice?

He's not just talking about Haitians here....

A Threat to All People

It amazes me that I can often talk to people who think the tuberculosis threat is a thing of the past. Everyone knows about the global AIDS pandemic, but in my casual conversations, I find much less awareness of TB. But 9 million people developed active tuberculosis in 2005 alone. One-third of the world’s population is infected. As a worldwide infectious killer, TB is second only to HIV/AIDS (though the two diseases very often co-occur)—taking 2 million lives per year.

And there’s a new problem. Though multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, now present in most countries, is defined as resistance to at least two of the most powerful “first line” drugs (isoniazid and rifampicin), it is still treatable. A tailored regimen of “second line” drugs can cure a large percentage of patients. But when second-line drugs are misused—for example, by not ensuring regular treatment for patients with drug-susceptible strains or by failing to recognize resistant strains early—the bacilli develop more resistance. So now we must deal with XDR-TB (extensively drug resistant): strains that even currently-available second line drugs can’t kill. While concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa, XDR-TB has been identified in 28 countries (including all G8 nations). See http://www.who.int/tb/xdr/en/index.html for more information on a global plan to halt this epidemic.

Terrifying. For current patients, the prognosis is grim; however, the philanthropist George Soros through the Open Society Institute recently gave $3 million to Partners in Health and other organizations to work on a treatment strategy for the co-occurrence of XDR-TB and HIV. They're working extremely hard to avoid death sentences. The WHO also called for $650 million in emergency funding (from governments like ours) to try to stop XDR-TB from potentially reversing major public health gains in HIV/AIDS and TB care over the past several years.

But the situation should also be terrifying for anyone who might argue that treating poor people for a disease like MDR-TB is not “cost-effective.” Personally, I have absolutely no sympathy for these people—not compared to the thousands dying every day from a disease we’ve known how to treat for half a century. But now Mycobacterium tuberculosis is outsmarting our science. As Dr. Paul Farmer writes in Infections and Inequalities, “We live in a world where infections pass easily across borders—social and geographic—while resources, including cumulative scientific knowledge, are blocked at customs.” Because of our failure to adequately care for all people, we now have a threat to all people—the rich along with the poor.

An Erroneous Blurb

The New York Times has done it again. Lied by omission. And in fewer than a hundred words. Marc Lacey wrote a regional update 3/15, reporting on the arrest of the gang leader Evans. The blurb ends, “Evans led attacks against United Nations peacekeeping troops in recent months.” Honestly, I don’t know about any attacks Evans led...I wish I could be a first hand witness to what’s happening. But I do know that the United Nations “Peacekeeping” force has initiated its fair share of attacks: raiding Cite Soleil, making arrests with only an AK-47 as a “legal” warrant, killing and injuring dozens of innocent civilians in the crossfire.

What baffles me the most is that just a few days ago, Mr. Lacey wrote a good piece about Bush’s visit to Guatemala. He describes the plight of child workers—how the Central American Free Trade Agreement will only cause more exploitation as subsidized U.S. businesses look for cheap labor. How can the same person report a human rights abuse in one poor country and cover up a human rights abuse in another? Why Haiti? Can anyone offer the 9-million life answer: why such punishment to Haiti? Honestly, how can some measure of truth and justice and humanity for Haitians hurt powerful-country interests?

Technorati

I'm such a technology ignoramus. I guess I have to create a new post here to activate my new technorati profile? Sure. Okay. Back to writing that paper now. N a wè pita.

Technorati Profile

If you happen to read this (not a certainty) and have something more meaningful to say than I do (very much a certainty), please comment or tell me how else you want initiate dialogue. I'm only writing to learn. You can teach me.

How to see the canonical half (blank) glass

As I glance over my last post and formulate this one in my mind, I see how I could be labeled anti-American, skeptical, pessimistic. So to start with—I’m not. I promise. But a few things hit me from today’s articles, columns, and blogs.

1. My local newspaper detailed next year’s budget cuts in the public school system. Because of a decline in state funding, busing will be radically streamlined, an elementary school orchestra cut, custodial overtimes decreased, insurance co-pays increased, some staff and faculty positions eliminated, and much more. The district had to make tough choices; the board must balance the budget. And our public schools are considered relatively “well-off.” But flashback to November 2006, when a referendum appeared on the state ballot to mandate an increase of public education funds to at minimum match inflation rate. That’s all…essentially keep the funding constant as costs increase due to inflation, so schools don’t dip deeper into the red. Failed to pass. Explain that.

2. Nicholas Kristof’s column today was about a solution—an imperative—for Darfur, so the situation doesn’t become worse than the current genocide, if that’s imaginable. If you read the times, check this out: if only the decision-makers acted on the advice of people like Kristof. But before he wrote the column, he asked readers to submit their own solutions. One wrote the following (paraphrased): for now, we should do nothing, but wait until they crawl begging for our help and then force them to give us all their oil. I can’t tell if this writer meant this as an absolutely sick joke? But if he/she was serious, or if there are people who really feel this way….I don’t even know what to say.

3. My thoughts on a positive news report relate to (2). President Chavez visited Haiti today to discuss a number of things including a $20 million grant from a Venezuelan development fund for healthcare, education, and other development projects as well as the Petrocaribe initiative, which will help Haiti better finance its oil importation, freeing up money for public programs. Fidel Castro participated in conference calls during the meetings, since some of the Venezuelan money will help Cuban doctors currently working in rural Haiti to continue their crucial work. From all I can tell, this is great news for Haiti. That other regional countries are really reaching out to help is huge sign of continued commitment. I hope the aid reaches the ground quickly. Connection to (2), I pray that we (Americans) don’t write off a genuine effort to help a desperately poor country on the basis of resource competition and politics. Look beyond the government-determined image of Chavez and Castro, even just a little, to something we should all have vested interest in: saving lives…lives that hold on so tenuously.

I’m not pessimistic. I believe we care and can act. Show me how to view the glass.

The Secret to Longevity

I have to admit, at home I enjoy getting some of the “light media” I generally ignore at school. But today, the USA Weekend insert caught my eye. Accompanying the cover title “How Long Will You Live?” was an array of mug-shots. Some celebrities, mostly regular people. Under the photo, each person’s healthy practice was listed, along with his or her projected life expectancy.

“Flosses daily. 95 years.”
“Works out almost daily. 99 years.”
“Has a positive outlook on life. 102 years.”

In its “Special Report,” USA Weekend failed to take into account longevity’s most important determiner. Place of birth.

An identifying “American” would have been sufficient explanation for an expected long life.

“Haitian. 53 years.”

USA Weekend isn’t to blame. The magazine rightly assumes readers are looking for ways to improve their quality of life. The article wasn’t written for the millions of people whose only option is fetid drinking water—forget about the best vitamins for their children. How could USA Weekend write for these people? They can’t even read.

Kouraj

That's Haitian Creole for "courage." To see valor in its truest, but most desperate form, read the following articles. (I'm not linking because I'm still wary of copyright issues, but I honestly don't think the authors will mind me spreading their news.)

On www.haitianalysis.com (a fantastic collaboration of many currently involved in truth and activism in Haiti), look at the February 28 "Brutalized and Abandoned: Residents of Cite Soleil Speak Out."

This piece shows the faces and gives the testimony of the true brave. These people--already living in sub-human conditions--have fallen victim to MINUSTAH, the UN "peacekeeping" mission, in its attempt to rout out gang members. Instead of employing the rule of law and due process, they have been arresting and shooting indiscriminately. The people in the HaitiAnalysis photoessay are innocent, civilian victims of the "crossfire"--now with even less access to basic needs than they had before.

For more background on the raid, read the March 1 article "Haiti: Poor Residents Describe a Capital in a State of Siege." And to see how the people of Cite Soleil and advocates are banding together to try to negotiate with the government and MINUSTAH for a disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration approach--instead of the current injustice--see http://www.hurah.revolt.org and read about the Haitian Nonviolent Nonpartisan Coalition (HNVNPC).

How can someone so torn by grief, so crippled by poverty find the strength to speak out? These people know they are victims of brutality. They know they are the sacrificial pawns of a 203-year long international chess game with the Republic of Haiti--all to serve wealthy country interests. They know they are being treated as less than human.

I don't know despair like the residents of Cite Soleil, and I certainly don't know courage. But I so admire the activists working for human rights, broadly defined, in Haiti. Could us regular people not do something? Can we not cry out for some compassion, so the people in one of the world's most decrepit and dangerous slums don't have to suffer? Can we not demand justice?