'Short hands and deep pockets' on a tough subject

I'm posting this week's Harper's Review today. It's amazing to me how much humanity exists everyday. Everytime I read this column I am set off - to contemplate my role, people's role; it is so complex, so broad, so deep and yet so hard to capture with these words.

It sounds silly to even say that I know, but I can't help but wonder how much or how little each person should/needs to be aware of and or doing something about in the world they live in/sleep in/create/take away from/absorb.

Do I care about my immediate surroundings? My state? My country? The whole world? How many battles can/should I pick? What constitutes help? Actual hours volunteered? Letter writing? Dontating Money? All three, or more?

The thought that I am not doing "enough" for 'mankind' frequently enters my mind; I am not sure what to do with it.



WEEKLY REVIEW

The United Nations warned that 2.5 million people will dieof hunger in Niger if the country does not receive foreignfood aid immediately. President Mamadou Tandja respondedthat "the people of Niger look well-fed." Mauritania,Burkina Faso, and Mali were also facing major foodshortages. A study found that the worldwide percentage ofland stricken by drought has doubled within the last 30years. The Space Shuttle Discovery landed safely inCalifornia. Iran decided to start producing enricheduranium, and the Environmental Protection Agency wasworking on ways to limit the radioactivity of the plannedYucca Mountain, Nevada, nuclear-waste dump for the next 1million years. Wildfires were burning all across Europe.In the south of France, fire-fighting helicopters woke aneighty-one-year-old man from his nap; the man opened fireon the aircraft with a rifle and, when police came toarrest him, he beat them with saucepans. Jeanine F. Pirro,the wife of Republican fund-raiser and convicted taxevader Albert J. Pirro, Jr., announced that she would runagainst New York Senator Hillary Clinton in2006. President George W. Bush approved a $286.4 billiontransportation bill containing 6,371 separate projects,and 39 people in China died after eating contaminatedpork.


A suicide car bombing in Baghdad killed 4 people, and themayor of Baghdad was ousted by Shiite militants. InJerusalem the biblical Pool of Siloam, where Jesus cured ablind man, was discovered by sewer workers. Thousands ofIsraelis rallied against the Gaza pullout in TelAviv. "God will hear us," a rabbi told the crowd. A fewdays later, Israel began its withdrawal from Gaza,lowering a road barrier at the Kissufim Crossing as 200people looked on. The barrier didn't work, so Israeliauthorities finally rigged it shut with some wire.President Mahmoud Abbas announced that the Palestiniangeneral election will be delayed until January 2006, andPalestinian authorities forced hundreds of volunteers tostop making a 2,460-foot sandwich. The U.S. Army firedfour-star General Kevin Byrnes, head of the Army Trainingand Doctrine Command, for adultery. Cream puffs with 560calories and 47 grams of fat were selling briskly at theWisconsin State Fair. Pfizer patented a drug that curespremature female orgasm. Twelve headless kangaroos werediscovered on a golf course near Melbourne, Australia. InBrazil thieves tunneled 656 feet into a bank in order tosteal up to $65 million, and police in New Hampshire found10 stolen Segway scooters in a garage; apparently thethieves had been unable to sell them.


In Baghdad, U.S. troops were being killed or maimed by asniper they had nicknamed "Juba." A British puppeteer wasordered to stop using a Saddam Hussein puppet as thesausage-stealing villain in his Punch and Judy show, andan Air Force colonel in Denver, Colorado, was in troublefor vandalizing cars that sported pro-Bush bumperstickers. Up to 2,000 dolphins gathered off the coast ofWales, but no one knew why. A study found that 1 in 25fathers was unknowingly raising another man's child, asituation referred to as "paternal discrepancy," and aChinese artist was criticized for grafting the head of ahuman fetus onto a bird's body. "I thought putting themtogether like this," he said, "was a way for them to haveanother life." Women in Sudan were committing adultery sothat they could be arrested and thus obtain a divorce;Sudanese men are often resistant to divorce because itrequires them to return a bride's dowry. "He wasn't caringfor me," said Ding Maker, an imprisoned woman whose dowrywas 90 cows. "I don't mind staying here." A Florida manwas cited for painting "die you miserable bitch" on theside of his house; the words were directed at hisseventy-three-year-old neighbor, who has cancer. A SouthKorean man played a video game for 50 straight hours, thendied, a man in Australia was charged with bestiality witha rabbit, and a man wearing an AC/DC T-shirt wascriticized for dancing on Ronald Reagan's grave.

-- Paul Ford