Womb to Tomb
Since I’m on a Bezruchka kick lately, I figured I’d post my thoughts on Womb to Tomb. I read much faster than most people speak, so I was happy to[…]
Justice in Ecuador
I previously mentioned a documentary called Crude that follows the efforts to find justice for inhabitants of the Ecuadorian rainforest. Here’s a review from the LA Times. After decades of[…]
Damaged Care
*A transcript of this talk can be found here, or the mp3 can be purchased at this link. Stephen Bezruchka opens his talk with an analogy about a town on[…]
Messages From Mogadishu
TheStory, a program produced by American Public Media, has an ongoing series called Messages From Mogadishu. The series features a young English teacher in Mogadishu, known to the program as[…]
Blue and red in Washington State
The Stranger had an interesting article last week (thanks to my friend, Adam, for mentioning it to me), looking in some depth at the allocation of state tax monies to[…]
Battle for Haiti
PBS Frontline has published another episode on Haiti, ostensibly timed to commemorate the progress (or lack thereof) one year after the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010. The episode opens[…]
Trouble with Play Pumps
In 2006 a new kind of borehole pump emerged on the stage of African aid. Called Play Pumps, these were designed to be operated by children playing on a ‘merry-go-round’[…]
Changing Education Paradigms
The RSA has posted a nice animated talk from Ken Robinson. The thrust of the talk is that education is highly standardized, and while this may be efficient for moving[…]
Measles Funding Shortfall
Measles kills a child every three minutes, despite the fact that we’ve had an effective vaccine since 1963 — a vaccine that costs $.26 to produce. Unfortunately only rich and[…]
Arizona and white-washing
Arizona recently passed the Support our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, which Human Rights Watch points out is against the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD)[…]