Take the useful, leave the rest

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On the first day of my philosophy class at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics, Geshe Kelsang Wangmo-la begun her presentation of the Buddha’s life with an assurance that despite her maroon monastic robes and closely shaven head, she was not there to convert anyone. Instead, Geshe-la instructed us to listen over the coming months with an open mind. “Take the bits you find useful,” she said, “and just leave the rest.” Continue Reading

Making food aid work for those who need it (rather than those who profit from it)

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IATP joins many NGOs, academics and policy experts today in celebrating a move that could make U.S. food aid more efficient and responsive to the world’s hungry. Obama’s budget for fiscal year 2014 proposes to shift close to half the food aid budget to procuring food aid from local and regional markets rather than the shipping U.S. grains on U.S. ships halfway around the world. With local and regional purchasing, food aid can get to those who need it faster and cheaper while also building local capacity to deal with an increasingly unstable international food supply. It’s a big move, especially when you consider U.S. food aid makes up more than half of all food aid worldwide. Continue Reading

Ten years after the invasion of Iraq

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As last week was the 10-year anniversary of the U.S.’s invasion of Iraq, a lot of people have been reflecting on the ensuing decade of war, while others have apparently avoided the same. Examinations have covered what you’d expect: the lies that were told by the Bush-Cheney administration, the necessary complicity of the mainstream media, the consequences suffered by veterans and, lest we forget, the realities of life today as lived by Iraqis themselves, for whom the war certainly isn’t over. Continue Reading

A surge of Iraq revisionism on the 10th anniversary

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Perhaps the effort on the right to make the second war with Iraq appear to be some sort of success is just a visceral refusal to acknowledge having brought about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people while being very wrong about 911, WMDs, the reception we’d receive, pretty much everything. Certainly having neocons mark the anniversary with a panel of the guilty talking about how great they were lends a sense of deliberateness to the efforts to spin the war as a success, or at least claim it ended well as a result of “the surge.” Whether it’s deliberate or just a reaction isn’t really the thing to be concerned about however. They’re trying to spin history. The story they hope is remembered is the war went poorly at first, but then the neocons came up with their brilliant “surge” and all came out OK. Can they really cover up one of the biggest blunders in US history? Yes. It’s been done before, after another contender for biggest blunder. Continue Reading

What did Kenyan Minnesotans think of the election in Kenya?

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Kenya’s presidential election has garnered much international media attention in the past few weeks, and Kenyans in the diaspora have been an integral part of the conversation. Whether through the Twitter hashtag “#KenyaDecides,” or through Facebook and Youtube, Kenyans worldwide have ensured their voices are heard, including Minnesota’s considerable Kenyan community. Three Kenyan diasporans living in Minnesota shared their views on video with the Twin Cities Daily Planet to briefly discuss their thoughts on the Kenyan election. They are:Julia Nekessa Opoti is a Twin Cities resident and journalist.Charlene Bogonko is a University of Minnesota student and Twin Cities resident.Bundi Ikaio is an international student at the University of Minnesota from Kenya.Our respondents each have different backgrounds, different relationships to Kenya, and various views on the election and international media coverage of the country’s election process.Uhuru Kenyatta, who is currently facing charges by the International Criminal Court, won the election by a narrow margin, according to the official announcement. The 2013 election is significant because it is the first presidential election since the 2007 vote. Continue Reading