I have returned to my university town after far too many weeks in the city....yes, I love being in university towns, a place where I can here the church bells toll at hour.
Today as been a beautiful day, sunny, quite chilly and windy, and as I was walking from the library to a local café for a necessary amount of caffeine to accompany my book, enjoying the feeling of being 'home' when in front of me suddenly appear a scantily clad fresher.
Aside from the chill (-5 º celsuis) is it really necessary to prance about looking like 'women of street' with all the nice cloths there are?
To be fair, the girl in question might not know any better or might not be able to afford long pants and have wear beach shorts (not to the knee or mid thigh) with tights underneath instead or she prefers this to running pants since spending more on cloths might not be an option. But that is a side matter at the moment, the fact is she feels she can do so indifferent to whether or not it might objectify her in front of others, she is just as 'well' dressed as the other millions of girls that do so.
I enjoy watching fashion, it is one of my lesser know interests, I enjoy all the new colours and cuts, I especially like seeing the new shoes and handbags. Of late however, and again in defense of girls dressed as street women everywhere, most of what comes to the stores that are reasonably priced is not worth its cost. The materials are practically see through, extremely short skirts and dresses and very low pants that are barely there.
The problem of course is that fashion beginning not to offer variety, to the extent that to be decent we must revert to either spending more or making our own (the amish might have something to their ways after all!). Now before we proceed to knitting and sewing our ankle length wool skirt and button our buttons all the way up our necks I think a separate course of action maybe necessary.....lets stop buying these barely there materials and outfits, lets only shop from the stores that make things worth the price they are charged.
Can´t afford to? Not shopping at all is an option, going to outlets and second hand shops is another, wearing what you have until it wears out is another.....if not wool, cotton, needle and thread are available in most of the local stores in the country or the garment districts in the cities, jajaja, lets hope this does remain out last resort, if not I for one could sew nothing else than those long wool skirts.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
What goes on at the UN?
I have heard time and time again people state that the UN is a useless bureaucracy, a pointless attempt at an impossible. Having read the biographies of some of the drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of the UN Charter I always found it hard to believe that these intelligent, purpose driven people could have possibly thought up and founded an organization whose mission was impossible to achieve, so I set out to answer the unasked question found in all the assumed statements. What I found will be of interest to many and of worry to most.
The UN is the one place where the powers of a nations executive branch go the most unchecked, so all that your president cannot do because of obvious constraints in domestic policies he is at full liberty to promote at the UN for other nations of the world to enjoy or suffer. Usually the nations enjoying presidential decrees in the form of UN resolutions are the developed nations with the developing nations suffering the consequences of most of them.
This is due in great part to an unspoken tendency, which has been in the rise since the Clinton years, to allow for the overt intervention of some civil society groups (such as World Population Action) in the drafting of resolutions in the areas the EU and Democrat US governments consider is of their interest.
Many will ask what are resolutions? Well they are these documents that come out of yearly meetings that set the agenda for all the grassroots work, that many developing country citizens will be familiar with, done by the UN agencies (UNESCO; UNICEF; UNFPA; UNDP; Etc). This is of course all done with the money each member country contributes hence by those countries tax payers money. It will interest many who are concerned with the plight of the poor, those who continual contribute to charities, that part of what they give goes to programmes that have clearly not worked because of the misguided resolutions accepted without reservation by UN delegates from the civil society groups that they prefer.
They are misguided resolutions because they usually do not address the entirety of the problem, such as the need for clean water in the prevention of maternal death due to infections after childbirth, but rather focus on providing tubal ligations, indifferent to these womens preferences, indifferent to what is causing the most deaths, and indifferent to tested programmes of primary health care and provision of clean water, instead of unasked for tubal ligations, in places such as Venezuela that have managed to have maternal deaths.
Considering all of this is behoves us all to pay closer attention to this global institution and its actions because that is were part of our taxes are going and it should therefore worry us at least to some extent that types of programmes that we might unknowingly be funding.
Now not all is grey at the UN, there are policies that get passed that have done a lot of good and have also gone very much ignored by the media, at the same time there are civil society groups that are working towards the promotion of long term integral solutions to problems such as poverty, maternal death, illiteracy, AIDS, malaria. Unfortunately these groups are not payed much attention to as they are not in favour with the EU and the US under the Democrats.
One such group, that I found in my research, is the World Youth Alliance, www.wya.net, that was founded just 10 years ago by a young woman concerned with the bent UN policies were taking. Ten years on this coalition of young people continues to struggle for policies that address the totality of the problem and centre on the inherent dignity of the human person. Ten years on this continues to be an ignored topic by those that hold weight at the UN in detriment to most countries in Africa, Latin America and South East Asia that clamour for juster policies and financing that address the real problems they face. I imagine they are ignored because they are young and because what they propose would imply a better more supervised structure of funding, long term programmes that would take longer to produce results but whose results would provide that sought after relief of misery so many deserve and it would imply self revision of those very countries that do not allow for integral policies to leave the drafting table. Below I have attached a youtube video of one of their statements at a recent Conference at the UN, it is interesting to see how logic and full of common sense it is and ironic to consider that none of their common sense references made it past the proposal stage. What are you thinking UN delegates? Is not the family important to the integration of all the members in a society?
The UN is the one place where the powers of a nations executive branch go the most unchecked, so all that your president cannot do because of obvious constraints in domestic policies he is at full liberty to promote at the UN for other nations of the world to enjoy or suffer. Usually the nations enjoying presidential decrees in the form of UN resolutions are the developed nations with the developing nations suffering the consequences of most of them.
This is due in great part to an unspoken tendency, which has been in the rise since the Clinton years, to allow for the overt intervention of some civil society groups (such as World Population Action) in the drafting of resolutions in the areas the EU and Democrat US governments consider is of their interest.
Many will ask what are resolutions? Well they are these documents that come out of yearly meetings that set the agenda for all the grassroots work, that many developing country citizens will be familiar with, done by the UN agencies (UNESCO; UNICEF; UNFPA; UNDP; Etc). This is of course all done with the money each member country contributes hence by those countries tax payers money. It will interest many who are concerned with the plight of the poor, those who continual contribute to charities, that part of what they give goes to programmes that have clearly not worked because of the misguided resolutions accepted without reservation by UN delegates from the civil society groups that they prefer.
They are misguided resolutions because they usually do not address the entirety of the problem, such as the need for clean water in the prevention of maternal death due to infections after childbirth, but rather focus on providing tubal ligations, indifferent to these womens preferences, indifferent to what is causing the most deaths, and indifferent to tested programmes of primary health care and provision of clean water, instead of unasked for tubal ligations, in places such as Venezuela that have managed to have maternal deaths.
Considering all of this is behoves us all to pay closer attention to this global institution and its actions because that is were part of our taxes are going and it should therefore worry us at least to some extent that types of programmes that we might unknowingly be funding.
Now not all is grey at the UN, there are policies that get passed that have done a lot of good and have also gone very much ignored by the media, at the same time there are civil society groups that are working towards the promotion of long term integral solutions to problems such as poverty, maternal death, illiteracy, AIDS, malaria. Unfortunately these groups are not payed much attention to as they are not in favour with the EU and the US under the Democrats.
One such group, that I found in my research, is the World Youth Alliance, www.wya.net, that was founded just 10 years ago by a young woman concerned with the bent UN policies were taking. Ten years on this coalition of young people continues to struggle for policies that address the totality of the problem and centre on the inherent dignity of the human person. Ten years on this continues to be an ignored topic by those that hold weight at the UN in detriment to most countries in Africa, Latin America and South East Asia that clamour for juster policies and financing that address the real problems they face. I imagine they are ignored because they are young and because what they propose would imply a better more supervised structure of funding, long term programmes that would take longer to produce results but whose results would provide that sought after relief of misery so many deserve and it would imply self revision of those very countries that do not allow for integral policies to leave the drafting table. Below I have attached a youtube video of one of their statements at a recent Conference at the UN, it is interesting to see how logic and full of common sense it is and ironic to consider that none of their common sense references made it past the proposal stage. What are you thinking UN delegates? Is not the family important to the integration of all the members in a society?
On the March Elections in El Salvador
Nos acercamos a las elecciones generales del 2009 y siguen presentandose como elecciones historicas al ser las primeras en las que possiblemente gane el FMLN.
Creo que es necesario reconsiderar la naturaleza de estas elecciones para verdaderamente evaluar si son o no historicas. En primer lugar es importante considerar el caracter de toda democracia; en una democracia establecida es de lo más natural que haya un cambio de partido cada cuantos años a manera que un país se ve provisto por una constante renovación de la politica nacional con el fin de promover las politicas públicas que sirvan más adecuadamente para el bien común de la nación (volveremos a esto más adelante).
En este sentido el possible gane del Frente es inevitable y hasta cierto punto deseable y por lo tanto no puede en realidad calificarse de histórico. Muchos no entenderán porque me parece deseable el gane del Frente en un país que claramente les teme pero lo que pocos consideran es que una vez en el poder este partido se vera en la obligación de enfrentar la complicada tarea de buscar el punto medio, que suele caracterizar a las politicas públicas de amplia consideración, entre la ideología y el pragmatismo necesario para la buena administración del país.
Esto llevaría a una deseada moderación en la aprehensión generalizada que se tiene hacía el cambio de toda naturaleza, y particularmente del cambio politico en El Salvador que ha impedido el completo establecimiento y consolidación de la democracia despues de casi dos decadas de los tratados de paz que pusieron fin a la guerra. La falta de consolidación no se debe a la permanencia de ARENA en el poder, más bien ésto ha dado la estabilidad que tanto necesitabamos y que ahora permitirá un cambio político inevitable y natural, si no que se debe a la inhabilidad que hemos tenido todos (todos los actores nacionales en todos los ámbitos políticos y económicos) en llevar acabo la innovación necesario para completar el camino hacía un crecimiento prolongado para el cual tenemos todo el potencial.
Lo que haría verdaderamente historicas estas elecciones sería una aproximación a ellas con nuevas propuestas de campaña que se apèguen a las verdaderas necesidades de los ciudadanos y que se alejaran de los eslogans estereotipados que poco tiene que ver con la necesidad de nuevas ofertas de trabajo, la decentralización estatal, la mejora en servicios públicos pagados por el creciente porcentaje de impuestos que todos pagamos, reducción de la pobreza a través de una aproximación al tema de manera integral que vaya a la raíz del problema, etc.
¿Qué debe pasar en Marzo?
Gane quien gane todos, en particular los políticos y empresarios, debemos brindar apoyo en la formación del nuevo gobierno con el fin de garantizar un ejercicio correcto de los recursos que como votantes le brindamos al nuevo gobierno para su buena administración.
Aquellos en el nuevo gobierno deben hacer todo lo possible por alejarse de las políticas públicas que esten demasiado influenciadas por la ideología y deben adoptar políticas pragmaticas que permitan una continuidad con las estructuras ya establecidas para evitar una desestabilización de la nación en un momento de debilidad economica a nivel mundial, buscando trabajar dentro de ellas para promover todo aquello que lleve a brindar mejores servicios y oportunidades a la mayoría de los Salvadoreños, teniendo en mente que al ser elegidos lo son para brindar un servicio a su nación y conciudadanos para el bien de toda la comunidad de Salvadoreños.
Creo que es necesario reconsiderar la naturaleza de estas elecciones para verdaderamente evaluar si son o no historicas. En primer lugar es importante considerar el caracter de toda democracia; en una democracia establecida es de lo más natural que haya un cambio de partido cada cuantos años a manera que un país se ve provisto por una constante renovación de la politica nacional con el fin de promover las politicas públicas que sirvan más adecuadamente para el bien común de la nación (volveremos a esto más adelante).
En este sentido el possible gane del Frente es inevitable y hasta cierto punto deseable y por lo tanto no puede en realidad calificarse de histórico. Muchos no entenderán porque me parece deseable el gane del Frente en un país que claramente les teme pero lo que pocos consideran es que una vez en el poder este partido se vera en la obligación de enfrentar la complicada tarea de buscar el punto medio, que suele caracterizar a las politicas públicas de amplia consideración, entre la ideología y el pragmatismo necesario para la buena administración del país.
Esto llevaría a una deseada moderación en la aprehensión generalizada que se tiene hacía el cambio de toda naturaleza, y particularmente del cambio politico en El Salvador que ha impedido el completo establecimiento y consolidación de la democracia despues de casi dos decadas de los tratados de paz que pusieron fin a la guerra. La falta de consolidación no se debe a la permanencia de ARENA en el poder, más bien ésto ha dado la estabilidad que tanto necesitabamos y que ahora permitirá un cambio político inevitable y natural, si no que se debe a la inhabilidad que hemos tenido todos (todos los actores nacionales en todos los ámbitos políticos y económicos) en llevar acabo la innovación necesario para completar el camino hacía un crecimiento prolongado para el cual tenemos todo el potencial.
Lo que haría verdaderamente historicas estas elecciones sería una aproximación a ellas con nuevas propuestas de campaña que se apèguen a las verdaderas necesidades de los ciudadanos y que se alejaran de los eslogans estereotipados que poco tiene que ver con la necesidad de nuevas ofertas de trabajo, la decentralización estatal, la mejora en servicios públicos pagados por el creciente porcentaje de impuestos que todos pagamos, reducción de la pobreza a través de una aproximación al tema de manera integral que vaya a la raíz del problema, etc.
¿Qué debe pasar en Marzo?
Gane quien gane todos, en particular los políticos y empresarios, debemos brindar apoyo en la formación del nuevo gobierno con el fin de garantizar un ejercicio correcto de los recursos que como votantes le brindamos al nuevo gobierno para su buena administración.
Aquellos en el nuevo gobierno deben hacer todo lo possible por alejarse de las políticas públicas que esten demasiado influenciadas por la ideología y deben adoptar políticas pragmaticas que permitan una continuidad con las estructuras ya establecidas para evitar una desestabilización de la nación en un momento de debilidad economica a nivel mundial, buscando trabajar dentro de ellas para promover todo aquello que lleve a brindar mejores servicios y oportunidades a la mayoría de los Salvadoreños, teniendo en mente que al ser elegidos lo son para brindar un servicio a su nación y conciudadanos para el bien de toda la comunidad de Salvadoreños.
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