Growing Cities
This year, the State of the World Population Report 2007, issued by the United Nations Population Fund, highlights the positive and negative aspects of the rapid increase of people living in cities around the world. In Asia alone, it is estimated that urban population grows from 1.4 billion to 2.6 billion between the year 2000 and 2030. Together, we need to plan action to face this global phenomenon, with full participation of city people, including present slum dwellers. The special needs and rights of the urban poor have to be considered in each city plan. No one can survive living in the city without having adequate shelter, sanitation, electricity and clean water supply. Women, whether rich or poor, need special reproductive health and family planning services. City youth need, not only education and employment opportunity, but also sexual/health and environment-related education, especially the prevention of HIV/AIDS. I recommend that all policy-makers read this interesting report in order to make urbanization a positive force for change. They are key groups of people that can take real action to prevent future disaster that will come from a more crowded-living space and the danger that will come from the rising of sea level as a result of global warming. Also, all governments need to have better policy to stem population migration into urban areas.
Filed under Environment, United Nations, World Affairs | Comments (2)India’s First Female President
I don’t know why whenever a woman is elected into the highest political office of the land, news reporters almost always said that the presidential position is only a “ceremonial” one with no real power. President of a country is very important, politically, because it comes to a person as a result of a democratic election, whether the person who won is a man or a woman. Indian men have had it so good for the last 60 years, holding the presidential posts after Independence. Throughout those years, I have never heard anybody said that the Presidential Post has no real power - only symbolic. Pratibha Patil, former governor of Rajasthan, has won last week’s election to become the first female President. Together with a large number of people, men and women who believe in fairness and justice, I want to congratulate Pratibha Patil for her important victory, bravely fought through a nation-wide election along side the male candidates. She has brought India a giant step closer to “gender equality”, which women around the World, for three decades, have struggled to achieve through four United Nations World Conferences on this issue held between 1976-1995.
Filed under Gender Issues | Comment (0)New York City Steam Pipe Explosion
Earlier this month, as my son and I were watching a historical documentary about the underground infrastructure of New York City, we said to each other that it was scary that anything could happen underneath our feet as we walk and we would not even know about it. The steam-pipe explosion that happened two days ago at Lexington Avenue and 41st Street, for us, was “closer to home”. It was in the area where my son and I usually walk to work, eat or meet friends. We considered ourselves lucky for not being in the city on that particular day. But I am certain that many of our friends, out on the street at the time of the explosion– getting home from work, that were hit by falling debris, steamy hot mud on their heads and bodies. They have our sympathy. Mayor Bloomberg and those of us who live in New York City have to find ways to check safety conditions of our underground infrastructures so that accident like this will not happen again. For a long time, I have never feel safe when walking on the street of old cities like New York, Tokyo, Rome, London and Paris, knowing what could go wrong underneath my feet at any moment. It turns me into a fatalistic world traveler, rather paranoid, waiting for a disaster to happen at any moment.
Filed under Environment, Travel | Comment (0)Motherhood Revisited
For a large number of women in the world, motherhood is not a choice. It is a burden of being borne female. The male head of household normally makes most decisions on sexuality and reproduction. After marriage, women then go through nine months of pregnancy, having one child after another, not getting an education which can give them information and empower them to take charge of their body, their health, especially to have control over their reproduction. In poor areas all over the world, poor women have to take manual jobs to bring more income to cover the cost of caring for the children even when the husband having low-paying jobs. The situation is quite different for women living in the United States. American women make their own choice in getting in and out of marriage. But there is an interesting phenomenon that happens since the year 2000. By their own choice, young married women with children, from across all educational level, have been quitting jobs in the labor force. This trend happens because the pressure and burden of double-workloads outside and inside the home are unbearable. American women choose to quit their income earning jobs to become a stay-at-home wife, enabling their husband to file joint-income tax to gain a tax advantage. In the United States, government gives financial benefit of up to 50 per cent for family with economically depended wife. In this situation, many women, rich or poor, tend to make the same decision to lesson the burden of their double workload. Choosing economic dependency as a life style is not really a good choice for their life in the long run. I think it is a self-destructive decision, economically and emotionally. Since relationship between husband and wife in today’s world is more complicated and unstable, what will happen to an “economically dependent-wife” with a few young children to care for when the marriage ended in divorce or in death? It is a high security-risk choice for women that in general, they will loose out in the end. For those who plan to make such an economic perilous decision to become a “stay-at-home” wife, I recommend reading first the new book, “the Feminine Mistake” by Leslie Bennett.
Filed under Gender Issues | Comment (0)Beauty In The Sky
I always enjoy watching fireworks. Lucky for me this year to be in New York to watch the whole of Macy’s firework show on 4th of July US Independence Day Celebration. It was a spectacular event on the East River, the bursting of vibrant colors into the sky: red which comes from strontium and lithium salts, blue from copper, green from barium, yellow from sodium, silvery flashes come from the combinations of magnesium, aluminium and titanium, all natural ingredients from our Earth. All these fireworks displays are copied from the Chinese who invented them in the ninth century. It has now become a world custom. Many countries celebrate auspicious occasions or national days with fireworks, using similar recipes – a mixture of 75% potassium nitrate, 15th%charcoal and 10%sulphur to make a small balls and shoot them up to create starburst in the sky. The London Economist says that the Japanese firework is the best in the world. They make
flowers in the sky, a new form of artwork, to celebrate Flower-fire Festival in Japan from July onward.
Reading Brain Activity
It is nice to know that I can tell my brain to turn on a television, change channels and then switch on my computer notebook just lying in my bed. This new Hitachi technology called optical topography, can send a small amount of infrared light through my brain surface to map out changes in my blood flow. Fun to know that one has a power to move things around just by thinking about it. The trouble is this brain-machine interface device is too big and cumbersome to put on your head. But Hitachi technologist promises us that the new lighter model, a kind of headband, will soon come out for general marketing. Life is going to be fun for the kids when they can move toys around by simply thinking. The headband is much better than the the idea of implanting of a chip under the skull, which requires a brain operation.
Filed under Funny, Science | Comment (0)