when things get tough, it's easier to want to return to a safer or more familiar place. but i don't think this is always the best way...] ~~~~ there is something wrong on my page, so i am having to post down here. 1.11.2006 "It is not only that a sixteen-year-old Latin American of this land weighs ninety-five pounds and is five feet tall; the point is that at the otehr side of the avenue he can see other boys the same age who are six feet six and weigh one hundred and twenty-six pounds. It is not just that they will hardly live to see their grandchildren, their life expectancy being way below forty. They know that disease and death can be pushed back and the joys of life can be enjoyed twenty years more. Rapid and luxurious cars, TV sets, new dresses, fun and comfort are displayed everywhere, and even backwoods poulations can see them in teh newspapers in which their miserable purchases are wrapped. Commercials and political propaganda, Sears Roebuck catalogues and Communist pamphlets produce the same results. The eyes of the poor are transfixed by the picture of this heaven he must obtain at all costs. Life without it is intolerable. This is the revolutionary temper, this is the face of the Latin American and of the whole underdeveloped world--a face contorted by hunger, expectation and wrath. This is the face of revolutionary man." (God's Foreign Policy, Miriam Adeney) i think it's clear what i'm not being called to do: - missions ~~~~~~
oh God, i feel like everyone is doing better things. but i hope and know i'll get my chance, too. even though i'm not with anyone right now, it seems like people are breaking up and it makes me think, "do all good things come to an end?" ~~~~~~ www.hopecambodia.com a powerful testimony... ~~~~~~~ May Sarton
Now I become myself. It's taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
"Hurry, you will be dead before - "
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density! Source: Collected Poems, 1930-1973 --------- 1.12.2007 it just struck me that people are in a war. President Bush sent 20,000 more soldiers to Iraq this week. http://www.facesofiraq.com/ i will not sit idly by. i will stand with my fellow citizens... “They think about what happened to them when they got hurt and they’re not able to shake that thought. They’re lost in that thought.” He sounds puzzled by this, unable to empathize. “It’s like they keep injuring themselves again and again and again in their minds.” (excerpt from above, from an iraq war veteran and now Columbia University student.) ~~~~~~~ i want to be a professor/journalist/writer. ------------ 1.25.07 By ALEXANDRA OLSON, Associated Press Writer 32 minutes ago UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Development Program agreed Thursday not to approve new projects in U.S. deputy ambassador Mark Wallace alleged Friday that the UNDP's North Korea operation had been run "in blatant violation of U.N. rules" for years. He demanded an outside audit focusing on concerns that development funds had been used by Pyongyang for "its own illicit purposes." The audit, announced Monday by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, is expected to last three months. UNDP assistant administrator Ad Melkert said the agency also agreed to end cash payments to the North Korean government and local suppliers and to stop hiring staff recruited by Pyongyang. The United States had complained about both practices, which Melkert said would stop by March 1. The UNDP said it will be responsible for implementing all North Korean projects, addressing U.S. complaints that authorities in the North had been responsible for carrying out certain initiatives. The U.S. welcomed the new steps. "We're pleased with the approach that the UNDP administrator has laid out," acting U.S. Permanent Representative Alejandro Wolff told reporters. North Korea said it would accept the steps, though it condemned them as an attempt to "politicize the system" of the UNDP _ a stance echoed by the representatives of Russia and Cuba. Japan, however, applauded the agreement and went a step further. It said the U.N. should stop providing aid to North Korea except for humanitarian assistance "directly delivered to the people" because Pyongyang had defied Security Council demands that it end its nuclear program. Wolff said the Japanese argument was "compelling" and that the U.S. would consider it. U.S. officials said the United States already withholds its contributions to the UNDP and other U.N. agencies that provide funds to North Korea. Ban's spokeswoman, Michele Montas, said Monday the audit will initially focus on UNDP spending in North Korea and then be expanded to other U.N. agencies. The agency said it welcomed the external audit, stressing it was committed to operating in a transparent manner. U.S. officials said they first received indications there might be irregularities in UNDP's North Korea program last year. They raised concerns the cash might be misused, possibly for Pyongyang's nuclear program. The U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on North Korea on Oct. 14 for conducting a nuclear test. North Korean delegate Jang Chunsik called the U.S. allegations "nonsense," insisting the UNDP's activities in his country had been "conducted in a transparent way." Wallace has made several allegations in letters to senior UNDP officials, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. He has said that UNDP's local staff is dominated by North Korean government employees who managed the agency's programs and finances in violation of UNDP rules. The U.S. cited three other violations of U.N. rules _ the government's insistence that UNDP pay cash to North Korean government suppliers, and UNDP's failure to oversee projects it funds in the country or to audit its programs. On Monday, the agency sought to refute the allegations, insisting the North Korean program followed UNDP financial rules. UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis said there is "no justification for the extreme allegations" made by Wallace, adding that UNDP was "doing its best in very difficult circumstances." UNDP spokesman David Morrison said the agency has spent about $3 million annually in the last 10 years on programs in impoverished North Korea, in addition to about $600,000 in office costs, which include local salaries and supplies. The programs focus on food production, rural and environmental sector management, economic management and social sector management. Morrison said UNDP international staff have visited nearly all their project sites in the past two years to ensure funds are being used appropriately. The UNDP has conducted three internal audits of its North Korean program in the last eight years, the last in 2004. Another internal audit was scheduled for this year, Morrison said. ___ Associated Press Writer Sarah DiLorenzo contributed to this report. | 
