One Day, One Life...
A lot of you have asked how New York is treating me. Do I like it? Am I having fun? Do I like my new life? etc. A lot happens every day, so it's hard to answer that question in an email... or even a phone call. So, I thought of a creative way to give my friends a window into my new life in NY."ONE DAY, ONE LIFE... MY LIFE"
Wednesday, 10/09/2005
9am. Wake up and Pray/Journal
10am. Finish 17 pg. paper for Intro to Human Rights (Due Tomorrow) "Globalization, Democracy and Human Rights" - A research paper investigating the question of whether a) globalization naturally leads to democracy and an increased enforcement of human rights or b) globalization leads to increased tension btwn cultural groups brought into close proximity, thus creating increased violations of human rights.
1:25pm. Send a copy of my paper to a new friend from my Human Rights program, Helle (a journalist from Denmark). We study together on Fridays and have agreed to check each other's papers before turning them in.
1:30pm. Run errand. Take the A Train down to 57th street, rush past Black female opera singer singing on platform, make bank deposit, stop in at Pax (Peace) Cafe for my favorite lunch item in that area - any one of their Panini's!
2:30pm. Go back to Train (this time the 1 Train) and see same opera singer on the platform... stop... in awe... "She's gonna be famous some day." Sit. Eat Pax Panini and listen to aria in the subway.
2:40pm. 1 Train arrives. I make eye contact with the diva-to-be, smile and give her the thumbs up. She curtsies in grand style. Still singing as the train doors close.
3:15pm. Arrive at Columbia and head to work at Earl Hall (The office of the Chaplain's Associates) where I open my email and find several CNN Breaking News emails about first one, then two, then three bombings at American hotels in Jordan.
3:30pm. Begin emailing faculty and student leaders in the Columbia School of the Arts and Professor George Lewis of the Music program, inviting them to participate in a Chaplain's program I'm putting together, "The Meter, The Music, The Sound of Prayer: An exploration of the intersection between Art and Prayer."
5:20 (ish) pm. Leave work and jet over to Lerner Hall to grab dinner - some variation on California Roll called "Ocean Roll" (don't ask)... but ah... a small reminder of life in LA...
6pm. Get in a long line winding through Lerner Hall to get into a Panel Discussion, entitled "The End of Poverty," with JEFFREY SACHS (author of the book by the same title), AMARTYA SEN (Harvard Prof. & author of "Development as Freedom"), GARETH STEDMAN JONES (Acting Director of Center of History and Economics & author of "An End To Poverty?") and EMMA ROTHSCHILD (Director for the Center of History and Economics Univ. of Cambridge, Visiting Prof. at Harvard & author of "Economic Sentiments...")
Number one thing I learned after listening to these scholars - all the absolute best in their fields - discuss each other's work:
IT IS POSSIBLE TO END WORLD POVERTY RIGHT NOW at relatively little cost, using proven methods.
(SIDE NOTE: In another special Jeffrey Sachs lecture I attended yesterday, I learned if you focus on the poorest people in the world, you find that they are most highly concentrated in basically uninhabitable equatorial regions of the world. The majority are concentrated in Africa. They have no roads, they're high in the mountains, or on drought prone, mosquito-ridden land. They have no hospitals, few doctors if any, and their inhabitants get Malaria or other highly treatable diseases 6x a year! So, curable sickness and needless death continues their cycles of poverty.
The solutions are doable. Build roads. Give Malaria shots. Immunize for these highly curable diseases that ravage these communities. Sachs has been talking with doctors and scientists all over the world who know exactly what they need to do to stop the cycles of poverty in these regions. Yet, for this to happen, the richest countries in the world would have to make good on the 2002 Monterrey Financing for Development Conference Agreement, promising to give 0.7% of their GNP to specific projects in the poorest countries to fund the needed change.
Sachs' website states, "On average, the world's richest countries have provided just 0.25% of their GNP in official development assistance (ODA). The United States provided just 0.15%." (See http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/endofpoverty/oda.html)
This is why the Millenium Development Goals are so important. For more info on the face of poverty and the UN's Millenium Project go to http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/facts/index.htm. END OF SIDE NOTE.)
8pm. Slide out of my row while Sachs, Sen, Rothschild and Stedman Jones field questions from an engaged audience. High tail it across campus to
8:10pm. Amnesty International Presents: Investigate Torture. JUMANA MUSA (Advocacy Director for Domestic Human Rights and International Justice at Amnesty Int.) and SARAH HAVENS (Attorney for 11 Yemenis detained at Guantanamo Bay).
This event was co-sponsored by the Chaplain's office. So, I went to check in and make sure all was going well.
I learned the following:
SARAH HAVENS' clients have been held for 3 years now. She knows that several are absolutely innocent. In fact, at this time, the U.S. Government knows they're innocent too, but they can't release them because they'd risk lawsuits for the torture these men have been made to endure for three years. So, now they're just holding them to keep them quite and save face.
By the way, did you know TORTURE is absolutely against International Law FOR ANY REASON AT ALL according to the UN Convention Against Torture which the U.S. signed under Reagan's presidency and ratified during Bush Sr.'s term.
And by the way, did you know that TORTURE makes it impossible to prosecute real terrorists successfully, because any evidence received under torturous conditions is inadmissible in any court in the world.
And by the way, did you know the Bush Administration is threatening to VETO Sen. Tom McCain's Anti-Torture legislation if he doesn't include a loop-hole provision for the CIA to be able to use torture tactics in their interrogations. This would be Bush's very first VETO of his presidency.
(There's more... but it get's pretty gruesome. If you want more info let me know. I'd be happy to share more.)
9:30pm. Head home on the 1 Train.
10pm. Turn on "Law & Order" (the original one ;p) and - yes - wind down while recounting "A Day In A Life". Smile, when I realize ... all that and no class today.
Tomorrow. Intro to Human Rights (Subject of Discussion? Torture.)
Friday. Fly to Indiana where I'll speak on SHALOM for the Northern Indiana InterVarsity Fall Conference.
By the way... If you'd like a copy of my paper, let me know and include your email address. I'll send you a copy via email.
posted by Lisa Sharon Harper @ 2:13 AM
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