—Tragedy in Baghdad

[CNN.com ]
The world doesn’t really need any more bad news right now, but it got some more anyway. A Shiite religious procession on a bridge in Baghdad was driven into panic by a rumor of a suicide bomber in their midst. Estimates of deaths, many of them women and children trampled or thrown from the bridge, are approaching the 1,000 mark.

—Aftermath of Hurricane “Katrina”—Updated+

[FOXNews.com ] [CNN.com] [MSNBC.com] [My Way News]

While the city of New Orleans was spared the northwest quadrant of the storm, and everyone was breathing a sigh of relief last night, the staggering toll in damage and possible loss of life is becoming apparent with sunrise this morning. Even though the storm is gone, it cost the city its vital pumps—many of which rely on electrical power— and several critical levees failed during the night. Now the water is rising around the historic business district and the French Quarter, and emergency plans to bring in generators and water purifiers on barges seem to be desperate afterthoughts. There are reports of water up to 20 feet deep in some places, and rescue parties now report seeing bodies floating in the flooded streets. The survivors remaining in New Orleans face lack of clean drinking water, sanitation, and power. Thousands—many elderly and invalids—are still jammed into the Super Dome, which lost much of its roof covering in the storm, without power for the air conditioners in stifling heat and humidity.
In Mississippi, which took the worst of the category 4 hurricane, no one can guess how many are dead. At least 80 are dead in Harrison County alone—30 people in one seaside apartment complex which collapsed. There is no word as to what might have possessed those people to “ride out” a gigantic, killer storm in an unreinforced beachfront building. Several of the state’s huge, incomprehensibly lavish coastal casinos reported water on their third floors.
Dramatic rescue scenes are on all the news services as National Guard, Coast Guard, local law enforcement, and others risk their own lives to pluck survivors from rooftops, in some cases hacking through the roofs to allow those trapped in their attics to escape rising water. Video of adults, inevitably carrying children and babies, being lifted to safety by helicopters or picked up by boats leaves a question which may not be answered for weeks—how many others didn’t make it?
[insensitive mode]
There are reports of at least 300 people clinging to rooftops in New Orleans, probably hundreds or thousands elsewhere. How did they get into such dire circumstances? As their functional motor vehicles sat idle in their driveways, when they decided that it would be okay to ride out the worst hurricane in living memory in wood-frame structures protected from the potential of a 20+-foot storm surge only by earthen embankments, did they suspect that they might face more serious issues than how the kids would watch their ScoobyDoo^TM tapes if the power went out? I suppose criminal punishment would be considered cruel after everything else that has happened to them, but how can this appalling, deadly foolishness be prevented in the future? Martial law has just been declared in New Orleans, probably a couple of days late.
[/insensitive mode]
[Updates]
Much of the flooding in New Orleans apparently is coming from a two-block breach in the levee on a canal which connects directly to the Ponchartrain. One report suggested that the only way the flow of water into the city could be stopped now was for the level in the city to equalize with that in the lake—a catastrophic scenario. Plans are underway to plug the breaches with 3000-lbs. sandbags dropped by helicopters, and some officials are still optimistic that the flooding can be controlled.
In developments that would overextend an audience’s suspension of disbelief in a mediocre disaster movie: Drinking water for New Orleans has been compromised by the rupture of a 50-inch water main, both airports are under water, an oil tanker has run aground and is leaking, the Interstate 10 causeway over Lake Ponchartrain is “completely destroyed”, there are fires and gas leaks everywhere, and electrical power may not be restored for weeks.
Parties in the French Quarter, however, will apparently continue until fully submerged.

Photos from http://www.nola.com/hurricane/photos/:

Broken section of a levee:

View of downtown New Orleans, damage to Super Dome:

Damage to the Interstate 10 Causeway:

[Update+]
As environmental experts begin to express their determinations that the catastrophe of hurricane Katrina is nature schooling us and the U.S. administration for indifference to global warming, thousands of survivors in New Orleans who followed instructions to go to the Super Dome are being left to sleep on freeway overpasses, without access to food, water, or sanitary facilities. Government relief efforts are in a state of collapse, thwarted by destruction of most transportation and communications. Civil authority has dissolved in finger-pointing and near-chaos pushed beyond its limits by the number of survivors needing immediate rescue, probable massive loss of life, and the prospect of irreversible toxic flooding of the city by failure of its levee and pump system.
The mayor of the city expressed his belief that the death toll may reach into the thousands, and President Bush predicted, after a survey of the area, that recovery will take years.
Elsewhere in New Orleans, it becomes apparent that the difference between civilization and savagery is a gust of wind on a Summer day.

—Katrina, No Pain for Human Fetuses, Titan Images, and other stories

Hurricane Katrina closes on New Orleans as Category 5+ [MyWay News/AP]
[FoxNews.com]
NOAA 3-day Track
NOAA Public Advisory
Sustained winds are 175+mph, potentially one of the worst storms ever to strike the U.S.. New Orleans, with its outflow levees into the Ponchartrain below the level of the Mississippi levees, and the entire city 12 feet below sea level, with the storm’s surges expected 30 feet above the tide levels, faces the real possibility of a “doomsday” storm. [ I haven’t found any information on how such a surge would affect the Atchafalaya spillway and control structures, or the Mississippi estuaries, for example.]
Despite decades of foreknowledge, the flaws in evacuation plans are becoming painfully evident. Thousands of fleeing motorists clog the intersate highways even though all lanes have been converted to outbound. Thousands of tourists, and others who don’t have their own transportation, are stranded in the city. The giant SuperDome has been pressed into service as an emergency shelter.
I am reminded of our friends at the Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, where we went for a conference a few months ago. We pray especially for their well-being, and for all the people of the endangered region, in this time of crisis.

“Study” concludes fetuses don’t feel pain[FOXNews.com]
I wonder if I could get funding for a “study” to show a correlation between pain-free existence and inconvenience to the medical/legal community—maybe, for example, if it included old people in need of long-term intensive care whose insurance has run out.

Earth’s Core Spins Faster Than Crust[FOXNews.com]
On to scienterrific news: a study of seismic data from earthquakes and other information shows that the Earth’s inner core spins a quarter to a half degree per year faster than the rest of the planet.
Maybe this news will turn that recent, utterly wretched inner-Earth science-fiction movie into a “cult classic”. Maybe not.

Latest Titan Images from Cassini[JPL]
The latest near-infrared images from the Saturn orbiter show a region of the moon “east of Xanadu”, including an apparent crater with evident ejecta rays on the surrounding terrain. The crater was first seen in the orbiter’s SAR radar images in February. Otherwise, more of the mysterious light-dark contrasting areas reminescent of coastlines.

Mosul Boy favored in “Iraqi Idol” competition[FOXNews.com]
“Reality” TV with a different twist, as the competitors have to dodge bullets and bombs to get to the competition in Baghdad in the first place. The 12-year-old sang and played guitar, and apparently touched the Iraqi public. Whether this particular feature of Western culture will benefit the Middle East in the long run remains to be seen. We can’t be sure what it’s doing to the West, yet.

Asteroid 1950 DA[JPL]
In case you’ve run out of something to worry about, check out 1950DA, an asteroid a little over 1 kilometer in mean diameter which has about a 1-in-300 chance of ending, or seriously curtailing, life on this planet in 2880, according to current estimates. They even have an ominous radar movie of the object from Arecibo imaging.

—The Bar at the Center of the Galaxy, Bolton Goes to Work, More on Menezes Shooting, NASA RTF Criticized, and other stories

Bolton gets to work—UN funding of Palestinian Anti-Israeli Propaganda “Unacceptable” [New York Sun][found on BlogsNow]
Mean, disrespectful new U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, called use of UN money for Palestinian anti-Israeli propaganda “inappropriate and unacceptable” . UN development funds were used for items with the slogan “Today Gaza, Tomorrow the West Bank and Jerusalem” , which also bore the logo of the UN development agency. UN officials responded that they “are taking this matter seriously.”

“Zotob” virus attacks[FOXNews.com]
[FOXNews.com] [New Scientist] Symantec Security Response – W32.Zotob.E
A new worm has been unleashed, an exploit of a buffer overflow fault in the MS Windows 2000 Plug and Play OS. It does the old massive, near-random IP address search which brings local networks to a standstill, among other things. It managed to mess up numerous improperly patched corporate systems, including US Customs, at one point.

More on Menezes’ shooting[FOXNews.com]
Not only was most of what the London police said about Jean Charles de Menezes’ behavior fraught with prevarication, but it appears now that he was already physically restrained—pinned to his train seat by another officer—when the police shot him seven times in the head. He not only wasn’t running from police when he entered the station as was reported, but even stopped for a free newspaper as he approached the train. If the War on Terror becomes a war of mindless terror versus senseless brutality, I’m not seeing as much of a point to it as I might have hoped.

Coretta Scott King suffers a stroke[FOXNews.com]
The widow of Marin Luther King seems to be recovering after suffering a stroke.

Shuttle Return to Flight Task Group members criticize NASA’s RTF performance [Spaceflight Now ]
[FOXNews.com ] [MSNBC.com]
NASA Return to Flight Task Group Final Report Issued [SpaceRef ]
NASA Return to Flight Task Group Final Report: Annex A.2 Individual Member Observations [SpaceRef ]
A subset of the members of the “Stafford-Covey” RTF group were harshly critical of NASA’s performance in addressing the safety and management issues which lead to the Columbia disaster. The next shuttle mission will be delayed by the uncorrected debris damage risks until at least March 2006.

Google ponders free WiFi[Business 2.0][found on BlogsNow]
Google is thinking about providing free wireless Internet service to the entire U.S….“free” being a relative term, since the service would be advertising-driven. After all, it worked so well for television….

Computers for the poor and illiterate [Gizmag][found on BlogsNow]
“PCtvt”, in development at Carnegie Mellon University, would provide inexpensive access to a combination PC, TV, Video and Telephone system for users in impoverished and remote areas. The goal of the project is an interface which can be learned even by illiterate users in one minute or less.

Spitzer Space Telescope shows “bar” at the center of the galaxy [ University of Wisconsin ]
No, this isn’t something written by Douglas Adams. A star survey suggests that the “Milky Way” has a prominent “bar” of stars across its center, about 27,000 light years long.
Is it too late to get another name for our galaxy? “Milky Way” sounds like a colossal spill, or candy, or something. If we ever meet life from other galaxies, it’s going to be really embarrassing to have to tell them what we call this one. Work on it, guys.

Pat Robertson Says Stuff…[FOXNews.com]
…again, as usual, almost as much an embarrassment to the Faith as the Southern Baptist Convention. Robertson’s copy of the Bible is evidently a few chapters shorter than most.

Isaiah 29
¹³ The Lord says:
“These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.

—BIrd Flu Spreading, “Able Danger”, More Witchful Thinking, Damning by Faint Worship, More on “Tenth Planet”, Experian Scam, Remote-Control Humans

Avian Influenza Spreading Through Asia[New Scientist]
The H5N1 strain of Avian Influenza, potentially deadly to humans, has been found in migratory birds in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. Scientists worry that migratory routes of the wild birds could cause them to spread the virus to Europe and the Americas. Most seem to think that spread from wild birds back to domesticated fowl or humans is unlikely. So far.

‘Able Danger’—When Did They Know?[FOXNews.com ]
It is being claimed that U.S. military intelligence reported the activities of Atta and the other 9-11 hijackers a year before the attacks, and that the Federal commission which investigated the attacks was told of the military operation but also ignored the information. The story continues to develop, and the credibility of the claims remain to be established—e.g. we’re not getting the whole story here, yet.

Wiccan Seeks Damages in Fight Against Public Prayer[FOXNews.com ]
Great Falls, South Carolina faces legal bills in its losing plea to the Supreme Court to allow continuation of prayers incorporating “that name” at its council meetings. Now the local “Wiccan priestess ” who sued the city over the prayers wants her legal expenses paid as well.
Okay, folks, among pseudo-religions made up in vacant woodlots by bored scholars as an excuse to wear their Renaissance Festival clothing at other times of the year, I’m sure that this one is as special as any—but how far are we going to let this go? Must we test the Constitution to destruction, or can we determine the consequences by analysis?

Damning by Faint Worship[Washington Monthly]
Amy Sullivan, an editor of the online magazine Washington Monthly, gushes the usual embarrassingly unrestrained praise for Hillary Clinton, but says of her prospective bid for the U.S. Presidency in 2008, “In the face of this momentum, someone has to say it, so here goes: Please don’t run, Senator. ”

A Little Mistake in Sizing ‘Tenth planet’ [New Scientist]
Size estimates for the newly discovered Kuiper object which determined that it was considerably larger than Pluto, may actually have been underestimated. The upper limit on size was based on the inability of the Spitzer Space Telescope to image the object in infrared. It now appears that the Spitzer wasn’t pointing at the right place.

Experian Settles With FTC Over Credit Scam
The FTC charged that “Experian” was hooking customers with free credit reports, and then started charging for them without notice. They have some other scams going as well—I got half a dozen phone calls from them demanding personal information for a supposed business database before they gave up.

Remote-controlled Humans for Games[New Scientist ]
The researchers use electrodes on the skin to stimulate the vestibular system to alter the subject’s perception of gravity. They demonstrated remote control of humans by making them move to re-establish perceived equilibrium. They also think this could be used to give a sense of “g”-forces in simulation games. The catch? Prolonged use of the stimulation technique might lead to permanent tissue damage. There’s always something….

—A Practical Matter, Part II:

What would Jesus do?

John 6
⁸Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, ⁹“Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”
¹⁰Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them. ¹¹Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.
¹²When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” ¹³So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
¹⁴After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” ¹⁵Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

The Law of God, as passed down through Moses, is remarkable even if viewed from a narrow humanistic perspective, as if it were a mere legal document. It transcends all the norms and practices of the ancient world in its provisions for social justice, equitable use of property, and the welfare of all the people of the nation. The land was given to Israel by God, and the people, from the least to the greatest, were to consider themselves His tenants on the land, rather than landowners. Those who were in need were to be provided loans without interest, or gleanings from the fields of those with plenty. Every seventh year, all loans were to be forgiven, all indentured servants were to be released, and lands taken in security of loans were to be returned to their original owners according to the tribal distributions decreed by God. It was in this context that He provided the commandments that Jesus called the Greatest— Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 —which virtually equate love for God with love for neighbor. God promised them prosperity as long as they lived according to these commands.
He also promised them severe punishment if they disobeyed these commandments by oppressing the poor and helpless or ignoring their needs. After Israel spent much of its history doing just these things, God sent His indictments against them through the prophets:

Isaiah 1
²³ Your rulers are rebels, companions of thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow’s case does not come before them. ²⁴ Therefore the Lord, the LORD Almighty, the Mighty One of Israel, declares:
“Ah, I will get relief from my foes and avenge myself on my enemies.

Isaiah 3
¹⁴ The LORD enters into judgment against the elders and leaders of his people:
“It is you who have ruined my vineyard; the plunder from the poor is in your houses. ¹⁵ What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?” declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.

²⁰ Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,
who put darkness for light and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
²¹ Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.
²² Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks,
²³ who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent.

Isaiah 10
¹ Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, ² to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.
³ What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your riches?

When Jesus arrived, and was rejected in turn, and as God prepared yet another exile of Judah from His land, Jesus repeated these indictments (among many others) once again:

Luke 20
⁴⁶“Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. ⁴⁷They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.”

Matthew 23
²³“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. “

Jesus showed love and compassion beyond human understanding toward the poor, the hungry, the sick, dying, lost, and outcast. He showed power beyond human comprehension in healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and raising the dead. Now, in John 6, we see Him finally getting the recognition He deserved. He only had to reach out, and all the suffering and affliction of humanity would end, replaced by His glory and power. In response to this awesome opportunity, Jesus….
…ran away?!
Why? He answered very similar suggestions elsewhere—Luke 4:5-8 and John 7:2-7, for example. As before, all He had to do to end the unspeakable misery of poverty, hunger and disease according to the wishes of the people was—establish His Goverment among men, place God’s stamp of approval on human political power and earthly civilization, and agree to fit into our understanding—give up on ever freeing us from slavery to sin and death—exchange the Kingdom of God for Hell on Earth.
As a practical matter, everyone knows how the imaginary scenario mentioned at the end of part one would turn out. Jesus talked about what happens when you remove evil from an individual’s life but don’t put anything back to replace it (Luke 11:24-26)—the same things would happen to collections of individuals. You can’t fix human misery—the product of millenia of evil, abuse and neglect—by a new UN initiative, economic aid, new laws, trade incentives, international condemnation, intervention, or warfare. The cure for human misery and evil requires change in the hearts, minds, and souls of people
(Jeremiah 31:33, 2 Corinthians 5:17) .
One of Jesus’ best known parables is in Luke 15:11-32. The parable of the lost, or “prodigal”, son is not really the example of God’s unconditional love and forgiveness we might think. The son in the story does have to do something. He has to come to his senses, admit that what he has done was sinful, and prepare to humble himself before his father and accept the consequences according to his father’s judgment. Then he has to get up, and go home. After that, it doesn’t matter to his father that he only came to his senses after the money was gone, only that his son who was lost has been found!
But what if the story was a little different? Perhaps the son could just send a note to his father demanding some more money. Better yet, he could go home, and demand that his father give him a place in the family home, that his “friends” be allowed to come and go as they please, that the father respect his “privacy”, his need for “his own space”. What would the consequences to the household be? What would happen to all the other members of the family, the workers and servants who have acted faithfully and depend on the integrity and prosperity of the house for their sustenance?
The question often comes up—why does God allow us to suffer? The lesson we have to learn about suffering is harsh, and a lot of people—especially those who might have gotten more than their share of the suffering —aren’t going to want to hear this, but it can’t be avoided. Human suffering wasn’t God’s idea—it was ours. We all accepted it as the reasonable cost of doing business when we decided that we could run our lives, our governments, our world, and our relationships without God.
These great and necessary tasks—feeding the hungry, healing the sick, lifting up the impoverished and oppressed, and teaching the people of the world about God’s Love in Jesus Christ—are not separate. They are the same job, and none will succeed without the others. The beginning of the end of human suffering—including the “here and now” afflictions of poverty, disease, and malnutrition—is in His Love, acting through each of us.
None of us is invisible to God —from the smallest, sickly child in southern Africa to the head of state to the neighbor next door that we’ve never met — and we must not be invisible to each other. The solution is still within our grasp, if we admit the foolishness of our own ways, humble ourselves before His Judgment, accept His Son as King in our lives, and go home.

—State of the Blog

I started my “HeartBreakLog” weblog originally as a place for my ideas, mostly Biblical commentary. The name is not particularly a religious metaphor, or anything—it originated from a Ricky Skaggs bluegrass number called “Heartbreak Hurricane”. I put the title on the aileron of my ill-fated .40 sport-pattern model airplane, where it turned out to be extremely appropriate. It later evolved into my regular computer-game “handle” for Q3, HL2, and a lot of other online/multiplayer experiences that I’m much too old for, and my regular user name. I named the blog “HeartBreakLog” mostly through a chronic lack of imagination.
I added a second page for regular news commentary, the “HeartBreakLogNews” a couple of months later. I had gotten into the annoying habit of sending emails to a small circle of acquaintances with comments on news stories, and it occurred to me that I might as well just post the comments to the weblog, where they could annoy numerous people across the world.
The SiteMeter data indicate that the weblogs have been read on such servers as EPA.GOV (at least it wasn’t FEMA) and EA.COM, in countries including Singapore, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Poland, Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.
I recently added a third page, The Shining Pasture, as a place to dump a few short stories from time to time.
Publication and promotion of weblogs seem to be a hit-or-miss proposition. New posts are pinged to Ping-o-Matic.com and Weblogs.com. There is a steady trickle of newsreader traffic through FeedBurner, and browser traffic comes in from BlogsNow and Technorati, and a few other places. Feedburner shows news reader hits from engines I’ve never heard of anywhere else. Both weblogs are now listed on Google, AltaVisa, and AskJeeves. Despite the regular trickle of visitors and considerable effort to implement main-page comments, no one has been motivated enough to leave any.
The other places the weblogs’ listings show up demonstrate that automatic blog searching and aggregation leaves a lot to be desired. I used the word “fun” in a post about the Cassini mission, and was rated a “kid-friendly” site. I used the word “logistics” in a post about ISS, and was included in a listing of supply-chain-related sites. An off-hand reference to the cast of the movie “Outbreak” got me briefly listed as a Renee Russo fan site, presumably until they figured that I probably couldn’t pick the woman out of a lineup.
I am running short of ideas for increasing traffic. I suppose I could change the name of the weblog to “EpoxyLipsNow” or something more dramatic, or start writing everything in instant-message-ese. Maybe I could invent a social life and belabor dozens of people with embarrassing details, or act really depressed about it. I could post more dog pictures. I could threaten to start pod-casting. It really doesn’t seem worth the trouble, though. I seem to be getting enough entertainment out of the illusion of world-wide community, material for further sarcasm about the web, and the virtual hat rack that is my out-of-the-way corner of the bloglight zone. [that ought to get a few search engine hits.]

—Shuttle Safe, Iran Reopens Uranium Plant, Pakistan’s New Missle, Anglos a Minority in Texas

Shuttle Down & Safe[FOXNews.com]
The first Shuttle flight since the destruction of Discovery safely touched down at Edwards AFB. Now we can try to think about something else as the real threats gradually make a comeback—arrogance, complacency, that old can’t-fail, what’s-your-problem-we-got-away-with-it spirit….

Iran Removes UN Seals from Uranium Processing Plant[CNN.com]
Iran has removed the seals of the UN’s atomic monitoring agency at the Isfahan uranium ore processing plant, with the intent to resume full operation at the plant. Iranian officials issued thinly veiled threats of rising oil prices and increased tensions in other flashpoints such as Iraq, if other countries attempt to control their nuclear activities by “coercive” measures. UN monitoring personnel were in the plant as the seals were removed.

Pakistan Test-fires New Cruise Missile[FOXNews.com]
Things are looking up all around the world, as Pakistan has test-fired a new nuclear-capable cruise missle with a 310-mile range.

Anlgos Officially a Minority in Texas[FOXNews.com]
The U.S. Census Bureau has announced its finding that, per the 2000 census figures, Anglos are now a minority in the U.S. state of Texas, with Hispanics now the largest ethnic group in the state.

—A Practical Matter, Part I:

The Price of Invisibility—Poverty, Malnutrition, and Disease

Proverbs 14
³¹ He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,
but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.

This is an extremely difficult subject, provoked by a local sermon and concerns alluded to in earlier installments. It is particularly important that this topic be approached prayerfully, while avoiding the obscuring influences of political views, and I’m not very good at that. Everyone sees this subject-matter all the time, to the point that (much as Stalin supposedly said) it often fades from tragedy to statistic. It isn’t clear, yet, what it will take to make us aware of the horrific magnitude of this worldwide crisis, but we have to start somewhere.
Here’s what the World Health Organization’s report on malnutrition has to say:

“Chronic food deficits affect about 792 million people in the world (FAO 2000), including 20% of the population in developing countries. Worldwide, malnutrition affects one in three people and each of its major forms dwarfs most other diseases globally (WHO, 2000). Malnutrition affects all age groups, but it is especially common among the poor and those with inadequate access to health education and to clean water and good sanitation. More than 70% of children with protein-energy malnutrition live in Asia, 26% live in Africa, and 4% in Latin America and the Caribbean (WHO 2000). ” [ Wikipedia definition and description of PEM ]

I recognize that WHO’s information and statistics might be found less than respectable by many, due to various economic and political agendas, but they are readily accessible and mostly in one place. The above looks like a reasonable summary of the nature and factors of world malnutrition—with its most devastating effects in underdeveloped countries, where it is exacerbated by poverty, poor access to health care and information, and bad living conditions.
WHO’s document Nutrition for health and development: A global agenda for combating malnutrition contains more detail on this subject. Almost half of the deaths of children each year are due to malnutrition. Nutritional deficiencies are among the most common preventable causes of brain damage and blindness in children. Section 2.1, “The spectrum of malnutrition”, contains a summary of the situation (although they seem determined to throw in overnutrition (obesity) and misnutrution? (as a cause of cancer) to complicate the issue).
Meanwhile, disease also ravages the developing world. An admittedly cursory scan of the CIA World Factbook shows high risks of the same “laundry list” of diseases among most of these countries, especially in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa: bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, hepatitis, typhoid fever, malaria, meningitis, as well as deficiency-related diseases including mental retardation, blindness, and developmental deformities which can be readily treated or prevented with a ridiculously small investment in supplemental iodine, vitamins, iron, and other micronutrients. Poor sanitation, filthy drinking water, and living conditions which in America would result in serious jail time if inflicted upon dogs or cattle, are the facts of life of millions in the 21st Century.
Then there’s HIV/AIDS. [ WHO is in significant denial here; when homosexuality---which WHO always refers to as “men having sex with men”---is addressed, it is usually about the role of stigmatization and anti-sodomy laws as barriers to victims seeking treatment, not the role of this elective behavior as the original and still major vector of the disease. WHO apparently declines to admit that abstinence from homosexual behavior might have any benefits in preventing the spread of the disease, while the remarkable effect of abstinence from premarital heterosexual relations in Uganda on infection rates of HIV is mentioned. Obviously the beneficial role of Christian doctrine as a response to both the destructive behavior and the unforgiving repression of those suffering the consequences ( 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ) will not be found in UN literature. ] WHO’s “2004 Report on the global AIDS epidemic ” refers to HIV/AIDS as an “extraordinary kind of a crisis ”, “unique in human history in its rapid spread, its extent and the depth of its impact. ” 20 years after the disease was first recognized, the toll is 20 million people dead, with 37.8 million infected as of the time of the Report, and the goals of simply stopping the acceleration of rates of new infections are nowhere near to being realized. Sub-Saharan Africa, with about 10% of the world’s population, has about two-thirds of the people infected. 57% of the infected in these countries are women, who often suffer repression and mistreatment due to prevailing customs and traditions, who are usually required to care for the ill, and who are biologically more susceptible to the infection.
There has been remarkable success in the development of anti-retroviral drugs to prolong life and restore a measure of health to the HIV-infected, and significant reductions in the cost of the drugs, but in the poorer countries only about 7% of the infected have access to these life-sustaining medications. Meanwhile, about 12 million children in sub-Saharan Africa have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS, and many of these ever-growing numbers of “AIDS orphans” are neglected
All of these conditions contribute to a hellish cycle of deprivation and death. Poverty leads to chronic malnutrition, which makes the victims more susceptible to disease. AIDS and other diseases drastically diminish income potential and educational opportunity, destroy economies and individual resources, and kill in increasing numbers, leaving impoverished survivors, including unsupported children.
Nor are the degree and distribution of this suffering just an accident of geography. Political, economic, and social priorities in the powerful industrialized nations as well as in many of the poor, devastated countries themselves are primary ingredients in the world’s suffering. Few could argue that that the resources to end the misery of the world’s poor are not available to us, or that much of the death, disease, and loss which afflicts them is preventable. What is the problem then? As an example, UNAID’s executive summary to the Report calls for funding of a global AIDS response of $20 billion USD per year by 2007, to cover antiretroviral therapy for 6 million people, support for 22 million orphans, adult counseling and testing, and education programs in schools. Funding as of the Report was at about $5 billion USD. Even if the funding calls are inflated by bureaucracy and corruption in the decrepit UN organizations, this “burden” on industrialized nations needs to be put into perspective: that’s about 9 B-2 “Stealth” Bombers , about 15 Shuttle launches. or about one-fifth of an International Space Station (The remaining four-fifths of an ISS would probably go a long way to relieve other diseases, malnutrition, and poverty).
No nation can “wall off” the horrors of the rest of the world and go on to develop its military power and national prestige in isolation. It is particularly apparent from recent outbreaks of virulent diseases, including hemorrhagic fevers such as Marburg and Ebola, and Avian Influenza, that there’s no such thing as “somebody else’s problem”. Death for millions in any country on the planet could be a mutation and an airplane flight away.
Political, social, and military conditions in many of the most affected countries themselves undoubtedly contribute heavily to the suffering. Another cursory scan of the CIA World Factbook, for example, shows that a disproportionate number of African nations are or have been at war with one or more neighbors recently. It seems that almost all of them are forced to support large refugee populations from one or more neighbors due to other nations’ wars.
Few outrages could be more sickening than the situation in Rwanda, site of one of the bloodiest genocides in modern history (which an American President was too busy to notice) in revenge for an overthrow and exile which was, in turn, a reprisal for years of repression of one African tribe by another. According to the CIA’s Factbook, Rwanda has a 60% poverty rate (mean per capita GDP $1300USD per year), a 5% adult AIDS prevalence (2003), and an economy decimated by the genocide, warfare, collapse of the world market for coffee, and lack of infrastructure. It still depends heavily on international aid. Nevertheless, it spends 3.2% of its GDP ( a percentage comparable to the military expenditures of the U.S.) to support its military so that it can continue its border disputes with its neighbors, maintain an insurgency in the Congo, and resist various internal insurgencies and rebel groups.
Then there’s Angola—devastated by a quarter-century of a civil war which was often exploited and encouraged by other nations, with a 70% poverty rate, inflation rates over 100%, and over 50% unemployment. Angola’s government nevertheless sees fit to spend an incomprehensible 10.6% of its GDP to support its military!
This is not an acceptable outcome—the world, particularly the people of God’s Kingdom dedicated in Christ to showing His Love to the world, cannot stand by and suffer the loss of entire continents of human beings. The condition of a third of the world’s population beggars all pretense of basic human decency. Even if the statistics were skewed or the descriptions exaggerated somehow, the fact of the abject failure of humanity to rectify this monstrous evil is an unanswerable indictment against us all. While people can die of invisibility, we are all guilty.
So what should be done? Imagine , as John Lennon was found of saying, that we could set aside the arrogant lust for power, our endless appetite for evil, and would no longer tolerate the indecency of allowing millions to suffer and die when the resources are clearly available to save them. We only need to convince world and local leaders to act fairly and honestly, and to reorganize their priorities to equitably insure the health and well-being of all humanity—our most precious and irreplaceable resource.
But everyone knows that none of this will ever work. The reason that none of this will ever happen is that we—WHO, the UN, presidents, kings, politicians, and everyone else on this planet, have been completely missing the point.

NEXT: A Practical Matter, Part II: What would Jesus do?

—More on Avian Influenza

Chinese Government Misuse of Critical Antiviral Drug Led to Resistant Strain
[Washington Post ] The Chinese Government not only waited until 2004 to notify international agencies of major outbreaks of avian influenza in its poultry which began in the 1990’s, but encouraged the widespread use of amantadine, an antiviral drug intended only for humans, as an additive to poultry feed and water to control and prevent the spread of the disease so that the affected flocks would not have to be slaughtered. The result was an amantadine-resistant strain of H5N1 which not only swept through the poultry of nine other Asian countries but killed 54 humans. The prospect of an horrific pandemic of killer influenza that might dwarf the 1918 epidemic has been made even worse because this widely available and inexpensive antiviral drug has been made useless against the new strain. The alternatives include oseltamivir and zanamivir, which are more expensive and more difficult to produce in the huge quantities needed to control new outbreaks in humans.