This clearly shows just how connected we are with the land and earth we live on. I think that in this society we forget how important it is to have your own space, to be able to produce food if you can’t buy it. I mean, why do we Americans have this obsession with owning vs. renting a house? It’s because we all want our own little part of this world to call our own.

So take good care of the portion you receive. Appreciate it, care for it, and don’t waste it. And that’s not just for land, but for resources as well. You have electricity, unlike many people in this work. You have running water, a car, paper. There’s not need to live your life feeling guilty for the things you use, but consider them precious and use what you need. So turn off the water while you brush your teeth, the lights when you leave the room. Walk or take the bus every once and a while. Treat nothing like it’s disposable because it’s not. That wrapper will not go away, you are just lucky enough that it won’t stay in your life any longer. Someone else is probably living in the landfill it ends up in.

Use what you are given wisely and frugally, because in many other places people are dying for the same.

It might be interesting to compare this to the 3 Month Report of PIH.

Operating rooms opened – 25

Patients receiving emergency care – 4,961

at PIH/ZL hospitals – 2,961

Surgeries – 640

Amputations – 50

at Port-au-Prince sites – 2,000 (approx.)

Evacuated to USNS Comfort or abroad – 140

Referred to NGO partners – 1,000 (approx.)

Partners in Health 3 Month Report

This article describes how the foreign aid is driving down food prices–while at the same time, people are so poor that even those who weren’t affected by the quake are moving into the camps for the free food. What do you think?

I am a strong feminist, but for some reason when I think of God, when I talk to God, he’s a guy. I have a woman in my head too, the Mary, though I don’t know that I really think of her as a virgin. She comes into my head every once and a while, but probably not as often as just plain old God. I think that this arrangement is more a function of being raised celebrating Christmas and visiting Catholic churches on trips. Christian, I guess. Though really, I also believed in the Easter Bunny as the only thing that happens on Easter for years, but he doesn’t guide me throughout the day, does he?

I guess I could be angry at Christianity for infiltrating my head and forcing me to respond to a male yet again, even in my head, but being a feminist doesn’t mean that everything has to be run by women for us to happy. It means that the balance has to level out. So God can be a guy, and women will appear elsewhere. Although that can be kind of hard to reconcile with all the injustices around the world against women.

Sometimes I have conversations with God. There are no rules to how these go, though they usually consist of me asking for things or making deals with him, “ok listen, I promise I’ll go to the gym today, just let my wallet be where I left it, ok? please please please please please please.” Sometimes if I’m really serious I’ll sandwich it with a “dear god” and an “amen” just for the sake of posterity.

I think that I like religion for what it was originally meant to do before it got all political and everything. I like it for the deepness and richness it can add to life, the direction and company and faith that things are planned and someone’s got the strings that are pulling you here and there. I like it when I step into a cathedral and know that though religion is so often used to tear people apart, in this space it’s meant to bring your focus to nothing but you and the big guy shining through that stained glass window.

“I found my wallet. I promise to pass the good karma on.”

http://www.who.int/making_pregnancy_safer/topics/maternal_mortality/en/index.html

Myth:
Most abortions are performed on young, irresponsible women who can’t be bothered to use birth control.

Fact:
More than one-third of women in the United States will have an abortion before age 45. Women who have abortions come from all walks of life. Some of them got pregnant while using birth control. Some are survivors of sexual assault. They are all ages and all races.

Women get pregnant under a variety of circumstances and each has different reasons for having an abortion. More

Myth:
Abortion is much more dangerous than childbirth.

Fact:
Abortion is very safe and is at least 10 times safer than childbirth. 0.6 out of 100,000 abortions result in death while 13 out of 100,000 live births result in death. More

Myth:
Women who have abortions have emotional problems afterwards.

Fact:
The most reliable indicator of whether a woman will experience feelings of distress after an abortion is her emotional stability before the abortion. Women indicate that the most common feeling after the completion of an abortion is relief. While some women also experience a sense of loss, sadness, or grief, having an abortion is not associated with long-term psychological distress. More