Jack Lynch, Editor

Mixed Use

Beijing Spring, Interrupted

Passion, People and Politics in Frederick City

Millennium project

A Frederick Leader of Distinction

APFO Under Attack

State Lands Sale

Frederick Water Sourcing

Frederick Water
Monocacy River Protection

The Liberty of the Press consists of the right to publish with impunity truth with good motives and for justifiable ends, whether it respects the government, magistrates, or individuals.
People vs. Croswell

Serving the Frederick, Maryland Community Proudly!
Title 6

Jack Lynch, Editor
APFO Under Attack
State Lands Sale
Water Sourcing
Monocacy River Protection
Title 6

January 17, 2005

Global Thinking

The United Nations Millennium Project has begun to release information on a variety of goals, including eradication of diseases that are easily treatable, ending extreme poverty, restoring productivity of small farms in depleted soil areas of the world, and bringing education and economic opportunity to millions of people.  It has identified that 1 Billion children worldwide have either, not enough food, bad drinking water, or been orphaned because of disease.  It shows that 150,000 people a day die in Africa because of malaria, which is treatable by a $1 pill or prevented by a $5 insecticide net covering a bed.

The generational impoverishment of people worldwide by these factors when we have the knowledge and wealth to address these needs should be a call to social action by all of us.  It would take about $60 Billion a year, compared to the $450 Billion we spend annually on armed forces.  It would take a realization of the daily deprivations and destruction of hundreds of thousands juxtaposed against the one time tsunami of 150,000 deaths currently drawing attention and donations from the U.S.

And of course, it would require that we recognize that the real battle for hearts and minds and eventual peace reside in the long term effort to accomplish these goals rather than take a beleaguered fight to the Middle East or try to bring democracy to the Muslim world.  We must not simply espouse our values, we must practice and demonstrate them if we wish to become the beacon of freedom and life we claim in speech and song.

Today, in the Washington Post’s editorial columns, the Millennium Project Co-Chair Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, calls on Americans to accomplish these goals by contributing a half of one percent of our annual wealth generation to the effective approaches outlined by the report.  (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14732-2005Jan16.html)