From special correspondent Cassandra Kennedy, on location in Brazil:
All is fab here. I managed to get hammered and make tons of friends within 4 hours of arriving. Gotta love it! The corner bar (site of this initial revelry) just happens to be a little hangout for hookers very late at night when (their) business is slow. Sounds dodgy but they are pretty cool.
They have an ``interesting`` outlook on life as you can imagine. So I just had to pop in and relay this little tidbit - I thought you´d get a kick out of it. I was chatting with this hooker (Esmerelda) and 2 guys - all were from the Brazilian countryside and bitching about how violent it is here and how they´re sick of it in Rio. She pulls her shirt down and shows me this scar on her boob and says it was from getting stabbed during a mugging. Oi! I said it´s really violent where I live, too - in some areas. She asked if I knew where Philadelphia was and I said I lived pretty nearby.
Then she freaked out and was telling the guys in Portuguese ``oh my god - you guys would not believe Philadelphia life. It´s the only place worse than Rio. It´s like crazy shootings and super rough. The cops will just shoot you down, too. Wow! Wow!``
And then after that, it was like I had street cred with them. Too funny. None of them have ever been outside of Brazil but they have certainly heard all about Philly. Just thought you should know and be proud:)
I should say that our time here has not been crazy violent or dangerous - more like paradise! Miss you girls...
cK
Editor's note: Clearly, Ms. Kennedy leads a far more interesting existence than most mortals.
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Monday, September 5, 2005
New Orleans
It really is frustrating what's happening in New Orleans and Mississippi.
At work, we usually only deal with international crises, because normally the needs of a domestic crisis and one in a developing country are unique. But now many of our member organizations who normally only deal with international issues, especially refugees, are being called upon for their advice, since most domestic aid outfits don't know how to deal with third-world conditions and massive amounts of displaced people.
I'm at a loss as to how it got so bad. The tsunami affected thirteen countries on two continents, displacing people in rural, poverty-stricken areas with no pre-existing infrastructure, and people were able to be fed, administered to, and sheltered. The United States of America can't get people out of a sports arena. I normally cringe when people make comparisons to crises such as Darfur, but the situation in the Superdome and the New Orleans convention center is dishearteningly similar to that taking place in IDP camps in Sudan. After 9/11, so much money was invested in making sure we were prepared for disasters, and it seems like the only thing that was accomplished was was the creation of an even bigger beuraucracy that made us even more poorly equipped to respond to an emergency.
The worst thing for me is that this was not an unforeseen event. The tsunami caught everyone by surprise. 9/11 caught us unawares. But the idea of a monster hurricane devastating New Orleans was something that had been predicted and studied. It's carelessness and petty politics that have made things as bad as they are, and we should be embarrassed. And with donations being offered from the UN and tsunami-stricken Sri Lanka, I think we may need to be a lot more humble in our foreign relations as well.
Robyn
At work, we usually only deal with international crises, because normally the needs of a domestic crisis and one in a developing country are unique. But now many of our member organizations who normally only deal with international issues, especially refugees, are being called upon for their advice, since most domestic aid outfits don't know how to deal with third-world conditions and massive amounts of displaced people.
I'm at a loss as to how it got so bad. The tsunami affected thirteen countries on two continents, displacing people in rural, poverty-stricken areas with no pre-existing infrastructure, and people were able to be fed, administered to, and sheltered. The United States of America can't get people out of a sports arena. I normally cringe when people make comparisons to crises such as Darfur, but the situation in the Superdome and the New Orleans convention center is dishearteningly similar to that taking place in IDP camps in Sudan. After 9/11, so much money was invested in making sure we were prepared for disasters, and it seems like the only thing that was accomplished was was the creation of an even bigger beuraucracy that made us even more poorly equipped to respond to an emergency.
The worst thing for me is that this was not an unforeseen event. The tsunami caught everyone by surprise. 9/11 caught us unawares. But the idea of a monster hurricane devastating New Orleans was something that had been predicted and studied. It's carelessness and petty politics that have made things as bad as they are, and we should be embarrassed. And with donations being offered from the UN and tsunami-stricken Sri Lanka, I think we may need to be a lot more humble in our foreign relations as well.
Robyn
Sunday, August 7, 2005
Monuments in the Moonlight
This evening we did something we've been meaning to do since we moved to DC. We drove down to the national Mall and went for a walk by the monuments at midnight. If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend it. There's plenty of parking around there, so you don't have to worry about traipsing around the mean streets of DC in the dark (not recommended). There's enough people around so you don't have to worry about it being too desolate, but not nearly the teeming masses that swarm about the place in the daytime. Plus, in the summer, it's a lot cooler. It had been in the upper 90s the day that we went, but by the Washington Monument there was a pleasant breeze. We only walked from the Washington Monument to Lincoln and then back through the Vietnam memorial, but that's a deceptively long hike, and we had had enough by the time we got back to the car. Another bonus of going late at night is that all of the ducks and their little baby ducklets can be seen cuddled up together along the edge of the reflecting pool.
Awww....
And I can finally personally attest, as I have been dying to for ages now, that the ring of asphalt surrounding the Washington Monument is just dandy for roller skating.
Robyn
Awww....
And I can finally personally attest, as I have been dying to for ages now, that the ring of asphalt surrounding the Washington Monument is just dandy for roller skating.
Robyn
Saturday, July 9, 2005
It's Always Something...
I swear to God Live 8 feels like a lifetime ago.
Here's the good news: I think I'm closer to the conclusion that I'm really really excited about the kind of work that I do. Not Executive Assistant duties, but the whole activism thang. We started this week on such a high. We had worked so hard for so long for this incredible week of events leading up to the G8 meeting in Scotland. Our grassroots and policy people were focused on the concerts and the One Campaign, as well as a whole global movement of awareness-raising events. Our program people were not just tracking their own issues (trade, debt cancellation, disaster relief, all that fun stuff.), but working together to focus our concerns on this one huge event. I was knee-deep in the not very sexy world of logistics and travel arrangements to send people to Edinburgh, but I felt like I was doing my part. Actually going to the concerts and seeing that people were absorbing the message was hugely gratifying to us. We weren't so naive as to believe that some kind of miracle was going to come out of the Summit, but there was no doubt that the collective effort or our organizations and the groups that we worked with had caught the attention of the most powerful people on Earth. We were excited to see what they would do.
So that's why the events on July 7 in London were such a gut punch on so many levels.
I usually don't turn on the news until about 10 minutes before I'm ready to leave in the morning. I'm really not one to break down into tears. That's really not my style. But I was so gutted by what I saw on the television, that I started sobbing into my oatmeal. I seriously considered not going in, but there was work to do. Predictably, the mood at work was very, very glum. Like everyone else, we were all sad for London, which had been having such a glorious week up to that point with the concerts and the G8 and the Olympics. I had been listening to my favorite London radio station all that week, and they were just ecstatic. Now they were completely bewildered and traumatized. Having lived there, and being very well acquainted with the targeted areas, and knowing a thing or two about living in a traumatized city, I was taking it rather hard on that front.
But there was another angle for us at work as well. The focus of the G8 Summit shifted dramatically. When Tony Blair left Gleneagles, we all felt like all our hopes of something being done about global poverty left with him. We had come so far in the past week, and because of the actions of a few petty and thoughtless individuals, another beautiful city that I loved was in tears and all the work that so many people had done all over the world looked to be ruined. We were sad for the Londoners, for the Africans, for the organizers -- we were just devastated.
So we waited. Our people in Scotland were fairly pessimistic. So many people there were based in London, that Edinburgh emptied out quite a bit. The media calls that had been so focused on the Make Poverty History push stopped coming to them. Our staff were sitting in hotels, just waiting for something, anything, to come out of the Summit that they could react to. Then they announced the $50 billion aid package to Africa.
There are two ways you could look at this. On the critical side, $50 billion by 2010 falls way, way short of the targets that these countries had set for themselves five years ago. There is no guarantee or practical plan for actually coming through with the aid, so it could just be a chance for a fantastic headline that will never be realized, which happens quite a bit. Many of the other primary issues that the activists were pushing for, such as increased fair trade, were given lip service at best, ignored at worst.
But then there's the bright side (which, I'm sorry to say, the good people that I work with are usually disinclined to acknowledge. We're not happy if we're not miserable, it seems at times). Global poverty and Africa were given more attention than they ever had been in previous years. The whole world may have gotten distracted on the day of the Summit, but more people know about these issues than they had previously. Like I said to one despondent colleague, we're not as far as we were a week ago, but we're a hell of a lot farther than we were a year ago.
So again, the good news is that I have a passion. The bad news is that because of that, my heart is broken this week. Someone at work said that we would all be a lot less stressed if we just didn't care. But then I don't think life would be half as interesting, and the payoffs, when they come, wouldn't be nearly as sublime.
There's another huge policy meeting at the UN in September, focused on the Millennium Development Goals to end global poverty. Time to get to work...
Robyn
Here's the good news: I think I'm closer to the conclusion that I'm really really excited about the kind of work that I do. Not Executive Assistant duties, but the whole activism thang. We started this week on such a high. We had worked so hard for so long for this incredible week of events leading up to the G8 meeting in Scotland. Our grassroots and policy people were focused on the concerts and the One Campaign, as well as a whole global movement of awareness-raising events. Our program people were not just tracking their own issues (trade, debt cancellation, disaster relief, all that fun stuff.), but working together to focus our concerns on this one huge event. I was knee-deep in the not very sexy world of logistics and travel arrangements to send people to Edinburgh, but I felt like I was doing my part. Actually going to the concerts and seeing that people were absorbing the message was hugely gratifying to us. We weren't so naive as to believe that some kind of miracle was going to come out of the Summit, but there was no doubt that the collective effort or our organizations and the groups that we worked with had caught the attention of the most powerful people on Earth. We were excited to see what they would do.
So that's why the events on July 7 in London were such a gut punch on so many levels.
I usually don't turn on the news until about 10 minutes before I'm ready to leave in the morning. I'm really not one to break down into tears. That's really not my style. But I was so gutted by what I saw on the television, that I started sobbing into my oatmeal. I seriously considered not going in, but there was work to do. Predictably, the mood at work was very, very glum. Like everyone else, we were all sad for London, which had been having such a glorious week up to that point with the concerts and the G8 and the Olympics. I had been listening to my favorite London radio station all that week, and they were just ecstatic. Now they were completely bewildered and traumatized. Having lived there, and being very well acquainted with the targeted areas, and knowing a thing or two about living in a traumatized city, I was taking it rather hard on that front.
But there was another angle for us at work as well. The focus of the G8 Summit shifted dramatically. When Tony Blair left Gleneagles, we all felt like all our hopes of something being done about global poverty left with him. We had come so far in the past week, and because of the actions of a few petty and thoughtless individuals, another beautiful city that I loved was in tears and all the work that so many people had done all over the world looked to be ruined. We were sad for the Londoners, for the Africans, for the organizers -- we were just devastated.
So we waited. Our people in Scotland were fairly pessimistic. So many people there were based in London, that Edinburgh emptied out quite a bit. The media calls that had been so focused on the Make Poverty History push stopped coming to them. Our staff were sitting in hotels, just waiting for something, anything, to come out of the Summit that they could react to. Then they announced the $50 billion aid package to Africa.
There are two ways you could look at this. On the critical side, $50 billion by 2010 falls way, way short of the targets that these countries had set for themselves five years ago. There is no guarantee or practical plan for actually coming through with the aid, so it could just be a chance for a fantastic headline that will never be realized, which happens quite a bit. Many of the other primary issues that the activists were pushing for, such as increased fair trade, were given lip service at best, ignored at worst.
But then there's the bright side (which, I'm sorry to say, the good people that I work with are usually disinclined to acknowledge. We're not happy if we're not miserable, it seems at times). Global poverty and Africa were given more attention than they ever had been in previous years. The whole world may have gotten distracted on the day of the Summit, but more people know about these issues than they had previously. Like I said to one despondent colleague, we're not as far as we were a week ago, but we're a hell of a lot farther than we were a year ago.
So again, the good news is that I have a passion. The bad news is that because of that, my heart is broken this week. Someone at work said that we would all be a lot less stressed if we just didn't care. But then I don't think life would be half as interesting, and the payoffs, when they come, wouldn't be nearly as sublime.
There's another huge policy meeting at the UN in September, focused on the Millennium Development Goals to end global poverty. Time to get to work...
Robyn
It's Always Something...
I swear to God Live 8 feels like a lifetime ago.
Here's the good news: I think I'm closer to the conclusion that I'm really really excited about the kind of work that I do. Not Executive Assistant duties, but the whole activism thang. We started this week on such a high. We had worked so hard for so long for this incredible week of events leading up to the G8 meeting in Scotland. Our grassroots and policy people were focused on the concerts and the One Campaign, as well as a whole global movement of awareness-raising events. Our program people were not just tracking their own issues (trade, debt cancellation, disaster relief, all that fun stuff.), but working together to focus our concerns on this one huge event. I was knee-deep in the not very sexy world of logistics and travel arrangements to send people to Edinburgh, but I felt like I was doing my part. Actually going to the concerts and seeing that people were absorbing the message was hugely gratifying to us. We weren't so naive as to believe that some kind of miracle was going to come out of the Summit, but there was no doubt that the collective effort or our organizations and the groups that we worked with had caught the attention of the most powerful people on Earth. We were excited to see what they would do.
So that's why the events on July 7 in London were such a gut punch on so many levels.
I usually don't turn on the news until about 10 minutes before I'm ready to leave in the morning. I'm really not one to break down into tears. That's really not my style. But I was so gutted by what I saw on the television, that I started sobbing into my oatmeal. I seriously considered not going in, but there was work to do. Predictably, the mood at work was very, very glum. Like everyone else, we were all sad for London, which had been having such a glorious week up to that point with the concerts and the G8 and the Olympics. I had been listening to my favorite London radio station all that week, and they were just ecstatic. Now they were completely bewildered and traumatized. Having lived there, and being very well acquainted with the targeted areas, and knowing a thing or two about living in a traumatized city, I was taking it rather hard on that front.
But there was another angle for us at work as well. The focus of the G8 Summit shifted dramatically. When Tony Blair left Gleneagles, we all felt like all our hopes of something being done about global poverty left with him. We had come so far in the past week, and because of the actions of a few petty and thoughtless individuals, another beautiful city that I loved was in tears and all the work that so many people had done all over the world looked to be ruined. We were sad for the Londoners, for the Africans, for the organizers -- we were just devastated.
So we waited. Our people in Scotland were fairly pessimistic. So many people there were based in London, that Edinburgh emptied out quite a bit. The media calls that had been so focused on the Make Poverty History push stopped coming to them. Our staff were sitting in hotels, just waiting for something, anything, to come out of the Summit that they could react to. Then they announced the $50 billion aid package to Africa.
There are two ways you could look at this. On the critical side, $50 billion by 2010 falls way, way short of the targets that these countries had set for themselves five years ago. There is no guarantee or practical plan for actually coming through with the aid, so it could just be a chance for a fantastic headline that will never be realized, which happens quite a bit. Many of the other primary issues that the activists were pushing for, such as increased fair trade, were given lip service at best, ignored at worst.
But then there's the bright side (which, I'm sorry to say, the good people that I work with are usually disinclined to acknowledge. We're not happy if we're not miserable, it seems at times). Global poverty and Africa were given more attention than they ever had been in previous years. The whole world may have gotten distracted on the day of the Summit, but more people know about these issues than they had previously. Like I said to one despondent colleague, we're not as far as we were a week ago, but we're a hell of a lot farther than we were a year ago.
So again, the good news is that I have a passion. The bad news is that because of that, my heart is broken this week. Someone at work said that we would all be a lot less stressed if we just didn't care. But then I don't think life would be half as interesting, and the payoffs, when they come, wouldn't be nearly as sublime.
There's another huge policy meeting at the UN in September, focused on the Millennium Development Goals to end global poverty. Time to get to work...
Robyn
Here's the good news: I think I'm closer to the conclusion that I'm really really excited about the kind of work that I do. Not Executive Assistant duties, but the whole activism thang. We started this week on such a high. We had worked so hard for so long for this incredible week of events leading up to the G8 meeting in Scotland. Our grassroots and policy people were focused on the concerts and the One Campaign, as well as a whole global movement of awareness-raising events. Our program people were not just tracking their own issues (trade, debt cancellation, disaster relief, all that fun stuff.), but working together to focus our concerns on this one huge event. I was knee-deep in the not very sexy world of logistics and travel arrangements to send people to Edinburgh, but I felt like I was doing my part. Actually going to the concerts and seeing that people were absorbing the message was hugely gratifying to us. We weren't so naive as to believe that some kind of miracle was going to come out of the Summit, but there was no doubt that the collective effort or our organizations and the groups that we worked with had caught the attention of the most powerful people on Earth. We were excited to see what they would do.
So that's why the events on July 7 in London were such a gut punch on so many levels.
I usually don't turn on the news until about 10 minutes before I'm ready to leave in the morning. I'm really not one to break down into tears. That's really not my style. But I was so gutted by what I saw on the television, that I started sobbing into my oatmeal. I seriously considered not going in, but there was work to do. Predictably, the mood at work was very, very glum. Like everyone else, we were all sad for London, which had been having such a glorious week up to that point with the concerts and the G8 and the Olympics. I had been listening to my favorite London radio station all that week, and they were just ecstatic. Now they were completely bewildered and traumatized. Having lived there, and being very well acquainted with the targeted areas, and knowing a thing or two about living in a traumatized city, I was taking it rather hard on that front.
But there was another angle for us at work as well. The focus of the G8 Summit shifted dramatically. When Tony Blair left Gleneagles, we all felt like all our hopes of something being done about global poverty left with him. We had come so far in the past week, and because of the actions of a few petty and thoughtless individuals, another beautiful city that I loved was in tears and all the work that so many people had done all over the world looked to be ruined. We were sad for the Londoners, for the Africans, for the organizers -- we were just devastated.
So we waited. Our people in Scotland were fairly pessimistic. So many people there were based in London, that Edinburgh emptied out quite a bit. The media calls that had been so focused on the Make Poverty History push stopped coming to them. Our staff were sitting in hotels, just waiting for something, anything, to come out of the Summit that they could react to. Then they announced the $50 billion aid package to Africa.
There are two ways you could look at this. On the critical side, $50 billion by 2010 falls way, way short of the targets that these countries had set for themselves five years ago. There is no guarantee or practical plan for actually coming through with the aid, so it could just be a chance for a fantastic headline that will never be realized, which happens quite a bit. Many of the other primary issues that the activists were pushing for, such as increased fair trade, were given lip service at best, ignored at worst.
But then there's the bright side (which, I'm sorry to say, the good people that I work with are usually disinclined to acknowledge. We're not happy if we're not miserable, it seems at times). Global poverty and Africa were given more attention than they ever had been in previous years. The whole world may have gotten distracted on the day of the Summit, but more people know about these issues than they had previously. Like I said to one despondent colleague, we're not as far as we were a week ago, but we're a hell of a lot farther than we were a year ago.
So again, the good news is that I have a passion. The bad news is that because of that, my heart is broken this week. Someone at work said that we would all be a lot less stressed if we just didn't care. But then I don't think life would be half as interesting, and the payoffs, when they come, wouldn't be nearly as sublime.
There's another huge policy meeting at the UN in September, focused on the Millennium Development Goals to end global poverty. Time to get to work...
Robyn
Monday, July 4, 2005
Live 8
Going to the Live 8 concert in Philly this weekend really was the natural thing for me to do. I was planning on heading home for the holiday anyway, and since the cause of fighting global poverty is pretty much what we do for a living at Do Gooder Inc., it seemed like something I should be part of. So a few of my pals from work took off early for dear old Filthydelphia. We stayed with friends right in Center City, so we could walk to the Ben Franklin Parkway at 9:30 the next morning to stake out a spot.
Although the concert started at noon, we were by no means the first ones to think of this, as 200,000 people were already there at that hour. Someone in our group who was familiar with the lay of the land had the brilliant idea of walking along the bike path by the Schuylkill, and clambering up the hill so we were right by the Art Museum without having to push our way through the throngs on the Parkway. This way we could work from the stage toward the back, rather than the other way around.
Nonetheless, it was abundantly clear that we were not going to be able to actually see the people on the stage, but we did find a nice area under some trees where we could see at least part of the stage and its two Jumbotrons, and considered ourselves happy. It was a gorgeous day, the crowd was diverse and fairly happy (or at least not completely unpleasant) and although I wasn't particularly keen on many of the groups at the Philly venue, I was sufficiently psyched to shake my posterior to Destiny's Child, Bon Jovi, et al. The performers would play for about 20 minutes, and then we'd sit for thirty minutes watching public service announcements and clips from the London show, so we could see what we were missing. Truth be told, I think I screamed loudest for the Philadelphia Eagles to came on to help announce Toby Keith (no doubt a ploy to appease the decidedly un-country local crowd).
A few of our crew of seven dwindled away as the day went on. One enterprising young man who claimed to not care one bit about the performers finagled his way into the VIP tent, thanks to his connections with the good, kind kids of the good, kind One Campaign. Cassandra and I stuck it out the longest, and at 4pm decided we sufficently represented InterAction, and would go watch Stevie Wonder on the big screen TV in the swanky air-conditioned apartment with the kegerator. It was then that we discovered what most of America had already figured out, which was that the coverage on MTV royally sucked.
All in all I was glad I was a part of it. I think it did what it needed to do, which was educate a large amount of otherwise oblivious people about how bad the situation in Africa really is, and how little it would take for the leaders of the wealthiest nations to make a difference. Best case scenario, a new generation of people gets excited about making a difference and exercises their right to be heard by their elected leaders. Worst case scenario, people went home happy having rocked out with Beyonce. Either way, not a bad day at all.
Robyn
Although the concert started at noon, we were by no means the first ones to think of this, as 200,000 people were already there at that hour. Someone in our group who was familiar with the lay of the land had the brilliant idea of walking along the bike path by the Schuylkill, and clambering up the hill so we were right by the Art Museum without having to push our way through the throngs on the Parkway. This way we could work from the stage toward the back, rather than the other way around.
Nonetheless, it was abundantly clear that we were not going to be able to actually see the people on the stage, but we did find a nice area under some trees where we could see at least part of the stage and its two Jumbotrons, and considered ourselves happy. It was a gorgeous day, the crowd was diverse and fairly happy (or at least not completely unpleasant) and although I wasn't particularly keen on many of the groups at the Philly venue, I was sufficiently psyched to shake my posterior to Destiny's Child, Bon Jovi, et al. The performers would play for about 20 minutes, and then we'd sit for thirty minutes watching public service announcements and clips from the London show, so we could see what we were missing. Truth be told, I think I screamed loudest for the Philadelphia Eagles to came on to help announce Toby Keith (no doubt a ploy to appease the decidedly un-country local crowd).
A few of our crew of seven dwindled away as the day went on. One enterprising young man who claimed to not care one bit about the performers finagled his way into the VIP tent, thanks to his connections with the good, kind kids of the good, kind One Campaign. Cassandra and I stuck it out the longest, and at 4pm decided we sufficently represented InterAction, and would go watch Stevie Wonder on the big screen TV in the swanky air-conditioned apartment with the kegerator. It was then that we discovered what most of America had already figured out, which was that the coverage on MTV royally sucked.
All in all I was glad I was a part of it. I think it did what it needed to do, which was educate a large amount of otherwise oblivious people about how bad the situation in Africa really is, and how little it would take for the leaders of the wealthiest nations to make a difference. Best case scenario, a new generation of people gets excited about making a difference and exercises their right to be heard by their elected leaders. Worst case scenario, people went home happy having rocked out with Beyonce. Either way, not a bad day at all.
Robyn
Sunday, June 26, 2005
This Month's Apology
No, I have not been in a post U2-show, blissed-out coma for the past month. That only lasted three weeks.
What I have been is both busy and silly. Busy at work with many things that are not of general interest (isn't it amazing how much we preoccupy ourselves with things that are of very little interest to the world at large? Sad, really, don't you think?). Silly, because I've been logging entries into my laptop and realized that I have no real way of transferring them, as Mr. Laptop has no floppy drive and I didn't think my updates were worth wasting a perfectly good CD on. Actually, now that I finally have made some time for myself, I determined they weren't that good anyway, and decided to start fresh. So the U2 update is the only one to make the cut from the last month. I've posted some groovy pictures from the show under the illustrious "Bono" link in the Pictures section. Any day when a gal can add to her Bono album is a good day.
I suppose I'd be remiss in not noting the dropping of the debt for 18 of the most impovershed nations that was announced a few weeks ago, and will be formalized at the G8 summit next week. It's a big deal at dear old InterAction. There's a lot of rotten , frustrating days in the saving the world racket. The day they announced the debt-dropping was the kind of day that makes a lot of the heartache worthwhile. So it's important to acknowledge that our government and the British government did a really good thing here. I'm sure you've seen and will still see quotes from a lot of organizations saying how it shouldn't end there, and there's more work to do, and that's all correct. But lest the people in those organizations be broadly painted as never being satisfied and always wanting more, it should be noted that everyone who had worked for that announcement was thrilled and relieved that day.
Robyn
What I have been is both busy and silly. Busy at work with many things that are not of general interest (isn't it amazing how much we preoccupy ourselves with things that are of very little interest to the world at large? Sad, really, don't you think?). Silly, because I've been logging entries into my laptop and realized that I have no real way of transferring them, as Mr. Laptop has no floppy drive and I didn't think my updates were worth wasting a perfectly good CD on. Actually, now that I finally have made some time for myself, I determined they weren't that good anyway, and decided to start fresh. So the U2 update is the only one to make the cut from the last month. I've posted some groovy pictures from the show under the illustrious "Bono" link in the Pictures section. Any day when a gal can add to her Bono album is a good day.
I suppose I'd be remiss in not noting the dropping of the debt for 18 of the most impovershed nations that was announced a few weeks ago, and will be formalized at the G8 summit next week. It's a big deal at dear old InterAction. There's a lot of rotten , frustrating days in the saving the world racket. The day they announced the debt-dropping was the kind of day that makes a lot of the heartache worthwhile. So it's important to acknowledge that our government and the British government did a really good thing here. I'm sure you've seen and will still see quotes from a lot of organizations saying how it shouldn't end there, and there's more work to do, and that's all correct. But lest the people in those organizations be broadly painted as never being satisfied and always wanting more, it should be noted that everyone who had worked for that announcement was thrilled and relieved that day.
Robyn
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