Wednesday, July 31, 2013

10 Things You Don't Know About Sugar (And What You Don't Know Could Hurt You)

Excessive sugar in the diet is not the best idea when it comes to healthy living. Nonetheless, few of us are consuming sugar in recommended moderate amounts and most of us are eating tons of it. In fact, worldwide we are consuming about 500 extra calories a day from sugar. That's just about what you would need to consume if you wanted to gain a pound a week. Most people know that sugar is not good for them, but for some reason, they think the risk of excess sugar consumption is less than that of having too much saturated and trans fat, sodium or calories. Perhaps it's sugar's lack of sodium or fat that make it the "lesser of several evils," or perhaps people are simply of the mind frame that what they don't know won't hurt them. If you really knew what it was doing to your body, though, you might just put it at the top of your "foods to avoid" list. Here are ten things that may surprise you about sugar.

1. Sugar can damage your heart
While it's been widely noted that excess sugar can increase the overall risk for heart disease, a 2013 study in the Journal of the American Heart Association displayed strong evidence that sugar can actually affect the pumping mechanism of your heart and could increase the risk for heart failure. The findings specifically pinpointed a molecule from sugar (as well as from starch) called glucose metabolite glucose 6-phosphate (G6P) that was responsible for the changes in the muscle protein of the heart. These changes could eventually lead to heart failure. Approximately half of the people that are diagnosed with heart failure die within five years.

2. Sugar specifically promotes belly fat
Adolescent obesity rates have tripled in the past 30 years and childhood obesity rates have doubled. Many of us are aware of the data that demonstrates just how literally big our future is looking, but beyond the studies and all the initiatives to curb childhood obesity, one needs only to visit an amusement park, school or mall to truly see what is happening. One factor that seems to inflict obese children is fat accumulation in the trunk area of the body. Why? One cause may be the increase in fructose-laden beverages. A 2010 study in children found that excess fructose intake (but not glucose intake) actually caused visceral fat cells to mature -- setting the stage for a big belly and even bigger future risk for heart disease and diabetes.

3. Sugar is the true silent killer
Move over salt and hypertension, you've got competition. Sugar, as it turns out, is just as much of a silent killer. A 2008 study found that excess fructose consumption was linked to an increase in a condition called leptin resistance. Leptin is a hormone that tells you when you've had enough food. The problem is, we often ignore the signal our brain sends to us. For some people though, leptin simply does not want to work, leaving the person with no signal whatsoever that the body has enough food to function. This in turn can lead to over consumption of food and consequently, obesity. Why the silent killer? Because it all happens without symptoms or warning bells. If you've gained weight in the past year and can't quite figure out why, perhaps you should look at how much fructose you're feeding your body.

4. Sugar may be linked to cancer production and may effect cancer survival
In the world of nutrition, it's hard to talk about sugar without talking about insulin. That's because insulin is sugar's little chaperone to the cells, and when too much of it is consumed, or our insulin does not work (probably because we're eating too much sugar) and the body revolts. One connection that has been well documented in the literature is the link between insulin resistance and cancer . A 2013 study found that sugars in the intestine triggered the formation of a hormone called GIP (controlled by a protein called β-catenin that is completely dependant on sugar levels), that in turn, increases insulin released by the pancreas. Researchers found that β-catenin may in fact affect the cells susceptibility to cancer formation. Further studies have found negative associations between high sugar and starch intake and survival rates in both breast cancer patients and colon cancer patients.

5. Your sugar "addiction" may be genetic
If you've ever said, "I'm completely addicted to sugar," you may actually be correct. A recent study of 579 individuals showed that those who had genetic changes in a hormone called ghrelin consumed more sugar (and alcohol) than those that had no gene variation. Ghrelin is a hormone that tells the brain you're hungry. Researchers think that the genetic components that effect your ghrelin release may have a lot to do with whether or not you seek to enhance a neurological reward system through your sweet tooth. Findings with this study were similar to study conducted in 2012 as well.

6. Sugar and alcohol have similar toxic liver effects on the body
A 2012 paper in the journal Nature, brought forth the idea that limitations and warnings should be placed on sugar similar to warnings we see on alcohol. The authors showed evidence that fructose and glucose in excess can have a toxic effect on the liver as the metabolism of ethanol -- the alcohol contained in alcoholic beverages had similarities to the metabolic pathways that fructose took. Further, sugar increased the risk for several of the same chronic conditions that alcohol was responsible for. Finally, if you think that your slim stature keeps you immune from fructose causing liver damage, think again. A 2013 study found that liver damage could occur even without excess calories or weight gain.

7. Sugar may sap your brain power
When I think back on my childhood, I remember consuming more sugar than I probably should have. I should have enjoyed my youth back then, because unfortunately, all the sugar may have accelerated the aging process. A 2009 study found a positive relationship between glucose consumption and the aging of our cells. Aging of the cells consequently can be the cause of something as simple as wrinkles to something as dire as chronic disease. But there is other alarming evidence that sugar may affect the aging of your brain as well. A 2012 study found that excess sugar consumption was linked to deficiencies in memory and overall cognitive health. A 2009 study in rats showed similar findings.

8. Sugar hides in many everyday "non-sugar" foods
While many of my patients strive to avoid the "normal" sugary culprits (candy, cookies, cake, etc.), they often are duped when they discover some of their favorite foods also contain lots of sugar. Examples include tomato sauce, fat free dressing, tonic water, marinates, crackers and even bread.

9. An overload of sugar (specifically in beverages) may shorten your life
A 2013 study estimated that 180,000 deaths worldwide may be attributed to sweetened beverage consumption. The United States alone accounted for 25,000 deaths in 2010. The authors summarize that deaths occurred due to the association with sugar-sweetened beverages and chronic disease risk such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

10. Sugar is making us fat
I figured I'd leave the most obvious fact for last. While you may be aware that too many calories from any source will be stored as fat if not burned, what you may not connect is that the lack of other nutrients in sugar actually makes it much easier to eat gobs of it with no physical effects to warn us of the danger that lurks. Foods rich in fiber, fat and protein all have been associated with increased fullness. Sugar will give you the calories, but not the feeling that you've had enough. That's why you can have an entire king-size bag of licorice (with it's sky high glycemic index at the movies and come out afterwards ready to go for dinner.

On a final note, it's important to point out that simple sugars from milk (in the form of lactose) don't display the same negative health effects that we see in the literature when reviewing sugar's effects on the body. Simple sugars coming from fruit are also less concerning given their high amounts of disease-fighting compounds and fiber.

So now you know, and knowing perhaps can create action. You can do something about decreasing your overall sugar consumption without feeling deprivation or sheer frustration! That will be the focus of my next blog. Stay tuned!

By Kristin Kirkpatrick, M.S., R.D., L.D

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Nigeria approves opposition political coalition

(Sunday Alamba, File/ Associated Press ) - FILE - In this Thursday, April. 18, 2013 file photo, a woman sells logos for the All Progressive Congress party during the party convention in Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria’s electoral commission says it approves the creation of a coalition that will bring together three political parties expected to present a strong challenge to President Goodluck Jonathan and his party in 2015 elections. The commission announced Wednesday July 31, 2013 it has approved the application for the All Progressive Congress that includes powerful Muslims from the north and equally influential Christian southerners.

Nigeria's electoral commission on Wednesday approved the creation of an opposition coalition that will join three political parties and is expected to present a strong challenge to President Goodluck Jonathan and his party in 2015 elections.

The commission announced that the parties met all statutory requirements for their merger into the All Progressives Congress that includes powerful Muslims from the north and equally influential Christian southerners.

Among them are former military ruler Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, a popular northerner who some consider a strong anti-corruption fighter. Jonathan is largely perceived as failing despite promises to halt the endemic graft that is debilitating to the economy of Africa's biggest oil producer.

The coalition's most powerful figure from the south is Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a former senator and past governor of Lagos State who is considered a kingmaker.

"All sorts of obstacles were thrown into our path by anti-democratic forces," said coalition spokesman Lai Mohammed, welcoming the decision. He said the coalition's emergence is "a victory for Nigeria and for democracy" that propels the country into "the league of top democratic nations with two major political parties."

Jonathan now is presented with the double challenge of a strong opposition and rifts within his own People's Democratic Party that could damage any bid to extend his presidency. Jonathan has not yet decided whether he will run, his office announced this week. He came to power by default as he was vice president when President Umar Yar'Adua died in 2010 and he then won the presidential election in 2011.

Northern politicians are opposed to Jonathan, a southerner and Christian, running for a second four-year term in 2015, objecting that northerners have been cheated of their chance at the presidency by Yar'Adua's death. While there is nothing in the constitution about it, there is an unwritten agreement in the ruling People's Democratic Party that power must be shared between the north and the south and a northern president should be succeeded by a southerner, to balance power in Africa's most populous nation. Nigeria has more than 160 million people, divided about equally between Muslims who dominate the north and Christians who live mainly in the south.

Traditional rivalries between Christians and Muslims have intensified because of an Islamic uprising in the northeast of the sprawling nation. The Boko Haram terrorist network is accused of the killings of more than 1,600 civilians since 2010, according to an AP count.

The People's Democratic Power has won every election since decades of military dictatorship ended in 1999 and democracy was restored.

Tinubu's support ensured Jonathan won the vote in the southwest in the 2011 elections, clinching the president's victory. Jonathan would have difficulty securing those votes without Tinubu's backing.

Jonathan is also confronted by a revolt within his own party, from some governors with presidential aspirations. In the most dramatic manifestation of the divisions, a handful of pro-Jonathan legislators who want to impeach Rivers State Gov. Rotimi Amaechi led thugs into the National Assembly and started a fight in which one legislator broke the mace - the symbol of authority of the house - beating up another legislator.

The new coalition is considered the first viable option to PDP rule. But it too faces challenges in deciding who to present as its presidential candidate. Buhari, who appears an obvious choice, is a strong contender in the north but likely would have difficulty garnering votes from Christian southerners, even with the support of the coalition's southern partner, Tinubu's Action Congress of Nigeria.

The coalition's statement promised "plans to turn today's hopelessness into a time of great opportunities, to reverse the downward slide in our socio-economic development, and to ensure that every Nigerian benefits from the commonwealth, instead of the present situation in which a few fat cats are milking the system dry at the expense of the citizenry."

---

By MICHELLE FAUL, Bashir Adigun contributed to this report from Abuja, Nigeria.

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Tuesday, July 30, 2013

In Latvia, young people discover new passions in bad economic times

Michael Birnbaum - Latvia has been plagued by youth unemployment for years, but many young Latvians -- and others around Europe -- are now starting their own small-scale businesses. Toms Erenpreiss, 28, started manufacturing bicycles last year and has quickly expanded his business.

RIGA, Latvia — In a country that was among the hardest hit by the global recession, some young people say that a shattered economy has a bright side: the freedom to invent a living that would never have been worth the risk during flush times.

Start-up culture isn’t just for Silicon Valley and New York City. Here in this tough-luck Baltic nation, young entrepreneurs, freed from the prospect of steady, 9-to-5 employment, are founding businesses that run the gamut from high-end bicycle manufacturing to enterprises aspiring to be the next Skype — which was started one country to the north, in Estonia.

With unemployment among young people in the European Union at 23 percent and topping 50 percent in Greece and Spain, these 20-something Latvians say the crisis was good for them, despite the economic pain that accompanied it. Presidents and prime ministers have convened crisis talks, international organizations have called for extraordinary measures to spur hiring, and an entire generation has been forced to adjust its aspirations. But last year, Davis Kanepe, 28, took matters into his own hands in Riga.
He leased a crumbling, Italianate music school building on a down-on-its-heels corner in the middle of the city and, with some friends, turned it into a bar and cultural center.
“Of course, it’s hard, and you don’t work eight hours a day, but you have to work 14 hours a day,” Kanepe said one recent evening at his club, where people wearing stylish hand-me-down sweaters and black-plastic-frame glasses smoked at outdoor cafe tables and drank Belgian beer.
“But if you start working when you’re 19,” as many Latvians did in the boom years before the 2008 crash, “you haven’t had time to think about what your actual aims are,” Kanepe said. Those without a steady job because of the lousy economy have had more time to decide what they want to do, he said. “We who are under 30 understand a lot of things better.”
In this pint-size country of 2.2 million nestled along the Baltic Sea, some young people are signing up at small businesses that blur the distinction between work and personal life, where there is no need to commute to an office. Many say they would have it no other way. If life is more precarious, they say, it’s also more exciting.
A similar movement is happening across Europe and in the United States, where burgeoning communities of small-scale start-ups are attracting people who, before the 2008 crash, would have gone to work for an investment bank or consulting firm. Internet commerce makes it possible for creative types to sell services and merchandise in destinations far from home. That gives an advantage to countries such as Latvia, where the cost of living is low, making it easier to turn a profit.
“If you have some hobby that you really love to do, and you want to do it as a living, it’s very relaxed here,” said Jurga Kupstyte, 32, who worked at an international bank in Riga, the capital, but quit to get a master’s degree in cultural anthropology. She was keeping Kanepe company one recent afternoon as he hawked baskets of fresh strawberries on the street outside his club.

By Michael Birnbaum

Nigeria pulls battalion of troops from Mali

Nigeria—A battalion of Nigerian troops fighting Islamic extremists in Mali will return home Wednesday, where their country faces a similar challenge.

Defense Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Chris Olukolade said Tuesday some will be redeployed immediately.
A battalion is about 700 soldiers. Nigeria had sent 1,200 troops to aid an African force helping put down an Islamic insurgency in northern Mali.
Olukolade said Nigeria will sustain its contribution to the operations in Mali "in other forms," including providing a fully staffed military field hospital, a signal squadron and staff officers for the force headquarters.
The African Union said earlier this month that Nigeria would withdraw some troops to fight an Islamic uprising in its northeast.
Some soldiers fighting in northeast Nigeria have complained to The Associated Press that they have been deployed for more than two years, thousands of miles from their families.
Human rights activists say the lack of rotations could be contributing to ongoing reports of human rights abuses by soldiers—charges the military denies.

Monday, July 29, 2013

How Christianity Became Cool Again

By Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush

Hallelujah! 2013 may be the year that it became cool again to be a Christian.

Given the last several decades of political domination of Christianity by a coalition that described themselves as 'the religious right', it is hard to remember that there was a time in the 20th century when Christians were cool and spoke with a powerful, prophetic voice to the major issues of our day.

There was a time when Christians like Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Berrigan brothers, Thomas Merton, Paul Tillich, Dorothy Day, Henri Nouwen, Howard Thurman, Reinhold Niebuhr and John XXIII offered the basic framework for what Christianity meant to the world.

Collectively, these men and women offered some of the most philosophically deep and socially relevant thought of any kind. They inspired a generation of young people to work in racial reconciliation, environmentalism, economic justice, and anti-war activism. They fed the spirit, while also walking in Jesus' way of justice and peace.

In those days you could say you were a Christian and the above names might come to the mind of the listener -- and they were cool; meaning relevant, compelling, edgy, and forward thinking.

Sadly, that has not been true in recent history. And it has infected the American psyche so much so that when a stranger tells even me, a Christian pastor, that they are a Christian it puts me on edge. Imagine what it must do to a person of another faith or someone who don't subscribe to any religion.

This has been helped by the media who, when they have wanted a 'real Christian' on the show, turned to Jerry Falwell, Tony Perkins or James Dobson resulting in a Christian profile that represented a large, but by no means universal Christian outlook.

The generic Christian profile that has emerged over these last decades has been someone who does not believe in the equality between men and women, degrades LGBT people, is opposed to science, especially in regards to evolution or climate change, is suspicious of people of other faiths and no faith, and is pro-militarism in foreign policy.

In short, it has been a while since it has been cool to be Christian.

Well, 2013 may be the year that changes.

This week has been a particularly cool Christian week. To start with the amazing Pope Francis took advantage of his time in Rio for World Youth Day to make sure he visited the nearby favela (slum), a prison, and a drug addict center. While there, he continued his habit of speaking about the poor and inequality in a powerful, focused way that no world leader of any kind has for a long time:

No one can remain insensitive to the inequalities that persist in the world!. No amount of peace-building will be able to last, nor will harmony and happiness be attained in a society that ignores, pushes to the margins or excludes a part of itself.

In other words: No justice, no peace.

Pope Francis has consistently taken on the injustice in the world's financial systems and the indifference the world has towards the poor and the outcaste. Noticeably absent from the Pope's discourse has been the rights and dignity of gay people -- until Monday when the Pope shocked the world by saying "Who am I to judge gay people" and opened the door to gay priests and a basic softening of the church's hardline stance against LGBT peoples.

Cool.

The Pope was not the only world religious leader to make news this week on gay issues. On Friday, Archbishop Desmond Tutu rocked people's mind when he said that he would rather go to hell than a homophobic heaven. The icon of the anti-Apartheid movement made the comments at the launch of a United Nations gay rights program in South Africa:

I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this. I am as passionate about this campaign as I ever was about apartheid. For me, it is at the same level.

Really cool.

But these are just the latest headlines that are bubbling up with cool Christians doing relevant compelling things. The United Church of Christ has voted to divest from fossil fuelcompanies, the Episcopal Church is headed by an amazing woman who is both a scientist and pastor and who is spearheading the conversation between science and religion;

Evangelicals are taking the lead on climate change, the American Bishops are lobbying for immigration reform, the Patriarch Bartholomew is known as the 'Green Patriarch' for his work on the environment, Christians are involved with innovative and crucial dialogue with people of other faiths and no faiths; and pastors and priests across the country and the world are ministering to broken people with love and compassion every day.

Christianity is cool again.

Here is one case in point. On Gay Pride Sunday in New York I invited a couple of my colleagues to a church where a friend of mine is the pastor. They were having a 'disco mass' and I thought my friends might be intrigued enough to go. They were.

We had a great time at the church. My friends fell in love with the pastor whose style was relaxed and hip, and whose sermon was smart and compelling. They loved the community feel of the congregation, and they thought the ideas they heard there a good way to start gay pride.

Mind you, neither of them had been to church of their own volition -- ever. And they may never go back to church. I really don't care -- they are wonderful, spiritual, and ethical people -- I don't need them to become Christian.

However, by being there they understood a little more about why I am Christian, and how Christianity guides the way I view the world and do the things I do. And even with that short glimpse they respected my faith more than they had before.

If more Christians can speak out the way Pope Francis and Archbishop Tutu have this week and so many have been in recent memory -- it will change the way people view Jesus and the faith that he inspires in so many of us.

And that will be so cool.

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Pope Francis On Gays: Who Am I To Judge Them?

By Paul Brandeis Raushenbush

Pope Francis has had a busy week at World Youth Day in Rio as he visited his slums and prisons, blessed the Olympic flag and brought three million people to Copacabana Beach for a final Mass on Sunday morning.

Now he has made another headline, this time when the pontiff said, "Who am I to judge a gay person?"

While taking questions from reporters on the plane back to Rome, Francis spoke about gays and the reported "gay lobby." According to the Wall Street Journal, thePope's comments about homosexuality came in the context of a question about gay priests.

The pontiff broached the delicate question of how he would respond to learning that a cleric in his ranks was gay, though not sexually active. For decades, the Vatican has regarded homosexuality as a "disorder," and Pope Francis' predecessor Pope Benedict XVI formally barred men with what the Vatican deemed "deep-seated" homosexuality from entering the priesthood.

"Who am I to judge a gay person of goodwill who seeks the Lord?" the pontiff said, speaking in Italian. "You can't marginalize these people."

John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter reported on the meeting as well and said the Pope also addressed the question of the Vatican's reported "gay lobby".

He hasn’t run into significant resistance to reform inside the Vatican, and joked that if there really is a “gay lobby” he hasn’t yet seen it stamped on anyone’s ID cards.

Father James Martin, S.J. who is an admirer of Francis, said that the pontiff's comment about gay people is consistent with the rest of his papacy.

"One of Francis's hallmarks is an emphasis on mercy, which you see in that response. That mercy, of course, comes from Jesus. And we can never have too much of it."

The pope did not offer much hope for those advocating for women Catholic priests, according to Allen at NCR, saying: Pope John Paul II “definitively … closed the door' to women priests.

The Unglamorous Truth About Ending Poverty: A Response to Peter Buffett

Dear Peter Buffett,

My heart started pounding four sentences into your Saturday New York Times op-ed piece. You condemned "Philanthropic Colonialism," and told us about donor meetings where the people pledging crumbs to fight poverty are often the same people creating it. I used to go to meetings like those, though a few levels down the food chain. I had to stop because they just made me too angry.

You said what many other donors and recipients see but are afraid to admit: the anti-poverty philanthropy boom is not reducing poverty, and might actually be perpetuating it. I couldn't wait to finish the article, and shared it with everyone I could, because I was just so happy that someone in your position was saying these things.

Then I read the rest. You said, "My wife and I know we don't have the answers, but we do know how to listen. As we learn, we will continue to support conditions for systemic change. It's time for a new operating system. Not a 2.0 or a 3.0, but something built from the ground up. New code. What we have is a crisis of imagination."

But you do have the answers. We all do. A proven solution has already pulled billions out of poverty. For the past few decades it has been staring us impatiently in the face as we somehow look right past it. The problem is that it's plain, simple and nowhere near as glamorous as a whole new operating system for humanity.

You identified Philanthropic Colonialism. I would like to identify another problem: Philanthropic Adventurism. You said, "Is progress really Wi-Fi on every street corner? No. It's when no 13-year-old girl on the planet gets sold for sex." After three years as a non-profit person in Silicon Valley, surrounded by techno-utopianism every day, your words had me thumping my desk saying, "Yes! Yes!"

The answer is not Wi-Fi on every corner. But neither is it "new code" dreamed up by bored venture capitalists -- or by people they pay. Philanthropic Adventurism is replacing sound thinking about poverty with unproven, ineffective -- but really "new" and adventurous -- ideas. These "new" ideas, however, are as old as philanthropy itself -- and bring adventure only to the philanthropists and their staff.

For centuries, all different kinds of people and movements have attempted to solve crises of production and consumption as though they were "crises of imagination" -- sometimes with no effect, but sometimes leaving a trail of destruction. Before taking care of basic industry and infrastructure, communist dictator Mao Zedong urged China to build an entirely new kind of economy from the ground up based on the "spontaneous genius of the people." Talk about a new operating system! Millions died. More recently, Mike Davis, in Planet of Slums, tells of how the global development establishment fell for fashionable anarchist theories of "small" and "decentralized" public housing, unnecessarily leaving hundreds of millions languishing in squalid slums. (Fortunately, most philanthropists kill no one, and at least employ a handful of people!)

So what is this obvious solution to poverty that is staring us in the face?

There are at least a few dozen countries where virtually no citizen has been sold for sex (to stick with your benchmark) for many decades -- or sold for anything else, or gone hungry, without health care, housing or education. Most eliminated poverty in a rapid push lasting sometimes just a single generation. They are countries as diverse as Spain, Germany, Finland, Greece, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. Not long ago -- 150, 100, 50 years -- all of those countries were even poorer than, say, Kenya is today. In the city (if there were cities), people lived in unimaginable slums. In the country, people frequently starved. Most families lost many of their children to illness, most were subject to extreme exploitation and violence from landlords, soldiers, criminals or all three.

How did they pull billions out of poverty so quickly? Unfortunately, the answer is totally unfashionable and will never, ever be discussed at hipster social venture forums. They all had one thing in common: the people in charge -- whether they were social democrats, conservative nationalists, communists or military dictators -- carried out programs of rapid economic development designed to give most people access to means of making a living.

But how did that do that? They built factories, railroads, universities and everything else required to make the things and do the things that go into a decent living (or were valuable enough to trade for them). Communists and dictatorships used various forms of force -- often brutal. Democrats and republicans (small d and small r) used the market and public-private partnerships. By hook or by crook, wherever eliminating poverty was one of the top few national priorities, it was eliminated.

Where backward elites were able to maintain Kleptocracy, those countries languished in extreme poverty and inequality. South Korea and the Philippines are often compared to show this. In 1945 the Philippines had a higher standard of living than Korea. But an old agrarian elite clung to power in the Philippines. In South Korea, on the other hand, the United States post-World War II occupation government carried out a radical land redistribution program that broke the back of the old agrarian landlord class and created a vibrant, broad middle class (the U.S. also tracked down and killed thousands of socialist leaders in a carrot-and-stick campaign to fend off communist revolution, which was all the rage at the time). With the aristocrats out of the way, capitalists, entrepreneurs and newly independent farmers charged ahead within a development plan enforced by a U.S.-installed military dictatorship. Soon, and after a transformation to democracy, South Korea was one of the richest countries in the world.

That story -- of a purely parasitic elite being replaced by one obsessed with national development, resulting in rapid reduction of extreme poverty and inequality -- has reoccurred over and over through democratic elections, democratic revolutions, communist revolutions, military coups and foreign occupations.

I am obviously not endorsing dictatorship by saying that sometimes dictatorships have eliminated poverty. My point is that a new political "operating system" has nothing to do with curing poverty. Poverty has already been eliminated under almost every kind of political system and local culture. It has also persisted, or gotten worse, under the same array of systems and cultures.

There is only one way to get rid of poverty on a large scale -- it's the only way that's ever worked in any country on Earth, at any time in history. It happens when political elites and peoples unite around the goal of economic development -- and manage to build the physical industry and infrastructure that people need to make a living.

You are worried about "more people getting to have more stuff." But there is a tendency for we who have too much to identify "too much" as the problem. How can scarcity of "stuff" be the problem, we ask, when Walmart shelves are bursting with junk everyone can afford and that nobody needs?

"Too much stuff," however, is an optical illusion, experienced only by relatively wealthy people. We are not living in a post-industrial "Internet age." Billions still lack access to the basics: food, housing, medicine and health care. What's true is there is no physical reason for this scarcity. The means of producing all those things could be expanded and spread around the globe easily -- if the people in charge really wanted to do it. That is exactly what happens in national development programs. In development pushes from South Korea to New Zealand to Finland, the consumer economy was aggressively suppressed for a generation or two in favor of building industry and infrastructure so that everyone could have the basics. This was a big part of the United States' own development story, and even one of the reasons we fought both the Revolution and Civil War.

Since most philanthropists, however, are living in their own Internet age (with computers and iPhones produced in sweat shops) they turn their nose up at boring solutions involving antiquated things like factories. "New thinking" is what made many of them rich -- why wouldn't it work for African villages?

Yes, industrialization has terrible side effects that are destroying the planet. Factories and machines that are spewing billions of tonnes of carbon every year must be physically rebuilt and replaced. This just adds one more urgent reason for going back to kind of intentional sweeping economic renewal that has already transformed much of the world.

The problem all this poses for philanthropists is clear: they cannot make sweeping national development happen by writing a check. No clique of billionaires has anywhere near the kind of money to pay for it. A recent proposal by Stanford civil engineers estimated it would cost 100 trillion dollars to completely replace the world's carbon economy. That's unthinkable for mere billionaires. But it's easily within reach by the governments of the world. Recently, for example, the United States alone effortlessly promised up to 15 trillion to bail out a handful of misbehaving banks.

National development plans happen when people take over their governments and demand national development. In America, with millions sliding back into poverty, and the second-worst polluting economy on Earth, we need to renew our economy fundamentally and on a massive scale. We also need to encourage, rather than punish, leaders in poor countries who want to do the same thing, even when that means striking a better deal for themselves (and a slightly more expensive one for us) in the global economy.

People in your position could do so much to make that happen.

Thank you for your courageous straight talk about the state of philanthropy. I hope none of this has sounded like criticism -- it isn't. All I'm saying is that if people like you, and other major philanthropic and business leaders took seriously these unglamorous truths about ending poverty, and spoke out about them, it would create the conditions for not just a new story, but a new political movement that would transform the world.

Nigeria denies will allow gay married diplomats

Nigeria—Nigeria's Ministry of Foreign Affairs is denying reports the minister said he would allow gay married diplomats to be accredited.

A statement Monday says Minister Olugbenga Ashiru has at every opportunity reiterated that foreign countries should not impose their values on Nigerians.
It says the vast majority of Nigerians "are against gay marriages and gay rights, as they are not part of our customs, religions or laws."
The official News Agency of Nigeria last week quoted Ashiru as saying that if diplomats with same-sex spouses were posted to Nigeria there would be no choice but to accredit them because they come from countries that have laws allowing same-sex marriage. It said he spoke to the agency in an interview in London.
Nigerian legislators have passed a bill criminalizing same-sex marriages.

Nigeria: Explosions Rock Christian Area of Kano

By IBRAHIM GARBA and MICHELLE FAUL Associated Press

KANO, Nigeria July 30, 2013 (AP)

Multiple explosions rocked a Christian area in Nigeria's northern Kano city Monday night, with security forces ferrying scores of wounded to hospitals.
A mortuary attendant at Murtala Mohammed Specialists Hospital said at least 10 bodies had been brought in from the scene. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
Nigeria is fighting an Islamic uprising by extremists based mainly in the northeast, where the government has declared a state of emergency. Kano city and state are not part of that emergency.
Nigeria's government is fighting an Islamic uprising by a network called Boko Haram, which means "Western education is forbidden." The group wants Islamic law imposed in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation of more than 160 million, which is divided almost equally between Christians who live mainly in the south and Muslims who dominate the north.
Witness Kolade Ade said at least one blast appeared to come from a Mercedes-Benz parked beside a kiosk selling alcohol and soft drinks.
"After the first bomb, I threw myself into the canal (drain) to hide. There were at least three blasts," he said.
The explosions came as hundreds of people thronged the area in Sabon Gari neighborhood, where some were playing snooker and others table tennis.
The explosions raised fears among the city's mainly Muslim population, who usually go out for midnight prayers during this holy month of Ramadan.
Exactly a year ago, suspected Islamic militants attempted to attack a mosque in Kano city. They were engaged by police in running gun battles in which the militants killed five civilians and police killed four of the attackers.
In December, three days before Christmas, Kano was rocked by twin suicide car bombings that targeted two major mobile telephone companies. One worker was injured in one attack. Security officials botched the second attack by shooting the bomber, which caused an explosion at the company's gate.
In January, worshippers foiled an attack on Kano Central Mosque, killing two suspected bombers.
President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency on May 14 in six northeastern states covering one-sixth of the country, admitting that Islamic fighters had taken control of some towns and villages.
Militants have targeted Muslim political and religious leaders who preach against their extreme form of Islam. Recently, the militants have targeted schools, killing scores of students and some teachers.
The Boko Haram network is blamed for the killings of more than 1,600 people since 2010, when suicide bombers drove a car filled with explosives into the lobby of the United Nations headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria's capital.

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Sunday, July 28, 2013

Understanding Cause and Effect

How do we know when to abandon a successful policy? At first blush, this might seem a contradiction in terms. Why would one ever abandon a successful policy? But most policies have costs as well as benefits, and at a certain point one might decide that the ongoing costs outweigh the ongoing benefits, even though that might not have been true earlier. Making such judgments requires a clear-eyed understanding of cause and effect.

Four current issues illustrate the problem. Consider, first, the recent five-to-four decision of the Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder to hold section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 unconstitutional. Writing the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts reasoned that the requirement that certain jurisdictions with a long history of racial discrimination in voting must get pre-approval from the Justice Department before changing their voting laws is no longer constitutional because, whatever might have been the case in 1965, the record shows that the percentage of African-Americans who vote in those jurisdictions is now more or less on par with the percentage of White-Americans who vote. Thus, in Roberts' words, "the conditions that originally justified section 5 no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions," section 5 is therefore no longer necessary, and, accordingly, it is now unconstitutional.

The illogic in this reasoning is so self-evident that it is difficult to imagine how Chief Justice Roberts could have missed it. Indeed, he couldn't miss it, because in her dissenting opinion Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made the point clearly. As she clearly demonstrated, the progress that African-American voters have made in these jurisdictions is due, not only to past changes, but to ongoing and active enforcement of the Voting Rights Act by the Department of Justice.

As she noted, in the twenty-five years leading up to Congress' reenactment of section 5, the Department of Justice had prohibited some 700 proposed voting laws in the covered jurisdictions on the ground that they were unconstitutionally discriminatory. In short, much of the "progress" lauded by Chief Justice Roberts was due to the ongoing andcontinuing effects of section 5, and as we have already seen, with section 5 out of the picture the previously covered jurisdictions are already leaping to enact discriminatory voting laws that just a few months ago would have been prohibited.

The dangers of this sort of illogic are evident in several other important and ongoing issues. A recent New York Times article on NSA surveillance programs, for example, observed that, although such programs might have been thought necessary in the "dangerous world" that existed after 9/11, "skepticism" about the necessity for such programs increases "when the world looks less dangerous." But to make sense of that contention, we need to know whythe world "looks less dangerous." Is it because of changes unrelated to the NSA surveillance program or is it due to the continuing existence of the NSA surveillance program? In other words, as in the Voting Rights context, we cannot simply assume that because the world has changed for the better we no longer need to keep in place those processes and laws that got us to that better place in the first instance and that may be necessary to enable us to continue to enjoy that happier state of affairs.

A third recent example concerns affirmative action in higher education. The Supreme Court is on the verge of holding such programs unconstitutional, and the American public is skeptical of them as well. There are, of course, legitimate reasons to have reservations about affirmative action. Most obviously, by providing "preferential" treatment based on race, they can reinforce racial thinking and heighten racial antagonism. On the other hand, such programs have played an indispensable role both in promoting cross-racial interaction and understanding and in enabling traditionally disadvantaged minorities to achieve a greater degree of equality of educational opportunity.

But critics of affirmative action now suggest, among other things, that it is no longer necessary, because we have made real progress in terms of increasing the diversity of higher education. And, indeed, we have. Over the past twenty years, the percentage of Africans-Americans in college has increased from 23 percent to 35 percent. This is still well below the 44 percent of White-Americans who are currently enrolled in college, but it is dramatic progress, and it is due in no small part to the use of aggressive affirmative action programs in colleges and universities across the nation. The notion that we can now comfortably dispense with affirmative action because it is no longer necessary poses the same danger of flawed logic as the arguments about the Voting Rights Act and the NSA surveillance programs.

A final recent example of this phenomenon concerns our national policy of mass incarceration. From 1978 to 2009, the number of people incarcerated in the United States increased every year, from 307,276 in 1978 to 1,615,487 in 2009. Since 2009, however, the number of persons imprisoned has decreased (slightly) each year. Several factors seem to have contributed to this shift, including budgetary pressures -- imprisonment is not cheap. But according to a recent New York Times article, another important factor driving this change is "dropping crime rates over the last 20 years," which have "reduced public fears and diminished the interest of politicians in running tough-on-crime campaigns." Of course, it is perfectly possible, one might even say probable, that one reason for the "dropping crime rates" is that we have kept so many past offenders in prison. It is reasonable to assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that if we had incarcerated "only" 307,276 individuals in the years between 1978 and 2009, the present crime rate -- and the concern about crime -- would be quite different from it is today.

My point in offering these four examples is not to suggest that there is a necessary "right" or "wrong" answer to the ultimate legal and policy questions at issue. But it is important that we at least think clearly about this issues and not blithely ignore the complexities of cause-and-effect.

Insight