Apropriate Development

Peace Corps Week is here again! This year, the Peace Corps is celebrating 47 years of teaching skills abroad, sharing American culture and good will abroad, and bringing the world back home to teach Americans about other cultures. Many people say they have thought about going into the Peace Corps, but this or that came up. Well, take a look again, go to www.peacecorps.gov and consider it! It's the best way to really experience another culture because you are taken care of very well by the US government. And the experiences last a life time.

Rhode Island RPCVs can celebrate tonight, Tuesday, March 4th, at the Brown "Ratty" (dining hall) on Thayer and George from 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. We will celebrate new invitees and enjoy the company of RPCVs in the area!

I have seen Michael Moore's Sicko twice now, and each time I feel more slighted by the US government. I am a lucky individual in that I worked for a company that paid for our Blue Cross Blue Shield Health Care. Now I am covered under my husband's Blue Cross plan and we pay a little over $700 a month for the two of us and our daughter. His business is part of the small business association which is able to get a plan together that allows for the price to be "reduced" - yikes. We would normally be paying over a thousand dollars otherwise.

Now here's the worst part. Since I was born in England, I could return there and have free health care, and I mean FREE - everything taken care of. My brothers, both American citizens living abroad, have full health care coverage, one in Hong Kong and the other in England. My father too, an American citizen, but resident of the UK has full coverage too.

And last night on 60 Minutes there was a story about Rural Area Medical (RAM), an organization dedicated to providing free medical care to people in remote areas of the US and the world. According to the 60 Minutes story, it wasn't started to help Americans but with the health care crisis they are doing more and more expeditions in the US.

RAM is a great organization, but Americans deserve more than this.

Although my husband is a web developer, and I have my own website, I have very little understanding of any of the programming that is used to build websites. I am, though, very encouraged and impressed by the communities that come together to develop better technology. Take this site for example, a Drupal site, which uses technology that has been created by a number of web developers that have come together to create a content management system that someone like myself, who has very little understanding of web development, can use. These Drupal developers donate their own time making add-ons, making sure everything works right, getting rid of bugs, developing security measures, but they also do training sessions, conferences, and have a community listserv. And many businesses make use of this free technology by creating websites that use their content management systems. The businesses make money, but Drupal doesn't. I know there are other similar setups like Joomla and probably lots more I haven't heard of.

After working on a campaign when I was on college, my idealistic and young self was slightly crushed by the reality of "politics" in politics. And recently, I started thinking that maybe I have been naively idealistic all of my life, by believing in the infinite possibilities our world holds. With the recent political tragedy in Pakistan, the continued fear and hardship in every day life for the middle class in America (not to mention the poor), and poverty, disease, and violence throughout the world, I was feeling a little helpless.

I get very excited about projects to "save" the environment even though it's never been my strongest interest or an area that I even feel that I know enough about. But when I hear of great projects as big as the Metrobus in Mexico City or the people noted in Good Magazine last issue that don't buy anything for a year, I get really excited and motivated. After reading the NY Times article today on global warming and China and the US, I got a bit depressed by the state of the world we are leaving for our children. The article says that if we were to turn off every power plant and car right now, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air would be extremely dangerous as determined by scientists by 2070. If we do nothing, we will reach that point by 2040. That's enough to get my bum moving.