“If you can not express yourself you are already behind bars”  Mbana Kaitako

South Korea: Woman passes driver’s licence exam on 950th attempt

* Associated Press in Seoul (from my friend Becca)

“A woman in South Korea who had tried to pass the written exam for her driver’s licence on 949 occasions has passed on her 950th attempt. The aspiring driver, who needs the licence for her business, spent more than £2,500 in application fees, but until now had failed to score the minimum 60 out of 100 points needed to attempt the actual physical driving test. Cha Sa-soon, 68, finally passed on Wednesday, said Choi Young-chul, a police official at the drivers’ licence agency in Jeonju,80 miles south of the capital, Seoul. Local media reportyed that she took the test 950 times.”

Other than a spelling era and the British way of spelling “licence”, quite inspiring indeed.  Thank god I’m not driving in South Korea…or India…or anywhere (here’s to cycling in crazy traffic that still is safer than the US)

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Nationally, only 10 percent of the more than 23 million people who need addiction treatment actually receive it.

-The Milwaukee Addiction Treatment Initiative (MATI)

As the health care debate passes my country’s two wars and economy to be the most discussed US news topic, I started to think about the many ways ignored aspects of health care (MENTAL HEALTH!), like the rest of our health care system, are defined by class ie your ability to pay.

Beyond the likelihood that Obama will get at best a watered down public option, there are issues always ignored in health because those with access have them and those without resources don’t. The Substance Abuse Treatment Gap is one such issue that I have never heard discussed in all the student groups and academic, activist and policy conferences and classes on social services that I have been involved in. Someone may bring up one of these forgotten health concerns and people will clap and remember a friend of a friend whose affected and then it will come right back to how we can address healthcare as if it’s an island, as if we can reform our way out of our massive health inequalities, as if true universal health care is possible in our current economic system.

I hear a lot in media and films and local gossip about drunk driving and overdoses, but how often do you hear about successful treatment stories. One reason is that for the majority of wage workers and their families (both lower- and middle-class) treatment is out of reach.

I will explore this issue more later, but one resource I found was the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility Locator, which maps treatment options throughout the US, some of which have sliding scales of payment. If you know someone who may be in need of treatment, please share the link.

As the Milwaukee Addiction Treatment Initiative report goes on, these services fail to address the huge resource gap:

The consequences of the treatment gap are profound:

• Each year in Wisconsin, more than 2,160 deaths and 8,500 traffic crashes are attributed to alcohol and other drug use and addiction, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.

• Annual economic costs associated with drug and alcohol use in Wisconsin total $4.6 billion.

• Nationally, untreated drug and alcohol abuse costs $500 billion a year in health care expenditures, lost productivity and related crime, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse; and contributes to the death of more than 100,000 Americans a year.

“Recovery from addiction takes many forms, but the ability to access appropriate treatment the moment you need it — similar to receiving treatment for any other disease — is the most crucial component,” said Mark Fossie, president and CEO of M&S Clinical Services, Inc., which provides addiction treatment to low-income men and women. “As it is, if you’re poor in Milwaukee County you have little chance at getting appropriate and unlimited treatment on demand, and if you’re middle class in Milwaukee County your outlook is hardly any better.”

“It is scientifically proven that treatment is an effective way to help people recover from addiction, regain control of their lives and become contributing members of society,” said Dr. Francine Feinberg, executive director of Meta House, a treatment center for women and their children. “Our inability and unwillingness to provide treatment to all who need it is shameful and hurts us all, costing us lives, money and resources.”



Let me remind you all of one thing: this is not a game we are playing for fun and entertainment – this is a fight we must win.

– Bhuvan

I first read about this film in my friend Marcos’s book on “films you need to see before you die and to talk with people who watch films” book (not exact title). It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for India, but it should have won for best song as I now know how to say such helpful words as “tax” and phrases as the command “walk ahead” and the comforting “oh friend, oh friend: don’t be afraid, we have the sky, we have the land” in Hindi”.

Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India is a fictional tale (but it could have happened or did it…) about a a bunch of villagers that are upset with the new taxes or lagaans. It takes place in the late 19th century where the British Empire ruled India. The British soldiers challenge the villagers to a game of cricket to see if they will pay taxes or not.

Some random thoughts/stories from it:

• There’s a song about the deity Krishna, and my roommate told me that Krishna runs around messing with women and stealing their clothes when they shower or taking butter from their house, generally teasing them. There’s a saying today with young boys where they ask, “If Krishna does it, it’s fine but when we do it, it’s not! We’re just following god.”
• Great scene where villagers dance outside in their town to the theme and then the theme is Europeanized for the British soldiers to dance in the old Indian temple they occupy
• Other than women, everyone is involved: a Sikh, a Muslim, an Untouchable (lowest caste, he’s crippled), but hey the women pray, and in the thousands of cricket games I’ve seen people playing on the streets here I have yet to see a woman playing
• The main actor looked a lot like Eminem to me and reminded me of 8 Mile where Eminem overcomes the British by using the foreign (in the sense he’s white and sucks at rapping) medium of hip-hop (I think that’s what the film is driving at but I never saw it)

I still think they look the same.

Putting the Y in Bollywood

I am bringing Bollywood back to Wisconsin (although Wollywood sounds too much like Dollywood or Wally World so yea we’ll have to bring in the ad wizards on this one (sorry Seinfeld couldn’t find the original)).

To borrow another great idea from April’s: Talent aside, the American India Foundation didn’t send 20 Americans to India to launch 20 Bollywood careers. The fellowship’s aim is to aid NGOs and their communities while grooming young people invested in India and (its) development.

India is vast, and so is the span of our experiences. Check out the fellows’ blogs and read about everything from strep throat in Gujarat to school conditions in Andhra Pradesh:

• In India
• jenny b » Udaipur, Rajasthan State
• The Blog.
• Sanjay’s Year In India
• Samir Goes Abroad
• Exploring the Fifth Continent

Gotta add Nafisa’s blog especially the post from today…

the labor theory of value and liberal purses

April Eats

Fizzinoodle is Finnish for “My friend in Bangalore April has an awesome blog”. I wanted to share the link and the quote she uses from Freire (April is working on teachers and students using technology in the classroom) whose work is relevant for understanding not only his Banking theory of education but how education is a symbol of society where those in control want the majority to know just enough to work, and not to think critically and change their reality:

A careful analysis of the teacher-student relationship at any level inside or outside the school, reveals its fundamentally narrative character This relationship involves a narrating Subject (the teacher) and patient, listening objects (the students). The contents, whether values or empirical dimensions of reality, tend in the process of being narrated to become lifeless and petrified. Education is suffering from narration sickness.

The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable. Or else he expounds on a topic completely alien to the existential experience of the students. His task is to “fill” the students with the contents of his narration — contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them and could give them significance.

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum Books, 1993.

Donate $10 today to support public health projects across the world. If you donate before 3:00 pm EST on November 6, you can help GlobeMed win a $50,000 prize from America’s Giving Challenge on Facebook Causes.

How you can help us win:

1) Click on the donation button to contribute $10 to our campaign.
2) If you would like to donate more than $10, come back tomorrow and donate again! Each day you donate gets us closer to winning $50,000 (it’s better to make two donations of $10 each, than one donation of $20).
3) Reach out to your friends and family to ask them to donate too!

If you support GlobeMed in this challenge:
1) 100% of your donation will go directly to a project to improve health in an impoverished community.
2) You will show your support for global health equity.

If we win the $50,000 prize:
1) We will be able to form 15 new partnerships with grassroots health organizations.
2) We will grow our network from 500 students to over 1,200 students passionate about global healt

GlobeMed is a network of university students who partner with grassroots organizations around the world to improve the health of the impoverished. Through their involvement today, students commit to a life of leadership in global health and social justice.

The GlobeMed Network currently includes 19 chapters at university campuses throughout the country and a national office in Evanston, IL. The grassroots organizations supported by GlobeMed chapters span the world from Mexico to Nepal. Since 2007, GlobeMed students have raised over $140,000 for public health projects in 21 communities around the world.

For more information visit www.globemed.org.

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From my friend Anoop who has been working day and night on this cause…

Thousands of Tibetans have been displaced since the Chinese invasion of their homeland in the mid 1950s. Many have fled to countries all around the Himalayan region, including India. McLeod Ganj, a small mountain town in the North Indian state of Himachal Pradesh is the official home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile. Because of this, many Tibetan refugees cross the treacherous Himalayas by foot and try to make their way to McLeod Ganj. The journey is often done in large groups and takes any where from 1-2 months.

Most Tibetan refugees arrive in India with little more than the clothes on their back. As global awareness of the continuing struggle between Tibet and China increases, NGOs supporting the Tibetan cause are becoming more and more prevalent not only in the Himalayas, but wherever Tibetan refugees end up. These NGOs provide basic services such as cultural immersion programs, job and language training, and programs for displaced children.

However, one of the most basic necessities is often overlooked. Clean water and food are absolutely essential for the welfare of these refugees. Because money is extremely tight amongst the refugee community, healthy and affordable food is not always accessible.

The LHA Charitable Trust located in McLeod Ganj is one NGO that is desperately trying to provide these refugees not only with the skills that will help them stand on their feet tomorrow, but with the food and water they need to survive today. The LHA needs $25,000 to construct a community kitchen that will provide discounted food to refugees (please see attached document for breakdown of costs). Your donation will go directly to making this a reality.

I have set up a donation page which offers more information about the cause and you can see it at, http://www.giveforward.org/kitchenproject/. Any support you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

If you have any questions, or need any more information, please let me know. Thanks for your time.

Best Wishes,

Anoop Jain
anoopjain2007@u.northwestern.edu

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” – Rabindranath Tagore

Do you know teachers who are awesome and out to help make the world a better place?

The Asturias Academy, a non-profit school that works with Guatemala’s poorest children, would like to meet them! We are looking for teachers who want to raise awareness with their classes about the lives of poor Guatemalans. Our goal is to connect 20 classrooms in the US with our 20 classrooms in Guatemala so that through the relationships we’re building we can make improvements in the lives of Guatemala’s young.

According to a recent government report, 75% of all Guatemalans earn a living in the informal economy (selling gum, shining shoes, etc.). These low-wage jobs keep most of the country locked in poverty and anguished parents need to choose between food, education and medicine. The result for many families is disastrous.

The answer is education. By building the Asturias Educators Network you will be helping us find the solutions that will help folks lift themselves out of poverty and into a happy dignified life. Please send contact information for educators to steve@asturiasacademy.org and we will make contact with them so that we can build a strong network that can spread the word about the crisis in Guatemala and the plan for change.

Thank you,

–
Steve Mullaney
Director of Development
Miguel Angel Asturias Academy
Guatemala phone: (502) 5317-6711
US phone: 763-219-1450
Skype: StevenMullaney
www.asturiasacademy.org