StopBuyingCrap.com’s post called Two Types of Mindset was a big hit over at our house. It really reminded us of someone we know; do you know anyone like either of the types?

Last week, David Loyn of the BBC wrote about the crisis in Niger and asked “How many dying babies make a famine?”

Famine is a troublesome word with a very specific meaning to the professional aid community.

It is usually taken to define a situation in which a high proportion of the general population are vulnerable to death by hunger-related disease.

This describes a much more intense situation than the loose way that famine is generally understood – and the pictures of starving babies in Niger certainly look like “famine” to the outside world.

In technical terms Niger’s President Mamadou Tandja may be right to say that this is not a famine.

The debate over “famine” is much the same as the debate over “genocide” in Darfur

“For those who are dying from acute malnutrition and related diseases, the debate about whether there have been enough deaths to justify the famine label, and the extent to which this exceeds the normal hungry season mortality rate is not helpful.

“Avoiding the famine label has often been convenient for those seeking to justify slow or failed responses.”

Last September, the US declared that genocide was taking place in Darfur, but three months later, the report (PDF file) of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur concluded that it was not, though it also stipulated

The conclusion that no genocidal policy has been pursued and implemented in Darfur by the Government authorities, directly or through the militias under their control, should not be taken in any way as detracting from the gravity of the crimes perpetrated in that region. International offences such as the crimes against humanity and war crimes that have been committed in Darfur may be no less serious and heinous than genocide.

But the press responded, not with headlines reading “Massive Crimes Against Humanity in Darfur,” but rather with headlines such as “U.N. report: Darfur not genocide.”

But the point was essentially moot, as one thing quickly became clear: overwhelming evidence of massive crimes against humanity could not get the world to act, nor could a genocide declaration. In fact, it seems that nothing could prod the global community to act to address the situation in Darfur, be it genocide, quasi-genocide, or “merely” crimes against humanity.

As Loyn reports of Niger, warnings of an impending food crisis have been raised since November, but nobody paid attention until it was too late

They did not respond to the requests on paper as they did to pictures of dying babies.

The reverse is now occurring regarding Darfur. It has become, in the words of Eric Reeves, a “genocide by attrition,” and the world has stopped paying attention.

Last month, the UN reported that violence in Darfur had diminished over the past year, mainly because militia have run out of targets after destroying hundreds of villages.

As Reeves has written, the genocide in Darfur is now

[M]ore a matter of engineered disease and malnutrition than violent killing. In other words, disease and malnutrition proceeding directly from the consequences of violent attacks on villages, deliberate displacement, and systematic destruction of the means of agricultural production among the targeted non-Arab or African tribal groups became the major killers.

It is entirely possible that Darfur will not begin to receive sustained coverage again until this “genocide by attrition” has taken the lives of tens of thousands more and footage of dying babies in Darfur begins to show up on the nightly news.

And then, in lieu of actually addressing that problem, we can have a debate about whether or not this new situation meets the technical definition of “famine.”

Megachurches may not be everyone’s goal (it’s half mine; The Experience does intend to grow to a large—5000+—church, but on the other extreme, I’m very interested in house churches). However, the Adventist Review has an interesting article called “Why Don’t Adventists Grow Megachurches?“. I found this paragraph especially interesting:

Churches grow into effective megachurches only when seekers become disciples. These seekers need to be mentored by Spirit-filled members who are themselves spiritually disciplined and so are qualified to make disciples. If a large percentage of church members are not disciple-makers, a mega-church will eventually fail or will merely entertain.

So what do you think? Is this the key? And what should we do about it?

Moab, Utah, has become a mecca for off-road enthusiasts

This article talks about my cousin, Zac White. This strikes me as funny because fairly recently, my sister-in-law, Tammy, was in a TV news feature on a Denver station; she was piloting her Land Rover over some fun terrain in Moab and they caught her on film almost losing it. One of these days I’m going to have to wander Moab-ward.

Over a year ago, I wrote the post below urging the Bush administration to declare the situation in Darfur a “genocide.” Since then, an estimated 400,000 people have died, Doctors Without Borders is warning that millions of lives “hang in the balance,” and the International Committee of the Red Cross is warning of “chronic instability.”

One year later, we have to ask if the “genocide” declaration made any difference at all.

Say The Word

On January 11, 1994, Lt. General Romeo Dallaire, the UN Force Commander for the United Nation’s Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) sent an ominous fax to UN headquarters in New York. A high level informant within the ruling party informed UNAMIR that he had been training the Interahamwe militia and had been

[O]rdered to register all Tutsi in Kigali. He suspects it is for their extermination. Example he gave was that in 20 minutes his personnel could kill up to1000 Tutsis.

Dallaire informed New York that he intended to act on the information and seize various illegal arms caches before they could be distributed to the Interahamwe. The UN prohibited him from doing so. And as Dallaire’s executive assistant Brent Beardsley explained

We lost the initiative. We lost this fantastic opportunity, an absolutely incredible opportunity to maybe get this thing off the rails, take this train of genocide and knock it off its rails, get the initiative; maybe rally the moderates and be able to prevent what they obviously wanted to do, what [the informant] told usthey wanted to do, which was exterminate Tutsis.

The 1994 slaughter of one million Rwandans was not some spontaneous
outpouring of uncoordinated evil. Rather, it was an orchestrated, well-planned and systematic campaign to kill every Tutsi in the country.

It did not come out of the blue, but the various warning signs were routinely ignored and the US and the international community intentionally refused to legally recognize that genocide was taking place. As a result, during a horrific 100 days in 1994, hundreds of thousands of innocent people were slaughtered.

Ten years later, a similar crisis is again unfolding in Africa. Only today, hundreds of thousands of people are threatened with destruction, not via neighbors with machetes or screwdrivers, but rather by famine and disease.

The government of Sudan is currently engaged in a genocidal campaign against black Muslim farmers and villagers in the western section of the country. In Darfur, Arab militias backed by government bombs and troops are systematically wiping out thousands of villages and their inhabitants. Hundreds of thousands have fled into neighboring Chad, while millions more have been internally displaced.

The regime in Khartoum has vehemently resisted Western pressure to reign in the militias and grant access to humanitarian NGO’s seeking to alleviate the suffering of some 2 million people who have been forced from the homes.

Just as in Rwanda, the crisis in Darfur did not come out of nowhere. Activists have been warning about the potential humanitarian catastrophe for months, but to no avail. While the looming crisis was more or less ignored as the international community focused its efforts and attention on the peace agreement between Khartoum and rebels in the South, the situation in Darfur deteriorated to the point where U.S. Agency for International Development chief Andrew Natsios warned

We estimate right now if we get relief in, we’ll lose a third of a million people, and if we don’t, the death rates could be dramatically higher, approaching a million people.

In other words, if NGOs could gain immediate access to those in need, the
best case scenario was that “only” 300,000 people were going to die. And that was three weeks ago – and they didn’t get access.

Though the Bush administration claims that the crisis in Darfur is a “matter of highest priority” for the United States, they have been unable to get the UN to take a strong and vocal stand on the issue. Everyone seems to be operating under the assumption that someone else ought to take the lead.

The US and everyone else points the finger at the UN and the UN points the finger right back at them.

As it stands now, hundreds of million of dollars have been allocated for relief efforts, but the supplies are not reaching those in need as the government of Sudan has failed to control the Arab militias and continues to throw up procedural roadblocks in order to prevent access.

For months, the international community has been hoping that it could pressure Khartoum into stopping its genocidal campaign and for months they have resisted. All the while, the situation grows more and more dire. The lives of hundreds of thousands are at risk and every day the rainy season grows nearer. And once the rains begin, even if the humanitarian organizations do manage to get access, tens of thousands will be beyond their reach.

It is widely accepted that Darfur is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. It didn’t get that way over night.

Physicians for Human Rights has warned that “a genocidal process is unfolding in Darfur.” The United States Holocaust Memorial’s Committee on Conscience has issued a “genocide warning.” The U.S. war-crimes ambassador, Pierre-Richard Prosper, has testified that “indicators of genocide” exist in Darfur.

How many “indicators of genocide” do there need to be before the genocide is officially recognized and the international community fulfills its legal responsibilities?

Let it not be said that, for want of the courage to utter this one word, hundreds of thousands died in vain.

I was browsing some of the most popular bookmarks on del.icio.us and stumbled across an excerpt from Harper’s Magazine article “The Christian Paradox.” The excerpt itself is interesting, but I’m really looking forward to the full article, which I’ll get off of EBSCOhost next month when it shows up there (side note: I love the library! Yay free access!).

What I thought was really fascinating is that this article is popular at all. What does that say? That there are a lot of Christians who are similarly concerned about this paradox? Or that there are a lot people who want to poke holes in Christian ideals? (I might add that the excerpt doesn’t do this; the author is just showing the truly strange dichotomy between what we say and what we do.) What do you think?

I’ve become more aware lately of how much most women are alike?or maybe I should say “how often women experience the same things.” Part of this awareness has come from reading Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge. They don’t lump women into one stereotypical category, but they do point out certain things that tend to be in common.

By way of example, they mention that abandonment is most womens’ greatest core fear. I think on the surface, there are many exceptions to this, but at a deeper level, I’d suspect most women act out of this gut anxiety on a regular basis. These actions manifest themselves in many different ways, but they are frequently motivated by just a few common fears.

More anecdotally, I’ve been surprised at how often I’ve heard a woman express a fear or a feeling and immediately heard other women say, “You feel that way, too?” Usually there is a little bit of shock in this question. My co-worker, Dominique, was just telling Jamie, another lady, about how last night, her husband was in “a mood” and he wasn’t laughing at any of her jokes. She explained that when things get that way, she just makes more and more jokes to try to lighten the situation, but it doesn’t work and she feels bad. Jamie told her that her reaction is the same, and Dominique was shocked, I’d guess because Jamie usually seems very in control and not prone to desperate communication.

In the discussion group for the afore-mentioned “Captivating,” we’ve had tons of these experiences. A woman will say something and suddenly I feel like, “How does she know? I thought I was the only one who felt like that.” And I tend to think that I’m pretty different from most of the women there, too.

I think the most interesting thing about it is that the Eldredges suggest that our perceived “aloneness” is actually a very intentional tactic used by the devil to keep us seperated and fearful. It’s much less frightening once I realize that nearly every woman I know has experienced the same emotions and tendencies. Given that fact, I don’t find it at all hard to believe that someone who hates me would try to keep me from being connected to other women who would strengthen me.

How about you? Do you know what I’m talking about (whether you’re a guy or a girl)? Does this resonate at all?

If you know me, you may know that I’m pro-life. Then again, you might not. Even though I am passionately anti-abortion, I also know that if you disagree with me, I probably won’t convince you otherwise; I tend not to bring up the topic because it usually just fuels frustrations on both sides. However, I’m going to indulge in a mini-rant (don’t worry, just three points and you can skip the whole post and not offend me).

These three arguments really bother me. Here’s why.

• “Well, I wouldn’t do it, but it’s okay for other people.” C’mon now. Is it right or is it wrong? If it’s right, defend it already, and if it’s wrong, stop being so spineless.
• If we make it illegal, girls are just going to have back-alley abortions and it will be more dangerous for them. That’s like arguing to legalize rape so it won’t happen in dark corners and be more dangerous for the victim. The act itself is dangerous, and the crime is being committed either way. How about we make it cool to support pregnant girls the way it’s cool to support rape victims?
• It’s just a piece of tissue. Don’t even get me started on this one. If you are seriously presenting this argument, you probably aren’t paying attention and shouldn’t be arguing at all lest you make your own side look moronic.

There are certainly some issues (life of the mother, rape/incest, etc.) that are sticky. If you want to base your position on those (realizing their very limited applications, of course), that’s reasonable. Just don’t come at me with innane arguments that make no sense.

Okay, flame away.

The recent focus on Tom Cruise and his relationship with Katie Holmes has given Mr. Cruise the opportunity to evangelize for the Scientologists, and he’s taken full advantage of it. I stumbled upon a post called “Tom Cruise’s Dangerous Clown Show” (which made good points) and from there, followed a link to a 1991 Time cover story on the scariness that is Scientology.

I had never really thought about Scientology. I was vaguely aware that they are opposed to the medical field, but that was about it. The article gave me some pretty shocking surprises. The “Church” has been involved in things that are illegal, unethical, predatory, and vicious. They have been indicted in federal crimes. They have reportedly ordered members to murder and then commit suicide. This is not the feel-good fruit loop organization I thought it was.

This intro text sums it up: “Ruined lives. Lost fortunes. Federal crimes. Scientology poses as a religion but really is a ruthless global scam — and aiming for the mainstream.“

It’s a long-ish article (about 7500 words) but well worth the time to read it. If you really don’t have time, just read the last section, entitled “The Scientologists and Me”. The author of the Time main article reports on the things which happened to him as a result of writing the article.

Being from Idaho, I feel obliged to post a link to this commentary on Idaho’s recent commendation of Napoleon Dynamite. It’s very amusing, although it does give me some pause when I consider that it is my tax dollars at work. Whatever.