As if the devastation from Cyclone Nargis on May 3 was not enough. As if the inability of the government to help the victims or allow international aid organizations to feed and shelter the millions in need was not enough.  As if the people of Myanmar had not suffered enough death, disease, hunger, thirst, cold, and fear.  An estimated 2 million survivors of the storm are still in need of emergency aid.  To date, U.N. agencies and other groups have been able to reach only 270,000 people.

Bottlenecks, poor logistics, limited infrastructure and the military government's refusal to allow foreign aid workers have left most of the delta's survivors living in miserable conditions without food or clean water. The government's efforts have been criticized as woefully slow.

Souce

The situation is about to get much, much worse.  Forecasters are now tracking another tropical low that is expected to become another cyclone and track into the already devastated Irriwaddy delta.

A stumbling point for me in the practice of Buddhism is optimism.  I do not do optimism.  My thoughts on optimism parallel Ambrose Bierce.

Optimism: The doctrine that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong... It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.

I am particularly prone to pessimism (realism) when it comes to the response of our species to climate change. In reading the parable of the Burning House from the Lotus Sutra, I am tempted to wonder (which is as close as I come to hope).

The former journalistic enterprise known as the Washington Post has an article in the May 10 edition about the election results in Indiana and North Carolina.  The title says it all:

Wright Controversy Deepens Voter Divide

As a country, we face serious issues on the economy, foreign policy, energy policy, and health care.  So, in this pivotal election, why are the media talking about Jeremiah Wright?  This is the story of how the media uses exit poll surveys to keep tempest-in-a-teacup kerflufles brewing.

The death toll and suffering in Burma continues to rise in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis (Urdu for daffodil). The situation is dire.

Aid has barely trickled into one of the world's most isolated and impoverished countries, although experts feared it would be too little to cope with the aftermath of Nargis, which left up to 100,000 feared dead and one million homeless.

Witnesses saw little evidence of a relief effort under way in the hard-hit Irrawaddy delta region.

"We'll starve to death, if nothing is sent to us," said Zaw Win, a 32-year-old fisherman who waded through floating corpses to find a boat for the two-hour journey to Bogalay, a town where the government said 10,000 people were killed.

"We need food, water, clothes and shelter," he told a Reuters reporter.

Source

May 1, 2003, is another day of infamy for the Bush administration and America. In the kind of staged bravado dictators relish, George W. Bush donned a flight suit, pretended to fly, and then used an aircraft carrier as the backdrop for a speech to declare the mission in Iraq accomplished. Every cable news channel carried the event live as if history were somehow being made. It is time to look back at five years of accomplishments in Iraq.

Do you recognize this man?

His name is Rod Serling and he once hosted an amazing little television show called the Twilight Zone.  Each week, he would appear to announce the story of someone trapped in a bizarre set of circumstances, typically surreal and frightening.  It was fiction, but great fun.

I suddenly find myself looking for Rod Serling to appear again because I am suffering from the same uncomfortable sensation of surreality, except this time it is neither fiction nor fun.

As a parent of a student at Indiana University (IU), I have been impressed at the get out the vote efforts at IU by the Obama campaign. Voter registration drives on campus have been very successful. Registration to vote in Bloomington makes perfect sense for the November election since the student body will be on campus.  However, the primary schedule and school calendar present a logistic challenge. The spring semester ends this week, with the campus in recess when the May 6 Indiana primary rolls around.  Early voting to the rescue with local Obama organizers providing transportation to the polls.

The Los Angeles Times has a sweet little editorial about the latest Bush gambit on the environment.  It is worth a read.

The opening paragraph gets to the heart of the matter.

For Earth Day this year, the Bush administration sent California a few million tons of carbon dioxide, then tried to pass it off as a gift for the environment. The proposed federal fuel economy standards issued Tuesday represent a backdoor attempt to thwart the will of the state, Congress, the federal courts and possibly even the Supreme Court. That's quite a day's work even for President Bush.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) just released data on greenhouse gas emissions for 2007. The news is all bad. The levels of two major drivers of global climate change, carbon dioxide and methane, reached new record highs.  

Last year alone global levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the primary driver of global climate change, increased by 0.6 percent, or 19 billion tons. Additionally methane rose by 27 million tons after nearly a decade with little or no increase.
Source

After watching the returns, speeches, and morning after analyses, I am filled with sadness. Sadness that seeps into every pore. Bone aching sadness.

Last fall as the primary season was really heating up, I was filled with hope that America was awake to the damage done by the Bush "Republic" and welcoming of new leadership and a new direction for the country. Yes, I was disappointed that Gore decided not to run but understand fully why he decided to put all of his energy into fighting climate change. However, the field of candidates for Democratic Party was strong and I was drawn to the social justice platform of John Edwards. On the other side, the party of greed, fear, and violence was serving up slime from top to bottom. I could taste change in the air.

I have been astonished by the number of people who have rushed to defend John McCain against charges of hypocrisy on the subject of torture.  An article by Michael Scherer in the April 10 edition of Time magazine is typical of the pervasively sloppy thinking among McCain apologists.

But on this latest piece of legislation, which arose during the heat of the primary campaign and may surface again later this month, McCain sided with Bush in opposing a further restriction of CIA techniques. Despite the claims of some partisans, McCain's decision was not a flip-flop, but rather the continuation of a position he took in 2005 when he first championed a bill to restrict the Bush Administration's ability to mistreat detainees.

Flip-flop charges only seem to stick for Democrats, not saintly public servants like John McCain or wormtongues like Joe Lieberman. The sad truth is that there is no flip to McCain on torture, just flop.

Recent revelations that torture was approved, applauded, and enjoyed by senior Bush administration officials have caused quite a stir. Bush now freely admits that he "approved" of the CIA torturing a few "high value" terrorism suspects in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. All those assertions that the United States does not torture were knowingly false. While lying to Congress, the American people, and the world community might get another president in trouble, even impeached, war crimes appear to be much more acceptable in post-9/11 America. The mea culpa simply forces the administration and its supporters to create a new mythology of torture.

The Houghton Mifflin Company has just institutionalized climate change denial in the new edition of American Government, a popular text used in advanced government and civics classes at the high school level. This volume was written by James Q. Wilson and John J. DiIulio Jr.  The chapter on environmental policy could have been written by Exxon-Mobil or the American Enterprise Institute.

While the professional liars of oil, gas, and coal industries continue their slick climate disinformation campaign, Antarctica melts and crumbles.

March 25, 2008—New satellite images reveal what scientists call the "runaway" collapse of an enormous ice shelf in Antarctica as the result of global warming.

The chunk of coastal ice was some 160 square miles (415 square kilometers) in area—about seven times the size of Manhattan.

[snip]

David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey noted that the larger formation from which the chunk detached—the Wilkins Ice Shelf—could itself collapse in 15 years.

"Wilkins is the largest ice shelf on West Antarctica yet to be threatened," Vaughan said in the statement. "This shelf is hanging by a thread.

Source

Another surreal day in America. Everyone is talking about the "math" in the race for the Democratic nomination for president. Our war criminal in chief endorsed McCain to carry on his proud tradition of violence for profit. The corporate media laps up the most expensive presidential campaign in history. Meanwhile, halfway across the world, the Iraqi people continue to suffer because of our actions and inactions.  

Here is a story that every news outlet in America managed to ignore. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) just published a study of the mental health problems of Iraqi refugees living in Jordan and Lebanon.  More than half of the refugees interviewed reported high levels of clinically significant emotional distress. What's a few million traumatized people forced to flee their homes, jobs, schools, extended families, and country? Their suffering does not fit our narrative about the war. Our presidential candidates have already spent more money on this election than our country has spent over the past five years to help the victims of our foreign policy in Iraq.

It has been a bad week for Health Net in California. On Thursday, the health insurance giant was sued by the Los Angeles city attorney on behalf of all Californians for "illegally cancelling policies to avoid paying large claims." On Friday, a judge ruled against Health Net in suit brought by a Southern California woman for cancelling her insurance as she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Although both cases might be viewed as victories, they are properly viewed as symptoms of a terminal illness not a cure.

In Baghdad, this troupe of five clowns called themselves the "Happy Family Group." Their purpose was to bring some entertainment and relief to children whose lives had been scarred by violence and fear. They called their show, "A Child Is Just As Sacred As A Country." By every account, the show was popular among children, an oasis of laughter in the desert of violence.  Their story over the past six months is tragic and inspiring.  It also highlights the plight of Iraqi refugees.

Picture source

On health care reform, the choice between the Democratic and Republican candidates is crystal clear.  The two leading Democratic candidates tell the American people the truth about the American health care system - it is too expensive, leaves out 50 million people, and burdens employers.  One can argue that the Clinton and Obama plans do not go far enough toward creating universal single-payer coverage that citizens of other developed countries take for granted, but at least the Democrats are talking about steps toward solution.  By contrast, McCain and the Republicans offer nothing but tired rhetoric and more tax breaks for people that do not need them.  If you cannot afford health insurance, then putting aside money into a medical savings account is a cynical, if not blatantly cruel "solution" to the problem.  

This recent editorial in USA Today highlights the uphill battle we face as the media seek to muddy the waters and muddle the public.