So Fresh and So Green

Reuters Photo: A Congolese mineral trader displays semi-precious tourmaline gem stones in a mud hut at Numbi in eastern Congo. New efforts to clamp down on Congo’s armed groups that finance their existence with minerals sourced from the country’s conflict-wracked east — much of which ends up in laptops, cell phones and jewellery around the world — have been criticized for trying to achieve the impossible and risking the livelihoods of a million people in the area who depend on mining.

Yes. We require all of our suppliers to certify in writing that they use conflict few materials.

But honestly there is no way for them to be sure. Until someone invents a way to chemically trace minerals from the source mine, it’s a very difficult problem.
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~Steve Jobs, kristof.blogs.nytimes.com [1]

So you’ve heard of “Blood diamonds” but in a recent article at nytimes.com Nicholas D. Kristof wrote about “blood phones.” This phrase simply addresses the electronics many of us use all the time that are made with minerals from places like the Congo where the desire for these minerals fuels atrocities like mass rape and slaughter. (more…)

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A non vuvuzela event took place this weekend. The G20 or The Group of Twenty established in 1999 to bring together systemically important industrialized and developing economies to discuss key issues in the global economy while simultaneously undermining an already neutered United Nations and deciding the fates of, not just the other nations in the world, but the world. Oh yeah, and diminishing aid to Africa with little fanfare. (more…)

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A recent article at reuters.com has me puzzled. Essentially we have a stack of data from a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and researchers with a lot of speculations that could have disastrous effects. (more…)

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It is a scandal that the G8 are trying to quietly drop the promise they made to the world when millions campaigned to make poverty history.

The UK government should do all it can to stop this betrayal of the world’s poor at the Canadian G8.” ~Max Lawson, policy adviser for Oxfam, guardian.co.uk

The G8 will gather in Canada this month for the Muskoka summit where Aid to Africa has not been mentioned in a leaked draft communique for the meeting.

At 2005 Gleneagles summit the world’s most industrialized nations committed to provide increase aid to developing countries by around $50 billion a year by 2010. An extra $25 billion in financial assistance was allotted to Africa a year. (more…)

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Photo Credit: “Lisa Simpson’s Wallpaper” by pleasingfalsetto

According to pcworld.com teens may have built your iPhone. Apparently this news was disclosed by Apple itself on its website in a section of their site called “Supplier Responsibility”.

But I don’t own an iPhone and I thought I might be in the clear. Of course I wasn’t. My iPod said it was made in China and maybe it’s not lying to me but apple.com report says its inspectors visited facilities in the Czech Republic, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, China, and the United States.

There were more problems too. Check out Apple: Underage Workers May Have Built Your iPhone at pcworld.com.

When this story broke I saw it in several different places. My first thought was what about the kids in parts of Africa that are knee deep in discarded computers? I don’t think these kids should compete. If we want to care about some of them we should care about all of them.
Further reading: Breeding toxins from dead PCs

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“I met young kids with AIDS that don’t know their parents or their own names that smile and appreciate when you give them a hug and a handshake. I was the first person with some type of notoriety to visit them and they said I may be the only person that would ever come see them again.

It was a humbling experience and it changed my life… I no longer take the simple things in life for granted.”
~Keith Murray on his recent trip to Mozambique, Africa to raise awareness and global attention to the plight of children fighting HIV/AIDS.

This is why I’m not in favor of ageism in rap or term limits for rappers. Rappers need time to evolve as human beings to get to the point where they would want to do something like this. He’s 35 now and may not have done this at 18, although this is his 3rd trip.

Murray was personally affected by the disease. Both his mother and older sister died from the HIV/AIDS.

Keith Murray’s official myspace

Src: theboombox.com

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Lupe Fiasco will be climbing Mount Kilimanjaro to raise awareness about the need for clean water worldwide. He won’t be alone, he’ll have Jessica Beil with him, Isabel Lucas and singer and producer Kenna. The organized expedition called Summit on the Summit is set for next January.

The Summit on the Summit Mount Kilimanjaro climb for awareness was organized by Kenna. In Ethiopia his father suffered from waterborne diseases as a child.

In fact as we all know water is a basic need for humans. One can live longer without water than one can live without water. Not just any water but clean water and many living in industrialized or western countries may be as “astonished” as Jessica Beil was to learn over a billion persons worldwide don’t have access to clean water.

Friends, Miriam Makeba is one of my favorite artists of all time and I was greatly saddened when she died. However she left so much good music for us that I’m so pleased to have the opportunity to select this for you. (more…)

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July 9, 2007: Thousands gathered in Detroit, Michigan to participate in the NAACP’s funeral and burial for the “N” word.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) recently passed a historic resolution addressing climate change for the first time in it’s history at its 100th annual convention in New York.

Here are my thoughts on the NAACP: On the national level the NAACP does next to nothing for me as a young Black person. Locally they are far more active but that falls on the shoulders of local chapter leaders. I’ve seen them take the time and the energy to have a funeral for “the N word” as pictured above (and thank God they did cause I never hear nigger or nigga anymore) . I’ve heard of their many corporate connections and numerous conventions. On a national level for a lot of young Black people I think the NAACP is not relevant. Sadly, I think they’ve rendered themselves irrelevant and insist on continuing. Sadly, we don’t have anything nationally in place to replace them.

Uh oh, there’s that word again…

I think that funeral was the nail in the coffin for me and probably solidified our status as the laughing stock of the diaspora. From its inception the NAACP has been integrated, though for some reason it’s considered the voice of Black people by some. More importantly (more…)

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