Friday, September 28, 2007

Forget Childhood Obesity

I just finished watching the movie Blood Diamond. I spend my time worrying about our children in this country who are becoming obese. They are positioned to live horrible lives of disease.

But, what about the children of Africa and other parts of the world? The movie shows how our want of resources from Africa, in this case, diamonds, causes civil war. The civil wars cause villages to be shot to death, women to be raped, and children to be drafted into armies to learn to kill.

I also just read What is the What by Dave Eggers. It tells the story of a boy running for his life through Sudan in the previous civil war. The stories are of young children who are refugees for their entire life. Others get drafted and trained into killing machines. Children are becoming killing machines! By the time they are 12 they have seen more murderers and rapes than any of us ever will.

I try to think everyday about what I do and how it affects others. Why can't we all just think about what our actions have? It's called mindfulness. Whether it be diamonds, ivory, or oil. Our habits are helping to cause a lot of this. Why can't we help others? Why can't we stop worrying about ourselves and start caring about others? There is so much going on in the world and if we just think about it all the time, and just started caring, maybe we could save some lives. But instead we just watch our celebrity shows, Fox News, and get drunk.

I have to start asking myself: Is childhood obesity that bad? At least our children aren't becoming murders after watching their fathers get shot and their mothers raped.
The child is the jewel.
I cry.

Oxfam America: Conflict in Darfur

2 comments:

Moby Dick said...

Blame Mayor's Jewelers and all the other jewelry companies that spend billions on advertisements that tell women that they must get a bigger diamond to prove they are loved.

Anonymous said...

We all know diamonds aren't rare. There are other rocks that are much rarer. Blame the marketing and advertising companies.