Apollo Lemmon on

Twice Eleven / Rights Affirmed

I almost forgot about it, but today is my birthday. This twenty-second anniversay of my birth snuck up on me, but so far it’s been pleasant enough. It’s sitting in the rocking chair sipping vanilla-laced cola as I type this, talking of back-in-the-days, emulating old age with great vocal prowess. It’s rambling on about days before the internet, when the Commodore 64 was high-tech and when Hero Quest was the keenest board game to be found.

In honor of the nostalgia conjured up by my realization of the date, I’d like to point you toward a Hero Quest adaptation for Windows that you can play to get a taste of my favourite board game of all time (the rules and play style have been altered, but the map, characters and general feel remain intact). The game is still quite fun to play for me even now. I ran a game last Sunday with some friends, in fact.

Today has a broader significance than just my birthday, of course. December tenth is also Human Rights Day. Today it is important, as it is every day, to reflect on the fact that billions in this world live without basic needs and freedoms and to do all we can to help those less fortunate than us (and to work to retain our own rights). One simple and influential way to contribute to the human rights movement is to take part in Amnesty International‘s Write for Rights!, a global letter-writing marathon “held annually to mark the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed on 10 December 1948.”

“Everyone can participate. It all begins with people just like you taking a few minutes to write a short letter, fax or email on behalf of individuals whose human rights are currently being violated.” (AI)

Directly related to this, a new study by UNICEF informs us that extreme poverty threatens the lives of more than a billion children (half the world’s under-18 population) around the world.

“UNICEF’s annual report said that more than half of the world’s under-18s were affected by poverty in one way or another, and in effect being denied the basic rights of childhood.
More than one billion children do not have access to at least one of seven commodities deemed essential: shelter, water, sanitation, schooling, information, health care and food, according to “The State of the World’s Children” report, launched Thursday in London.
UNICEF pointed the finger at governments for making things worse, for example by choosing to go to war, and for failing to do enough to alleviate the already existing problems.
“Childhood is under threat, not for mysterious reasons that strain our imaginations, but because of deliberate choices made by governments and others in power. Poverty doesn’t persist because of nothing, war doesn’t emerge form nowhere, HIV doesn’t spread by choice of its own,” said Carole Bellamy, executive director of UNICEF.
Despite signing the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, many governments are failing to fulfil its principles, the report also claims.
“When half the world’s children are growing up hungry and unhealthy, when schools have become targets and whole villages are being emptied by AIDS, we’ve failed to deliver on the promise of childhood,” Bellamy added.
UNICEF said the world must pay attention, for if childhood was threatened, so was the future of many nations.” (CBC)

There are real, concrete failings that are causing rights and needs to go unfulfilled, and a large portion of the blame must fall upon our wealthy, western shoulders. As this same article details,

“Thirty years ago, rich countries had a plan to combat poverty, which former Canadian prime minister Lester B. Pearson helped formulate.
It said developed countries should commit 0.7 per cent of their gross national product (GNP) to foreign aid.
Canada is far from that goal, currently giving less than half the target. The United States gives even less.”

Isn’t it time to put pressure on our governments to live up to our global commitments and help to alleviate the suffering of the less fortunate? I firmly believe so and my votes and my voice will reflect this.

In more positive rights-related news, the Canadian government has taken another step toward ensuring equal rights for people who wish to have same-sex marriages. Yesterday our supreme court gave the go-ahead to passing a bill giving gays and lesbians the legal right to marry. I applaud this decision and look forward to the day when true equality of relationships and love is embraced by our government and the people of Canada. We still have a long way to go, but I have hope we can transform our society to be more just, open and free.

I recently returned to using a AudioScrobbler, a site which compiles a database of the music you listen to (with a plugin for one of a good number of media players), giving you a list of recently listened to songs, top artists, top songs, recommendations and other interpretations of your music data and that of the large community the site boasts. I find the site useful for discovering artists that I may have overlooked in my musical wanderings. If you’d like to see what I’ve been listening to, you can visit my AudioScrobbler profile page here.

general

19 comments on “Twice Eleven / Rights Affirmed”

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Your post must include a link to this post.

How does this work?
Write a response on your own website and include a link to this post. Then submit your response’s URL here. Your response may appear here after moderation. To update or remove it, edit or delete your original post and submit the same URL again. Learn more about Webmentions.