What's Your Favorite Song Lyric?

My current favorite is "Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die." It's from the song "Crumbs from Your Table" on U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. I know it's not a feel-good lyric; it's not a feel-good song. But it's an important topic to consider: it refers to the poor, the oppressed and the AIDS-afflicted in Africa (many millions of whom are children) not being given the help they need but having to beg for it from richer countries and still not receiving enough.

Why should they have to die just because they happen to have had the misfortune of being born in Africa and not the U.S. or some other well-off nation? And I've learned recently that the aid African nations do receive is a joke: on average, for every dollar received in aid, about $1.15 is sent back to repay old debts to rich nations (and it's $1.30 in the poorest counties).

Beyond simply considering the topic, it's important to do something to help if we can. Bono helped in the founding and is very active in the efforts of the organization DATA (for Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa). So far, I've added my name to the ONE Declaration ("The campaign to make poverty history") on the DATA website (www.data.org) and beg you to do the same.

Wow, I remembered my user name!

Has it really been over three months since my last post? That's not actually surprising - I'm at my least productive during the winter months (like one step short of hibernation). Greetings to all my readers (yes, both of you - you know who you are).