John Henry Clarke was a Pan-Africanist American writer, historian, professor, and a pioneer in the creation of Africana studies and professional institutions in academia starting in the late 1960s.
He was Professor of AfricanWorldHistory and in 1969 founding chairman of the Department of Black and Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College of the City University of New York. He also was the Carter G. Woodson Distinguished Visiting Professor of AfricanHistory at Cornell University’s Africana Studies and Research Center. In 1968 along with the Black Caucus of the African Studies Association, Clarke founded the African Heritage Studies Association.
An autodidact, Clarke documented the histories and contributions of African peoples in Africa and the diaspora using an Afrocentric perspective. Some of his works are Harlem Quarterly, Pittsburgh Courier, and Malcolm X, Man and His Times.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr. was a Jamaican publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a staunch proponent of the Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL). He founded the Black Star Line, part of the Back-to-Africa movement, which promoted the return of the African Diaspora to their ancestral lands.
Prior to the twentieth century, leaders such as Prince Hall, Martin Delany, Edward Wilmot Blyden, and Henry Highland Garnet advocated the involvement of the African diaspora in African affairs. Garvey was unique in advancing a Pan-African philosophy to inspire a global mass movement and economic empowerment focusing on Africa known as Garveyism. Promoted by the UNIA as a movement of African Redemption, Garveyism would eventually inspire others, ranging from the Nation of Islam to the Rastafari movement (which proclaims Garvey as a prophet). The intent of the movement was for those of African ancestry to “redeem” Africa and for the European colonial powers to leave it. His essential ideas about Africa were stated in an editorial in the Negro World titled “African Fundamentalism.” Some of Garvey’s works are Message to the People, The Poetical Works of Marcus Garvey, and The Marcus Garveyand Universal Negro Improvement.
For MumiaAbu-Jamal, I am Ron Kovic author of Born on the Fourth of July.
According to recent news accounts, shattered and shredded body parts and remains of U.S. servicemen were found in a landfill.
Despite political spins, this sobering image is a telling, true-life metaphor for what those in power really think of soldiers, many of whom are but boys and girls freshly loosed from High School.
In recent years, politicians, especially when on TV or radio talk shows, are apt to say, when addressing a vet, “I thank you for your service.” In truth, this is robot-talk, kind of like when a parrot is trained to say, “Hello!”, and about as meaningful.
The Americanpoet, e.e. cummings once said, “A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat, except a man.”
John Africa said, “A politician will tell you he wasn’t born of a woman, if it’ll get you to vote for him.”
In these passing years, since 9/11, wars have been fought that have devastated countries, economies, and world peace. Untold thousands have died, many for nothing more, nor less, than American paranoia. Thousands of U.S. soldiers have died defending American lies.
And tens of thousands have returned, bodies, minds, souls shattered by political calculations driven by arrogance, greed and sheer stupidity. Thousands of marriages have ended in divorce because of forced years apart, and families have been broken asunder because some greasy politician wanted to play ‘War-President‘ (or Senator, or Representative.)
In a real sense, military body parts tossed into landfills as trash is more than metaphor.
It is truth.
(c) ’11 maj
Prison and government officials are trying to censor and silence Mumia Abu-Jamal. I stand as one of many Americans who believe that there is tremendous value in his voice being heard. I am others will fight to make sure that both his voice and his body are free.
There is no longer a need for dire predictions, hand-wringing, or apprehension about losing a generation of black boys. It is too late. In education, employment, economics, incarceration, health, housing, and parenting, we have lost a generation of young black men. The question that remains is will we lose the next two or three generations, or possibly every generation of black boys hereafter to the streets, negative media, gangs, drugs, poor education, unemployment, father absence, crime, violence and death.
Most young black men in the United States don’t graduate from highschool. Only 35% of black male students graduated from highschool in Chicago and only 26% in New York City, according to a 2006 report by The Schott Foundation for Public Education. Only a few black boys who finish highschool actually attend college, and of those few black boys who enter college, nationally, only 22% of them finish college.
Young black male students have the worst grades, the lowest test scores, and the highest dropout rates of all students in the country. When these young black men don’t succeed in school, they are much more likely to succeed in the nation’s criminal justice and penitentiary system. And it was discovered recently that even when a young black man graduates from a U.S. college, there is a good chance that he is from Africa, the Caribbean or Europe, and not the United States.
Black men in prison in America have become as American as apple pie. There are more black men in prisons and jails in the United States (about 1.1 million) than there are black men incarcerated in the rest of the world combined. This criminalization process now starts in elementary schools with black male children as young as six and seven years old being arrested in staggering numbers according to a 2005 report, Education on Lockdown by the Advancement Project.
The rest of the world is watching and following the lead of America. Other countries including England, Canada, Jamaica, Brazil and South Africa are adopting American social policies that encourage the incarceration and destruction of young black men. This is leading to a world-wide catastrophe. But still, there is no adequate response from the American or global blackcommunity.
Worst of all is the passivity, neglect and disengagement of the blackcommunity concerning the future of our black boys. We do little while the future lives of black boys are being destroyed in record numbers. The schools that black boys attend prepare them with skills that will make them obsolete before, and if, they graduate. In a strange and perverse way, the blackcommunity, itself, has started to wage a kind of war against young black men and has become part of this destructive process.
Who are young blackwomen going to marry? Who is going to build and maintain the economies of black communities? Who is going to anchor strong families in the blackcommunity? Who will young black boys emulate as they grow into men? Where is the outrage of the blackcommunity at the destruction of its black boys? Where are the plans and the supportive actions to change this? Is this the beginning of the end of the black people in America?
The list of those who have failed young black men includes our government, our foundations, our schools, our media, our black churches, our black leaders, and even our parents. Ironically, experts say that the solutions to the problems of young black men are simple and relatively inexpensive, but they may not be easy, practical or popular. It is not that we lack solutions as much as it is that we lack the will to implement these solutions to save black boys. It seems that government is willing to pay billions of dollars to lock up young black men, rather than the millions it would take to prepare them to become viable contributors and valued members of our society.
Please consider these simple goals that can lead to solutions for fixing the problems of young black men: Short term 1) Teach all black boys to read at grade level by the third grade and to embrace education. 2) Provide positive role models for black boys. 3) Create a stable home environment for black boys that includes contact with their fathers. 4) Ensure that black boys have a strong spiritual base. 5) Control the negative media influences on black boys. 6) Teach black boys to respect all girls and women. Long term 1) Invest as much money in educating black boys as in locking up black men. 2) Help connect black boys to a positive vision of themselves in the future. 3) Create high expectations and help black boys live into those high expectations. 4) Build a positive peer culture for black boys. 5) Teach black boys self-discipline, culture and history. 6) Teach black boys and the communities in which they live to embrace education and life-long learning.
For Mumia Abu-Jamal, I am Ron Kovic author of Born on the Fourth of July.
According to recent news accounts, shattered and shredded body parts and remains of U.S. servicemen were found in a landfill.
Despite political spins, this sobering image is a telling, true-life metaphor for what those in power really think of soldiers, many of whom are but boys and girls freshly loosed from High School.
In recent years, politicians, especially when on TV or radio talk shows, are apt to say, when addressing a vet, “I thank you for your service.” In truth, this is robot-talk, kind of like when a parrot is trained to say, “Hello!”, and about as meaningful.
The Americanpoet, e.e. cummings once said, “A politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat, except a man.”
John Africa said, “A politician will tell you he wasn’t born of a woman, if it’ll get you to vote for him.”
In these passing years, since 9/11, wars have been fought that have devastated countries, economies, and world peace. Untold thousands have died, many for nothing more, nor less, than American paranoia. Thousands of U.S. soldiers have died defending American lies.
And tens of thousands have returned, bodies, minds, souls shattered by political calculations driven by arrogance, greed and sheer stupidity. Thousands of marriages have ended in divorce because of forced years apart, and families have been broken asunder because some greasy politician wanted to play ‘War-President’ (or Senator, or Representative.)
In a real sense, military body parts tossed into landfills as trash is more than metaphor.
It is truth.
(c) ’11 maj
Prison and government officials are trying to censor and silence Mumia Abu-Jamal. I stand as one of many Americans who believe that there is tremendous value in his voice being heard. I am others will fight to make sure that both his voice and his body are free.
Kwanzaa is an AfricanAmerican and Pan-Africanholiday which celebrates family, community and culture. Celebrated from 26 December thru 1 January, its origins are in the first harvest celebrations of Africa from which it takes its name. The name Kwanzaa is derived from the phrase “matunda ya kwanza” which means “first fruits” in Swahili, a Pan-African language which is the most widely spoken African language.
The first-fruits celebrations are recorded in African history as far back as ancient Egypt and Nubia and appear in ancient and modern times in other classical African civilizations such as Ashantiland and Yorubaland. These celebrations are also found in ancient and modern times among societies as large as empires (the Zulu or kingdoms (Swaziland) or smaller societies and groups like the Matabele, Thonga and Lovedu, all of southeastern Africa. Kwanzaa builds on the five fundamental activities of Continental African “first fruit” celebrations: ingathering; reverence; commemoration; recommitment; and celebration. Kwanzaa, then, is:
The world’s largest supporter of AIDS programs has made an ominous announcement: Because of the global financial crisis, it is well short of its fundraising goals.
The Global Fund to FightAIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria pays for more than half of the world’s HIV medicine, and supports hundreds of education and advocacy programs worldwide. With World AIDS Day on Thursday, many are worried about what that means for the future of the war on AIDS.
Keeping Momentum In South Africa
Inside the Ubuntu HIV clinic in South Africa, dozens of people sit on wooden benches. Some wear masks over their mouths, as children chase each other through the aisles. They’re here to collect their monthly supplies of anti-retroviral drugs — the medicine that allows HIV-positive people to stay healthy.
South Africa has more HIV-positive people than any other country in the world. More than 6,000 people collect their medicine at this clinic in Khayelitsha, a sprawling township on the outskirts of Cape Town.
Nompumelelo Montangana, the operational manager, says the clinic has made huge strides in the fight against HIV. It has greatly increased the number of patients it treats and has raised community awareness of the disease.
However, she says, the Global Fund‘s financial shortfall has her worried.
“If the funding is not there, then that means what we have worked [on] over the past 10 years … will be a waste,” Montangana says.
The Global Fund hopes to distribute $20 billion in 2012, primarily to programs in sub-Saharan Africa. Two-thirds of the world’s HIV-positive people live there.
So far, it has raised just half of that amount.
Dr. Christoph Benn, the Global Fund‘s director of external relations, says the nonprofit essentially hit a financial plateau.
“Basically, we are predicting the funding will remain at a similar level, hopefully with some increase,” Benn says, “but it is not currently sufficient to call for a full, new round of funding that would allow countries to scale up their current programs.”
That means people who now have access to anti-retroviral drugs won’t be affected much. Still, roughly half the world’s HIV-positive people live in areas with limited or no access to those drugs, and their situation probably won’t improve.
The ‘Worst-Case Scenario’
Education and advocacy groups are also under threat. The Treatment Action Campaign, one of South Africa‘s most influential AIDS organizations, has said it will be forced to close its doors in January if Global Fund dollars aren’t delivered as promised.
Dr. Eric Goemaere, the director of Doctors Without Borders for Southern Africa, warns that clinics in some countries could run out of anti-retroviral drugs — a situation he calls “stock-outs.”
“Worst-case scenario is stock-outs, and people who are already on treatment will have to be stopped,” he says. “Countries, like certainly Zimbabwe and Mozambique, and probably Malawi, will have extreme difficulties.”
The Global Fund receives 95 percent of its income from European and North American governments. Now, many of those governments are saying they can’t pledge more money in the midst of the global financial crisis. Goemaere, however, says the problem is that there is not the same political will around AIDS that there was a decade ago.
“The real reason is that the political interest has definitely faded away,” he says, “probably because it is not perceived as threatening as it was in that time, for the rich countries — for European and North American countries.”
South Africa, which has the largest economy in Africa and a government that is committed to fighting the disease, is unlikely to see its HIV clinics close. The same may not be true for many of its neighbors.
SPEAKERS: Cornel West Michelle Alexander (by video) Ramona Africa Michael Coard Vijay Prashad Louisa Hanoune Mark Lamont Hill Immortal Technique Amiri and Amina Baraka And more
• No to the racistdeath penalty! • Stop the massive incarceration of the poor and oppressed! • End torture and police terrorism! • Free all political prisoners! • Free Mumia!
Murder of Gadhafi is next step to wider U.S. wars in Africa
The brutal lynching of Moammar Gadhafi, the leader of Libya, is the latest criminal act in NATO‘s seven-month war of regime change and conquest.
Gadhafi died resisting to the very end U.S.-NATO war, as he said he would. He refused to negotiate with NATO an ignominious departure for himself or to surrender. He chose a martyr’s death for Libya’s independence and sovereignty. Despite ridicule in the West, in Africa Gadhafi will be remembered as an anti-imperialist fighter.
The gross and disrespectful behavior of the National Transitional Council (TNC) in the display of Moammar Gadhafi’s body confirms to the world in the most graphic way that these elements, who the imperialist powers have given official recognition, are in fact crude, low-life gangsters.
Instead of burying Gadhafi within a day as required under Islamic law, they chose to display Gadhafi’s battered, half naked body — bloody, unwashed and uncovered — on a soiled mattress in a meat locker at a shopping center.
This affront to religious and national custom will further deepen outrage and resistance.
TNC militias did no real fighting. These divided, competing military bands operate as scavengers or vultures, calling in air strikes and lying in wait to pick over the death that NATO bombers have blasted in front of them. In seven months of NATO bombing they have shown themselves capable of firing endless weapons in front of cameras and brutalizing Black Libyans, yet incapable of conducting any independent military action.
U.S. and NATO forces bear responsibility for this latest crime and the way it was carried out. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sounded like a gunslinger in a Hollywood western in Tripoli the day before Gadhafi’s murder, demanding his capture – dead or alive.
Loyalist forces in the city of Sirte, Bani Walid and several other cities have held out heroically two months after NATO seizure of Tripoli.
NATO bombers targeted Sirte and Bani Walid’s electrical grid, communications, food storage, the citywater supply, the water towers on apartment buildings and even the water tower on the roof of the hospital. Again and again the TNC has announced that all resistance in these small cities have has been destroyed, only to be driven out each time.
The imperialist war in Libya is reminiscent of past colonial wars in Africa and Asia. Targeting of any civilian necessities, such as water, food, medicine, and communication is specifically prohibited under international law and considered a war crime under the Nuremburg and Geneva Conventions. Yet during seven months of war those are exactly the civilian targets that NATO planners focused on again and again.
The bombing of lines of cars fleeing the NATO besieged city of Sirte that led to Gadhafi’s capture is an example of systematic targeting of civilians.
U.S. British, French and Italian imperialist forces claimed to be protecting civilians and implementing a United Nations Security Council No-fly zone. But the Libyan government used no aircraft at all. U.S. and other NATO jets ruled the skies and civilians were their targets. This is an expanding war. Today U.S. drones strike with impunity at defenseless peoples around the world.
Gadhafi’s greatest threat to the imperialist countries was promoting a development plan for an African Federation and a stable African currency backed by Libya‘s $90 billion reserves to help Africans free themselves from the IMF and World Bank’s onerous dictates.
Forty-two years ago Libya was one of the poorest, least developed countries of Africa. Gadhafi and other young military officers overthrew the Western-supported Libyan monarchy of King Idris in 1969, then held the imperialist’s off as the Libyans built with nationalized oil revenues a series of modern cities and infrastructure. Before the NATO bombing this year, the Libyan people had achieved the highest educational and health standards in Africa, according to UN development statistics.
In the same week that Secretary of State Clinton traveled to Tripoli and that Gadhafi was murdered, President Barack Obama ordered U.S. Special Forces and military advisors to Uganda, South Sudan, Central Africa Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo. These are countries that hold a vast reservoir of strategic minerals, including cobalt, coltan, industrial diamonds, copper in Congo and newly discovered oil in Uganda and South Sudan.
Anyone who expects that U.S./NATO forces or their corrupt collaborators will rebuild the schools, hospitals, modern housing, sports complexes, vast underground water system, electricity, advanced communications, reorganize free health care or reconstruct essential infrastructure that they have laid waste to in months of bombing need only look at their ignominious record in Iraq after eight years or in Afghanistan after ten years. The promised peace, national reconciliation, democracy and development were empty words.
Today, the vast majority of Iraqi people, even in the capital city of Baghdad, still struggle with a few hours of electricity a day. Potable water is a memory of a past, pre-occupation epoch, so is free education and health care. NATO is a war machine for corporate profit, not a social service agency. It has shown itself as incapable of reorganizing a decent life.
In Afghanistan after a decade of occupation, the rubble of U.S. bombs and rusting tanks still litter the roads. None of the promised social progress has reached beyond Pentagon press releases and politicians visits.
In Iraq the indignities and humiliations were so numerous and such an affront that even the government of compliant collaborators established by the U.S. has been forced by mass sentiment to refuse immunity to U.S. troops scheduled to remain in Iraq as relabeled trainers and advisors.
As in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen the resistance in Libya to U.S. NATO domination will continue and take on new forms.
The imperialists never expected mass mobilized resistance to their plans. They predicted a war that would be over within a week. Instead a small population of six million, spread across a largely desert country, managed through mass mobilizations of millions of people, military resistance and emergency measures to withstand more than 200 days of non-stop bombardment, more than 9,000 air strikes.
U.S., British and French corporate looters are planning a new assault on Africa, but they are finding that this is not the world of 100 years ago.
The tens of thousands of youth occupying sites in cities across the U.S. and Europe need to stand in solidarity with resistance to corporate domination at home and to imperialist wars abroad.
Following two rough years of drought in the Horn of Africa, the United Nations has declared famine in two regions of southern Somalia.
According to the UN, a famine means more than 30% of children in an area are malnourished, at least 20% of households face extreme food shortages and more than two people per 10,000 die each day.
Neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia are badly hurting as well. More than 12 million people are at risk of starvation as the region faces its worst drought in 60 years.
The situation in Somalia is particularly dire, as Al-Shabaab warlords (an Al-Qaeda affiliate organization) have until recently blocked foreign aid workers from the region. Somalis seeking food come to Kenya’s Dadaab Refugee Camp, the largest U.N. refugee settlement in the world, by the thousands each day.
The U.N.’s World Food Programme (WFP) began airlifting food to Mogadishu, Somalia, Dolo, Ethiopia and Wajir, Kenya on Tuesday. The U.N. has raised $1 billion for the region since November 2010 but says it will need another $1 billion before the year’s end to prevent widespread starvation in the region.
While overcoming this humanitarian disaster — which the WFP calls the highest global humanitarian priority — will not be easy, thankfully creative attempts to help are sprouting up across the web.
Here are four ways the web is responding:
U2 frontman Bono and ONE brought 10 American mommy bloggers to Africa to connect with Kenyan mothers from July 23 to 30. The American moms shadowed community healthcare workers, met female farmers and visited one of Africa’s largest slums in Nairobi. The moms are sharing their experiences on their respective blogs, as well as on the organization’s blog, It Only Takes ONE Mom.
The bloggers and their readers are also discussing the trip on Twitter using the hashtag #ONEMoms
Like most major international crises today, Twitter is the go-to forum for Africans to discuss the situation on the ground. Users are asking for the international community to send aid to the starving region of the world’s poorest continent. The International Business Times reported twenty tweets per minute relate to the famine in East Africa, using the hashtags #HornOfAfrica, #Famine, #Drought, #Somalia, #Kenya and #Ethiopia.
Groups such as Kenyans4Kenya, a campaign of Kenyans helping other Kenyans, have started to respond to calls.
The WFP also has a social media initiative, WeFeedback, for sharing food with the world’s neediest.
Legendary reggae group The Wailers and artists Duane Stephenson and Bishop Lamont recorded “A Step for Mankind” to benefit the WFP’s work to combat drought in the Horn of Africa. While the YouTube video was recorded in September 2010, the escalation of the disaster from drought to famine has led to a resurgence of the single’s sales online.
In honor of the 40th anniversary of George Harrison’s The Concert for Bangladesh, a digital edition of the album will be released exclusively on iTunes on August 1. The two-part concert, organized by Harrison and Ravi Shankar in Madison Square Garden on August 1, 1971, was the first benefit of its magnitude in history.
All proceeds from the reissue sales will go to the George Harrison fund for UNICEF, benefiting the children affected by drought and famine in the Horn of Africa.
To wit, UNICEF declared August a “Month for Giving,” with artists such as Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell, Brian Wilson, Selena Gomez, Enrique Iglesias, Arcade Fire and Nas committing to spread word of the campaign to their followers on Facebook and Twitter.
How You Can Help
If you would like to donate to the famine victims, here are some of the many sites collecting money:
00 square kilometers of lush floodplains in central Mozambique, packed with wild animals. But 15 years of civil war took a heavy toll – many species were almost completely wiped out for meat. Today, conservationists battle to restore the park to its former glory, and save it from present-day threats that could destroy it forever.
Music from Saharan cellphones is a compilation of music collected from memory cards of cellular phones in the Saharan desert. And it’s coming to vinyl.
In much of West Africa, cellphones are are used as all purpose multimedia devices. In lieu of personal computers and high speed internet, the knockoff cellphones house portable music collections, playback songs on tinny built in speakers, and swap files in a very literal peer to peer Bluetooth wireless transfer.
The songs chosen for the compilation were some of the highlights — music that is immensely popular on the unofficial mp3/cellphone network from Abidjan to Bamako to Algiers, but have limited or no commercialrelease. They’re also songs that tend towards this new world of self production — Fruityloops, home studios, synthesizers, and Autotune.
In 2010, returning to the states, I released a handful of cassettes. Many of the songs were unlabeled, giving no insight to their mysterious origins. But in the past year I sent out hundreds of emails and calls across six different countries and even returned to West Africa. I’ve tracked down enough artists and I’ve got their approval to collaborate on a commercialrelease.
The cassette was ripped onto the internet and has circulated around the world, featured in the The Guardian, BBC Worldservice, The Fader, Pitchfork, as well as a number of other blogs, but has never had an officialrelease. The vinyl release is a chance for the artists in the compilation to get paid and be properly credited. The record will be accompanied by liner notes with a short bio of each musician and group — artists from Ivory Coast, Mali, Algeria, and Niger.
The funding makes this release possible — covering a portion of production costs, mastering, distribution, and payment for the artists.
It is a fitting message for the day—the reality is viral hepatitis does, in fact, affect everyone, everywhere. Consider, for instance, that three percent of the world’s population is infected with the hepatitis C virus, a leading cause of liver disease. That’s 130 to 170 million people chronically infected globally. In the United States alone, as many as 3.9 million Americans are living with hepatitis C, and about half are unaware of their status.
Although hepatitis C is curable, most patients outside of the developed world are unable to access treatment. In countries as diverse as Thailand, Indonesia, Georgia, Ukraine, Russia, India, and many parts of Africa, where hepatitis C is a major public health problem, access to diagnostics and treatment barely exists. This is particularly true for people living with HIV/AIDS, for which hepatitis C is now becoming one of the leading causes of death.
One of the critical drugs in the standard treatment regime for hepatitis C today—pegylated interferon-alfa— is under patent protection and costs as much as $50,000 per course. Because of a duopoly held by the pharmaceutical giants Roche and Merck—the two companies which currently produce pegylated interferon-alfa—there is no competition by generic manufacturers that could deliver desperately needed cheaper alternatives to hepatitis C treatment. Two new hepatitis C treatments were recently approved by the FDA, yet they have to be used with pegylated interferon, adding another $30,000 to $50,000 to the cost of treatment. At these prices, how can a country like Ukraine, with more than 1 million people infected, really commit to treating its citizens?
Prohibitive pricing of lifesaving medicines is unethical and unacceptable. The only way to increase access to hepatitis C treatment is if pharmaceutical companies—in this case, Roche, Merck, and the firms with new hepatitis C drugs in the pipeline—commit to reducing their prices substantially to levels that become affordable to the majority of people in need of treatment. And because millions of people need access to these lifesaving treatments, national governments and international bodies, including the WHO, must provide the political push to make this happen.
More than a decade ago, HIV/AIDS patients marched the streets of South Africa, Thailand, and Brazil demanding affordable access to medicines that could save their lives. And with success—in a matter of months the 00 per person per year to less than $100 today, resulting in more than 5 million people currently on treatment in low- and middle-income countries. Today, these same people are surviving on cheap generic AIDSdrugs only to die from their untreated hepatitis C.
Demanding greater access to treatment is a primary reason that strong civil society groups, including people living with hepatitis C, initiated World Hepatitis Day. Roche and Merck must support people living with hepatitis C by substantially lowering the prices of pegylated interferon-alfa.
Look at the world map taken from Google maps above. Looks familiar, right?
Look at that huge land to North America‘s upper right. That’s Greenland.
Look at Africa; it seems like Africa is about the size of Greenland.
Now consider this fact:
Africa is 14 times larger than Greenland.
Size of Africa: 30,221,532 sq km Size of Greenland: 2,166,086 sq km 30,221,532 / 2,166,086 = 13.95 (Data from CIA and Wikipedia)
Now look at the Google map again. What the hell is going on? Answer after the jump. Map Projections The world map that you and I are so familiar with is a very old cylindrical map projection, the Mercator projection, created in 1569.
Although this map serves its navigational purposes, it greatly misrepresents size relations between different areas. There is no sensible reason to use it for educational, geostatistical and thematic purposes. Not only is Africa depicted as being similar size as Greenland,
Europe seems to be larger than South America when South America is actually almost twice the size of Europe.
Alaska appears to be three times larger than Mexico, although Mexico actually is larger than Alaska.
Russia seems to be larger than Africa when the opposite is true in reality
The Northern Hemisphere is enlarged significantly making Europe appears to be larger and center of the map.
While it is impossible to create an absolutely accurate map by flattening out the Earth’s land masses, there are projections that do a MUCH better job of displaying the true size relations between land masses.
In 1973, Arno Peters introduced the Gall–Peters projection (first appeared in 1855) and promoted it as much more realistic perception of the world than the Mercator projection. It’s a equal-area cylindric projection and “all areas, both land and water, are of relatively proportional size: one square inch anywhere on the map represents 158,000 square miles on the Earth’s surface.” It would be better suited for educational purposes comparing to the Mercator projection because of its realistic portrayal of proportion.
Although the Gall-Peters projection portrayed a more realistic view of the Earth, map publishers didn’t see the need to replace the Mercator projection because of its popularity. People feel more familiar and comfortable with the Mercator projection; it remains to be a popular choice for schools, wall maps and popular illustration.
Why is Google Maps using the Mercator projection?
Many people had the same urge as me to ask this question.
The Mercator Projection distorts the world, giving the false impression that Greenland is the size of South America, Asia is ginormous and Alaska is bigger than Mexico – all inaccuracies that are being presented by Google. Google’s reputation for accuracy means that these distortions are reinforced in our conscience as facts.
The Mercator Projection is 440 years old and provided one practical purpose – bearings can be accurately drawn. The utility of this begins and ends with nautical navigation – clearly not the primary purpose of Google maps.
I urge Google to be responsible with the world’s knowledge and follow the advice of numerous cartographic associations that request that the Mercator Project not be used. For anything. Ever.
And this,
if you zoom out of any google map you will notice a huge difference in sizes and incredible inaccuracies for example, according to google maps Greenland is bigger than South America. and Antartica looks like its the size of North America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia combined. Why would Google start off with the most outdated map known as Mercator’s Map of the 18th century and not go with the most accurate map out there known as the Cahill-Keyes map made in 1975
The world deserves to know what the world really looks like rather than a distorted perception of the world.
A Google employee’s response:
D view of the world.
Okay, so the Winkel tripel projection doesn’t work because of the angles; but what about the Gall-Peters projection?
So… Different map projections serve different purposes and all of them have distortion of some kind. However, the distortions in the Mercator projection are pretty ridiculous considering its popularity. I see parallels between the Mercator Map and our old common senses. Even when we know they’re bull, we continue to use them and teach them to our children for our own comfort. Maybe we should try sticking this on the wall for a change:
Of course, the most accurate world map is a globe. You could see it at http://earth.google.com/.
At last, I’ll leave you with this video clip from The West Wing:
On Tuesday, the Bob Marley estate, Simon Fuller, and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell globally released a new video for Bob Marley & The Wailers’ 1973 song “High Tide Or Low Tide.”
The video documents the East Africa Crisis that is affecting more than 9 million people dying of starvation.
Edited by Kevin Macdonald, director of “Last King Of Scotland” and the forthcoming “Marley” documentary, the “High Tide Or Low Tide” video includes recent footage of expressionless mothers caring for their children, oblivious toddlers playing amidst skeletons of wildlife, and numerous frail, sick babies.
In one of the more poignant images, a mother draws a bucket from a well only to find it filled with dirt and not one drop of water.
It’s fitting that this song from Bob Marley & The Wailers’ debut album would be selected to help raise awareness of the tragedy.
The “High Tide Or Low Tide” lyrics still provoke chills nearly 40 years after the song’s debut. Marley, a late icon, who used his music to encourage social change, sings about one of his mother’s prayers.
“A child is born in this world, he needs protection,” Marley sings, quoting his mother. During the song’s chorus, he pledges unconditional friendship: “In high seas or-a low seas, I’m gonna be your friend.”
Partnering with Save The Children, the Marleys, Fuller, and Blackwell are hoping to make an impact. Universal Music Global has agreed to donate all profits from the video.
The Marley family wrote a letter asking the public to support the effort:
To Friends,
We are reaching out to you today to ask a favor. We believe that you can help us stop children dying [in] the most devastating food crisis happening today in East Africa.
Not one child should be denied food nor water. Not one child should suffer from the conflict caused by grown men. Over three million woman and children are suffering. They are innocent. They are not political. They are starving. Bob Marley, then and now, stands for an Africa united, for one love, for the protection of children worldwide. Please join us as we, along with Save The Children, stand up together as friends to put a stop to this needless waste of life, to feed our children and to save their lives.
We are asking you to please post our video message to your Facebook page. This generous act will help us reach through your friends and ours over two hundred million people worldwide.
One love,
The Marley family
More than 150 of the world’s biggest stars have joined the cause and are encouraging their fans to watch the video and donate.
Below is a list of the celebrity supporters:
Eminem Jay-Z Lady Gaga The Rolling Stones Robert Plant Kanye West Rihanna Coldplay Shakira Beyoncé Justin Bieber Sting Cristiano Ronaldo David Beckham Brian May Victoria Beckham Jennifer Lopez Carrie Underwood” Gwen Stefani and No Doubt Ryan Seacrest Lewis Hamilton Elton John Andy Murray Enrique Iglesias Scotty McCreery Annie Lennox Queen Emma Bunton Lauren Alaina Jamie Murray Britney Spears Bruno Mars Madonna Muse Muhammed Ali U2 AC Milan Charlize Theron Conan O’Brien AT&T
