One step closer

I am officially one step closer to being done. I finished my "wicked" hard paper, and am left with a several other tasks They are not important, merely time consuming. I know you all miss being pumped full of information from me, fun facts, factoids, and things I feel you must know--so I felt I needed to give you some more--

FAMINES: The actual definition of famine is a topic that as of yet has not been settled on, but for the purposes of the following statistics--we'll say it's "a socioeconomic procss which causes the accelerted destitution of the most vulnerable...to a point where they can no longer maintain a asustainable livelihood" By Peter Walker (one of my professors). Usually, the definition isn't has beautiful sounding as that, rather it's in body counts, or number of people who are starving, starved to death, etc. Famines occur every year in the world, most go unpublicized. Here are following facts for you:
--Over 70 million people died in the 20th century from famines
--From 1958 to 1962, 33 million alone died in China.
--The 1982-84 Zimbabwean drought, "resulted in a loss of stature of 2.3 centimeters, .4 grades of schooling, and a delay in starting school of 3.7 months... resulting in a loss of lifetime earnings of 7 to 12 percent"!!!!!! Astounding--something we can not even imagine in the US.


Moving on to HIV/AIDs--if you are interested in more information in how HIV/AIDs is affecting the planet, I suggest reading "The new varient famine" by Alex DeWaal. HIV/AIDs is highly mis-understood by the American populace. The actual effects, and what it means for the world, including the US is not generally a topic of conversation. Possibly the following statistics, as if you had never seen any before, will influence you.
--40.3 million people living with HIV
--14,000 new infections a day, of which 2000 are children (<15 years of age)
--There are 15 million orphans because of HIV
--77% of HIV/AIDs patients are female
--From the Economist on November 27, 2004 "Men tend to contract HIV because of things they have done; women are more likely to contract it because of things that have been done to them."
--From Peter Piot and Per Pinstrip-Andersen in "Aids: the New Challenge to Food Security"--"When you ask people living with AIDS in rural communities in the developing world what their highest priority is, very often their answer is food. Not care, not drugs for medical treatment, not relief from stigma, but food."

I suppose I will leave you there. I do have data analysis homework I should be doing. In case you were wondering, I graduate in 23 weeks!! You best get shopping!!!! YEA YEA YEA