Links and birthdays and such

[secretsolitaire]

Happy belated birthday to mindabbles, happy birthday today to withthepilot, and best future birthday wishes to eeyore9990 and emmagrant01 (tomorrow), besamislabios (Saturday), and gadgetorious (Sunday)! ♥♥♥

I am not really up to full-out recs tonight, so I'll just drop a few quick links that I've found interesting over the last few days:

Stop Trying to 'Save' Africa (Washington Post, via glass_icarus)
The UK riots: the

Comments

[hotchikk]

Thanks for posting the links. The "Save Africa" mentality is one that I've found particularly grating. There's nothing wrong with wanting to help people in need, but the West's methods have caused more harm than good and it's time that we acknowledge that the emergency-aid campaigns aren't working. We need to rethink our strategy.

[secretsolitaire]

You're welcome! I have to admit that I don't know as much as I should about this particular topic, but it's been top of mind since I finished What Is the What.

[hotchikk]

I don't know as much about it as I should either, but then, that's true of a lot of things. The important part is to ask the questions, even if we don't have all the answers, right

[secretsolitaire]

The important part is to ask the questions, even if we don't have all the answers, right?

True, true!

And one thing that you see over and over again is the problem where entire sectors of an economy cannot exist or develop when there's unlimited supply. For instance, when secondhand clothing and household goods pour in by the truckload every day, how is a country supposed to develop a retail sector of the economy.

Interesting -- makes perfect sense. I've heard about programs supporting micro-loans for people (especially women) in developing countries for them to start their own businesses; seems like that might be a better use of aid?

I totally hear you about those adoptions. Meh.

[china_shop]

Great links. Thank you!

[secretsolitaire]

You're welcome! ♥

[secretsolitaire]

*squishes you and sends cake*

[mindabbles]

Thanks for the interesting links and THANK YOU for the birthday wishes. <3

[secretsolitaire]

You're doubly welcome! ♥

[withthepilot]

Thank you so much once again, darlin'! ♥ ♥ ♥

[secretsolitaire]

Hee, redundant birthday wishes are redundant. Consider yourself squished twice. :-)