From thoughts into words

http://nutritionafrica.blogspot.com/2012/03/healthcare-and-ideology-really-dont.html The USA never ceases to amaze me. At this moment, a political battle is playing out in the Supreme Court that essentially pits the political right against Obama's health care plan. The biggest irony is that the 'socialized medicine' against which the right is fighting so hard is based on a conservative plan, proposed in the 1990s by a conservative think tank, and subsequently adopted by at least one conservative governor (Mitt Romney) in his state. Perhaps history will prove me wrong, but I think this will turn out to be one of the biggest miscalculations of the political right. Inasmuch as "Obamacare" is not perfect, it is a vast improvement over what existed before. It gives more Americans access to affordable health care. Those who have not had the experience of being locked out of every possible insurance plan because they suffer from chronic disease or terminal...

When they think about what it means to be gay, many East Africans focus on its physical implications: they think about gay people as those who have physical relationships with members of the same sex. Because sex is a physical act that one chooses to engage in, they figure that one can choose whether or not to be gay. This perspective fails to take into consideration the fact that, for many gay people, being gay precedes the act of sex. To them, being gay means feeling attracted to people of the same sex. Even if they never act on these feelings and choose to live a life of celibacy or one of heterosexuality instead, they know deep down inside that they feel attracted to members of the same sex and that they have felt that way for as long   as they have been sexually aware. I have read narratives by gay people who speak about becoming teenagers and realizing that, unlike their age mates, they felt absolutely no attraction to members of the opposite sex. They grew older and the s...

I'm trying to imagine a scenario where a European or Asian student attending school in an African nation is sent home from school because she is wearing her hair in an "ethnic" European or Asian style. Somehow, I just don't see it happening. So why is the converse possible? Why is it possible for a Brazilian university administrator to send a black student home because she is wearing her hair in a "'Black Power' natural hairstyle" ? But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. First things first, what on earth is a "'Black Power' natural hairstyle"? When I first saw the term, I thought it was referring to a tall afro: one that stood so high that it scraped the ceiling. I figured that it would be reasonable to send home a student with a hairstyle that outrageous, after all, it would otherwise be a distraction to her fellow students. And then I saw the picture of the student with the offending hairstyle . Sure enough, the student, A...

http://nutritionafrica.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-cultural-norms-contribute-to.html This week, I have been reading Richard K'Okul's book, Maternal and Child Health in Kenya . The book explores the different factors that contribute to malnutrition in the community. These range from bad policies to poverty, ignorance and cultural factors that influence maternal nutrition. One of the factors that I found unnecessary and sad was the cultural norm in Western Kenya, whereby a young married woman is not allowed to cook for her family. Instead, she has to comply with her mother-in-law's wishes. If her mother-in-law doesn't feel like cooking, then even small babies are condemned to remain hungry until she is ready to cook. To make matters worse, the food cooked may not necessarily be suitable for small children. In parts of Nyanza Province where polygyny is common, it is the senior wives who control the cooking. It is common to see very young women who are ma...

"President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college - what a snob!" ~ Rick Santorum I had to chuckle to myself when Rick Santorum called President Obama a snob for allegedly saying he wanted every American to go to college. He was obviously misrepresenting Obama's statement. Obama had indicated that he wanted everybody to have access to higher education (i.e. education beyond high school) if they so chose. That education could entail attending technical school, community college, or university at the undergraduate or graduate level. Obama's emphasis was not on getting a 4-year liberal arts degree, but rather on having access to the kind of post-high school training that would boost one's earning potential. The misrepresentation was predictable, and chuckle-worthy. But it was the irony of the situation that struck me the most. Here stood Rick Santorum, a highly-educated and undeniably successful man, who had r...