Kudos to President Obama for choosing an ‘unpredicted’ World Bank nominee that’s got all the right people excited:
… In 2003, [Kim] won a MacArthur genius grant. In 2004, he was named director of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS department, where he ran the “3×5” campaign, which sought to put three million new HIV/AIDS patients in developing countries on antiretroviral drugs by 2005 (it ended up taking till 2007). In 2006, he was on Time’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2009, he became president of Dartmouth College.
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“At some point, you have to decide whether you’re going to keep throwing your body at a problem, which is what I’ve always done,” he told the New York Times. “You realize that one person can’t do that much. So what I want to do is train an army of leaders to engage with the problems of the world, who will believe the possibilities are limitless, that there’s nothing they can’t do.” …
Now there’s a quote for our times. (Also too, thanks Kay for keeping us updated on this.)
And while everyone’s taking a moment from discussing Hunger Games to look beyond our borders, in celebration of the wonderous interconnectedness that is the Internets, I’m going to lift Felix Salmon’s excerpted story from Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s TED talk:
From 1967 to ’70, Nigeria fought a war: the Nigeria-Biafra war. And in the middle of that war, I was 14 years old… We were on the Biafran side. And we were down to eating one meal a day, running from place to place, but wherever we could help we did. At a certain point in time, in 1969, things were really bad. We were down to almost nothing in terms of a meal a day. People, children were dying of kwashiorkor. I’m sure some of you who are not so young will remember those pictures. Well, I was in the middle of it. In the midst of all this, my mother fell ill with a stomach ailment for two or three days. We thought she was going to die. My father was not there. He was in the army. So I was the oldest person in the house. My sister fell very ill with malaria. She was three years old and I was 15. And she had such a high fever. We tried everything. It didn’t look like it was going to work.
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Until we heard that 10 kilometers away there was a doctor, who was able … who was giving … looking at people and giving them meds. Now I put my sister on my back, burning, and I walked 10 kilometers with her strapped on my back. It was really hot. I was very hungry. I was scared because I knew her life depended on my getting to this woman. We heard there was a woman doctor who was treating people. I walked 10 kilometers, putting one foot in front of the other. I got there and I saw huge crowds. Almost a thousand people were there, trying to break down the door. She was doing this in a church. How was I going to get in? I had to crawl in between the legs of these people with my sister strapped on my back, find a way to a window. And while they were trying to break down the door, I climbed in through the window, and jumped in. This woman told me it was in the nick of time. By the time we jumped into that hall, she was barely moving. She gave a shot of her chloroquine, what I learned was the chloroquine, then gave her some, it must have been a re-hydration, and some other therapies, and put us in a corner. In about two to three hours, she started to move. And then, they toweled her down because she started sweating, which was a good sign. And then my sister woke up. And about five or six hours later, she said we could go home. I strapped her on my back. I walked the 10 kilometers back and it was the shortest walk I ever had. I was so happy that my sister was alive. Today, she’s 41 years old, a mother of three, and she’s a physician saving other lives.
Yeah, there’s worse predicaments than “I wept because I had no iPad, until I met a man who had no wireless access.”
So, now that I’ve spoiled everyone’s good mood… what’s on the agenda for the weekend?
Baud
Ah, finally, a nice, quiet thread where I can just sit back and relax after a long week….
Raven
Hoops and watering my newly planted 8,000 square ft “lawn” !
HT
Spoiled my good mood? That’s one of the best stories I’ve read all day!
Steve
That is such an amazing story. My heart is in my throat.
Cat Lady
Partners in Health, also. It’s a wonderful choice.
Buck
Anne, great post.
As for the weekend, what say we follow my suggestion from several threads down and buy Newt Gingrich a “hoodie” and a one-way ticket to Florida? Wouldn’t that make for a fun weekend for all?
Scott
Didn’t spoil my mood. It’s good to hear that there are still good people out there. It’s too bad both of these people can’t be put in charge of the World Bank…
Raven
@Cat Lady: dead link
sloan
That’s an awesome story. Thank-you.
Schlemizel
Going to enjoy the nice weather & get the spring yard work done. Hope to get some biking in.
Will be watching the Gopher men in the NCAA hockey playoffs (have I mentioned the women beat Wisconsin for the the national title last Sunday?).
At the moment watching Cornell v. Michigan game (has Red peed on the library recently?)
Cat Lady
@Raven:
Partners in Health
Mnemosyne
@Cat Lady:
You got an extra HTTP stuck in your link. I fix:
Partners in Health
ETA: I would fix my fix, but it’s the kind of organization that deserves two links.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Thanks Anne Laurie. And happy hoop watching, stuckinred; my bearcats got sent home, so I’m done. A new lawn? Really? have a nice weekend everyone.
PurpleGirl
Rachel Maddow showed a video clip this evening with Jim Yong Kim singing with a group in a Dartmouth-centered “American Idol” thing. Dancing robot-like and singing a rap-type song…
CarolDuhart2
Partners In Health.
It occurred to me that health and wealth really are connected. When people are well, they are free to spend their energies on creative things, to work harder. Healthy people cost less to maintain. Healthy people are more likely to be involved in the community.
Health is good for the environment. One of the reasons population hasn’t gotten completely out of control everywhere has been improved maternal health and improved fetal and child health. When its certain that kids will, barring violence, actually live to adulthood, parents tend to have fewer kids. Women are less likely to risk their health in order to make sure some kids outlive them, so they are there to give assets both emotional and material to the kids they have.
Raven
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): We had a large area that was basically brush and kudzu worked over and graded. It will give the garden girl even more room to make the world a more beautiful place and twice as much for me to mow!
Raven
@Cat Lady: thx
CarolDuhart2
@Raven: 8000 sq ft? What are you watering, the lawn at Buckingham Palace? Or is it a lawn in front of that 10k mansion you have?
Raven
@CarolDuhart2: It’s in the back of our old mill house and the smaller rental next door that we bought a few years back.
Cat Lady
@Raven:
My new son in law is Haitian, and PIH has done incredible work there, pre and post earthquake. Paul Farmer has been a long time public health advocate and founder of PIH, and I’m so happy to see their work get noticed.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Raven: Very cool. I envy the garden girl her area. At our new place, there is a tough combo for me – lots of shade (though sunnier in back) and a herd of deer that stop by daily. To graze, just visit, or bed down for the night. They are very tame – we came home after dark last week and 7 were laying in the side yard, but did not stir, much less get up and leave, when we drove by them ~8 feet away.
MattR
@Buck: Do I have to buy him a new one or can I just send a hand me down?
jibeaux
I love the Mountains Beyond Mountains book about Paul Farmer so much, and have given to PIH. After the whole Greg Mortenson expose — and fortunately I never did give to his group but I did enjoy 3 Cups of Tea — I decided that if Paul Farmer were ever exposed as a fraud I would just have to crawl into a charity hole and never give money to anyone again ever ever. Fortunately that has not happened.
Raven
@Cat Lady: Cool, I have a buddy that was a Doctors Without Borders vet who went down right after the quake. Great work all of them.
Raven
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): We have gigantic whistle pigs, deer and feral cats. I built a fence out of what is called “double loop ornamental” for the raised bed garden and it works well for the gorundhogs and the deer don’t seem to wander too close to the crib because of the fearless bodhisattva! This is a clip from the Sanborn Firemaps of 1918 and both our houses are on it.
Cat Lady
@Raven:
Haiti is just such a mess, and they’ve devoted so much energy to trying to create a health care delivery system that you just have to admire them. Kim and Farmer are special people.
Raven
@Cat Lady: Have you ever seen the “Comedians” with Liz and Burton? It’s set in Haiti in the 60’s with Papa Doc and his crew. Pretty good flick except for a very young James Earl Jones playing and old doctor.
Cat Lady
@Raven:
Haven’t seen it, but the adaptation of The Serpent and The Rainbow was pretty bad. It’s too bad Haiti’s reputation is zombies, Papa Doc, grinding poverty and corruption, because its history as the only successful slave revolt is something they’re very, very proud of, for good reason.
THE
Discovery News reveals the shocking truth:
Dr. Jim Yong Kim sings and dances.
Webby never forgets anything.
Comrade Mary
Dudes, I posted the robot video this morning and I got no love.
My eyes are well and truly leaking from Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s story and I’ve got her video cued up now.
Mnemosyne
@Cat Lady:
It doesn’t take place in Haiti (officially, anyway) but Val Lewton’s I Walked With A Zombie has some really interesting themes about the lingering aftereffects of slavery in a former colony in the West Indies. It’s especially astounding since it was made in 1943.
THE
@Comrade Mary: Oh Sorry. I just logged on and read from the top post. I’m in Australia so different timezone.
Comrade Mary
It was at the end of another thread way over on the second page now, THE. No worries.
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
Sort of lame title, great little B-movie. Jane Eyre in the overheated tropics. I put it on the DVR when TCM ran it a while back. I really need to go ahead and get that Val Lewton DVD set.
karen marie
@Cat Lady: You don’t think the chasm between Haiti’s reputation and history is accidental, do you?
Mnemosyne
@Steeplejack:
That set is sitting on my DVD shelf right now, thanks to the man I married. (This is, of course, one of the reasons I married him — film geeks in love.) If you haven’t seen it, The Body Snatcher is another great Lewton film where Boris Karloff is, frankly, terrifying, even (or especially) when his character is being genial.
ETA: Also, too, if you’ve never seen CQ, the Jeremy Davies movie that Roman Coppola directed, I think you’d like it. It’s a film geek’s valentine to film geekery (and to love, and the 1960s). Not a great film, but a very easy film to love.
CarolDuhart2
@Raven: I saw the picture. It’s quite a challenge you have there-turning what is the footprint of at least two houses into a lawn and garden. BTW, will it be all lawn or will you plan to plant vegetables in that enormous space?
mainmati
A beautiful story and one that I can relate directly to because I have known others like this in this situation but this story is magnificent, especially working in Africa, I can actually visualize it. Life is a contingency. He’s a real hero, no question about it.
Martin
On the way out of the office I bumped into our local public health expert and asked about the selection. “Let me put it this way… How often do you see government choose the most highly qualified person possible for the job? And this isn’t the first time this president has done that either. This is almost too good to be true.”
David Koch
Obama doesn’t deserve any credit for this appointment. He was about to appoint Josef Mengele’s ghost until the scooby PL bloggers got on the case.
Still not too late to primary Obama.
Edwards’ mistress/Wiener 2012!
Zagloba
Performing Bach’s Mass In B Minor with original instruments. Definitely a First World kind of problem.
Anyone in the Nashville area, see you at 3 Sunday at St. George’s.
AnotherBruce
And Kim is a Hawkeye. Raised in Muscatine Iowa. Go Hawks!
Uh, this is kind of vicarious.
Omnes Omnibus
@Zagloba: I love performances with appropriate orchestras and correct instruments for the piece. Kudos. What do you play?
Mike G
Obama’s choice beats the hell out of Bush/Cheney’s sleazebag, the cronyist neocon war criminal Wolfowitz. What a difference in philosophy.
Steeplejack
@Mnemosyne:
I saw The Body Snatcher and most of the other Lewton movies when TCM did a special day or evening to commemorate the rollout of the DVD set. Consistently very good, given what he had to work with. TCM also ran the documentary on Lewton a couple of times. But it’s nice to own them so you can look at them whenever you want. Even if you don’t look at them, it’s nice to know they’re at hand.
Haven’t seen CQ, will watch out for it. Sort of similar, just the other day I was thinking about Hallelujah the Hills (1963), which I saw sometime in college (early ’70s). Amazing that both IMDB reviews completely miss the point of it: in addition to a pointless romance, it is a virtual catalogue of film references and visual puns from movies to that time. There are a few clips on YouTube, but not any that get across the film-geek aspect. Apparently anyone who still remembers it takes it seriously. WTF? Also, too, apparently a rock band named itself after the movie.
Speaking of film geeks in love, I was in another town on family business a couple of weeks ago, and I had dinner with my old college girlfriend and two of her daughters. I had to listen to her tell them the story of how I was personally responsible (allegedly) for making her almost flunk out of college–twice!–because of all the movies we went to see. This was 1970-72, before DVDs–even before videotapes–and if you wanted to see the classic and obscure movies you had to get out to see them actually being screened somewhere. Among various courses, film societies and campus groups–and the commercial theaters off campus–we saw five to seven movies a week for two years straight. Good times.
El Cid
@Cat Lady: Well, it’s not quite a mysterious coincidence: France’s and the West’s reaction in general was to make sure they and every other like-minded folk got the message that you would pay eternally for raising your head. Including, quite literally, forcing Haiti to pay a debt to France, in gold, for the maximum, er, face value, of the ‘property’ its rich agricultural colonialists ‘lost’ in their slaves and plantations.
Cat Lady
@El Cid:
But the ultimate cost to France was having to sell its territory in the US to that Jefferson guy in Washington. Thanks Napoleon!