Day: July 3, 2002

The U.N. released their report on worldwide HIV/AIDS infection yesterday, to little fanfare. After all, a man had just completed circumnavigating the globe in a balloon — the world had far more important matters on its mind.
A few statistics from the report:
– In Zimbabwe, the size of an average primary school class will be down by nearly 25% in 2010 due to HIV
– The expected lifespan for a person born in South Africa was 60 years in 1990. It is now 47 years.
– In seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa, infant mortality has increased between 20% and 40% due to HIV
– In Botswana, life expectancy is 37 years, down from 60 just five years ago.
– Between 2000 and 2020, the U.N. estimates that 68 million people will die as a result of HIV.
It has struck me for some time that the HIV crisis has become a horrifying example of the journalistic mantra “if it happens every day, it can’t be news.”. We’ve heard so much about HIV over the past years that we’ve become mentally saturated; the warnings and predictions simply slide off of us, unnoticed. When they are given any media play at all, that is.
Or is it the simple truth that people have a difficult time truly grasping suffering and death which occurs thousands of miles from their homes? If so, I think we need to keep in mind that if simple human decency doesn’t move us to act, enlightened self-interest should. Ross over at the Bloviator revisits an issue that I and others have discussed previously — the simple truth that if you have states which are, effectively, collapsing due to the HIV/AIDs epidemic, you inevitably end up with regions which are ripe for political unrest, terrorism, and even genocide.
I throw out the question to you, then: why is the prediction that millions of people will die every year, and the potential prospect for widespread state failures on an entire contintent, being met with such indifference?
To put matters in perspective, I added the U.N.’s prediction to data on some more familiar tragedies of the 20th century and created the chart to the right; I used numbers from The History Place. I’d add a clever or pithy comment here to describe the chart, but frankly, it leaves me without very much at all to say.
There is, of course, always the possibility or argument that the U.N.’s data is simply wrong; or deliberately inflated. I’d welcome data to advance that thesis — because frankly, I’d feel a whole lot better if it were proven true.
Clarification: The six million deaths quoted for the Nazi Holocaust is of course the number of Jews who were killed. I am well aware that many non-Jewish people were killed; however, in my haste this morning I was unable to find a source to cite for an accurate count of the non-Jewish total. Anyone who can provide one, please post in the comments.
Update: Ross found a source — at the Red Cross of all places — stating the total number of Holocaust dead at 11 million, which sounds about right to me. (Don’t expect a chart update anytime soon — it’s a pain).
Back on Topic Update: Den Beste makes a grim but compelling case that we need to consider drastic measures when dealing with — or not dealing with — the epidemic.

OK, OK. I give. No more Pledge emails! I surrender.
After putting it off for too long, I have finally gotten around to doing a roundup of all the mails and links that y’all sent me regarding the Plege decision. Despite my dread of the task, it turned out to be even worse than I thought — you people sure do go on!
I hopefully got all of them; but if I missed yours, please post it as a comment.
Here goes — enjoy!

Damn. Hesitate, and you are lost.
Driving home from work last night, listening to Marketplace, it occured to me to wonder why, given that Worldcom’s stock was at $0.10 , nobody was attempting a takeover of the company.
After all, Worldcom basically owns 50 % of the Internet. Surely that’s worth something.
So, snug in my cleverness, I figured I had an easy win: pop open News.com, find the # of shares outstanding, multiply by the share price, and wallah! Clever post describing exactly how much it would cost to buy half the Internet. (There’s the little matter of their $30 billion in outstanding debt, but that’s why I’m a blogger and not a financial analyst). I could’ve even thrown in a clever line about putting it up on eBay.
Well, seems to have beaten me to the punch.. IDT, a small telcom company, has offered to buy certain Worldcom units for five billion dollars.
Examining the deal closely, though, it seems they are only interested in some of the voice communications assets — News.com describes the purchase as being for units which provide “local phone services to businesses, and the MCI consumer and small-business long-distance operations.”
So what about the Internet? Doesn’t anybody want to buy that? As of this morning, Worldcom’s market capitalization is a measly $740 million. Given the huge level of their debt ($30B, in case you forgot), the actual price of their shares has essentially become a rounding error for anybody thinking of purchasing the company outright.
Anybody care to set up the eBay auction?