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- Nightlie, on 11/13/2007, -43/+214The real tragedy here is she had more guts freeing herself from this messed up world rather than the rich emos I see on everyday malls who "try" to cut themselves (not even kill, just cut) because their "comformist" parents bought them brand name clothing that doesn't go well with black
/no offense emobrat =P - Trocisp, on 11/10/2007, -12/+112No. The real tragedy here is that every day lives are lost from starvation, and that it takes a child killing herself to get people to pay attention.
- Drexus, on 11/11/2007, -16/+73The problem here isn't that the world hasn't donated enough resources to feed the poor, you have to look at why they are poor. People are not poor by choice (obviously), they simply have no options. They are born into their world due to irresponsibility, and live in poverty due to irresponsibility. Who is irresponsible? Let me put it this way: If someone was living in poverty here in Canada, what would be their options to remedy their situation? We are lucky that our government has enough responsibility to provide shelter homes, monetary welfare, education, and healthcare to anyone living here. Does it take a rich country to have these things? Nope, Cuba and a list of other counties have all this. Remember the TV programs asking to help a certain child live a few more months by asking for donations? (I still support a young child in Kenya to this day) Countries who have this condition, have it by choice. If the people are in poverty, then I find most of the time the country is at war with some other country. So the social infrastructure suffers because of it. Giving to a country like this is like lending money to a gambler. The gambler's children will still live in poverty. What choice does each child have? You can send food to the children (because at least that makes it to them), but it teaches the gambler to care less. It's a tough world out there, and while we should all be aware of its condition, we must keep perspective. A child that steels and rebels doesn't need punishment. The parents do. This applies to government as well.
- Treshnell, on 11/10/2007, -0/+41Nah, no one's going to pay any more attention than they were before. The people who paid attention in the first place are going to be the ones who care and use it as some kind of flag to wave around. The people who never cared about it before will go on not caring about it, the same as always.
- kmlixey87, on 11/10/2007, -6/+45she must have read the story about the kid who offed himself over an xbox
girl "an XBOX? allright, ***** this *****..." - carbon12, on 11/11/2007, -7/+41To put things in perspective:
People living on less than $1600/yr (PPP) = 1990: 2210M, 2000: 2015M, Change: -195 M
People living on $1800 - $6000/yr (PPP) = 1990: 1635M, 2000: 2290M, Change: +655 M
People living on over $6000/yr (PPP) = 1990: 1410M, 2000: 1750M, Change: +340 M
You have to realize that the situation is improving very rapidly. My parents are from India where almost 80% of people live in poverty but by 2050, the average person living in India will have an annual salary of about $17,000 (PPP). The average person living in a third world country by 2050 will live as well as those who live in Eastern Europe today.
That being said, this is really heartbreaking. - plizard, on 11/10/2007, -1/+29but you're thinking logically.
- omgroffles, on 11/10/2007, -2/+30Spoken like a person who probably hasn't spent a significant amount of time in a third world country.
The Philippines isn't like America. The fact that you think ANYONE in the world should be able to escape poverty with will power alone proves how great countries like America are: you think it's normal.
But this doesn't apply to everyone in the world. It applies to a lucky few. So start feeling more fortunate and less condescending. - Xondar, on 11/10/2007, -0/+26I regularly correspond with a girl who lives in the Philippines. She's attending school to become a nurse, but she had to quit for over a year because her family could not afford to send her. It was really too bad because she only has six months of school left.
When she wasn't in school she had a job where she worked 14 hours a day for 100 PHP. That's currently about $2.17 Canadian. Her mother sells cookies and stuff she bakes out of their house to earn the family more money, and her father went to work in a mine in Africa to earn money for the family. Even with her and her brothers and sister all working, they are still dirt poor and they pretty much live in a one room house.
I never thought of poverty like this until I met her. It amazes me how rich we are compared to many countries. I'm poor by the standards of our society, lowest tax bracket and all, but compared to them, I am very, very wealthy... - geneticlemon, on 11/10/2007, -2/+28Very sad. What's even sadder is, Arroyo's probably right about the Filipino economy growing. It's growing and growing ... and leaving its poor and desolate right back in the Dark Ages. That's the problem with industrial growth -- not everyone benefits from it.
- Grumps, on 11/11/2007, -4/+28Its great that stories like this get dugg up. We think life sucks here. Look around us!
- alpha94, on 11/11/2007, -12/+36If you can't afford kids, don't have 1, or 5, or 20.
- robbyjo, on 11/10/2007, -1/+25Ramen over there costs pennies.
- pastasauce, on 11/10/2007, -3/+24Any mall with a hot topic.
- ibookfast, on 11/11/2007, -1/+18that's assuming she's a pretty white girl..
- exomni, on 11/11/2007, -1/+16I want to see the letter she wrote.
Certainly having what she actually wrote be heard is the very least she deserves from the press. - dillyhoo, on 11/11/2007, -4/+19:(
- fatas, on 11/10/2007, -5/+20White People get the blues when Banana Republic runs out of Khakis.
- Carlin. - chubbybubba, on 11/11/2007, -2/+16I may be in the minority. But suicide does take guts. She made her own choice, and died by her own hand. She didn't starve to death by poverty. Neither was she murdered. My only hope is that her suicide was less of an escape and more of a hopefulness that something better lay beyond this life. I sure hope so.
- KidVicious, on 11/10/2007, -1/+14Haha, even over here they cost pennies.
- silveravnt, on 11/10/2007, -0/+12Holy crap! This could be the answer to generations of poverty stricken people.
- carbon12, on 11/10/2007, -3/+15Sorry that $1600 should be $1800, also my sources are:
Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050 (Goldman Sachs report).
World Bank 2002 Global Economic Prospects. - kdoig, on 11/09/2007, -1/+13Yeah most people don't have the luxury of birth control methods and therefore don't have the choice to have a kid or not.
- Lindane, on 11/10/2007, -1/+12I don't know what it is about poor people thinking their genes are so amazing that they just HAVE TO be passed on into another generation of wretched grinding poverty. Maybe they think they'll have a Hollywood kid. Then who will be paying the bills? Yeah... Hollywood kid.
- dcbebop, on 11/10/2007, -16/+27Dude, you're all over the place with that one. First off, cutting themselves isn't a outlash against the parents, its a cry for help and attention. Second, you're condoning this sort of action and commending her for 'going throu with it'. And where the hell are these malls where people get together and cut themselves?
- iticu, on 11/10/2007, -8/+19You.. gotta be kidding.
Right?
Right. - StarlessKnight, on 11/10/2007, -0/+11As people that live lives that provide us with finances with which to use the internet, provided one's past does not exclude this thought, I'd say it is extremely difficult for us to truly imagine what people so poor, and so destitute, as some in this world experience every day, or must do in order to survive. While many of our needs are met, with convenience so close at hand, we have time to contemplate the meaning of life, we have the economic high ground to examine global affairs, and the social clout with which to, an extent, cause change.
What do those just trying to survive have? What time do they have to cause change to uplift the poor masses? Find a job? What sort of job, exactly, would she find? How many jobs do you think exist that would uplift her out of poverty in a world where companies try to pay you as little as possible and there are hundreds or thousands willing to accept those wages just because they see nothing else open to them, and the cycle continues, lower...and lower...and lower. People even in America have trouble finding jobs to pay them enough just to keep a roof over their heads; some need two or three jobs to do it.
That does not excuse suicide, it does not uplift it or promote it, but to casually dismiss it as wasteful, as socially deplorable... it's applying standards to someone that might not have the opportunities some of us, here, have had, or will have. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps only works if you have bootstraps in the first place. - Trocisp, on 11/11/2007, -2/+13I suppose that's the real tragedy then, isn't it? That even though a child takes her own life... no one cares. Yet, if this happened in Alabama, or Idaho instead it would've made national news.
- Navicerts, on 11/10/2007, -1/+12bu they can't afford condoms, and it's human nature to breed.
- Tyr7BE, on 11/11/2007, -4/+15WTF does this have to do with Al Gore? Al Gore isn't even a politician anymore! You just wanted to use the word 'Goracle'. This is why I hate Digg sometimes. The comments can be right on par with YouTube.
- mrjit, on 11/10/2007, -2/+13Ignorance is bliss, unless you're referring to monks.
- DiscoLando, on 11/10/2007, -9/+19Just as a side note, I'd like to point out that many people live in poverty by choice and are quite happy.
- Navicerts, on 11/10/2007, -1/+11So in your opinion all poor people should off themselves. Wow.
- Scyth3, on 11/10/2007, -1/+11Wow, I felt bad after reading that...and the fact that there's a bike that's never been used hanging in the garage.
- CrackyJSquirrel, on 11/10/2007, -2/+12I disagree.. Suicide is a cowards way out.
- Navicerts, on 11/10/2007, -0/+106 = 1$ where i live in the US.
- euphemizeme, on 11/10/2007, -0/+10Yeah... makes me feel great when I hear some 11 yr old girl offed herself.
- Matthew720, on 11/10/2007, -4/+14While colonialism has caused a long term damage to many countries, you can't single out Spanish colonialism just because you're a racist. It doesn't work that way. American, British, Dutch, French etc. colonialism has raped and pillaged continents. So, don't go all self-righteous on us now.
- Azimuth1, on 11/10/2007, -4/+13I agree with the first part of your comment, but as for the second part, it's not poor people in third world countries's fault that they're poor. They do need help. And we have the power to help them, at least a little.
- whyufail, on 11/09/2007, -2/+11Actually, overpopulation is an issue in general. You think people popping out five or six kids isn't putting a huge strain on things?
- Matthew720, on 11/10/2007, -1/+10No offense, but your post is devoid of any knowledge of history.
First off, colonialism, by definition is a policy by which a nation maintains or extends its control over foreign land. Having said that, civilizations existed from the dawn of man (and woman). To claim that the colonizers "civilized" the countries they controlled is idiotic. They might have modernized some of them, but all in all, colonialism was aimed at using other people's natural resources for the benefit of the colonizers.
Second of all, the east, was well "cultured" while Europeans were busy rubbing itchy rashes and sharing their living quarters with rats. If anything, the east, yes those "uncultured" people taught Europeans all about good hygiene and sanitary conditions.
The bottom line is, pick up a history book about the middle ages (at the very least) and read it. - inactive, on 11/10/2007, -6/+15This is unfortunate, however, this stuff happens everyday.
- hiikeeba, on 11/10/2007, -2/+10Bitter much?
- cozb, on 11/09/2007, -4/+12I really want to call you an idiot, but it's a biological imperative to reproduce. Should the rich only have the right to reproduce?
- Lindane, on 11/10/2007, -0/+8Even cavemen who had to hunt and forage every day lived better than her in the gutter filled with trash, liquid *****, dirty air, parasite infested water. I don't blame an innocent little girl for not having the mental and emotional fortitude to live in little more than a garbage dump.
- Phyltre, on 11/13/2007, -8/+16Since when does suicide = guts? Suicide means that, by default, you aren't sticking around to make things right, or help other people--actually DOING something with your life. Suicide means wasting your one chance. It's not just running away, it's a cease, full stop.
- Digitalfuneral, on 11/10/2007, -0/+8It's a shame that this has occurred yet this happens alot in Canada. There is just no media coverage of it. Native American teens in Northern parts of Canada face some of the same problems that this girl faced are driven to the same situation. The only difference is that this event happened somewhere else.
- Napoleone, on 11/10/2007, -3/+10Although I don't at all advocate over-population, there are enough resources on Earth to comfortably sustain a human population of over fifty billion people for a long, long time. The wars we fight are not about scarcity, they're about greed.
Manufacturers take jobs to dirt poor countries, pay meager wages and call it progress. But that's not progress, it's exploitation. Globalization is not about spreading the wealth, it's about corporations getting the biggest bang for their buck. - ronaldinho, on 11/11/2007, -1/+8pedrovoltaire = what a dick
- geneticlemon, on 11/10/2007, -3/+10And this could be said for any politician.
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