Tag Archives: wealth

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“ONE PERCENT” WATER MANAGEMENT

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Maxim of “One Percenter” Water (Mis)Management:  The ‘peasants’ can die of thirst…. Water the golf course first!

onepercenter_water

WATER AND EARTH

Three-quarters of the Earth’s surface is covered with water, yet 98 percent is salt water and not fit for consumption.

Less than one percent of all the water on Earth is freshwater available for human consumption.

WATER AND HUMANS

The human body is more than 60 percent water. Blood is 92 percent water, the brain and muscles are 75 percent water, and bones are about 22 percent water.
A human can survive for a month or more without eating food, but only a week or so without drinking water.

WATER CONSUMPTION

3.9 trillion gallons of water are consumed in the United States per month.
The average American uses 176 gallons of water per day compared to 5 gallons of water the average African family uses each day.

WATER CONSUMED BY GOLF COURSES for WEALTHY PEOPLE

Amount of water it would take, per day, to support 4.7 billion people at the UN daily minimum: 2.5 billion gallons
Amount of water used, per day, to irrigate the world’s golf courses: 2.5 billion gallons
Amount of water used by 60,000 villagers in Thailand, on average, per day: 6,500 cubic meters
Amount of water used by one golf course in Thailand, on average, per day: 6,500 cubic meters

Country Number of Golf Courses %
USA 17,672 50%
UK 2,752 8%
Japan 2,442 7%
Canada 2,300 7%
Australia 1,500 4%
Germany 684 2%
France 559 2%
China 500 1%
Sweden 480 1%
South Africa 450 1%
Rest of the world 5,773 17%
Total 35,112

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BEST SELLERS ABOUT UNTOUCHABLES

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india slumsI am very careful about the books I read, and who wrote them, and published them, and why.   I read a lot of books.  Not many novels.  Mostly non-fiction.   However, I started reading Shantaram after I did a lot of research about the author, Gregory David Roberts, and read parts of the book on the internet.  I bought the book because I think the author is an excellent writer, who escaped from a  20-year prison sentence in Australia fled to Bombay (Mumbai) where he lived for many years in the slums with the “untouchables” of India.  He spent most of his time as a solitary nurse treating the injuries and illnesses of his neighbors with a first aid kit in own his tiny hovel.  He never charged money.  He also sold drugs and worked for gangsters to earn a modest living while still in hiding as an escaped convict.  Later, the author was captured in Germany and completed serving his 20 year prison sentence.

What the novel Shantaram reveals about shantaramthe slums and ghettos of Mumbai is something that most Americans don’t know because nobody ever talks about “untouchables”! Poor people are “invisible” to the “upper classes”, i.e. people who earn more than a few dollars a day.   Sixty percent of the 20 million citizens of Mumbai live on only 6% of the land, within a stones throw of the wealthiest people in India. The oppressive disparity of wealth, health services and housing between the rich and poor is an issue in the U.S. and around the world, but most visible and extreme in Mumbai.

ALIEN INTERVIEW, edited by Lawrence R. SpencerI have known many very poor people from the slums of the southern states in the U.S..  They are the same kind of “untouchables” as the people who live in the slums of India.  These are the rapidly growing population of the private prison system in the U.S..  I am reading Shantaram because it is a novel about “untouchables”, written by a convict who also a nurse, a philosopher and an artist with the English language.  Alien Interview It was written by a nurse, dictated to her by an alien philosopher about “untouchables”, who are the entire population of prison planet Earth.   — Lawrence R. Spencer. 2015

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WITHOUT VIRTUES

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WITHOUT VIRTUES

The 7 “WITHOUT VIRTUES”, written by Mohandas Gandhi, pervade the modern world inspired by a New World Order of bankers, politicians and priests:

1. Wealth without work
2. Pleasure without conscience
3. Knowledge without character
4. Business without ethics
5. Science without humanity
6. Religion without sacrifice
7. Politics without principle

– Mohandas Gandhi –

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EMPATHY vs POVERTY

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shantaramI am reading an extraordinarily novel based on life experiences living in the slums of Mumbai (Bombay) the largest city in India, by the author Gregory David Roberts.  In his novel Shantaram, the author reveals and relives his escape from prison in Australia and into anonymity of the ubiquitous slums of the largest city in India. As a work of art and literature the book is a masterpiece. Certainly one of the very best of thousands of books I’ve read.

This book changed my  perspective on the selfless spirit and essential goodness of human beings. By contrast, the book exposes the rotting flesh of possession and wealth for it’s own sake — maniacally enforced on Earth by soul-crushing materialists.

I don’t know how to solve the disparity between wealth and poverty, good and evil, wisdom and stupidity. But, I am very sure that my Empathy has been magnified and focused by contrasting the squalid reality of daily life of sub-human slums in the shadow of the skyscrapers that house the wealthiest people in India. Empathy costs nothing except knowing that all sentient beings feel love and suffer the same pain we ourselves.   — Lawrence R. Spencer, 2015