Can we afford to save the world?

Bill Gates and his wife Melinda have been getting a lot of press lately with their good works foundation, and while I am a huge fan of people with lots of money helping out those who have a lot less, I can't help wondering about the conseqences. War and poverty and disease and hunger are all terrible things, but they do serve a purpose. The human race is already stretching the planet's resources to their limits and beyond. Can it really support all of the people that philanthropic organizations are trying to help?

For example, I heard somewhere (probably from NPR) that one of the projects of The Gates' Foundation is vaccinating African children against preventable diseases such as measles. And we're not talking just a few hundred kids here. I think that the number (or maybe the goal) is up near a million. Okay, great. A million children are now protected against the sorts of nasty diseases we almost never see in the United States anymore. Given the poverty levels of most African countries, have these children been vaccinated only to have them die of starvation? What about education? And jobs? And is the Gates' Foundation going to be around to vaccinate, feed and educate *their* children?

By reducing the mortality rate, we are increasing the demand on the world's energy resources, so in addition to vaccinating, feeding, and educating people, there also needs to be funding for environmental protection, sustainable growth and agriculture, and alternative energy sources. I don't think that even Bill Gates has *that* much money, even with the addition of Warren Buffett's millions.

Saving the poor African children is glamourous. What about all of the children right here in the United States who don't get adequate health care, nutrition, and education? What about their parents who can't find jobs or get the help that they need to beat an addiction? What about the pollution of this county's waterways and destruction of its forests? Why does it seem to be so much easier to help complete strangers on the other side of the world when we have yet to first take care of our own?

Return to Sender

Wouldn't it be nice if e-mail could be returned to its point of origin the way that most snail mail can be?

Sure, there is usually some sort of link or instructions at the end of junk e-mail which claims to remove your address from the list, but first you must open the message which might contain a virus or worm, and then more often than not the link is a dead end or "remove from list" e-mail address doesn't really exist.

If only the address of origin could be the reply-to address.

At least junk mail usually comes with a postage paid return envelope so you can send everything back to the advertiser or credit card company, and catalogs are usually quite polite about removing addresses from their mailing lists.