One Life With Each Other; Sisters, Brothers.

Dear ONE Member,

Last week, my friend Tom Daschle wrote to you about our trip to Rwanda. We saw the difference America is making on the ground.

We want to support continued economic growth and poverty reduction in Rwanda and across the developing world. To guarantee that, we need to make sure that the next president prioritizes investment in Rwanda and other developing nations to make extreme poverty history.

You can influence the policies of the next President by clicking the link below and asking the Republican and Democratic presidential platform committees to make the fight against global poverty and disease a priority.

Sign The Petition.

A great example of the difference we’re making is Rwanda’s gourmet coffee industry, where a lot of hard work by Rwandans alongside strategic support from the United States is driving robust economic growth that is lifting people out of poverty.

USAID (that’s the U.S. government, which spends your dollars), has partnered with the owner of a coffee bean “washing station.” This station purchases coffee beans (“cherries” actually) from local farmers and then they process the bean through a washing cycle that separates the beans by quality, ready for export. This simple step—which was unheard of in Rwanda before 2002—means that Rwanda captures much more of the value of its biggest export crop than it ever could in the past. Rwandan coffee farmers are more prosperous than they were before, because their product fetches a higher price on the world market. And an entirely new processing industry has sprung up, employing thousands. These specialty coffee beans are sold to Starbucks and specialty coffee shops across America.

To accommodate the burgeoning specialty coffee market, these washing stations hire about 200 women to separate and process the beans. These women’s salaries are double what they made before. They use the extra income to pay for medical care and more nutritious food for their children, not to mention school supplies, better clothes, and maybe some livestock.

This is economic development targeted at the poor—a hand-up, not a hand-out. That's a lesson that Senator Daschle and I plan to share with our party leaders at our respective National Conventions in Denver and St. Paul, where new policy platforms will be passed.

Senator Daschle and I will bring along your signatures to the conventions and urge the party leaders to prioritize global health and anti-poverty planks in their 2008 platforms.

Add your signature here: Sign The Petition.


Help us seize this opportunity to renew America’s commitment to health, education, and entrepreneurship in the developing world during the next Administration.

This is a strategic moment in which our political leaders need to hear from all of us, loud and clear, as ONE.

Thank you for your work,

Senator Bill First, M.D.
National Co-Chair, ONE Vote ‘08

And I Thank You

Title today is a shout out to my mother who has wisely seen the need for pie pan LARGER than 9 inches for our Pecan Pie. We have too many people coming and I want my leftovers. Cause everyone voted for Pumpkin and Blackbottom pie except mom and I, but I just KNOW they will hog the pecan. I just feel it in my pecan lovin' bones.

I am loopy. Worked both days this weekend, and 11.5 hour days yesterday and today. And a 10 on tap for tomorrow. Turkey Day will be relaxing. Working a long one on Friday and Saturday. Sunday I am also working but only 4 hours. Trying to get November work out on time and get a jump on December so I can relax around the holidays. Plus the weekend out of town with kidlet on the 7/8.

Sunday I think kidlet and I are going to go see a movie at Cinema 21 again. That's where we saw the Strummer movie. We saw the previews for What Would Jesus Buy? and it looked frickin hysterical. It takes on one of my major pet peeves. The commercialization of Christmas and Americans worship of the almighty dollar in general. With a slight tweak of evangelicalism as well. How can that NOT appeal to me? I loathe shopping AND organized religion, so count me in. I love the fact that they use the Disney font on their site too. Quite amusing.

Not sure if any of my readers are signed up ONE.ORG members, but I got an email yesterday saying that our letter/email campaign to the International Monetary Fund asking them to keep their promise to forgive Liberia's debt worked. They even acknowledge the vast numbers of writers who put the pressure on them to keep their word. Liberia has been decimated by civil wars and the likes of Charles Taylor -with some help from that evangelical pig Pat Robertson. If you have seen Blood Diamond or Lord of War you have an idea. They finally have a chance to put their money into their people, rather than paying off the debts that ass Taylor and other petty dictators have racked up. With a large handful of European and American complicity, I might add. It's like our current "credit crisis." How could they not see this would happen? Give a 400k mortage to a McD worker with your super low cost ARM and what do you think will happen when the rates go up? Just another example of corporate greed.

Now if only the special tribunal in Sierra Leone would fry Charles and his equally repellant little son Chuckie. THAT would be something to be thankful for!

Stretch Your Hands Across The Sea - Wordless Wednesday 38

Ok...maybe not totally Wordless ;)






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