2017
November
28
Tuesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

November 28, 2017
Loading the player...

Giving Tuesday might be seen as the selfless antidote to Cyber Monday.

Nearly $180 million in charitable donations were made online during Giving Tuesday last year, with an average donation of $107.

If you’re trying to decide where to give, consider GiveWell, a nonprofit that assesses charities based on how much good is done (lives saved or improved) per dollar spent. Among the 2017 top GiveWell charities are the Against Malaria Foundation, which distributes $4 mosquito nets, and Evidence Action’s No Lean Season, which gives no-interest loans to poor rural families during food shortages (often between harvests).

Of course, generosity is often spontaneous – and doesn’t necessarily follow a calendar. Take Johnny Bobbitt Jr., a homeless Marine Corps vet who used his last $20 to buy gas for a stranded motorist on Interstate 95 in Philadelphia. Out of gratitude, Kate McClure started a GoFundMe page for Mr. Bobbitt. In just over two weeks, more than $385,000 has been donated by 13,700 people. Ms. McClure is working with a lawyer to buy Bobbitt a house, his dream car (a 1999 Ford Ranger), and set up two trust funds.

What prompted Bobbitt to help McClure?  “I can't constantly take and not give back," he told ABC’s “Good Morning America.

Here are our five stories selected for today’s edition, illustrating various paths to progress, as well as compassion and resilience at work.


You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.

Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

In California and beyond, state lawmakers are initiating efforts to dismantle a culture of sexual harassment – and asking what effective steps can be taken to permanently change bad behavior.

After a seasonal pause in missile tests, North Korea resumed its pugnacious quest for global security. That quest is likely to ramp up again in February, when South Korea hosts the Winter Olympics.

Eduard Korniyenko/Reuters/File
Patients at a rehabilitation center for drug and alcohol addiction in Stavropol, Russia, watch a telecast of the annual end-of-year news conference of Russian President Vladimir Putin in December 2014.

What’s the most compassionate and successful way to wean someone off opioids? Why Russia opts for a drug-free approach.

Leaders and laggards in the global phaseout of coal

Fewer industries worldwide are relying on coal for power. The shift won't be a straight line, but it's driven by two fundamental forces: a desire to reduce greenhouse gases, and the availability of cheaper and cleaner-burning energy options.

SOURCE:

International Energy Agency, Enerdata

|
Karen Norris and Jacob Turcotte/Staff
Scott Peterson/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images
Iraqi painter Zahraa al-Baghdadi sits in the Hawar Art Gallery as she speaks about her work in Baghdad, Nov. 9. Young Iraqi artists who choose to stay in Iraq despite chronic violence are trying to resuscitate the country's once-vibrant art scene.

French artist Henri Matisse once said “creativity takes courage.” And if Matisse knew today’s artists in Iraq, he might have added that it takes resilience, too.


The Monitor's View

Reuters
UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura (left) and head of the Syrian Negotiation Commission (SNC) Nasr al-Hariri shake hands prior to the start of a new round of Syria's peace talks at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland Nov. 28.

One fallacy about the long war in Syria has been that it is simply a contest for military dominance – between groups of Syrians, between foreign powers such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, and between all of them and the terrorist group Islamic State. But with peace talks due to open Nov. 29, the United Nations envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, offers an alternative narrative.

He says “a moment of truth” has now arrived for the “real” contest, a political solution that could possibly play out next year in UN-supervised elections under a new Syrian constitution.

The reason such a view is credible lies in the fact that the war began in 2011 out of resistance to a similar “truth.” Liberated in their thinking by the Arab Spring, millions of Syrians rose up in peaceful protest to demand democracy. Since then, the anti-democratic forces, led by Russia, have largely prevailed on the battlefield. Now exhausted by war and unable to pay for the rebuilding of Syria, they have opened a door to a negotiated settlement leading to elections under UN supervision.

The foreign powers backing Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad must face a simple truth. Only the democratic countries in Europe as well as the United States can afford to rebuild Syria or revive its economy. For that reason and because of domestic pressure at home, Russian President Vladimir Putin went along with a Security Council demand for the Geneva talks to focus on a new constitution and elections.

Or as Mr. de Mistura put it, any peace process must enable “Syrians to determine their own future freely.”

Dictatorships like the Assad regime are inherently unstable because they rely on physical threats to stay in control rather than tolerating an open contest of political ideas in elections. The arc of history still bends toward democracy, or a respect for individual rights and equality before the law. Over time, those values can be as powerful as bullets.

These talks are the eighth attempt over many years to end a war that has claimed more than 400,000 lives. This time, however, the outside powers appear ready to force a deal on the Syrians. A total military victory seems out of reach.

The fallacy that power lies in guns has been exposed. This leaves Syrians on all sides at a “moment of truth,” or the need for an agreement that defines power by democratic means.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Each weekday, the Monitor includes one clearly labeled religious article offering spiritual insight on contemporary issues, including the news. The publication – in its various forms – is produced for anyone who cares about the progress of the human endeavor around the world and seeks news reported with compassion, intelligence, and an essentially constructive lens. For many, that caring has religious roots. For many, it does not. The Monitor has always embraced both audiences. The Monitor is owned by a church – The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston – whose founder was concerned with both the state of the world and the quality of available news.

When sexual molestation left today’s contributor dealing with chronic depression, she turned to God for healing. Thoughts of fear, hatred, and shame lifted as she came to see that we are all created to express God’s inviolable goodness, untouched by evil. This changed how she thought of victims and abusers – that neither can be dispossessed of their natural goodness. This certainly doesn’t excuse wrongdoing; it means that everyone is capable of being reformed. This conviction helped her forgive the men who had mistreated her. And with that came her own freedom from the haunted feelings and depression. She also learned later that one of the men’s lives had turned around and forgiveness had played a part in that. Evil and its effects can be healed. God’s pure goodness can cast them out.


A message of love

John Raby/AP
Coal miners attend a pro-coal rally Nov. 28 at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va. The rally came during a break in a public hearing on the Trump administration’s planned repeal of an Obama-era plan to limit carbon emissions.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us today. Come back tomorrow: We’re looking at a Supreme Court case that considers whether information collected by cellphone companies – such as where you are at a given moment – should be private.

More issues

2017
November
28
Tuesday

Give us your feedback

We want to hear, did we miss an angle we should have covered? Should we come back to this topic? Or just give us a rating for this story. We want to hear from you.