Danielle Levy

A sliver of land in the harbor area of Los Angles, large enough for two jungle gyms, some benches and a wall is being turned into a pocket park. The reason: So that 33 released sex offenders who live a block away will have to move. The city and the state have laws that they cannot be within 2000 yards of a park or school. Two other pocket parks are planned for the same reason. State laws restrict where sex offenders can live making it hard for them to be in urban areas. They end up in poor areas with no parks like this harbor neighborhood. The project is the brainchild of councilperson Joe Buscaino, a former police officer who wants to clean up the area to make it safe for children. It is not known whether the 33 former offenders had hurt children or adults, nor how serious their crimes were since the classification of sex offender covers a wide range of offenses. It’s one thing to punish people. It’s another to keep punishing them for what they might or might not do. By pushing sex offenders who have served their time on the fringes of society, by depriving them of the opportunity to reintegrate into the community, are we pushing them further into dysfunction and possibly crime? At what point does our fear turns to hysteria and that hysteria leads to injustice?

Land grabbing is the term coined to refer to foreign investors buying or leasing farmlands in the developing world. As the world population keeps growing and the demand for food grows along with it, there is surging demand for food crops. The profits of course go to the investors at the expense of local populations. Critics are calling this a new form of colonialism. Liberia is an extreme example, 100% of its arable land is under foreign ownership with Malaysia and Singapore as the biggest owners. The list is instructive. In Sierra Leone, 41% of its arable land is under foreign ownership, 31% of it is owned by concerns in the U.K. In the Ukraine, 35% of the arable land is owned by foreigners, 66% of which is owned by U.S. interests. In Uruguay, Argentina owns 51% of the 18% of foreign owned land. In Tanzania where also 18% of the arable land is owned by foreigners, 45% of that land is owned by Sweden. South Africa and Saudi Arabia also own foreign lands in Mozambique and the Philippines respectively. Gabon in West Africa is also an extreme example, 86% of its arable land is foreign owned, 74% of which by Singapore. If one remembers John’s Lennon’s song “Imagine” about a world with no countries, maybe that is one way to get there. But I don’t think John Lennon envisaged such a long interim where local populations would be deprived and in some cases suffer.

Former Georgia Senator, Sam Nunn who has been active against nuclear proliferation and is now co chair of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, believes that “we can greatly diminish the risk” of a nuclear accident in Europe or America through global cooperation. He does include working with China and does think that in doing so the risk posed by North Korea can be better handled. But instead of North Korea and its recent testing, he draws attention to the progress that has been made whether or not the general public realizes it. “Ten years ago, 40 countries had weapons-usable nuclear materials,” he said in an interview with Der Spiegel, “now there are only 28 left.” He adds, “And a number of nations have given up their nuclear weapons entirely, like Kazakhstan, Belarus or Ukraine. Others like South Korea or Brazil could have developed nuclear weapons, bud did not do so.” Nunn and his colleagues aren’t the only group working on proliferation and its issues, he mentioned there are at least 1000 people working in this field. Like the tree in the forest which falls whether or not someone hears it, key problems are being worked on whether we are aware of those efforts or not.