Danielle Levy

Sarath Babu still lives with his mother in the same Chennai slum where he grew up. The house has brick where I bamboo stood, but it is a reminder of his commitment to help others. Thanks to his mother’s sacrifices and mostly his own efforts he was able to attend prestigious Indian universities and even get an MBA. Then he made a choice. He was offered high paying jobs, but he’d always had a dream to help others in the slum where he was raised. For each person he could employ he could help several others, since each worker was taking care of 5 or 6 people. He chose his dream, and while things were hard at times, he now employs 250 people in a fast growing food catering empire. His goal is to create 100,000 jobs and he’s hard at work expanding his business. At 31, he still have much time to succeed.
It is a time of the year when we glibly speak of the Christmas spirit forgetting perhaps that it can shine through non Christians as well. Whatever it may be called in whatever religious tradition, may what animates Sarath Babu inspire us all year long.

A recent story on CBS news featured something we don’t often associate as one of the prices we pay for war, canine PTSD. Dogs that are used in sniffing landmines and participate in combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan have been found to be suffering from PTSD (post traumatic stress syndrome). Suddenly their behavior becomes different, they retreat, go the other way, can’t stand to be touched, don’t respond as before. In those cases where they can be rehabilitated, just like people with love, time and patience, they do get better. Aside from a touching animal story, the item is a powerful reminder of what we overlook about dogs and surely other animals. It reminds us of how much they can suffer, of the depth of consciousness they possess which we often ignore and in how many circumstances they are no different than humans.

Riverside County is beginning to charge inmates an incarceration fee up to a $142 a day, to defray costs of food, clothing, healthcare, security and other jail expenses. Trinity County in Northern California charges $20 a say, Glenn County up to $59 a day and Los Angeles County is talking about doing the same thing. These are on top of other court ordered fees inmates are to pay, fees for labs, attorneys and the like. In many cases individuals also have the expenses of private attorneys. The law empowers the country to garnish wages, place liens on properties, go after anything the person owns, RV’s cars, future earnings and investments. The Riverside board of supervisors voted unanimously for this law and Jeff Stone who proposed it believes it is a way for the county in tight fiscal times to recover some of its losses. Others believe it is plain wrong, that it would interfere with the reentry into society of many former inmates and place a heavy burden on their families. Someone incarcerated up to 6 months in Riverside County could end up owing some $25,000.
It is a law that calls to mind many things, penny wise and pound foolish for one, since in the long run it is bound to create more problems than it might solve. It also calls to mind the idea of double jeopardy and of cruel and unusual punishment. It even makes one think of debtors’ prisons. No matter what it may make us think of, it is an example that what is legal does not always coincide with what is moral.