Give & take
McCarthy, Abigail
Of several minds: Abigail McCarthy GIVE & TAKE FROM AFRICAN FAMINE TO VATICAN ART COLUMNISTS and their readers seem to deal in discontinuity — one month, one subject; the next month, another;...
...It is up to those who care about the hungry to see that it does not translate into reality...
...And there it was — the hope: hope for the FAOlaunched Freedom from Hunger campaign, for the upcoming World Food Congress, for so many of the worldwide initiatives to combat hunger...
...The currency saved by' 'monetizing" food could be used for non-food needs such as tools and building materials...
...I happened to take an old book down from the shelf and out fluttered a letter written to me twenty years ago by De Groothuizen of the Grail Movement...
...farm products, and promote small-scale private enterprise...
...A set of guidelines developed by Marciniak has been published and should certainly be a source for the bishops' final document if it is not already one...
...The multiplicity of subjects covered and problems raised in one day's telecasts or in the pages of one day's newspaper seems to defy any person's capacity for emotional and intellectual response...
...Art belongs to everyone and is held in trust...
...and, in twelve months little or no concentration in depth on any one...
...The Hall bill would require that 5 percent of our uncommitted stocks of grain and dairy products be channeled to the world's hungry through our nonprofit agencies and the World Food Program...
...There it was among the other things: the concern with the plight of Africa — with population outstripping the resources of food and fuel and of the primitive agriculture...
...More food-for-work projects, using food as wages for workers to build the infrastructure needed for development — roads, schools, irrigation projects — are also needed...
...And I am reminded that my own interest in any one subject is almost always the result of a seed planted long ago...
...House Select Committee on Hunger wrote to inform me of the way a bill introduced by Representative Tony P. Hall of Ohio spells that out in legislative terms...
...The proposal was not part of the budget the administration finally sent to Congress, but, as Pat Young puts it, "Once the idea has been floated, it's out there somewhere ready to surface again...
...Although Congress has already authorized such donations, the Department of Agriculture has yet to ship a single surplus bushel of wheat...
...In response to the last of these loosely related columns, that on the bishops' pastoral on economic policy [February 8], a letter to the editor suggested once again the selling of the Vatican art treasures...
...Jensen adverted also to the need for support for legislation to remedy the appalling increase in domestic hunger, as did many others who wrote to me — a subject for many columns in itself, but one which, happily has been treated at length elsewhere in Commonweal and the Catholic press in general...
...That seems to me rather narrowly Puritan and somewhat beside the point...
...The bill also increases the tonnage of food aid under the Food for Peace program as suggested by the task force...
...I take some heart from the fact that each column seems to begin or continue an exchange — sometimes with readers, sometimes from those working in a field related to the column's subject...
...This fact became almost eerily clear to me shortly after I wrote about actress Liv Ullmann's travels on behalf of hungry children and her indignation that it had taken so long to draw media attention to the famine in Africa [January 11...
...She was then a non-governmental representative to the FAO — the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization headquartered Commonweal: 326 there...
...They depend on information reaching us...
...And yet the people who work day after day, month in and month out, to correct injustice and to alleviate need look for response — and help — from the rest of us...
...the offering of hospitality and instruction to students from Africa and other third-world areas...
...with the dislocation brought about by the advancing desert...
...A missed opportunity is moving beyond food aid to measures that have long-run impact...
...All these years dedicated people like De worked with the FAO on the problem of hunger which this year finally seized world attention in its most sensational form...
...There it was also — the patient daily work: the writing of a newsletter, the talking to any groups who would listen...
...For very little money we could immunize children when they come into feeding centers...
...Abigail McCarthy 31 May 1985: 327...
...But a letter from Ed Marciniak, Chicago lay leader who has toiled long and well in the vineyards of social action, dealt with one of the specifics of church as economic agent — the need for a philosophical underpinning for church institutions negotiating employee and labor contracts...
...This would save thousands of lives and increase economic productivity," says Congressman Hall...
...Timmie Jensen of the staff of the U.S...
...And now our support for the FAO is threatened — a danger I was alerted to by Patricia Young, national coordinator for World Food Day, when I mentioned to her that letter from the past...
...the acquainting of visitors, tourists, and church people with the work of the FAO...
...This scattering of attention seems the hallmark of contemporary communication...
...Other exchanges were precipitated by the column on the recommendation of the President's Task Force on International Private Enterprise that we give away our surplus food and that we redouble our PL 480 program — Food For Peace — [April 5...
...The legislation would authorize the sale of food to the poorest nations for local currency, instead of the dollars now called for, so that we could use the local currencies to promote agricultural development, expand markets for U.S...
...The work and our support for it has never been enough but without it the current famine would be even more calamitous than it is...
...I had met De in Rome on a visit during Vatican II...
...with the need to help African women — the traditional growers and marketers of family food — with better knowledge of nutrition and methods of production and preservation...
...The letter was an update on news of mutual interest and on her work...
...The original Stockman budget proposals this year called for following the United States' withdrawal of support for UNESCO with withdrawal of support for the FAO...
Vol. 112 • May 1985 • No. 11
