Category Archives: Viva!

INTERVIEWING A SHERO OF MINE

Interview Magazine asked me to interview Dr Jane Goodall for an upcoming issue. I’ve known Jane since the 1980s. I got to know her better in the decade I was married to Ted Turner who has long been a friend and supporter of her foundation. I always knew when he was on the phone with her because he’d answer the phone and start howling like a chimp.

I am in awe of the work she has done over the decades, but none more so than her program called TACARE (TakeCare), which she first told me about 2 years ago at a fundraiser in Pasadena. (She spends more than 300 days a year traveling, speaking and fundraising.)

janeolsen-drgoodall

GETTING AN OVERVIEW–LITERALLY

TACARE is a community-based conservation project. The idea for it came to Jane in ’94 when she flew in a small plane over the vast Gombe Ecosystem which contains Gombe National Park where she has studied chimps since 1960. There below her was the park, like an oasis, but where once there had been a vast unbroken forest, the rest of the ecosystem had been turned into bare hills. Gone were all the trees, cut down by people desperate for land to grow food on and wood to burn or sell. The habitat that the chimps depended on was in grave danger!

IMG_1407-web

This is not a picture of what Jane Goodall saw in 1994. It’s what I saw recently saw and photographed from a plane as we were coming in to land in Salt Lake City. This is what a copper mine has done to the mountains and natural habitat. We all need to look out of plane windows more often in order to catch a glimpse of the horrific reality we can’t often see on the ground.)

Everything in the Gombe Ecosystem was out of kilter because of population growth—too many people and not enough arable land, trees, food or water to sustain them. Jane saw immediately that she couldn’t save the chimps when the people living around their park were starving. She rounded up a team of local Tanzanians experienced in forestry, agriculture, water and health issues and they met with 12 villages surrounding Gombe Park to hear directly from villagers as to what they wanted and needed to improve their lives.

This was what really caught my attention when she first told me about the project. You see, all too many of the biggest funders/philanthropists (I won’t name names much as I’d like to) send in “experts” who are foreigners, who don’t listen to the people on the ground who are most impacted, who impose what they think should be done. And the problems aren’t solved sustainably. For instance, to stop malaria, toxic-chemical-laced mosquito nets were sent to countries where malaria is a problem without knowing that village people use the nets to fish, thereby unwittingly poisoning their waters.

Jane Goodall and her team, on the other hand, partnered with the villagers to design a holistic plan to train the local people to improve their lives in an environmentally sustainable way with agro-forestry, restoring fertility to over-used farmland without using chemical fertilizers, etc. Seeds planted in the ‘90s are now 20 feet tall trees and TACARE works in 52 villages where around 350,000 people live. The Greater Gombe Ecosystem which is home to more than half of Tanzania’s 2,000 wild chimpanzees is being brought back to life. A win-win…the chimps’ habitat is being protected by the local people themselves—they’ve learned how interwoven their long term survival is– and the lives of villagers have been vastly improved. With support from USAID, the Norwegian Government and individuals around the world, TACARE has also brought healthcare, family planning, scholarships for girls education and micro-credit opportunities, particularly for women, into the villages. (When women and girls are educated and able to bring in money to the family they tend to want fewer babies and can negotiate contraceptive use from a position of strength).

This is the transformative template that Jane Goodall and her JG Institute have created. They have replicated it in Uganda, the DRC, Congo-Brazzaville and Senegal and are ready to be scaled up and transferred to millions of people in other rural areas.

This template may well also be a road to peace in many African countries: when rebel soldiers, some as young as 8 and 10 years old, have an opportunity to earn a living through eco-farming, fishing, eco-tourism and such, they are more apt to lay down their guns.

Jane Goodall is known as the “lady who works with chimps.” Yes, and she’s so much more. A woman who understand to her core that we are all interdependent.

“My wife first got breast cancer in 1999. Then it came back…

tumblr_o335vgpve21qggwnvo1_500.jpg

“My wife first got breast cancer in 1999. Then it came back last year, and it’s in the bones now. I was a mess last year. Any time I wasn’t busy, I’d just start crying uncontrollably. Then I handed it over to God. I actually spoke to him, and said: ‘It’s all yours.’ And I’ve felt better since then. We’re hopeful. We know somebody whose bone cancer got so bad that her bones were breaking, and last month she tested completely clear. So we’re hopeful. It’s made me a better person in a way. I want her time to be as good as possible, so whenever there’s a confrontation, I don’t push it like I used to. I’ll just back away from it. Even if she’s wrong. I’ll back away and we’ll revisit it later when everyone is calm.”

When Lebanon’s Trash Becomes International, But We Are Too Busy Kissing Saudi Arabia’s Ass

Don’t call it brain dead.

Congrats Lebanon, we have made the international news cycle once more, the first time this year and hopefully the first of many.

No, it wasn’t about that viral Facebook fake-pictures-filled post proclaiming the beauty of God’s gift to Earth. I can hear your hearts break all the way here.

What made us international is actually old news to us. It’s so old in fact that not only does nobody care anymore, but the hype surrounding the issue has disappeared with each vanishing garbage bag stashed away in one of Lebanon’s valleys or on random roads, snaking around curves like white rancid rivers. Out of sight, out of mind – Lebanon style.



There is a bright side to the ordeal, however. Even our garbage bags look nice. They’re white, snow-like, built into winding rivers or towering pyramids.

Say hi to Buzzfeed.

Say thank you to CNN.

Wait for the upcoming onslaught from other outlets as well in the next few days. We are making it big. Aren’t we all proud?

Except, of course, this is *obviously* not the image of the country:

img_2545


I mean it’s always someone else’s fault, never ours collectively.

Putting lipstick on a dead pig level: Lebanon.

Is anything happening regarding the garbage crisis? Not really. Our government is busy doing other things, or just one thing to be exact: kiss Saudi Arabia’s ass like no country has missed another country’s ass before.

This past week, our government convened for SEVEN straight hours to discuss one item on their agenda: how to formulate a paragraph to please Saudi Arabia in order not to face their wrath manifesting in them not giving us money anymore, beggars-style.

I don’t think our government has convened for a total of 7 hours discussing the garbage crisis, or any other Lebanese crisis for that matter, over the last several months.

Live Love Saudi Arabia.

This past week, Saad Hariri decided to launch a petition across the country in order to show Saudi Arabia that Lebanon loved it so, akin to our country giving them a big fat political blowjob.

No politician cared enough to act about the garbage crisis, or any other crisis, since it started. Have we ever had a “Loyalty to Lebanon” petition circle around the country before?

Live Love Saudi Arabia.

This past week, minister of Justice Ashraf Rifi quit to protest the Lebanese stance towards Saudi Arabia’s recent embassy attack, first and foremost, and to a lesser extent protest the handling of Michel Samaha’s case. It took their reference country being seemingly offended for some ministers to resign.

Months after the garbage piled up on our streets, months after protests of hundreds of thousands… No other minister resigned or was even fazed by the notion of needing to resign.

This past week, Lebanese politicians of all kinds of kinds had something to say about Saudi Arabia. Even those that opposed KSA politically were at loss about what to do.

This amount of political maneuvering has not occurred not only with the garbage crisis, but with out presidential vacuum issue as well.

Live Love Saudi Arabia.

There comes a point where an entire country begging for absolution from another entity for the sake of money, for the sake of empty Arabism, for the sake of useless politics when that country’s capital is drowning in trash becomes not only humiliating but also insulting.

This is where we are today: a country sinking in garbage, but whose priority is how low it can go to its knees. But please, by a all means, don’t call it brain dead.

Let’s keep loving Saudi Arabia.

Mother of Murder Victim: “The Death Penalty Would Inflict Additional Pain on Us”

Duval County, Florida prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for the 2013 murder of Shelby Farah (pictured), over the objections of Ms. Farah’s family. After unsuccessful attempts to persuade prosecutors to non-capitally resolve the case, Darlene Farah, Ms. Farah’s mother, publicly expressed her views in a recent column in TIME. Farah said, “I do not want my family to go through the years of trials and appeals that come with death-penalty cases.” Instead, she wants her family to be able to, “celebrate [Shelby’s] life, honor her memory and begin the lengthy healing process.” Darlene Farah says her daughter would not have wanted the death penalty to be sought on her behalf, and “more killing in no way honors my daughter’s memory or provides solace to my family.” Duval County is among the 2% of U.S. counties that are responsible for a majority of U.S. death sentences and is represented by a prosecutor’s office that has sent more people to death row since 2009 than any other prosecutor’s office in the state. Farah has asked prosecutors to accept the defense offer to plead guilty to all charges, but she says “[prosecutors’] desire for the death penalty in my daughter’s case seems so strong that they are ignoring the wishes of my family in their pursuit of it.” Farah said the use of the death penalty is impeding the healing process: “Death-penalty cases are incredibly complex and drawn-out. It’s been two and a half years since my daughter’s murder, and the trial hasn’t even started…[W]e can’t start to heal and move beyond the legal process, which never seems to end.” “I have seen my family torn apart since my daughter’s murder, and the idea of having to face the lengthy legal process associated with a death-penalty case is unbearable. We have endured enough pain and tragedy already.”

(D. Farah, “My Daughter’s Killer Should Not Get the Death Penalty,” TIME, February 19, 2016; L. Robbins, “Victim’s mother urges State Attorney Angela Corey to take death penalty off the table,” WTLV First Coast News, February 24, 2016; Image by Darlene Farah, via WOKV News.) See Victims and New Voices.

  • 431 reads