Tag Archives: World War One

August 29, 2012 · 4:04 am

Movie industry can help end world hunger

The Hunger Games film recently teamed up with the World Food Programme and Feeding America. (United Nations)

Earlier this year former senator Chris Dodd, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, shared some great news about the movie industry. Dodd said, “Over the past five years, North American box office revenues are up six percent. This year has already begun with a tremendous start: as of April 19 – the box office was up 17 percent over the same period last year.”

The film industry is having great success. With that comes an opportunity to use its power to fight one of the greatest global threats: hunger and malnutrition. In fact, that is what the motion picture industry did when it was just getting started in the early 1900s.

During World War I (1914-1918) millions of people suffered from hunger as food supplies and farmlands were destroyed. American relief efforts, led by Herbert Hoover and many charities, came to the rescue.

Even after the fighting stopped hunger continued. Reconstruction from the war was a big enough task. The European nations were not yet able to produce enough food to sustain themselves. Hoover and other leaders had to find a way to fund aid for the hungry overseas.

The film industry did not sit idle. They took action. Theatres around the country hosted a special Sunday matinee on January 29, 1921 with proceeds going toward European relief. Motion picture actors made appearances encouraging people to attend the event. There was even a contest to see which theatre could collect the most donations.

Hoover’s memoir said the Motion Picture Campaign raised $169,000 to help feed Europe. This fundraising event coincided with a series of Invisible Guest Dinners that also raised funds. The invisible guest represented one of the hungry children in war-torn Europe.

This year the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Feeding America teamed up with the Hunger Games film to raise awareness of the world’s nearly one billion hungry people. Rene McGuffin, senior WFP spokesperson, said, “The campaign was particularly successful in terms of raising awareness about hunger among the many fans and the general public. The campaign site, which included a public service announcement featuring the stars of the film, along with an interactive hunger quiz and several online contests, proved to be an effective tool for community engagement.”

In fact the campaign and film inspired some creative fundraising by schoolchildren, including this story on the WFP site. The Hunger Games film also inspired some canned good drives. The more of this kind of social action, the better.

At the time of World War I relief there was a great hope for peace, and for an end to both war and hunger. Those dreams have not been realized, at least not yet. It’s up to the current generation to keep up the struggle to achieve those goals. The film industry can be one of the leaders.

Article first published as Movie Industry Can Help End World Hunger on Blogcritics.

She Wanted to Mourn, But Chose to Save A Life

In my article Armistice Day, World Peace and Feeding the Hungry, I talk about the amazing work of the Belgian Relief Commission. They fed the hungry in Belgium, as well as Northern France, during World War One and in its aftermath.

One of its anonymous donors was a woman who wanted to buy flowers for a friend’s grave. She wanted to mourn. But she also was aware of the Belgian relief fund which had been collecting donations. She considered the two choices and decided to spend the 2 dollars on the Belgian relief fund. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported, “The possibility of saving a child in Belgium from starvation was the reason given” for her donation.

Two dollars in 1917 was worth about 2 months’ of meals. Frederick Chatfield, Cincinnati Branch Commissioner for relief in Belgium, reported the anonymous woman’s donation in an article discussing contributions and shipping. He said, “Cincinnati has responded splendidly to our appeal.”

The food sustained millions trapped by the fighting of World War One. In an article published by the newspaper in late 1916, Milton Brown wrote from Belgium, “Herbert Hoover, who heads the commission, is a remarkable man. He describes his job as feeding a kitten with a 40-foot pole, the kitten being in a cage between two hungry lions.”

On this Armistice Day, a two dollar donation could actually achieve close to two weeks’ worth of meals in countries suffering from conflict, natural disaster or extreme poverty. It could mean plumpy’nut to save small children from potentially deadly malnutrition; or it could mean school meals that not only prevent malnutrition, but help keep children learning in school.

There are tremendous needs around the globe today, and many ways you can help. Catholic Relief Services has set up an East Africa Relief Fund to fight the famine and drought there. Save the Children is collecting donations to help feed and give medicine to victims of massive floods which have struck Thailand.

Edesia, a producer of plumpy’nut, is holding a fundraiser titled the 11-11-11 project. Plumpy’nut is a special peanut paste desperately needed in many countries including Sudan, Guatemala, Afghanistan, Yemen and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has a We Feedback campaign which is like taking in a Silent Guest, one of the world’s hungry, at your next meal. WFP also has the online game called Free Rice which raises money for the hungry, and is free for the user to play.

To help those who are hungry within the United States, Feeding America supports a network of emergency food banks.

Article first published as She Wanted to Mourn, But Chose to Save A Life on Blogcritics.

Armistice Day, World Peace, and Feeding the Hungry

One of the guns of Battery D, 105th Field Artillery, showing American flag which was hoisted after the last shot had been fired when the armistice took effect. Etraye, France. 11/11/1918Credits: National Archives

It was just a piece of paper. Yet on the morning of November 11, 1918, it meant peace.

For on that paper was a message from United States General John Pershing, ordering ceasefire on all fronts at 11 a.m. Germany had accepted the armistice. The Great War, or World War I, was over.

While the battlefields were filled with the most devastating firepower ever assembled, it was a small piece of paper that was the most powerful instrument of that day.

The announcing of the armistice on November 11, 1918, was the occasion for a monster celebration in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Thousands massed on all sides of the replica of the Statue of Liberty on Broad Street, and cheered unceasingly. Philadelphia Public Ledger. (National Archives)

Celebrations sprang up across the world. The Cincinnati Enquirer wrote, “It was Victory Day, and all Cincinnati helped celebrate this most momentous event in the history of the world.”

Americans fought and died right up to the armistice. Many who survived lived with the effects of shellshock . A whole world was in fact left shellshocked by the Great War, and millions of people were threatened with starvation and poverty as a result.

“Hunger knows no armistice,” a poster for the Near East Relief Committee stated. To tell the full story of World War I and its aftermath is to tell of hunger and great humanitarians.

The article in the Cincinnati Enquirer made it a point to mention the city’s impressive record providing relief throughout the conflict. In fact, in 1917 the paper printed the appeal of Frederick Chatfield, a leader for Belgium relief, who said one dollar a month would save a Belgian child from starvation and give him the extra food needed to keep him from disease. The newspaper even printed the names of those who sent in donations.

Cincinnati adopted the town of Hastiere in Belgium in order to help it rebuild from wartime destruction. Among the buildings damaged was a little church, built in the eleventh century, that was bombarded by shells.

The men and women who suffered through World War I deserved a lasting peace. However, the world was at war once again just two decades later. The Second World War would bring even more destruction than the first.

But on this Armistice Day, 2011, let’s remember that dream of world peace that should have followed the First World War, and not give up on that dream. The pursuit of world peace is the best memorial we can leave to the generation that sacrificed so much in the horror of the first World War.

Lands struck by war can recover. Interestingly, I recently received two messages from Belgium, one confirming that the country is a donor to the UN World Food Programme to help this agency fight hunger in conflict and disaster zones around the globe. The second message is from Hastiere. All is well there, and the little church is rebuilt-the Great War long in the rearview mirror.

Article first published as Armistice Day, World Peace and Feeding the Hungry on Blogcritics.

The Road to Peace: From the Disarming of the Great Lakes to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

At a press conference President Eisenhower stated, “the concept of atomic war is too horrible for man to endure and to practice, and he must find some way out of it.” In “The Road to Peace” read about President Eisenhower and President Kennedy’s pursuit of a nuclear test ban treaty, a first step in nuclear arms control with the Soviet Union. The attempt to control nuclear weaponry came at a time when the Soviet Union and the United States were engaged in the Cold War. Tensions were running high.

A lesser-known arms control measure is also discussed in the book, how the Soviet Union and the United States actually agreed to ban nuclear weapons from at least one part of the globe in 1959. Also read how a diplomat from Mexico led the struggle to create a nuclear weapons free zone in Latin America in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

“The Road to Peace” includes the struggles between America and Britain over the Great Lakes and the Oregon territory. The now peaceful border of the United States and Canada did not come about easily. Read about diplomatic initiatives after World War I when the great hope of mankind was an end to warfare. Also, there is a concluding section on the INF and Open Skies treaties. Featured in “The Road to Peace” are notable peace efforts by extraordinary statesmen who served in government here and abroad from 1812 to the 20th century. Lessons of diplomacy and cooperation between countries are applicable to today’s conflicts.

Table of Contents
Introduction
1. War and Peace on the Great Lakes
2. The Oregon Treaty
3. Peace After the Great War?
4. Eisenhower, Kennedy and the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
5. The First Nuclear Weapon Free Zones
Epilogue- The INF and Open Skies Treaties
Notes
Index

The Road to Peace is available from

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Filed under History, nuclear weapons

Tagged as diplomacy, Dwight Eisenhower, Oregon Treaty, peace, Rush-Bagot Agreement, War of 1812, World War One