Ponta de Lança Africano (Umbabarauma)–Jorge Ben

As my thesis writing continues, my posts will be brief but there’s a still of interesting stuff going on and being written out there. That’s why I love it when people contribute like Jessica’s piece last week trying to reconcile science and beliefs of Canada’s indigenous peoples.

The latest thing to catch my eye is this article from Alliance magazine asking whether The Gates Foundation (run my Microsoft founder Bill Gates) is a benevolent dictator. As the article points out, “the foundation’s annual spending on global public health – about $1.8 billion – is larger than the WHO’s yearly budget,” which means that there is an organization out there as big as the WHO that is, essentially, accountable to nobody. If they’re doing good overall, then we have a benevolent dictator and it’s a good thing. But despite the reinvigoration of the global health community and the huge amounts of funds raised, the Gates Foundation still receives some valid criticism, the most important being that if the Gates Foundation gives money to everyone (they even fund media now), who will be left to criticize the Gate Foundation? Overall, the article raises some important questions and is a great read.