Although we love to view the world in absolutes, things are seldom black and white. Heroes have skeletons in their closets and assholes secretly donate money to the ASPCA commercials with Sarah McLachlan.
Okay, maybe not. But the point is that the world is a complex place, full of moral ambiguity, double standards and mixed feelings.
So we have taken it upon ourselves to bring back the epic binary of good versus bad, right versus wrong, and virtuous versus evil.
We humbly present you: Asshole and Hero of the week.
Asshole: The Indian Government
Via: Businessweek
Okay, so everyone knows India has a huge population. In 2013, it was about 1.2 billion people, according to India Online. Because of this, the government has been sponsoring sterilization procedures for women. One of these sterilization camps, called Chhattisgarh, is located in a place called Bilaspur.
At this camp this weekend, there were cases of negligence surrounding the sterilization of nearly 60 women. Eight of these women are now deceased, and another 50 are in the hospital.
The good news is that the government took immediate action and suspended all the higher-ups involved with the fuck-up. But the real problem is that this was allowed to happen in the first place.
There is only one doctor at this camp, and he performed nearly 83 sterilizations in just six hours, according to a BuzzFeed report. I’m not a medical expert, but I feel like a procedure that makes it impossible to conceive children should take longer than roughly 14 minutes.
This camp is clearly understaffed and overworked. Perhaps it is because the government has promised each woman who undergoes the procedure 1,400 rupees, or $23 USD.
India, if you’re going to have an incentive program like that, you need to have facilities that are equipped to handle the influx of people. You need to staff more than one doctor for every 83 patients.
The inquiry into this negligence shouldn’t take very long, and hopefully it’ll shed some light on the shortcuts being taken in order to try to control the population growth of India. If you’re going to do it, do it right. Maybe then people won’t have to die in the process of trying to feed their families.
Hero: Google
Via: 9to5google
As a millennial, I’d say that Google is my hero for most of my day-to-day life because of its ability to give me answers to all of my burning questions, but this week, Google has pledged to do something that makes me want to bow down and sing their praises to the whole world.
Google has pledged to donate $2 for every $1 donated by individual people to help fight Ebola abroad. Given that the company and its CEO Larry Page have already donated about $25 million to the cause, I think it’s pretty damn incredible that Google has pledged to do more.
It may not seem very special for an American corporation to donate millions of dollars to a global crisis, but it actually is kind of amazing. For the most part, we don’t hear about companies willing to do much for global issues unless they directly involve American interests. With the number of Ebola cases in the U.S. being reduced to zero this week, it is remarkable that Google is making this pledge now.
Google has also done donators a solid by saying it will cover 100 percent of the processing fees involved with their donation.
The donations will be evenly distributed among four nonprofit organizations in West Africa that are dedicated to fighting the disease.
Although it’s true that Google has always been one of the more gracious of Internet heavyweights — they’re involved with dozens of charities around the world — it is still great to see a giant corporation lending a hand to countries that cannot return the favor.
Featured photo courtesy of: Daily Mail
