Pittsburgh might shrink but it won’t disappear!

As Deaths Outpace Births, Cities Adjust - New York Times:

    While natural decrease occurred in many Southern cities that were magnets for retirees, the overall population was replenished by the influx of younger migrants. But in Pittsburgh and other places outside the South, not only has the population aged in place, but also, to a lesser extent, the very old — often disabled and widowed — have returned to spend their last years with children and grandchildren and avail themselves of better medical treatment and transportation.

Hmmm....I don't think Pittsburgh will shrink to nothing though.

FRONTLINE on Darfur

I enjoy watching online episodes of the PBS series FRONTLINE. Yesterday, I started viewing FRONTLINE: on our watch:

    The world vowed "never again" after the genocide in Rwanda and the atrocities in Srebrenica, Bosnia. Then came Darfur. Over the past four years, at least 200,000 people have been killed, 2.5 million driven from their homes, and mass rape has been used as a weapon in a brutal campaign supported by the Sudanese government. In On Our Watch, FRONTLINE asks why the United Nations and its members once again failed to stop the slaughter.

The program prompted me to revisit Save Darfur's Take Action section. I also discovered a source of analysis that I hadn't known about concerning Darfur and Sudan: sudanreeves.org :: Sudan Research, Analysis, and Advocacy by Eric Reeves, an English professor who has devoted the last nine years researching and writing about Sudan. I took a small action today by signing my name to an email urging President Bush to take some immediate action. I hope that it will make some difference, even a small one, in bringing justice and peace to the region.