American Idol Gives Back

The last two nights I watched American Idol and I was hit really hard with conviction. This week's theme was "Hope and Compassion" or something like that, so the top 6 sang songs of hope and what not. Blake Lewis is my favourite, and he sang a classic song "Imagine" by John Lennon, and it brought me to tears. That song is so beautiful and the way he sang it was beautiful. Here are some lyrics that hit me:

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world 

I learned that 1 child dies of Malaria every 30 seconds, when a cure costs 2 dollars for a pack of medicine to cure 4 people.

It costs 1.50 per child to eat lunch at their schools, but they can't even afford that.

The amount of money in ice cream that North America eats could feed the WHOLE world.

Startling eh? I was hit very hard when I watched tonight's results show. It was a two hour special and they kept phone lines open to donate. They showed many stories about different families in America AND Africa who are in poverty. They showed the victims from Hurricane Katrina, who are living in trailers (which was only supposed to be temporary). People in Africa are dying because they can't get the medicine they need to get better. Simon Cowell and Ryan Seacrest took a trip over there and they tried to help many people to get better, but 2 people passed away because they were just too far gone.

This sickens me. Our continent is rich enough to eat all this food and everything, but yet people over seas are going hungry? It doesn't make sense. There is an "epidemic" of obesity in America and Canada because they eat too much, but yet people overseas are so malnutritioned because they eat cornmeal only...thats the only thing they eat ever. It doesn't seem fair. We have so many luxuries and we take them for granted, meanwhile people overseas don't have a lot.

Thats my rant for tonight. Comments are welcomed as always. Speak out against poverty! Make a change! Be grateful for what you have because there are people all over the world who are worse off than you are.