Low-Hanging Fruit

Become a statistic! In case you like writing letters to elected officials to have them tabulated by interns to be summarized in reports which may or may not influence the mind of said official: the Congo Conflict Minerals Act would require electronics companies to disclose how much tantalum, tin, and tungsten they get from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Write your senator. Different rebel groups in the DRC control access to these mines, taxing miners to fuel their militias. Sound familiar? Also, in a topic more related to our previous reading, the Obama administration is considering granting Temporary Protected Status to Haitians living in the United States. TPS would effectively legalize undocumented Haitians. Write the White House and tell them that allowing Haitians to stay in the United States and earn money is the least our country could do in these hard times after centuries of bigoted and oppressive policies toward Haiti that contributed to the present flow of migrants.