Famine and Downgrading Credit Scores

Somali child suffering from chronic malnutrition last week.

The year was 1986, the place was Dhaka, Bangladesh. It was the first time I encountered another human being starving to death.
      His name was Sukamar, a 3-year-old Bengali who I met in a children's hospital when I was visiting Bangladesh as a journalist for a relief agency.
       I got to know this little boy and his mother over a week's time. I thought he was slowly improving. He was gaining weight, his vacant eyes had begun to fill with hope. Then I walked into the hospital on a Saturday morning to visit him only to learn he had died over night.
       And my idealism about the world was shattered.
       Today I read again about famine in Somalia - the UN says that hundreds of thousands of children could die in the Horn of Africa. It reminded me of the tragedy of Sukamar from 25 years ago.
       I have also been reading and listening about the U.S.'s credit rating being downgraded from AAA to AA+. Quite the juxtaposition with the situation in Somalia! I find myself gasping at how ludicrous is the debate among politicians and policy makers about a credit rating while famine ravages a part of the world. I simply cannot fathom the painful irony of it all.