Dear Nicholas Kristof,
I am a student at Roncalli High School in Indianapolis, Indiana and I have recently been assigned to blog about your comlumns and what you have written about. In my last post I was required to state your claim with anecdotes as well as state your concession to your own writing. In blogging about your opinion about the orange sweet potato being the cure for death and blindness in children, I was wondering if there were any other related issues to that of finding the cure for starvation. If you have any other related issues in mind, please feel free to email me your thoughts and opinions. I would love to hear back from you!

Thank you, Mackenzie Reckley

Bless the Orange Sweet Potato

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/25/opinion/25kristof.html
Many argue different reasonings for world hunger in poor countries. Some believe it is solely related to not consuming enough foods and others, now, believe that it is from children lacking the micro-nutrients needed from the foods. With our constant advances in technology, a possible discovery for world hunger has been found. Over several years of testing and experimenting, the Scientists of HarvestPlus have found a cure through biofortification. They have found that altering seed genes in certain fruits and vegetables can bring people in poor countries nutrients that they do not normally receive to survive. Kirstof claims that this could be the cure of starvation in poor countries.

CONCESSION:And the European left's sad hostility to scientific tinkering with crops may slow acceptance biofortification.

• "Biofortification is slow, but it has a huge impact in the end," said Howard Bouis, director of HarvestPlus.
• So far, the science promising, it may turn out that one of the best ways to save children's lives, or to save women in childbirth, doesn't involve doctors but rather high-tech seeds.
• Scientists cross-bred sweet potatoes until they came up with Vitamin A-rich orange varieties that grow well in Africa.

"Biofortification is slow, but it has a huge impact in the end."

• Crops backed by HarvesPlus are conventionally bred, other crops have been gentically engineered. The best known crop "Golden Rice" has been enriched with Vitamin-A and is soon to be widely accepted in curing blindness and death in children.
• More than 170,000 Ugandan and Mozambiquan families are now growing these sweet potaoes.
• Because Vitamin-A capsuls were to expensive to give to the families in poor countries, sceintists thought about tinkering with crops to make them naturally have certain nutrients. Those thoughts came about a decade ago and now we have the hero; the sweet potato.

I agree with Kristof's claim, with his research done and proven facts it deffinately seems to be a cure for blindness and death. If the reason children die is the lack of certain nutrients and scienctists have fixed that problem then the only left assumption for Kristof's claim is that it must be a cure. This can save so many lives anywhere in the world. This is just one of the problems prevalent in the world today, and if we are making it curable then obviously we are well on our way to curing other issues. Recently, doctors have been trying to convince parents to save their childs cord blood. But why? They have proven that if your child becomes ill with certain kinds of cancer later in life and have gone through extensive therapy for it that cord blood can help. After cancer treatment, the doctors can insert your cord blood into your system repairing the blood and immune systems damage done from the therapy. Preventing other diseases and heart attacks from happening later on.

When Donations Go Astray

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/opinion/21kristof.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rsss
Due to the upcoming season of Christmas and our recent struggling economy, Kristof has brought attention to: "Where is your chairty money really going?", to mind the of those who give. With every American struggling to meets ends with every penny, its important to know where exactly your philanthropic money goes toward. Not that Kristof is "discouraging giving", but is rather giving advice to research more about your charity of choice. He states that: "donations could accomplish far more if people thought through their philanthropy, did more research, and made fewer, bigger contributions instead of many small ones that are expensive to handle." Kristof takes the stand of giving to charities is great, but its not helpful if your not choosing the correct charities.
He uses:

• Feed the Children Organization(with provided accusations against the founders of squandering donated money)
• Hebron Fund(said to use the money for peace for jews but actually persecutes Palestinians but denies it)
• "chuggers"-ones who stop you on the streets and who profit most of the money-
• GiveWell.org
• Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-lead the way in success-
• Mercy Corps
• Save the Children
• CARE

Kristof's diction pinpoints his stance on the issue and his advice to recent/future givers. He makes it extremely effective by associating his words with his examples that counteract to the so called "most ourageous charities in America." His examples are explained through his expressive persuasive words that tell the "truths" of some charities.

Nicholas D. Kristof has been a op-ed columnist for the New York Times since 2001-has been a member since 1984- and has recieved several awards from his writings. With winning the Pulitzer Award twice along with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, Kristof has also contributed awards from George Polk, Overseas Press Club, Micheal Kelly,Online News Association award, American Society of Newspaper Editors award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Not only that, but Kristof and his wife have co-authored three books together. He is oftenly known for bringing to light human rights abuses in Asia and Africa, such as human trafficking and the Darfur conflict.

Kristof grew up in a small town called Yamhill in Oregon, and he was raised on a sheep and cherry farm. Graduating from Harvard College, he then went on to study law at Oxford University with a Rhodes scholarship. Traveling all over the world, Kristof has lived on four continents, reported on six, visited over 140 countries, all 50 states, every Chinese Province, and every mainland Japanese island. Kristof takes interest in taveling, backpacking, running and spending time with his three children.