http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/books/chapters/chapter-life-you-could-save.html?pagewanted=print

March 11, 2009

FIRST CHAPTER

‘The Life You Can Save’

By PETER SINGER

• practical ethics
• In 2007 [...] hypothetical situation actually occurred near Manchester, England. Jordon Lyon, a ten-year-old boy, leaped into a pond after his stepsister Bethany slipped in. He struggled to support her but went under himself. Anglers managed to pull Bethany out, but by then Jordon could no longer be seen. [...] 
• policemen soon arrived; they refused to enter the pond to find Jordon. [...] 
•  inquest on Jordon's death, the policemen's inaction was defended on the grounds that they had not been trained to deal with such situations. 
• The mother responded [...]
• by choosing to spend your money on such things rather than contributing to an aid agency, you are leaving a child to die, a child you could have saved?
• extreme poverty is not only a condition of unsatisfied material needs. 
• It is often accompanied by a degrading state of powerlessness
• In wealthy societies, most poverty is relative. 
• US, 97 percent of those classified by the Census Bureau as poor own a color TV
• Three quarters of them own a car.
• Three quarters of them have air conditioning. 
• Three quarters of them have a VCR or DVD player. 
• All have access to health care.
• not quoting these figures in order to deny that the poor in the US face genuine difficulties.
• these difficulties are of a different order than those of the world's poorest people

FIRST CHAPTERS Nonfiction