Never since I was a man in the world was I ever so great a stranger to public affairs as now I am, having not read a new book or anything like it, or enquiring after any news, […] or in any wise how things go.
Samuel Pepys, Diary of Samuel Pepys, August 10th, 1660
[T]he average number of deaths from poverty each day is equivalent to 100 jumbo jets, each carrying 500 people (mostly children), crashing with no survivors. From a human perspective, severe poverty should be the top story in every newspaper, ever newscast, and every news website, every day.
Leif Wenar, ‘Poverty Is No Pond: Challenges for the Affluent’, in Patricia Illingworth, Thomas Pogge & Leif Wenar (eds.), Giving Well: The Ethics of Philanthropy, Oxford, 2011, p. 104