explore | Middle East

Jenin Freedom Theatre This is an extraordinary glimpse of living in a Palestinian camp. Totally unexpected. Check out the rest of these documentaries on explore.org as well. "Charlie" Annenberg Weingarten is the host and has the duty of awarding grants from his family's Annenberg Foundation. He searches the world for worthy recipients. He searches the world to find those with stories of compassion and understanding. Unique. He takes along a film crew, and voila a new genre of doucmentary! An odd combination of humility and self-obsession. Charlie is the star of his own films. Yet he he finds open hearts around the planet. Some are small - only a few minutes. Some are full length. Vodcast is available on itunes.

Bolivia Rising

Bolivia Rising

Most interesting bit of history here. Bolivia Rising continues to be a most interesting window on Latin America.

Welcome to Peace One Day: Peace One Day – 21 September 2009

Peace One Day Here's a beautiful story of how a single person can make a difference. Jeremy Gilley of the UK got worried about peace. There had never been a day in the history of the world that war was not active somewhere. He had the idea to have a cease-fire day. But Jeremy actually got the UN to make one - every September 21 - and it was a unanimous vote! But then nobody paid it any attention and so he continued to work at it. Amazing persistance and with a little help from his friends. And a few days ago in Afghanistan, on September 21 there was a cease fire day. And the Taliban leader sent out a letter to the whole country to not fight, and further to not interfere with UNESCO. For UNESCO had been unable to innoculate the kids of Afghanistan for polio for 30 years of war. And they innoculated a million and a half kids! And there was such a day a year ago as well. Shame on the media for not reporting this wonderful news.

Jeremy is a young filmmaker so he made a documentary about it. Got his ponytail cut off. Borrowed a suit and a tie and went off to see Kofi Annan. His website has 10 minute trailer. And the hour long documentary is available here on Youtube. One Day After Peace Inspiring. 81 minutes.

TED: Ideas worth spreading

TED: Technology, Education, Design Again I find myself appreciating the TED talks as the single best internet source of science information. If you have little time, this site will give you the most in the least. They simply make free to the public, the videos of their many conferences. Their genius is they require their speakers to condense their presentations from the usual hour to 18 minutes. Over the near decade of their existence their excellence in topic and presenter has attracted more excellence - both in the conferences and in their sponsorship.

An even better way to enjoy TED than an on-line visit(above link), is to subscribe. MIRO - 5000 Free Web Video Magazines. Select those sources of interest to you - very well presented and easy. Then they simply come into your computer to be looked at when you have time. In addition they are usually High Definition. And unlike the on-line presentation, you can pick your way through it quickly like paging through a magazine to the parts of interest.

Ask Nature - the Biomimicry Design Portal

innovation inspired by nature Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found what works, what is appropriate, and most importantly, what lasts here on Earth.

This website gathers and shares that innovation in the hope of sparking more efficient engineering.
It was introduced by Janine Benyus in her TED talk "Biomimicry in Action". The talk illustrates the principle excellently, with dozens of examples like nanotechnology, power and structure.

In the 1930's Buckminster Fuller credited his innovative engineering and architechture from adapting nature's design. Benyus and colleagues are carrying Fuller's torch.

Big Ideas Video

Big Ideas Video - TVOntario A wonderful Canadian resource to discover. Here is a 6 min video that backgrounds TVOntario (TVO). They have many podcasts - video and audio. Take "Big Ideas" - here are 80 talks from interesting Canadians, including a super talk from Gwynne Dyer. Gwynne Dyer has focused his career on military matters and deserves respect for his broad and informed view. His present book and subject is "Climate Wars", outlining the impact that climate change is likely to have on international relations. Dyer focuses particularly on the military conflicts that he sees resulting from global warming. A shocking perspective in his usual direct no-compromise manner. Link to his talk - 71 minutes. Big Ideas is not yet available on iTunes Podcasts except as audio only. But on the TVO site, their is a clicker to activate your iTunes to Video subscription to Big Ideas. HERE

Gwynne expands his ideas in a series of 3 talks on CBC - Ideas. CBC Link to talks.

Shawna Pandya (shawnapandya) on Twitter

Shawna Pandya Think Twitter is a flood of triviality only? Think again. Here's a wonderful illustration of the connectedness of the next generation.
The usual serindipidous links.
Just listened to a TED lecture by Ray Kurzweil giving his usual the Singularity is coming lecture. He announced the foundation of Singularity University, with Diamondis (of X-prize fame). Checked it out. The first class is underway with 36 young people. Picked a random bio - Shawna Pandya. Currently a med student in Edmonton. Earlier degrees in Neuroscience and in Space. Just joined Twitter this month. Check out her chatter. This girl's play is another person's work! Or her summer project - "Summer vacation'09: aiming to positively impact 1 billion people in 10yrs with 40 people from 14 countries in 9wks. No pressure or anything.". Or visit another of her network places Linked In to see how a CV is done nowadays.

With Ray's new endeavor, the arrival of the Singularity in 2045 won't be such a surprise. Interesting also that Google conditioned their support to this endeavor by requiring that the new university focus not merely on high tech (as is Ray's passion), but on "humanities grand challenges". With people like Shawna they're off to a good start.

YouTube - Energy From Thorium: A Nuclear Waste Burning Liquid Salt Thorium Reactor

Kirk Sorensen's Tech Talk, delivered at Google on July 20, 2009. Nuclear has got a very bad rep. It partly deserves it. Present "peaceful use" depends upon "war material". Sorensen presents historical data to convincingly demonstrate the nearly full development of a safer nuclear power method that cannot be used for war and most of the development work is done. From the 50's and 60's.

Trust Google to sponsor the disclosure. Sad no one knows or cares about the Canadian reactor technology based on non-processed uranium. Maybe Google will discover the Candu also.

Noam Chomsky on “Crisis and Hope: Theirs and Ours”

Noam Chomsky the MIT professor, author and dissident intellectual, just turned eighty years old this past December. He has written over 100 books, but despite being called “the most important intellectual alive” by the New York Times, he is rarely heard in the corporate media. More than 2,000 people packed into Riverside Church in Harlem to hear his address. In his talk, Chomsky discussed the global economic crisis, the environment, wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, resistance to American empire and much more.

This may be one of the most informative messages from "the last dissident", who says "humanity may now be entering its endgame".

Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution"

When Stephen Hawking "speaks" the world listens. He points out the new directions of our development are now in our control. No longer reacting to environment on Darwinian terms?

Etsy :: Your place to buy and sell all things handmade

Etsy Here's a brand new idea. an on-line store just for amateur handicraft folks. A way to sell, and also a way for folks without handicraft skills to ask for bids on projects from the artists. sort of a handicraft ebay.

Robert Fisk: Battle for the Islamic Republic - Robert Fisk, Commentators - The Independent

Robert Fisk: Battle for the Islamic Republic - The Independent Robert Fisk is a rare thing nowadays - an in-the-thick of it honest reporter. A Brit who has specialized in the Middle East who won't be interviewed by CNN because of their "distorted" reporting. He has been in Iran since the contentious election. His daily articles are a sensitive notation of history rolling along. He samples the people's hope, naivite and courage. He measures the choices the big players now have. Check them out.

"What we are now seeing is a regime which is far more worried than the Supreme Leader suggested when he threatened the opposition so baldly on Friday. Having refused any serious political dialogue with Mousavi and his opposition comrades – a few district recounts will produce no real change in the result – the Iranian regime, led by a Supreme Leader who is frightened and a president who speaks like a child, is now involved in the battle for control of the streets of Iran. It is a conflict which will need the kind of miracle in which Khamenei and Ahmadinejad both believe to avoid violence." ... from Sunday 21 June.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand captures fragile Earth in wide-angle | Video on TED.com

Yann Arthus-Bertrand captures fragile Earth in wide-angle | Video on TED.com
a very special event happens tomorrow. a french photographer yann arthus-bertrand has made a film called "home" about the earth. it is being released in a couple of hours at midnight 5 june. it promises to be a significant contribution in the communication of urgency to redirect society's efforts towards a sustainable future.

this ted talk introduces that, but is primarily about hishere's his photo collection "the earth from above". some very nice aerial shots.

here's the new website for the film.
http://www.home-2009.com
here's the youtube link for the project and movie.
http://www.youtube.com/homeproject

Bolivia Rising: Document of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA) countries for the 5th Summit of the Americas

Something good. Something very positive is happening in the south. Here is a list of good ideas. Here is a patient truth telling. Here is a call to account. When the world is in severe troubles of ecology and finance and cultural conflict, here is a positive voice. As an antidote to this sensibility this piece was at the top of the google search for "Summit of the Americas". Wall Street Journal OpEd piece Americas Summit - Missed Opportunity. But I'm happy that google has no editor - whatever the people are reading is shared on search - and so we are able to see both sides of any coin. Incidentally, Bolivia Rising collects a broad spectrum of independent correspondents and translates them to English.

Playing for Change

Changing the World through Music Here's a happy project. Amateur and street musicians around the world choreographed into a song sung around the world. Just lovely. This is their website, and the navigation is a bit difficult, but worth it because of the story and background of each work and the project. So just to give you the spirit of it, here is Don't Worry as posted to youtube. At youtube you'll see other playing for change pieces, but be sure to go the the main site to see and read about the larger picture.

Don't Worry

Opinion | New "hard choices" rhetoric leads to same old budget earmarks | Seattle Times Newspaper

Earmarks One of McCain's longstanding campaigns has been to eliminate the practice of earmarks and he is one of only 13 congressmen and senators that do not practice earmarking. It is the principle reason he was known as a "maverick". This article rather ironically shows how annoyed he is that the practice continues under the new administration of "change".

Earmarking is an American method of quick payments outside of normal budget processes for unexpected and worthy local needs. But it has become a principle expression of political corruption. The people and firms that get the money do not submit to competitive bid or even surveillance. Worse it was discovered by the Seattle Times that following the earmark awards, the receivers serious political contributions to the very politicians that gave them the money - an astonishing 55.000 coorelations!

This came particularly into view a year or so ago when a reporter at the Seattle Times first found these corrupt links. His editor gave him help and set him up to do a complete research. This work was compiled into a database "The Favour Factory" that can be queried in any was for any congressman, or senator or particular earmark details. Check it out.

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | What do you get if you divide science by God?

BBC A prize-winning quantum physicist says a spiritual reality is veiled from us, and science offers a glimpse behind that veil. So how do scientists investigating the fundamental nature of the universe assess any role of God, asks Mark Vernon.

Writing in Faith

Writing in Faith i just love the serendipity of the net. but this is a bit like campbell's bliss following!

i started wanting to search for more current videos of marcus borg - hopefully some lectures. spent a half day sunday routing through the oysters of google search to find the 3 new pearls of living the questions. so i think, let's ask google to recommend a better search engine. i know, rather a paradox. but i did. i asked for video search engines and google obligingly did so - a long list. first was blinkx.com

put in marcus borg. wow. 41 hits. and they line right up and start playing in little screens. started plowing through. have the first 20, but then i see "to be" a videopoem by sandy carlson, inspired by borg "...and a bit of love". lovely.

so i chase down her site that leads here to her blog. what a busy lady. do check out her poetry. and her other endeavors are worthy as well.

Truthdig - Arts and Culture - Chalmers Johnson on the Myth of Free Trade

Bad Samaritans Another Truthdig piece. Ha-Joon Chang is a Korean economist at Cambridge (UK) that raises a critical voice against the economic principles presently running the world. This piece is a marvellously deep and educational (and long) piece in the form of a review of Chang's new book.

I found this piece searching the book title after listening to a 20 minute interview today (wed mar 11)with Chang and wanting to learn more about him. Democracy Now with Amy Goodman. You might want to check that out. Amy does a daily one hour news broadcast in the tradition of Bill Moyer. It is a rare bit of good journalism on news simply not covered in the mainstream.

Truthdig - Ear to the Ground - Saudi Woman, 75, Faces Lashing for Letting In Delivery Men

A special piece of wahabi horror. There is much fear of the fundamentalist fervour. It's hard to imagine a worse example of human behaviour than a legalism that would lash an old lady for letting the bread delivery guys into her home because they were not her relatives. Let's hope the international outcry halts this travesty.

eBooks@Adelaide: Free Web Books, Online

eBooks@Adelaide: Free Web Books, Online Australian law puts books into the public domain whose authors died in 1956. This makes available a considerable number of books that are not available in the US. A good new resource. From Tactitus to Orwell.

Stephen Lewis

Stephen Lewis Lewis addressing the Chautauqua Symposium in his usual enthusiastic way. He may well be the most emotive speaker alive today, and the cause he espouses the most needful of it.

Introduction to the Cosmic Microwave Background

In a series of easy tutorials, Wayne Hu tells the story of the CMB. Rather well done. He shows how we are bathed in primoridial light, briefs us on the strange geometry of time and distance in cosmology and shows why we need to know this stuff.

London from above, at night - The Big Picture - Boston.com

London from above, at night - The Big Picture - Boston.com Jason Hawkes shares 10 brilliant photographs of London, taken from a helicopter at night with a gyro-stabilized camera.