Republic of Lakota = Lakota Oyate

I got this email from a friend recently...I am just sharing it with you all...
Less than a month has gone by since some Lakota people announced their re-assertion of sovereignity as either Lakota Oyate http://www.lakotaoyate.net/index.html or the Republic
of Lakotah http://www.republicoflakotah.com/. Everything I read about the situation looks like it could use a stiff infusion of intentional communication and social design. Is anyone following this or interested, and does anyone see this as a festering opportunity for us to roll up our sleeves and do something revolutionary?
the email ends here.
What do you think about this my dear friends...i had no idea this was going on within the U.S...and how many such individual movements are going on around us that we have no idea about..??
Let us keep our eyes open to the world around us instead of confining ourselves to the system that surrounds us...the internet is the new social consciousness and it is time we 'see' the world as it is...and not what it appears to be..!
But personally on this topic of countries wanting to separate from each other, I feel there should come a day when all of them want to unite as a single EARTH...it should not be 'us' and 'them'...but a complete "WE"!!!

Are you Bored???

After waking up this morning and doing a bit of browsing, reading, writing, eating, browsing,reading and reading, walking, playing with my kitty...i felt bored...and typed these words on the google search engine..."WHAT TO DO"....and yes! i am serious i typed that....
i invite you all to do that and some beautiful soul has opened a website called www.bored.com
What can i say?? It actually made my day!
To think that someone has taken enough care to think about people's boredom...and ways to end it!!
So much of fun stuff to browse within the site...there are a bunch of Crazy and Funny Billboards from all over the world.
There are CRAZY THOUGHTS, HUMOR Etc...
If you get bored...once a while...you now know what to do?? That is...only if you aren't bored of the computer and the Internet!!

OPEN CONTENT ALLIANCE-Libraries going open!

Imagine a world where each human can have access to information from books, no matter where on earth he or she is! Open Content Alliance is striving to get the books from libraries in universities, online, for each of us to access...the abundant information that would be possible will enable us to view the world with endless possibilities...and alternatives...
This would also unite a lot of elements which are disjointed from each other..in this world..in the current system!
A new consciousness would evolve bringing us together and giving meaning to the yet unrealized phrase - WE ARE ALL CONNECTED!!!

What is the Open Content Alliance?

The Open Content Alliance (OCA) represents the collaborative efforts of a group of cultural, technology, nonprofit, and governmental organizations from around the world that will help build a permanent archive of multilingual digitized text and multimedia content. Content in the OCA archive will be accessible soon through this website and through Yahoo!

The OCA will encourage the greatest possible degree of access to and reuse of collections in the archive, while respecting the content owners and contributors. Contributors to the OCA must agree to the principles set forth in the Call for Participation.

Building a Digital Archive of Global Content for Universal Access.
For further details please visit: http://www.opencontentalliance.org/
http://www.openlibrary.org/details/oca_test_004
This movie was commissioned by Internet Archive for the 2007 Open Content Alliance meeting held on October 17, 2007. click here for the movie

HOLE-IN-THE-WALL Project - A new way to learn!

A typical Learning station

"Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion has no hold on the mind. Therefore do not use compulsion, but let early education be rather a sort of amusement." - Plato.

The driving force behind Hole-in-the-Wall is the the concept of Minimally Invasive Education which is truly path breaking. That children could learn on their own, was something not many people would have imagined and that too in such a cost effective manner with benefits like improved group dynamics, better in-class behavior etc.
Minimally Invasive Education is defined as a pedagogic method that uses the learning environment to generate an adequate level of motivation to induce learning in groups of children, with minimal, or no, intervention by a teacher.

Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

Hole-in-the-Wall is one such idea, which offers the world a surprisingly fresh perspective on the learning process. Breaking the traditional confines of a school, Hole-in-The-Wall Education Limited (HiWEL) takes the Learning Station to the playground, employs a unique collaborative learning approach and encourages children to explore, learn and just enjoy!

As a concept, Hole-in-the-Wall has multiple dimensions and a potential which is virtually limitless. What it offers someone depends on the perspective one is looking from.

For experts, like Nicholas Negroponte of MIT, Hole-in-the-Wall is a ‘Shared Blackboard’ which children in underprivileged communities can collectively own and access, to express themselves, to learn, to explore together, and at some stage to even brainstorm and come up with exciting ideas.

For villagers, it is more like a village Well, where children assemble to draw knowledge and, in the process, engage in meaningful conversation and immersive learning activities that broaden their horizons.

And finally for children, it is an extension of their playground where they can play together, teach each other new things, and more importantly, just be themselves.

for more information please click here.
http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/education-challenge.html
Courtesy:HOLE-IN-THE-WALL
Picture Courtesy: Holeinthewall.com

What do you think the children learn from a place like this?? Have any of you actually seen one? please do let us know your experience, if you have come across one hole-in-the-wall computer.
Here is one article by Dan Simmons from the BBC news who writes about the project.
Something new has arrived at this slum on the outskirts of Delhi and it is exciting the locals.Most people at Vivekananda Camp had never touched or used a computer. Then three came along at once. for more click here

A few quotes your way...

Your Thoughts Build Your Life

What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday,
and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: Our life
is the creation of our mind.
The Buddha

Stay Positive

I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can't make it through one door, I'll go through another door - or I'll make a door. Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.

Rabindranath Tagore

Positive Action

Welcome every morning with a smile. Look on the new day as another special gift from your Creator, another golden opportunity to complete what you were unable to finish yesterday. Be a self-starter. Let your first hour set the theme of success and positive action that is certain to echo through your entire day. Today will never happen again. Don't waste it with a false start or no start at all. You were not born to fail. Og Mandino

One Positive Thought

It takes but one positive thought, when given a chance to survive and thrive, to overpower an entire army of negative thoughts.
Robert H. Schuller

Courtesy:Lucy MacDonald

A POSITIVE PEOPLE'S NETWORK

What does being Positive mean to you??
If you were to say something positive to a fellow human being, what would it be??
Do you think staying positive makes a difference? If YES, why?? and If NO why??

These are some of the questions we intend to ask anyone we see...anywhere..
give it a shot, ask people what they think about being positive and take down a few answers and post it to us...
We are in the process of starting a network of people who will come together and spread all the positivity they can in this largely chaotic and negative world where a majority of us still struggle for basic things like food and shelter...and where more than a normal majority struggle just to stay positive and Happy!
join us in this venture of making this world and universe a positive place to live on!!

Trafficked

Ordinary street, hidden horror. A trafficked woman was moved between three Cardiff brothels, one in West Bute Street, pictured above. Forced to see seven clients a day, her earnings were split between traffickers and brothel owners. David Rose / Panos Pictures

Behind the doors of ordinary-seeming flats, houses, hotels, a brutal form of modern slavery is taking place. And it’s happening worldwide. Vanessa Baird wonders why – and what can be done about it.

When I was 23, I responded to an ad that read: ‘Go-Go Girl Wanted.’

To be honest, I was not altogether sure what was meant by ‘go-go girl’. But I went – got the job and started straight away.

The hours were nine-to-five – the other nine, the other five. The pay wasn’t great, but I needed the money. I was living in Athens at the time and language-teaching opportunities had dried up as the long summer began. My rent was due in a few days’ time.

All I had to do, said the disco-bar owner – a balding Greek named Ringo – was talk to customers. That’s all. Talk to them and encourage them to buy drinks. And sometimes dance with them.

If I wanted to leave the establishment with a customer before the night was up, the latter would have to buy a bottle of champagne.

I didn’t see why I should want to do that.

I’ve been thinking about this interlude in my life quite a bit recently. And it fills me with horror.

Not because the experience was gruesome or exploitative, shameful or even regrettable – it was none of these. But because many of the young women who appear in the pages of this issue of the magazine did what I did: answered an ad in a paper and went for a job that might be a bit dodgy, because they needed the money.

The advertisement that Louisiana, a 26-year-old from Lithuania, responded to was innocuous by comparison. It was for cleaning and catering jobs in Britain. She travelled to England with a man from the job agency. ‘I had my own passport. But when we arrived he took my passport away and more...
Original article featured in NEW INTERNATIONAL September 2007, Issue 404.
Courtesy: New International

Intima-seeee!!

With Love & Laughter - Jo Wilding!

Inspired by the momentary relief given to a severely wounded Iraqi child by the poking of a soap bubble, British blogger and activist Jo Wilding decides on an unlikely course of action. She'll bring a circus to the children of Iraq.

Improbable as it seems, she gathers an international crew of jugglers and clowns and spends three months in 2004 stilt-walking in schools, streets and community centers all over Iraq.

In a country with virtually no mental health facilities, she brings the only medicine she can – laughter. If this sounds frivolous, it isn't. As one father says of his shell-shocked son after a performance, "This is the first time I've seen him laugh like that – from the insides – since before the war."

Along the way, Wilding interviews everyone she can. Unembedded, unofficial, she goes where the media silence is loudest (including the battle of Fallujah) and unearths the agonized testimony of bereaved parents, unpaid, under-equipped doctors, ambulance-drivers, wounded children and even former Baathist officials.

Her ability to summon these scenes and nimbly describe their contexts in efficient, lyric prose surely places her beside George Orwell and Michael Herr (Dispatches) as one of the great war chroniclers of our time.

Don't Shoot The Clowns is an extraordinary and necessary document for anyone who wants to get a sense of the true human cost of the Iraq war, but it is more than that – a testament to and inspiration for those who seek to revive and rejuvenate a human spirit battered by shock and awe, attrition and insanity.

Wilding and her cohorts exhibit a quality too seldom in evidence these days: courage.

Courtesy: NOW Magazine

The healing touch of ALMOND!

I remember eating almonds that were soaked overnight in water,right after waking up...my mother used to feed us once a while in the mornings.She used to say they were for brain power and maintenance of a good glowing skin...
Just recently while trying to read for some articles on the healing touch of Indian Spices...I came across details about Almonds which I want to share with all of you...
though the world of Indian spices are like a universe filled with vital information, I cannot introduce you to all of them...with the advent of the internet, I am sure you can take the time if you need to know about all of them.
I just wanted to give you a few tips on the ALMOND.

It is not entirely without reason that almonds are priced higher than their country cousins, the peanuts. Their nutritive value as well as functional importance in keeping the human body supple, beautiful and healthy, is unsurpassed in the nut kingdom, if one may use the term.
Nearly cholesterol free and abundant in high quality, highly absorb-able protein, almonds provide almost no useless material to the body. Their high mono-saturated fats (that fight bad cholesterol) and dietary fiber content make them easy to digest, provides heat in the body and also ensure no excess oils, like the peanut.

for more on Almonds click here.
and here is some more information from Wikipedia