Of radicals and resurgence...

A little excerpt from one of the many ramblings...

"There are a lot of things that's making me feel alive. I'd think twice about saying this out loud, but i think i'm evolving into a state which makes my foundational philosophies question literally just about everything. the basis of everything we've learned.

No specific goals in the horizon but this time i feel, is a time for revolutions, not of the gun-trotting kind but of something more infectious...more viral...more in times with the 'now' where everyone feels the need for change but not sure how to go about it. but i feel energized, a sort of resurgence within, which we hope to spread through the ideas within. for right now, thots are being made into celluloid reality through radical means for that is the way to go.

now i feel is a time, where non-conformism is the new conformism, where the darkness of shadow is the presence of light somewhere close, where the unheard voices will be heard, where the mind is without fear. coz that is the only way to break out of this godamn prison the humans have created for themselves. the alienation, the desperation for something as basic as love, the feeling of helpless doom where the soul is cornered into a seemingly irreversible blackhole. "

A place of my own!

A place to call my own in this universe...
Do I need to reassure myself that I am an inevitable part..?
whether I try to secure a place or not..
i will have one no matter what!
when will realize this?

The girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes!!

This is what gives me hope about the forth coming generations...

Calling all fellow HUMANS positively!!!

POSITIVE PEOPLE TODAY IS HERE FOR ALL!!
TO SPREAD THE POSITIVITY IN THE WORLD..AROUND YOU!!!
Well, here are the details of the much awaited website for the non-profit we have started..
this is a very good venue for us in our journey..PPT(positive people today) as we call it..is an official non-profit organization from october 2007..and we have started this to spread positivity in the minds of people..!!
But, we are initially trying to spread the word around..
we are also going to use PPT as a platform for the world children's forum..
so, please register at the site and start adding articles..also any friends of yours could join this, add articles and positive energy to this..we will soon form a positive people's network where all of us will get together and spread love in the world..also upload your pictures/ art work /photographic skills to the gallery....
so go to PPT here from the link below..
www.positivepeopletoday.org
please do the registration and go through the whole website..pls also give us a review and tell me if the site is user friendly...
..pls spread the word..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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 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

India, Pakistan - No Borders?

Can this ever happen? Although it seems like it's wishful thinking now, I think there is a possibility of that happening maybe two or three generations down. Well, I'm not saying this outta the blue, but look at the Yahoo article as on Dec.21st, 2007.

Nine mainly ex-East bloc countries on Friday tore down their borders to join a European zone allowing 400 million people to travel from Estonia in the east to Portugal in the west without showing a passport.
"The free movement of people is one of the main rights of human beings," European Commission president Jose Manuel Barrosso said as he hailed the addition of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia to 15 other states already in the Schengen Treaty zone. Many European leaders have welcomed the pulling down of internal frontiers as a new sign of the continent overcoming its Cold War division.

When one part of the world can tear down their boundaries like this, why can't other parts of the world be like it too. And I'm not just talking about India and Pakistan here, that was just to illustrate a point. Ofcourse it comes with its own fears and insecurities, but a belief and hope is all what we need to make it happen.

Germany's GdP police union warned Thursday that the extension of the Schengen zone eastwards could unleash a crime wave. The lifting of border controls with Poland and the Czech Republic in particular was "an invitation to criminals," union chief Josef Scheuring said.
Many Austrians also fear higher crime, according to a poll released by ORF public television poll which said 75 percent of Austrians opposed the lifting of barriers.
In Warsaw, the head of the EU's border watchdog, Frontex, Ilkka Laitinen, warned that illegal immigration would be the price Europe paid for Schengen expansion.
Once people enter the zone, whether legally or otherwise, they would be free to move across all member states, he said.

Check out the response, where it's clear that people truly want to give peace, trust and understanding a chance.

Nevertheless, political leaders were eager to play down such fears.
Schengen "is not about criminality, it is not about insecurity or fear. It is a bigger zone of peace, security and stability," the Austrian chancellor said.
The expansion has taken years of preparation, with newcomers obliged to join the Schengen Information System (SIS), which provides police and customs officers with information about people, vehicles or goods.
The 15 older signatories to the treaty were: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.

Here's the full article from Yahoo: "Europe celebrates tearing down of borders"

Lead by example!!

This is a very simple video of how you can be the change and do something about a situation instead of complaining and doing nothing about it. Anyone can be our teacher...so what are we waiting for??

Documentary clip on Summer School for Designing a Society

This is the initial 3 minutes of the documentary I did on the summer school I attended at Gesundheit for the School for Designing a Society...if you need a copy of this movie please contact Rob Scott

Composing Utopia with words

Articipatory Music and other weird things by Jessica Corey-Butler

Last weekend Articipatory Music happened at the Olympia Community Free School during “A giant party for a better world,” the Love, Imagine, Network, Kindness (LINK) Symposium, an extension of “A World Beyond Capitalism,” The Third Annual International Multiracial Alliance Building Peace Conference. An activist folk music collective called Riotfolk performed and a Secret Café fund raiser was held, benefiting a residential permaculture project. And eight people created compositions, but not made out of notes and played on flutes and guitars.

Huh?

Articipatory Music was an idea originally born when it’s facilitator (and creator) Michael Gaiuranos attended a summer session with the School for Designing a Society, held on Patch Adam’s Gesundheit! Institute in West Virginia.

Initially, Gaiuranos thought he was going there to compose music with the experimental musicians associated with cybernetics.

The second time he attended the school, he recalls, “I knew I was aiming for something else.” He credits the school for “encouraging me to do weird things.”

As such, he feels his extrapolation of one exercise he had learned where participants composed responses, one inane and one an elaborate ideal, and then negotiated within larger groups.

“That was the really really really interesting part,” Gaiuranos remembers, adding, “How do you negotiate your Utopia?”

would you like to read more and more....?

Designing Freedom - Stafford Beer

This is a part of the collection of articles under the title READINGS THAT MATTER TO ME which was suggested by the School for Designing a Society.
This excerpt is from the article Designing Freedom by Stafford Beer
1. The Real Threat to “All We Hold Most Dear”
The little house where I have come to live alone for a few weeks sits on the edge of a steep hill in a quiet village on the western coast of Chile. Huge majestic waves roll into the bay and crash magnificently over the rocks, sparkling white against the green sea under a winter sun. It is for me a time of peace, a time to clear the head, a time to treasure.
For after all, such times are rare events for today’s civilized man. We spend our days boxed in
our houses, swarming in and out of office blocks like tribes of ants, crammed into trains, canned in aeroplanes, locked solid in traffic jams on the freeway. Our unbiblical concern for what we shall eat, what we shall drink, and what we shall put on is amplified and made obsessional by the pressure to consume—way, way beyond the natural need. All this is demanded by the way we have arranged our economy. And the institutions we have built to operate that economy, to safeguard ourselves, protect our homes, care for and educate our families, have all grown into large and powerful pieces of social machinery which suddenly seem not so much protective as actually threatening.
Mankind has always been in battle with his environment. But until quite recently in history his
battles were on a reasonable scale, a human scale.
For more on Designing Freedom click here.

GARBAGE Dreams - Short film!

Egypt’s resident garbage recyclers, the Zaballeen, struggle as Cairo modernizes its waste disposal system.

Question I posted on Dropping Knowledge...

What would happen if everyone in the world were paid equally for any job they did? Would that put Money and equality in place??

I think if all were paid the same for any profession, job, there would be freedom to do whatever you wanted to do, whatever you were interested in doing. However, it might also stifle seeking a higher potential and a higher reward. As far as making all peoples equal, I don't think that would happen until societal groups cease thinking they are better than another group. The Human Being is very judgmental still.

by marianne

You make a good point but you also need to consider that many people will simply not work if they get paid the same. There would be less motivation to be great as you pointed out but there is also much less motivation to at least be average. Often this is what destroys communism that refuse to force citizens to work. This makes communisms either doomed or a society of forced labor.

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Can your Film change the World??? PANGEA DAY!

Mountaintop Removal or Life-on-Earth Removal???

Mountaintop removal mining (MTR) is a form of coal mining in which up to 1,000 vertical feet of a mountain are blasted away to get to the thin coal seams underneath. MTR requires that the targeted land be clear-cut and then blasted by heavy use of explosives. The debris created is typically scraped into the adjacent river valleys in what is called a valley fill. Most mountaintop removal for more click here to wikipedia.org
Mountaintop mining is basically high-altitude strip mining. Enormous machines scrape away the ridges to get at the coal seams below. The residual rock and dirt are then dumped or carted down the mountainside into nearby valleys and streams. By one estimate, this serial decapitation of Appalachia’s coal-rich hills has already buried 1,200 miles of streams while damaging hundreds of square miles of forests. for more click here...
What are we waiting for?? When there are so many things we can try and stop...
Try to figure out what and where your purpose in this lifetime is...and then act accordingly...please help save the planet and its beings in some way or the other...make a difference somewhere!!
For other resources on Mountaintop Removal and how to take action...
http://www.stopmountaintopremoval.org/
http://www.blackdiamondsmovie.com/
http://www.ilovemountains.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountaintop_removal_mining

Stories from Peace Tree Spirit Blog !!

These stories are from kids who participated in the WWPCS and their blog site called PEACE TREE SPIRIT...

Story 1:
Hello! Ni Hao! Today I want to share a story I experienced in China when I was a little girl.
Unfortunately, there is a long history between Japan and China, and many older generations don’t like Japan. Even the smallest part of it.When I was in China, I was a little angry after I heard about Japan. I still remember that scary unbelievable moment.
“What are you folding, Kalin?” Asked my old homeroom teacher. “A paper crane from Japan. It represents peace, right?” My teacher’s face suddenly looked very angry. She pushed my hands away...
for more click here http://peacetreespirit.blogspot.com/2007/03/blog-post.html

Story:2
Hello, my name is Israa. I’m from Palestine. I like Canada very much because there is a lot o fighting in Palestine. Everyday, I was scared to live in Palestine. I couldn’t go outside to play, I couldn’t walk on the street because I would always be afraid. I would be killed. But here in Canada, everyone is free and...
for more click here Canada Means PEACE

Story:3
Hi, salaam alaykom everybody. My name is Anas, I’m from Palestine. I came to Canada on June 5th, 2006.
When I was in Palestine, one day my friend told me: “Come with me to write on the wall about Israeli soldiers. But I refused because I didn’t think it was a good idea. I remember when...
For more click here From Palestine to Canada