Rafael Aguilar always wanted to make a difference, and for more than two years the he has done just that in eastern Europe. On Monday, the 25-year-old returned to Bregovo, Bulgaria, where he has been teaching English to students in grades 1 through 12, to extend his stay for a third - and final - year as a Peace Corps volunteer. He plans to continue working toward improving his students’ understanding of the English language. Aguilar’s return to the village of 1,500 residents that he has called home since 2009 comes weeks after he made a star appearance on X Factor Bulgaria singing in Bulgarian. [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb
on Oct 11, 2011 -
13 comments
Last year, the unofficial Dean of the White House Press Corps,
Helen Thomas, spoke about the State of Israel on camera.
(Previously) Her
replies:
"Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine," and that the Jews
"can go home" to
"Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else," sparked media
outrage, prompted her to issue an apology and
retire. After months of being out of the the public spotlight, she has now given
her first long-form interview, which will appear in the April issue of Playboy Magazine. In it, she explains what she meant, tells us how she would like to be remembered and expands upon her positions regarding Israel, Jewish political influence, Presidents Bush and Obama, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
posted by zarq
on Mar 22, 2011 -
224 comments
Can Metal, specifically Iron Maiden, cross cultural boundaries
and help build world peace? So asks Mark LeVine in AlJazeera. When some of the biggest names in Metal during the 80s performed at
the Moscow Peace Festival in 1989 lots of critics gave a shrug. Iron Maiden, which has a following the world over, could be part of an unsung musical movement that is providing home for a community that crosses national and cultural lines.
posted by kmartino
on Mar 6, 2011 -
38 comments
Deacon Dodge has a couple of posts (
here and
here) about religion, freedom and democracy amid the turmoil of Egypt.
[more inside]
posted by KMH
on Feb 4, 2011 -
4 comments
An internationally recognized Kanien'kehaka (Mohwak) intellectual and political advisor, Taiaiake Alfred is well known for his incisive critiques and groundbreaking work in the fields of Indigenous governance and political philosophy.
In the past, Taiaiake has served as an advisor on land and governance and cultural restoration issues for many indigenous governments and organizations, and he has authored several important books including Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom and Peace, Power, Righteousness. Currently, Taiaiake serves as a Professor of Indigenous Governance at the University of Victoria.
Recorded March 23, 2009 at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, University of Victoria Professor of Indigenous Governance; a broad, deep, and beautiful discussion of pathways toward the future for indigenous people, Gerald Taiaiake Alfred talks about the “Resurgence of Traditional Ways of Being: Indigenous Paths of Action and Freedom” [more inside]
posted by infinite intimation
on Oct 26, 2010 -
14 comments
Postcards From Hell — For the last half-decade, the
Fund for Peace, working with Foreign Policy, has been putting together the
Failed States Index (the 2010 version is out), using a battery of indicators to determine how stable—or unstable—a country is. But as the photos here demonstrate, sometimes the best test is the simplest one: You'll only know a failed state when you see it.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Jun 25, 2010 -
16 comments
Peace and War in the 20th Century is an ambitious, in progress, massive assemblage of posters, photographs, propaganda, ephemera, letters, diaries, paintings, sketches, stories, letters, music and related items, from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The collection is international in scope. Some of the nodes lack content, and the navigation is a little confusing, so the jump I list some of my favourite case studies from their site.
[more inside]
posted by Rumple
on Jan 2, 2009 -
4 comments
Silent Night in
English,
German,
Irish,
Arapaho,
Czech,
Italian,
Finnish,
Russian,
Hungarian,
Swedish,
Norwegian,
Portuguese,
Japanese,
French,
Spanish and
another 120 languages. The official song of the
Christmas truce.
[more inside]
posted by twoleftfeet
on Dec 11, 2008 -
26 comments
"Can Facebook defeat terrorism?" wonders
Matt Armstrong. A
conference of both web and social entrepreneurs, policy wonks, and activists will convene to create a how-to guide for changing the world through social networking tools. Jared
"Children of Jihad" Cohen was a driving force behind the initiative. We've seen social networking
impact an election, while others are already trying
to change the world with it. This conference, while exciting and important, raises a few questions. Just look at the list who's convening it:
"Facebook, Google, YouTube, MTV, Howcast, Columbia Law School and the U.S. Department of State Convene the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit." [more inside]
posted by cal71
on Nov 20, 2008 -
27 comments
I Met the Walrus In 1969, 14-year-old Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. This is the whimsically animated film that Jerry has produced about the interview.
posted by milestogo
on Jul 6, 2008 -
26 comments
Pax Corleone Americana? "Can any of the candidates vying to become the next president of the United States match Michael’s cool, dispassionate courage in the face of epochal change? Will they avoid living in the comforting embrace of the past, from which both Tom and Sonny ultimately could not escape? Or will they emulate Michael’s flexibility—to preserve America’s position in a dangerous world?"
The Godfather as metaphor.
posted by amyms
on Apr 28, 2008 -
36 comments
Performance Artist Killed on Peace Trip. Pippa Bacca, performance artist, and friend wearing white wedding dresses, planned to hitchhike from Italy to the Balkans to the Middle East to send a message of peace and “marriage between different peoples and nations.” After three weeks on the road, Pippa Bacca was killed by a driver who offered her a ride. Her naked body was found and local authorities said Ms. Bacca had been raped and strangled.
posted by semmi
on Apr 21, 2008 -
106 comments
Do you remember those days when mom and dad used to pack you up in the back of the station wagon and drive you to
grandma's and grandpa's? Or when you were a dreamer with nothing else on your mind but to escape from the
one street town to the big city? Have you ever dreamed of
going back, maybe to settle down, get in touch with your roots, and start a new life for yourself. Well,
here's your chance. Why not just
get up and do it this time. Sure, it's not going to be easy, but maybe it's the change you've been
looking for. On the other hand, maybe not, so be advised. But whatever you decide, it sure does look like a
way of life that does hold a lot of potential.
[more inside]
posted by hadjiboy
on Apr 11, 2008 -
42 comments
So, you're planning to take a trip around the world, are you? Well, in that case--you'll need to know a couple of things before you leave (in order not to offend the sensibilities of the local population). Let's see--suppose you're making your way through
Azerbaijan for example, and your host happens to be a businessman who is about to embark on a journey to the city: what would you do to give him the appropriate send off? Would you:
- a) Bid him farewell and shake his hand.
- b) Dance in front of him and do a traditional jig that everyone else is doing in order to ward off evil spirits.
- c) Throw a bowl of water in his wake.
Don't know, well, that's okay.
[more inside]
posted by hadjiboy
on Apr 9, 2008 -
25 comments
YouTube in partnership with The Davos Forum has established a great "contest" although I don't think of it like that. YouTubers are asked to submit a video answering the question "What one thing do you think that countries, companies or individuals must do to make the world a better place in 2008?" I thought a long time about the question, and then, after approaching Mayor Gavin Newsom to be in the video, then getting caught up against deadlines, I had the answer: to end racism around the World. Here's
the video. Here's Emma Thompson's
response.
posted by nickyskye
on Jan 27, 2008 -
35 comments
The greybeards of the U.S. foreign policy establishment have spoken out to the Bush Administration telling it what it needs to do to have a successful Mideast peace summit: advocate a return to '67 borders, Jerusalem as capital of two states, solution of refugee problem with financial compensation to Palestinians, security guarantees for Israel.
Signatories of the statement include Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft, Nancy Kassebaum, Carla Hills, Thomas Pickering, Ted Sorensen and Paul Volcker. A pretty formidable bunch.
[more inside]
posted by richards1052
on Oct 16, 2007 -
87 comments
The Right Livelihood Award "celebrates and supports people of vision. People who have ideas and apply them in concrete initiatives for the public good. They give hope for tomorrow, for a world in peace and balance. They demonstrate how we can overcome oppression, war, poverty, the destruction of our environment, and a widespread sense of meaninglessness and fear."
posted by homunculus
on Oct 3, 2007 -
6 comments
An Israeli porn site is trying to promote peace through pornography, and has succeeded in
getting surfers from Arab countries that normally
block access to all Israeli sites. Specializing in pornography with political themes,
Ratuv is part of an industry that features
Jewish, Israeli Arab, and Druze actors and plenty of political tension. The most popular downloads from Arab countries
is apparently an X-rated parody of the kidnapping of nuclear scientist Mordechai Vanunu, though pictures of women of the IDF are also popular. Salman Rushdie has noted the power of pornography in the Muslim world,
arguing that pornography is vital to freedom in his essay,
The East is Blue.
[All links are worksafe to major mainstream news sources, except potentially the fourth link, which goes to Nerve].
posted by blahblahblah
on Sep 3, 2007 -
53 comments
We have lost on the way the lesson of living together,
We are now even scared of each other.
They are others whose faces are on your hands,
Your hurts are a deep sea -- our wounds are deep.
The stories that are being spread in our names are lies,
This is not us.
Words of a Pakistani pop song Yeh Hum Naheen [This is not us] hitting the charts, attempting to
spread the message that all muslims are not terrorists,
story via Salon.
"
Produced and written by a British Muslim, Waseem Mahmood, at the request of his two sons, "
Yeh Hum Naheen" offers a welcome counterpoint to the images of troops storming the Red Mosque, or fundamentalist mullahs preaching jihad. But the key to the song's success lies neither in its production values or deft depictions of average Pakistanis going about their daily lives, but in its heartfelt expression of pain. "
posted by infini
on Aug 25, 2007 -
26 comments
