Consciousness: social exclusion

10 12 2014

“Mummy why do they always leave him out of the group? I don’t understand, poor little thing, he must be so sad.” – Philomena

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http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/bul/140/6/1464/





Consciousness: world giving (index)

2 12 2014
Since we live in this world, we have to do our best for this world.
Aung San Suu Kyi
 
What this world needs is a new kind of army – the army of the kind.
– Cleveland Amory 
 

2014_World_Giving_Index_Heat_Map_by_CAF

 





Heroes: Suleiman Bakhit

30 11 2014
Suleiman Bakhit in conversation with a group of Jordanian children:
 
Bakhit – Who are your heroes?
Children – We don’t have any heroes, but we hear a lot about Bin Laden, about Zarqawi…
Bakhit – What do you hear about them?
Children – That they defend us against the West because the West is out there to kill us. 

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Aranim Media Factory is the one and only comic book company in the Middle East. It provides tens of millions of Arab youth the chance to enjoy comics, manga, animation, games and films inspired by middle eastern mythologies. Aranim was created by Arab youth in cooperation with international talent with new heroes grounded in the ancient traditions of the Middle East. Using authentic Arabic art styles, themes, heroes and villains, Aranim tells thrilling stories that capture the imagination of youth around the world with a middle eastern twist. Aranim is entertainment with a purpose. Hopefully, it will change the way Arab youth see the world – and the way the world sees them:

http://www.fullyillustrated.com/portfolio/design/aranim-media-factory/

 

 





HEROES: Sgt. Myint Maung

26 11 2014

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http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/11/22/world/asia/myanmar-yangon-traffic-cop-khin-myint-maung.html?referrer=&_r=0





Consciousness: Home is where the heart… longs to be

25 11 2014
 
When you are in your home, you don’t glorify home: you don’t feel its importance and its intimacy, but when deprived of home, it turns into a need and a lust, as if it is the ultimate aim of the whole journey.
Mahmoud Darwish (1941 – 2008).
 
“Look at Athens and Sparta. Athens was an open city and Sparta kicked people out. Go and look at the ruins of Athens and Sparta now and ask which of the two cities made the greatest contribution to civilisation.” – Boris Johnson (Mayor of London)
Immigration_by_country
 
 
Philomena – Mummy, I want to go home. 
Luna [interrupting] – Which home? Greece or London?
Philomena – London, that is our proper home.
Luna – No, Greece is because this is where we are right now. This is where our family is.
Philomena – Our family is in lots of places–in America, in Bolivia, in Mexico, in Austria but London is our home because we were born in London. That’s where we’ve lived all our lives till now.
Luna – But we’re not English. We speak like English people but we’re not really English.
Philomena – Yes we are.  
Luna – No, Philomena, we’re not. And we live in Greece so this is our home. Right now, this is our home. With the turtles.
 
Poetry and exile 
works by Abdallah Benanteur, Ipek Duben, Mireille Kassar, Mona Saudi and Canan Tolon
http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/poetry_and_exile.aspx
1 October 2014 – 29 March 2015 (Free)




GOVERNANCE: are kids better than their worst acts?

20 11 2014

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http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/blog/2082/children_condemned_to_life:_in_film/





Education: in bed w Putin

4 11 2014

“In 2011 after years of resisting, the government announced that the state-owned Enlightenment would be up for sale as part of Russia’s privatisation plan…”

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Nature: U Thant, Cutie Kuti & Tom

16 10 2014

innocent when you dream

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GOVERNANCE: what do you mean continents don’t have flags?

16 10 2014

– That’s the Greek Flag, says Luna confidently pointing upward to a flag outside our local souvlaki joint. Want to have a competition about who knows more flags? – Luna (age 5)

– Ok.

– The MEXICAN flag is Green, White and Red. The British and American flags are both Blue, Red and White, but in a different way. America has stars. Bolivia has Red, Yellow and Green–does any other country have the same colours?

– Let me think. Well, Jamaica does.

– What about Africa? What’s the African flag like?

– Well Africa is a continent, not a country. There are many countries-many flags in Africa.

– What do you mean? Continents don’t have flags?

– No, I guess they don’t.

– What about the world? What’s the world flag?

– I’ll have to think about that one. Lets chat about it later.

– Okay because we need a flag to put on our moon castle.

[how about this for a flag?]

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The_Sounds_of_Earth_Record_Cover_-_GPN-2000-001978

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click images to see as Earth’s first emissary into space, is carrying a gold plaque that describes what we look like, where we are, and the date when the mission began.





FREEDOM is: forgiveness

13 10 2014

Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.

– Hannah Arendt on Freedom

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Hannah Arendt





Bolivia: Evo

12 10 2014

Not long ago, in La Paz, I asked a street soup vendor’s 11- year-old son what he wanted to be when he grew up. “President,” he said. “President like Evo.” That the son of a mujer de pollera, an urban indigenous woman, can see himself as president illustrates the seismic change in Bolivia.
Martin Sivak

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ECONOMICS: We aren’t rich, mummy. We are medium.

10 10 2014

(Dialogue with Luna, age 5)

– We aren’t rich mummy.
– Oh no? how can you be so sure?
– Well first of all, we don’t have gold around everywhere in our house and I don’t have a million gowns or anything like that hanging in my closet. Also, we are very nice to people.
– And if we were rich we wouldn’t be nice to people?
– No, we wouldn’t. Rich people aren’t usually very nice. They are rude usually because they are spoiled.
– Huh. Where did you hear that? Or do you know some rude rich people?
– No, I know this because, you see, if you have everything you want already, you don’t have to be nice to people anymore to get things you want. Because you already have EVERYTHING.
– Are YOU only nice to people because you want to get something from them?
– No. But that’s because I’m not rich. I’m medium. We’re medium–we’re not rich or poor. If we were poor–are you listening mummy? If I were poor I would HAVE to be nice to everyone, all the time. Because I would need to be helped by people. Poor people have to be extra, REALLY extra nice to other people, especially rich people, otherwise they may be stuck forever being poor. Sleeping on the street. You see what I mean?





Being Human Festival: White Flags

10 10 2014

whiteflags

The documentary explores current issues in Lebanon relating to conflictual post-war memory, ideological and sectarian divisions, socio-economic problems, and peacebuilding initiatives by individuals and organisations who seek to actively intervene in their society and rebuild trust amid the challenges and dangers of ongoing crises. It conceptually and artistically explores the importance of white flags in a country where the national flag has oftentimes had its significance stolen and where the variously coloured flags of embattled political parties have heightened tensions and divisions.

The film features interviews with psychoanalyst Chawki Azouri, journalist Jeanine Jalkh, president of ‘Memory for the Future’ association Amal Makarem, and artists-activists Raouf Rifai and Aurelien Zouki. It was completed with the participation of cinematographer and second unit director Johnny Hchaime and the production management team at The Media Trust, London. It was funded by Research Councils UK.

A discussion with the audience will follow the screening. The directors of the film, Caroline Rooney and Rita Sakr, will attend the screening to answer questions on how and why the film was made.

http://beinghumanfestival.org/event/white-flags/





FREEDOM in Vienna

7 10 2014

photo 1 photo 2 Freedom in Vienna

 

 

Die Gedanken sind frei, wer kann sie erraten,
sie fliegen vorbei wie nächtliche Schatten.
Kein Mensch kann sie wissen, kein Jäger erschießen
mit Pulver und Blei: Die Gedanken sind frei!

Ich denke was ich will und was mich beglücket,
doch alles in der Still’, und wie es sich schicket.
Mein Wunsch und Begehren kann niemand verwehren,
es bleibet dabei: Die Gedanken sind frei!

Und sperrt man mich ein im finsteren Kerker,
das alles sind rein vergebliche Werke.
Denn meine Gedanken zerreißen die Schranken
und Mauern entzwei: Die Gedanken sind frei!

Drum will ich auf immer den Sorgen entsagen
und will mich auch nimmer mit Grillen mehr plagen.
Man kann ja im Herzen stets lachen und scherzen
und denken dabei: Die Gedanken sind frei!

Ich liebe den Wein, mein Mädchen vor allen,
sie tut mir allein am besten gefallen.
Ich sitz nicht alleine bei meinem Glas Weine,
mein Mädchen dabei: Die Gedanken sind frei!





An escape from FREEDOM: the men who don’t fit in

3 10 2014

“He characterizes the progress toward the overman as proceeding through three stages. First is the stage of the camel, where we renounce comfort and discipline ourselves harshly. Second is the stage of the lion, where we defiantly assert our independence. Third is the stage of the child, where we find a new innocence and creativity. Achieving this stage is like reaching the summit of a mountain: we can look down on everything around us and find lightness and laughter rather than seriousness and struggle. To become overmen, we must isolate ourselves from the mob.”

Thus Spake Zarathustra

“Every man must think after his own fashion; for on his own path he finds a truth, or a kind of truth, which helps him through life. But he must not give himself the rein; he must control himself; mere naked instinct does not become him.”

– Goethe

The Men Who Don’t Fit In

By Robert W. Service

There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,
A race that can’t stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain’s crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don’t know how to rest.
If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they’re always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: “Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!”
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It’s the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that’s dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life’s been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He’s a rolling stone, and it’s bred in the bone;

He’s a man who won’t fit in.

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Beauty is watching people come together through dance

29 09 2014

“As I watched the seagulls, I thought: That’s the road to take; find the absolute rhythm and follow it with absolute trust.” 

“We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm.” 

– Nikos Kazantzakis, Zorba the Greek 





The economic case for paternity leave

25 09 2014

“Society is a mirror of the family, the only way to achieve equality in society is to achieve equality in the home.” – Bengt Westerberg





FREEDOM flashing

25 09 2014

Freedom contains the mystery of the world. God wanted freedom, and from this came the tragedy of the world. – Nikolai Berdyaev

No one is free; even the birds are chained to the sky. – Bob Dylan 

 

Philomena – Mami, when am I going to be free to do whatever I want?

Mummy– What do you mean? What would you like to do that you don’t do already?

Philomena – I don’t get to choose anything. Not even what I eat.

Mummy – Are you kidding? You have so much more choice than I ever had as to what you eat.

Philomena – Maybe I have more choice than you but that doesn’t mean I can choose what I want. I don’t get to choose anything. I have to go to school. I have to eat pasta with cheese sauce even though it makes me gag  just smelling it.

Mummy – Once every few weeks they serve you pasta with cheese sauce.

Philomena – But I hate it. It makes me sick. And no one listens to me about it. I’ve asked politely a million times. It is not respectful not to listen. I am perfectly happy to eat the pasta but not the sauce. It is absolutely terrible to be a child sometimes. I can’t wait to grow up so that I can do whatever I want.

Mummy – Believe me Philomena, growing older doesn’t necessarily grant you the freedom to do whatever you want. You will always be fighting for your freedom (and the freedom of others) in one way or another—you will fight for the freedom to do what you want, live where you want, behave the way you want, love what you want, freedom to change the world around you, to make the world a better place, it is always a battle. Participating in that battle, that struggle, it’s what makes us human. Fortunately, what also makes us human is our imagination. The only place you are ever truly free is in your mind. Freedom is your creative force. And even that takes some practice. I promise you, your mind at age 7 is a whole lot freer than my mind at age 40.

http://keystotherain.net/music/ChimesofFreedom.mp3

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AGAPE: Dancing a Waltz of Peace

18 09 2014




Governance: By Blood

18 09 2014

My brother’s documentary film, “By Blood” will premiere at the New Orleans Film Festival, Saturday October 18th.

By Blood chronicles Native Americans of African descent, or Freedmen, as they battle to regain their tribal citizenship. The film explores the impact of this battle, which has manifested into a broader conflict about race, identity, and the sovereign rights of indigenous people. The film demonstrates both sides of the battle, the shared emotional impact of the issue, and the rising urgency of the debate: a Native American and African American history has been overlooked, and a tribal body feels as though their sovereignty is under siege. 

You can purchase tickets here: http://neworleansfilmsociety.org/festival/page/59/TicketsPasses

Watch trailer here: http://www.bybloodthefilm.com/bybloodtrailer/

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