7/13/24 - positive thinking
7/13/24 - Eastern proverbs
7/9/24 - advice from centenarians
7/9/24 - Einstein's rules of life
6/26/24 - forgiveness
Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts
Saturday, July 13, 2024
Thursday, September 21, 2023
spiritual wisdom
In 1445, Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type, individual letters that could be moved around a printing press to change what words were transferred to the blank page. Empowered by this revolutionary technology, he printed the very first book ever published: the Bible. Before the printing press, monks painstakingly hand-copied every edition of the Bible, often taking three years or more to complete the task. Gutenberg could produce 180 copies of the book in the same amount of time.
After Arabic movable type was produced, the first printed edition of the Quran rolled off the presses in Venice, Italy, and was exported to the Ottoman Empire in 1538. By the early 1800s, Hindu scripts were likewise being mass-produced. As religions the world over embraced Gutenberg’s invention, sacred books became more available, and less expensive, than ever before.
For centuries, religious texts were often the only books in a household. Children learned to read by tracing their fingers down the pages, and in the evenings families would convene to hear stories of faith, love, and devotion. Collected here from a variety of religious texts are words of deep wisdom from cultures around the world, made ubiquitously available online through technology that Gutenberg never could have dreamed possible.
***
When there is harmony between the mind, heart, and resolution, then nothing is impossible.
~ Rig Veda
Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.
~ The Bible, James 3:13
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
~ Tao Te Ching
Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.
~ Tao Te Ching
Monday, October 12, 2020
watching the news may be hazardous to your health
Of the many ideas from Eastern religion and philosophy that have permeated Western thinking, the second “noble truth” of Buddhism arguably shines the greatest light on our happiness—or lack thereof. Samudaya, as this truth is also known, teaches that attachment is the root of human suffering. To find peace in life, we must be willing to detach ourselves and thus become free of sticky cravings.
This requires that we honestly examine our attachments. What are yours? Money, power, pleasure, prestige? Dig deeper: Just maybe, they are your opinions. The Buddha himself named this attachment and its terrible effects more than 2,400 years ago in the Aṭṭhakavagga Sutta, when he is believed to have said, “Those attached to perception and views roam the world offending people.” More recently, the Vietnamese Buddhist sage Thích Nhất Hạnh wrote in his book Being Peace, “Humankind suffers very much from attachment to views.”
As the election season heats up, many Americans are attached to their opinions—especially their political ones—as if they were their life’s savings; they obsess over their beliefs like lonely misers, and lash out angrily when they are threatened. This is the source of much suffering, for the politically obsessed and everyone else.
Fortunately, there are solutions.
Little research has been conducted on the direct links between happiness and one’s attention to politics. The indirect evidence, however, is not encouraging. For example, Dutch researchers in 2017 conducted a study on how hard news that tends to provide a political perspective affects well-being. They found that on average, well-being falls 6.1 percent for every additional television hard news program watched a week. They explained this by noting the dominance of negative stories on such programs, and the powerlessness viewers might feel in the face of all that bad news. It’s difficult to imagine that stories about political news in America would have any less of a negative impact—especially given how fraught and contentious United States politics is now.
In
an attempt to see more clearly how attention to politics is directly
associated with life satisfaction, I conducted an analysis using 2014
data from the General Social Survey.
After controlling for household income, education, age, gender, race,
marital status, and political views, I found that people who were “very
interested in politics” were about 8 percentage points more likely to be
“not very happy” about life than people who were “not very interested”
in politics.
The
Dutch researchers’ point about negativity and powerlessness might play a
role here, but something even more important might be happening. I
believe that today’s partisan climate, media polarization, and constant political debates are interfering directly with the fuel of happiness, which is love.
To
begin with, our growing focus on politics is driving what social
scientists call “political homophily,” which means assortative mating by
political viewpoint. Scholars studying
online dating profiles find that political views are comparable in
importance to education levels in choosing one’s romantic partner.
Presumably, this reflects a growing belief that people’s votes are a
proxy for their character and morals. Right or wrong, this is a joy
killer: If politics is so important as to preclude romantic love where
it otherwise might have blossomed, happiness will fall as a result.
Parents
might also contribute to this amorous sorting. Three decades ago, when I
was on a path to marriage, I don’t remember my mom and dad asking about
my future wife’s political views. And traditionally, that wasn’t too
important for most parents in America. In 1958,
according to a Gallup Poll, 33 percent of parents who were Democrats
wanted their daughters to marry a Democrat; 25 percent of Republican
parents wanted their daughters to marry a Republican. Not so in recent
years: Those numbers were 60 and 63 percent, respectively, in 2016. I
suspect they are even higher in 2020.
Friendships and family ties are compromised by political disagreements as well. Polling data have shown
that about one in six Americans stopped talking to a friend or family
member because of the 2016 election. No doubt these were mostly cases
where friends and family disagree. But even when people agree politically, expressing intense views, or going on and on about politics, harms relationships. A 2018 data analysis in the journal Political Opinion Quarterly revealed that “even strong partisans dislike too much political discussion—even agreeable discussion.”
And
beware especially of in-laws: To quote the researchers, “many people do
not want their child to marry someone from their own party if that
hypothetical in-law were to discuss politics frequently.” In other
words, these days you need to have the right politics for your beloved’s
folks, but you can’t be too intense about it. It’s a bit of a high-wire
act.
The research doesn’t reveal precisely why we tend to dislike
overly political people, but it doesn’t take too much imagination to
guess that constant foam-flecked political outrage makes one quite
tedious. It also impedes our ability to think clearly: At least one
experiment has shown
that people become less accurate in interpreting data when the data
concern something politically polarizing. And lest you think you are
immune to this bias if you are sophisticated with data, the research
shows that highly numerate people are the most likely to contort the numbers to fit their views.
Finally, retreating too far into one’s own political bubble makes one more ignorant of the world. A 2012 survey
conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University asked a sample of Americans
about their news-consumption habits, and quizzed them about U.S. and
international political and economic events. They found that those
watching the most partisan television news sources—on both the left and
the right—were often less knowledgeable about world events than those
who consumed no news at all.
This
rings starkly true to me. Whether partisan news sources can misinform
us or not, they shrink our world. By engorging the political, they crowd
out nearly everything else; they create a kind of tunnel vision that
makes it easy to equate “news” with “politics” and pay little attention
to what’s happening in other realms. And thus we become more boring.
In
sum, if you spend the election season glued to your favorite partisan
news outlet, read and share political outrage on social media, and use
every opportunity to fulminate about politics, you might become less
happy, less well-liked, less accurate, and less informed.
I
am not advocating for everyone to stop paying attention to politics, of
course. Good citizens are attentive and active in the political
process. However, for quality of life’s sake—yours and others’—you would
do well to put boundaries around the time and emotional energy you
devote to politics this fall. To this end, I have three suggestions.
1. Get involved instead of complaining.
Earlier this year, the political scientist Eitan Hersh argued in The Atlantic
that highly educated people who consume a ton of political news are
making true progress harder in this country. Their appetite for constant
indignation fuels an outrage-industrial complex in media and politics,
and likely makes compromise harder.
“What they are doing is no closer to engaging in politics than watching SportsCenter
is to playing football,” Hersh wrote. He recommends active, local
citizenship: getting involved in your community and working with others
to push for positive change instead of just watching cable TV and
ranting about it. Hersh recommends this for the good of the country; I
recommend it for the good of your mental health and relationships.
2. Ration your consumption of politics and limit the time you spend discussing it.
A key characteristic
of addictive behavior is the displacement of human relationships by the
object of addiction. A good way to gauge whether you have a problem is
to ask: Is this activity a complement to my relationships, or a
substitute? In the case of politics, for many people, an honest answer
would clearly be the latter; hence the willingness to damage friendships
and romances.
The solution is to ration your consumption of
politics, and set proper boundaries around where you talk about it. I
recommend limiting the consumption of all news—not just politics—to 30
minutes a day, unless news is your vocation. Much more than that and you
might just be upsetting, rather than informing, yourself, or at least
becoming one of Hersh’s “hobbyists.” Further, resolve to avoid political
discussions during most nonpolitical occasions. It may be hard at
first, but I’d wager that eventually you will savor the respite,
especially during election season, when politics is everywhere.
3. Turn off ultra-partisan news sources, especially on your own side.
In 2017, the website The Onion introduced a satirical current-events talk show called You’re Right.
In it, the host feeds viewers their own beliefs and biases, assuring
them that they are right and that those who disagree are stupid and
evil.
It’s a parody, of course, but it captures a real reason why
people often turn to partisan news sources: It brings emotional
satisfaction to hear experts and famous people saying things you agree
with, and denouncing those with whom you disagree. But this has
deleterious effects on your relationships, and leaves you poorly
informed. Once you step away for a while, you’ll most likely start to
realize how much of your energy it was consuming, and how much better
you feel without these influences.
The fall is
going to be rough, politically. The election will be brutal and bitter;
there’s no way to avoid this. But Americans have to decide whether we
want our own lives to be brutal and bitter as well. Each of us has
political views, many of them strongly held. Each of us is convinced
that we are right—and some of us might well be. But if we let these
views dominate our thoughts, our time, and our conversations, they will
harm our relationships and happiness. We can be happier if, sometimes,
we follow the Buddha and just let our opinions go.
Especially with the in-laws.
Arthur C. Brooks is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a
professor of the practice of public leadership at the Harvard Kennedy
School, a senior fellow at the Harvard Business School, and host of the
podcast The Art of Happiness With Arthur Brooks.
Saturday, July 04, 2020
acts of kindness
Acts of kindness may not be that random after all. Science says being kind pays off.
Research shows that acts of kindness make us feel better and healthier. Kindness is also key to how we evolved and survived as a species, scientists say. We are hard-wired to be kind.
Kindness “is as bred in our bones as our anger or our lust or our grief or as our desire for revenge,” said University of California San Diego psychologist Michael McCullough, author of the forthcoming book “Kindness of Strangers.” It’s also, he said, “the main feature we take for granted.”
Scientific research is booming into human kindness and what scientists have found so far speaks well of us.
“Kindness is much older than religion. It does seem to be universal,” said University of Oxford anthropologist Oliver Curry, research director at Kindlab. “The basic reason why people are kind is that we are social animals.”
We prize kindness over any other value. When psychologists lumped values into ten categories and asked people what was more important, benevolence or kindness, comes out on top, beating hedonism, having an exciting life, creativity, ambition, tradition, security, obedience, seeking social justice and seeking power, said University of London psychologist Anat Bardi, who studies value systems.
“We’re kind because under the right circumstances we all benefit from kindness,” Oxford’s Curry said.
When it comes to a species’ survival “kindness pays, friendliness pays,” said Duke University evolutionary anthropologist Brian Hare, author of the new book “Survival of the Friendliest.”
Kindness and cooperation work for many species, whether it’s bacteria, flowers or our fellow primate bonobos. The more friends you have, the more individuals you help, the more successful you are, Hare said.
For example, Hare, who studies bonobos and other primates, compares aggressive chimpanzees, which attack outsiders, to bonobos where the animals don’t kill but help out strangers. Male bonobos are far more successful at mating than their male chimp counterparts, Hare said.
McCullough sees bonobos as more the exceptions. Most animals aren’t kind or helpful to strangers, just close relatives so in that way it is one of the traits that separate us from other species, he said. And that, he said, is because of the human ability to reason.
Humans realize that there’s not much difference between our close relatives and strangers and that someday strangers can help us if we are kind to them, McCullough said.
Reasoning “is the secret ingredient, which is why we donate blood when there are disasters” and why most industrialized nations spend at least 20% of their money on social programs, such as housing and education, McCullough said.
Duke’s Hare also points to mama bears to understand the evolution and biology of kindness and its aggressive nasty flip side. He said studies point to certain areas of the brain, the medial prefrontal cortex, temporal parietal junction and other spots as either activated or dampened by emotional activity. The same places give us the ability to nurture and love, but also dehumanize and exclude, he said.
When mother bears are feeding and nurturing their cubs, these areas in the brain are activated and it allows them to be generous and loving, Hare said. But if someone comes near the mother bear at that time, it sets of the brain’s threat mechanisms in the same places. The same bear becomes its most aggressive and dangerous.
Hare said he sees this in humans. Some of the same people who are generous to family and close friends, when they feel threatened by outsiders become angrier. He points to the current polarization of the world.
“More isolated groups are more likely to be feel threatened by others and they are more likely to morally exclude, dehumanize,” Hare said. “And that opens the door to cruelty.”
But overall our bodies aren’t just programmed to be nice, they reward us for being kind, scientists said.
“Doing kindness makes you happier and being happier makes you do kind acts,” said labor economist Richard Layard, who studies happiness at the London School of Economics and wrote the new book “Can We Be Happier?”
University of California Riverside psychology professor Sonja Lyubomirsky has put that concept to the test in numerous experiments over 20 years and repeatedly found that people feel better when they are kind to others, even more than when they are kind to themselves.
“Acts of kindness are very powerful,” Lyubomirsky said.
In one experiment, she asked subjects to do an extra three acts of kindness for other people a week and asked a different group to do three acts of self-kindness. They could be small, like opening a door for someone, or big. But the people who were kind to others became happier and felt more connected to the world.
The same occurred with money, using it to help others versus helping yourself. Lyubomirsky said she thinks it is because people spend too much time thinking and worrying about themselves and when they think of others while doing acts of kindness, it redirects them away from their own problems.
Oxford’s Curry analyzed peer-reviewed research like Lyubomirsky’s and found at least 27 studies showing the same thing: Being kind makes people feel better emotionally.
But it’s not just emotional. It’s physical.
Lyubomirsky said a study of people with multiple sclerosis and found they felt better physically when helping others. She also found that in people doing more acts of kindness that the genes that trigger inflammation were turned down more than in people who don’t.
And she said in upcoming studies, she’s found more antiviral genes in people who performed acts of kindness.
Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears
Research shows that acts of kindness make us feel better and healthier. Kindness is also key to how we evolved and survived as a species, scientists say. We are hard-wired to be kind.
Kindness “is as bred in our bones as our anger or our lust or our grief or as our desire for revenge,” said University of California San Diego psychologist Michael McCullough, author of the forthcoming book “Kindness of Strangers.” It’s also, he said, “the main feature we take for granted.”
Scientific research is booming into human kindness and what scientists have found so far speaks well of us.
“Kindness is much older than religion. It does seem to be universal,” said University of Oxford anthropologist Oliver Curry, research director at Kindlab. “The basic reason why people are kind is that we are social animals.”
We prize kindness over any other value. When psychologists lumped values into ten categories and asked people what was more important, benevolence or kindness, comes out on top, beating hedonism, having an exciting life, creativity, ambition, tradition, security, obedience, seeking social justice and seeking power, said University of London psychologist Anat Bardi, who studies value systems.
“We’re kind because under the right circumstances we all benefit from kindness,” Oxford’s Curry said.
When it comes to a species’ survival “kindness pays, friendliness pays,” said Duke University evolutionary anthropologist Brian Hare, author of the new book “Survival of the Friendliest.”
Kindness and cooperation work for many species, whether it’s bacteria, flowers or our fellow primate bonobos. The more friends you have, the more individuals you help, the more successful you are, Hare said.
For example, Hare, who studies bonobos and other primates, compares aggressive chimpanzees, which attack outsiders, to bonobos where the animals don’t kill but help out strangers. Male bonobos are far more successful at mating than their male chimp counterparts, Hare said.
McCullough sees bonobos as more the exceptions. Most animals aren’t kind or helpful to strangers, just close relatives so in that way it is one of the traits that separate us from other species, he said. And that, he said, is because of the human ability to reason.
Humans realize that there’s not much difference between our close relatives and strangers and that someday strangers can help us if we are kind to them, McCullough said.
Reasoning “is the secret ingredient, which is why we donate blood when there are disasters” and why most industrialized nations spend at least 20% of their money on social programs, such as housing and education, McCullough said.
Duke’s Hare also points to mama bears to understand the evolution and biology of kindness and its aggressive nasty flip side. He said studies point to certain areas of the brain, the medial prefrontal cortex, temporal parietal junction and other spots as either activated or dampened by emotional activity. The same places give us the ability to nurture and love, but also dehumanize and exclude, he said.
When mother bears are feeding and nurturing their cubs, these areas in the brain are activated and it allows them to be generous and loving, Hare said. But if someone comes near the mother bear at that time, it sets of the brain’s threat mechanisms in the same places. The same bear becomes its most aggressive and dangerous.
Hare said he sees this in humans. Some of the same people who are generous to family and close friends, when they feel threatened by outsiders become angrier. He points to the current polarization of the world.
“More isolated groups are more likely to be feel threatened by others and they are more likely to morally exclude, dehumanize,” Hare said. “And that opens the door to cruelty.”
But overall our bodies aren’t just programmed to be nice, they reward us for being kind, scientists said.
“Doing kindness makes you happier and being happier makes you do kind acts,” said labor economist Richard Layard, who studies happiness at the London School of Economics and wrote the new book “Can We Be Happier?”
University of California Riverside psychology professor Sonja Lyubomirsky has put that concept to the test in numerous experiments over 20 years and repeatedly found that people feel better when they are kind to others, even more than when they are kind to themselves.
“Acts of kindness are very powerful,” Lyubomirsky said.
In one experiment, she asked subjects to do an extra three acts of kindness for other people a week and asked a different group to do three acts of self-kindness. They could be small, like opening a door for someone, or big. But the people who were kind to others became happier and felt more connected to the world.
The same occurred with money, using it to help others versus helping yourself. Lyubomirsky said she thinks it is because people spend too much time thinking and worrying about themselves and when they think of others while doing acts of kindness, it redirects them away from their own problems.
Oxford’s Curry analyzed peer-reviewed research like Lyubomirsky’s and found at least 27 studies showing the same thing: Being kind makes people feel better emotionally.
But it’s not just emotional. It’s physical.
Lyubomirsky said a study of people with multiple sclerosis and found they felt better physically when helping others. She also found that in people doing more acts of kindness that the genes that trigger inflammation were turned down more than in people who don’t.
And she said in upcoming studies, she’s found more antiviral genes in people who performed acts of kindness.
Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears
Tuesday, June 09, 2020
filming the police
The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers was captured on video, not once but half a dozen times. As we try to understand why a police officer continued compressing a man’s neck and spine for minutes after he’d lost consciousness, we have footage from security cameras at Cup Foods, where Floyd allegedly paid for cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill. As we wrestle with the sight of three officers standing by as their colleague killed Floyd, we have footage from the cell phones of witnesses who begged the officers to let Floyd off the ground. In the murder trial of Officer Derek Chauvin, who was patrolling despite 17 civilian complaints against him and previous involvement in two shootings of suspects, his defense may hinge on video from the body cameras he and other officers were wearing.
None of these videos saved George Floyd’s life, and it is possible that none of them will convict his murderer.
Officer Chauvin knew this. In the video shot by 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, you can see him lock eyes with the teenager. He knows she’s filming, and knows that the video is likely being streamed to Facebook, to the horror of those watching it. After all, in a suburb of nearby St. Paul four years earlier, Officer Jeronimo Yanez shot and killed Philando Castile while Castile’s partner streamed the video to Facebook. Yanez’s police car dashcam also recorded the seven shots he pumped into Castile’s body. He was charged and acquitted.
After years of increasingly widespread bodycam use and ever more pervasive social media, it’s clear that information can work only when it’s harnessed to power.
After Castile’s death, I wrote a piece for MIT Technology Review about “sousveillance,” the idea posited by the inventor Steve Mann, the “father of wearable computing,” that connected cameras controlled by citizens could be used to hold power accountable. Even though bystander video of Eric Garner being choked to death by New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo in 2014 had led not to Pantaleo’s indictment but to the arrest of Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed the murder, I offered my hope that “the ubiquity of cell-phone cameras combined with video streaming services like Periscope, YouTube, and Facebook Live has set the stage for citizens to hold the police responsible for excessive use of force.”
I was wrong.
Much of what we think about surveillance comes from the French philosopher Michel Foucault. Foucault examined the ideas of the English reformer Jeremy Bentham, who proposed a prison—the panopticon or Inspection-House—in which every cell was observable from a central watchtower. The possibility that someone might be watching, Bentham believed, would be enough to prevent bad behavior by prisoners. Foucault observed that this knowledge of being watched forces us to police ourselves; our act of disciplining ourselves as if we were always under observation, more than the threat of corporal punishment, is the primary mechanism of “political technology” and power in modern society.
The hope for sousveillance comes from the same logic. If police officers know they’re being watched both by their body cameras and by civilians with cell phones, they will discipline themselves and refrain from engaging in unnecessary violence. It’s a good theory, but in practice, it hasn’t worked. A large study in 2017 by the Washington, DC, mayor’s office assigned more than a thousand police officers in the District to wear body cameras and more than a thousand to go camera-free. The researchers hoped to find evidence that wearing cameras correlated with better policing, less use of force, and fewer civilian complaints. They found none: the difference in behavior between the officers who knew they were being watched and the officers who knew they were not was statistically insignificant. Another study, which analyzed the results of 10 randomized controlled trials of body camera use in different nations, was helpfully titled “Wearing body cameras increases assaults against officers and does not reduce police use of force.”
Reacting to the DC study, some scholars have hoped that if cameras don’t deter officers from violent behavior, at least the film can hold them accountable afterwards. There, too, body cameras rarely work the way we hope. While careful, frame-by-frame analysis of video often shows that victims of police shootings were unarmed and that officers mistook innocuous objects for weapons, attorneys for the defense screen the videos at normal speed to show how tense, fast, and scary confrontations between police and suspects can be. A 1989 Supreme Court decision means that if police officers have an “objectively reasonable” fear that their lives or safety are in danger, they are justified in using deadly force. Videos from body cameras and bystander cell phones have worked to bolster “reasonable fear” defense claims as much as they have demonstrated the culpability of police officers.
It turns out that images matter, but so does power. Bentham’s panopticon works because the warden of the prison has the power to punish you if he witnesses your misbehavior. But Bentham’s other hope for the panopticon—that the behavior of the warden would be transparent and evaluated by all who saw him—has never come to pass. Over 10 years, from 2005 to 2014, only 48 officers were charged with murder or manslaughter for use of lethal force, though more than 1,000 people a year are killed by police in the United States.
As he stared at Darnella Frazier, Officer Chauvin knew this, because it’s impossible to work in law enforcement in the US and not know this. The institutions that protect police officers from facing legal consequences for their actions—internal affairs divisions, civil service job protections, police unions, “reasonable fear”—work far better than the institutions that hold them responsible for abuses.
The hope that pervasive cameras by themselves would counterbalance the systemic racism that leads to the overpolicing of communities of color and the disproportionate use of force against black men was simply a techno-utopian fantasy. It was a hope that police violence could be an information problem like Uber rides or Amazon recommendations, solvable by increasing the flows of data. But after years of increasingly widespread bodycam use and ever more pervasive social media, it’s clear that information can work only when it’s harnessed to power. If there’s one thing that Americans—particularly people of color in America—have learned from George Floyd, Philando Castile, and Eric Garner, it’s that individuals armed with images are largely powerless to make systemic change.
That’s the reason people have taken to the streets in Minneapolis, DC, New York, and so many other cities. There’s one thing images of police brutality seem to have the power to do: shock, outrage, and mobilize people to demand systemic change. That alone is the reason to keep filming.
-- Ethan Zuckerman, MIT Technology Review
None of these videos saved George Floyd’s life, and it is possible that none of them will convict his murderer.
Officer Chauvin knew this. In the video shot by 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, you can see him lock eyes with the teenager. He knows she’s filming, and knows that the video is likely being streamed to Facebook, to the horror of those watching it. After all, in a suburb of nearby St. Paul four years earlier, Officer Jeronimo Yanez shot and killed Philando Castile while Castile’s partner streamed the video to Facebook. Yanez’s police car dashcam also recorded the seven shots he pumped into Castile’s body. He was charged and acquitted.
After years of increasingly widespread bodycam use and ever more pervasive social media, it’s clear that information can work only when it’s harnessed to power.
After Castile’s death, I wrote a piece for MIT Technology Review about “sousveillance,” the idea posited by the inventor Steve Mann, the “father of wearable computing,” that connected cameras controlled by citizens could be used to hold power accountable. Even though bystander video of Eric Garner being choked to death by New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo in 2014 had led not to Pantaleo’s indictment but to the arrest of Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed the murder, I offered my hope that “the ubiquity of cell-phone cameras combined with video streaming services like Periscope, YouTube, and Facebook Live has set the stage for citizens to hold the police responsible for excessive use of force.”
I was wrong.
Much of what we think about surveillance comes from the French philosopher Michel Foucault. Foucault examined the ideas of the English reformer Jeremy Bentham, who proposed a prison—the panopticon or Inspection-House—in which every cell was observable from a central watchtower. The possibility that someone might be watching, Bentham believed, would be enough to prevent bad behavior by prisoners. Foucault observed that this knowledge of being watched forces us to police ourselves; our act of disciplining ourselves as if we were always under observation, more than the threat of corporal punishment, is the primary mechanism of “political technology” and power in modern society.
The hope for sousveillance comes from the same logic. If police officers know they’re being watched both by their body cameras and by civilians with cell phones, they will discipline themselves and refrain from engaging in unnecessary violence. It’s a good theory, but in practice, it hasn’t worked. A large study in 2017 by the Washington, DC, mayor’s office assigned more than a thousand police officers in the District to wear body cameras and more than a thousand to go camera-free. The researchers hoped to find evidence that wearing cameras correlated with better policing, less use of force, and fewer civilian complaints. They found none: the difference in behavior between the officers who knew they were being watched and the officers who knew they were not was statistically insignificant. Another study, which analyzed the results of 10 randomized controlled trials of body camera use in different nations, was helpfully titled “Wearing body cameras increases assaults against officers and does not reduce police use of force.”
Reacting to the DC study, some scholars have hoped that if cameras don’t deter officers from violent behavior, at least the film can hold them accountable afterwards. There, too, body cameras rarely work the way we hope. While careful, frame-by-frame analysis of video often shows that victims of police shootings were unarmed and that officers mistook innocuous objects for weapons, attorneys for the defense screen the videos at normal speed to show how tense, fast, and scary confrontations between police and suspects can be. A 1989 Supreme Court decision means that if police officers have an “objectively reasonable” fear that their lives or safety are in danger, they are justified in using deadly force. Videos from body cameras and bystander cell phones have worked to bolster “reasonable fear” defense claims as much as they have demonstrated the culpability of police officers.
It turns out that images matter, but so does power. Bentham’s panopticon works because the warden of the prison has the power to punish you if he witnesses your misbehavior. But Bentham’s other hope for the panopticon—that the behavior of the warden would be transparent and evaluated by all who saw him—has never come to pass. Over 10 years, from 2005 to 2014, only 48 officers were charged with murder or manslaughter for use of lethal force, though more than 1,000 people a year are killed by police in the United States.
As he stared at Darnella Frazier, Officer Chauvin knew this, because it’s impossible to work in law enforcement in the US and not know this. The institutions that protect police officers from facing legal consequences for their actions—internal affairs divisions, civil service job protections, police unions, “reasonable fear”—work far better than the institutions that hold them responsible for abuses.
The hope that pervasive cameras by themselves would counterbalance the systemic racism that leads to the overpolicing of communities of color and the disproportionate use of force against black men was simply a techno-utopian fantasy. It was a hope that police violence could be an information problem like Uber rides or Amazon recommendations, solvable by increasing the flows of data. But after years of increasingly widespread bodycam use and ever more pervasive social media, it’s clear that information can work only when it’s harnessed to power. If there’s one thing that Americans—particularly people of color in America—have learned from George Floyd, Philando Castile, and Eric Garner, it’s that individuals armed with images are largely powerless to make systemic change.
That’s the reason people have taken to the streets in Minneapolis, DC, New York, and so many other cities. There’s one thing images of police brutality seem to have the power to do: shock, outrage, and mobilize people to demand systemic change. That alone is the reason to keep filming.
-- Ethan Zuckerman, MIT Technology Review
Thursday, April 27, 2017
driving: the left lane
Much of the current misunderstanding over the left lane stems from the 55 mph national speed limit that was enacted in 1974, according to the National Motorists Association (NMA), a grassroots drivers’ alliance that lobbies for traffic regulations and safety issues. Before this, passing on the left was an unwritten rule of the road, but after the speed limit was enacted, drivers believed that if they were maintaining the posted speed limit then they could chill anywhere. “Because the speed limit was too low, drivers trying to pass weren’t allowed to and it caused a lot of problems, and it still does,” says Shelia Dunn, Communications Director of the NMA.
Reserving the left lane only for passing other cars—known as “lane courtesy”—reaps surprising benefits, however. Here’s why you should reserve your left-lane use for passing only.
Reserving the left lane only for passing other cars—known as “lane courtesy”—reaps surprising benefits, however. Here’s why you should reserve your left-lane use for passing only.
Monday, March 20, 2017
The Happiest Country
A new report shows Norway is the happiest country on Earth, Americans are getting sadder, and it takes more than just money to be happy.
Norway vaulted to the top slot in the World Happiness Report despite the plummeting price of oil, a key part of its economy. Income in the United States has gone up over the past decade, but happiness is declining.
The United States was 14th in the latest ranking, down from No. 13 last year, and over the years Americans steadily have been rating themselves less happy.
Norway moved from No. 4 to the top spot in the report's rankings, which combine economic, health and polling data compiled by economists that are averaged over three years from 2014 to 2016.
Norway edged past previous champ Denmark, which fell to second. Iceland, Switzerland and Finland round out the top 5.
Norway vaulted to the top slot in the World Happiness Report despite the plummeting price of oil, a key part of its economy. Income in the United States has gone up over the past decade, but happiness is declining.
The United States was 14th in the latest ranking, down from No. 13 last year, and over the years Americans steadily have been rating themselves less happy.
Norway moved from No. 4 to the top spot in the report's rankings, which combine economic, health and polling data compiled by economists that are averaged over three years from 2014 to 2016.
Norway edged past previous champ Denmark, which fell to second. Iceland, Switzerland and Finland round out the top 5.
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Uhura
The world that Roddenberry put together 50 years ago was different than anything that had been on TV as far as the cast was concerned. Crew members represented a variety of races and gave women jobs of respect.
Most of that came through the casting of Nichelle Nichols as Uhura, the ship’s communications officer. Black actresses at that time on TV were cast as servants or second-class citizens. That fact was not lost on viewers, one fan in particular.
Although Nichols was given a prominent role on the ship, her work load was so limited she decided to leave. The day after she told Roddenberry she planned to beam off the show, she was at an NAACP fundraiser and was told there was a big fan who wanted to meet her.
“I thought it was a Trekkie, and so I said, ‘Sure.’ And I stood up, and I looked across the room, and there was Dr. Martin Luther King walking towards me with this big grin on his face,” Nichols says. “He reached out to me and said, ‘Yes, Ms. Nichols, I am your greatest fan.’ He said that ‘Star Trek’ was the only show that he and his wife, Coretta, would allow their three little children to stay up and watch.”
She told King about her plans to leave the series.
“I never got to tell him why, because he said, ‘You can’t,’ “ Nichols says. “He said, ‘You’re part of history, and this is your responsibility even though it might not have been your career choice.’ “
He said it was her duty to stay on the show and be a positive role model.
Nichols went back to work and told Roddenberry she would stay. When Roddenberry heard what King had said, he cried.
Read more here
Most of that came through the casting of Nichelle Nichols as Uhura, the ship’s communications officer. Black actresses at that time on TV were cast as servants or second-class citizens. That fact was not lost on viewers, one fan in particular.
Although Nichols was given a prominent role on the ship, her work load was so limited she decided to leave. The day after she told Roddenberry she planned to beam off the show, she was at an NAACP fundraiser and was told there was a big fan who wanted to meet her.
“I thought it was a Trekkie, and so I said, ‘Sure.’ And I stood up, and I looked across the room, and there was Dr. Martin Luther King walking towards me with this big grin on his face,” Nichols says. “He reached out to me and said, ‘Yes, Ms. Nichols, I am your greatest fan.’ He said that ‘Star Trek’ was the only show that he and his wife, Coretta, would allow their three little children to stay up and watch.”
She told King about her plans to leave the series.
“I never got to tell him why, because he said, ‘You can’t,’ “ Nichols says. “He said, ‘You’re part of history, and this is your responsibility even though it might not have been your career choice.’ “
He said it was her duty to stay on the show and be a positive role model.
Nichols went back to work and told Roddenberry she would stay. When Roddenberry heard what King had said, he cried.
Read more here
Monday, May 16, 2016
The Dalai Lama's map of the mind
ROCHESTER, Minn. — The Dalai Lama,
who tirelessly preaches inner peace while chiding people for their
selfish, materialistic ways, has commissioned scientists for a lofty mission: to help turn secular audiences into more self-aware,
compassionate humans.
That
is, of course, no easy task. So the Dalai Lama ordered up something
with a grand name to go with his grand ambitions: a comprehensive Atlas of Emotions to help the more than seven billion people on the planet navigate the morass of their feelings to attain peace and happiness.
“It is my duty to publish such work,” the Dalai Lama said.
To create this “map of the mind,” as he called it, the Dalai Lama reached out to a source Hollywood had used to plumb the workings of the human psyche.
Specifically, he commissioned his good friend Paul Ekman — a psychologist who helped advise the creators of Pixar’s “Inside Out,”
an animated film set inside a girl’s head — to map out the range of
human sentiments. Dr. Ekman later distilled them into the five basic
emotions depicted in the movie, from anger to enjoyment.
Dr.
Ekman’s daughter, Eve, a post-doctoral fellow in integrative medicine
research, worked on the project as well, with the goal of producing a
guide to human emotions that anyone with an Internet connection could
study in a quest for self-understanding, calm and constructive action.
“We
have, by nature or biologically, this destructive emotion, also
constructive emotion,” the Dalai Lama said. “This innerness, people
should pay more attention to, from kindergarten level up to university
level. This is not just for knowledge, but in order to create a happy
human being. Happy family, happy community and, finally, happy
humanity.”
Monday, January 19, 2015
Unbroken
Like many who have read Laura Hillenbrand’s book Unbroken,
the impeccably researched story of Olympic runner Louie Zamperini, the
film version was greatly anticipated — even more so for my wife Susan
and me, because we were part of a small, ad-hoc group that organized
Zamperini’s visit to Oahu a few years ago when he spoke to several
hundred Marines and sailors aboard the USS Missouri.
The story, briefly, is of a bright, high-spirited, live-onthe-edge kid raised in the small town of Torrance, Calif. Because he was frequently in trouble with local cops for petty crimes, he learned how to run very fast. He honed his running skills to the point of eventually making the varsity track squad at University of Southern California, and qualifying for the 1936 U.S. Olympic team to compete in Germany. He was a shoo-in for the 1940 team to compete in Japan, but the onset of World War II made those games impossible, so instead — like many of his “Greatest Generation” contemporaries — he enlisted in the military.
In May of 1947, as an Army Air Corps bombardier, his crippled, Hawaii-based B-24 bomber crashed into the Pacific. He and a fellow crewman survived in a rubber life raft, drifting westward for 47 days. Ultimately, they were captured by a Japanese patrol boat, then transferred to a prison ship to Japan, where they were POWs for the next two years.
Zamperini’s time as a POW was made even more hellish by a certain Japanese prison commander, who knew of Zamperini’s Olympic experience and immediately detected the American’s defiant attitude. “The Bird,” as he was known by the POWs, hounded him mercilessly, administering frequent beatings without reason. He singled him out for the hardest prison work details, grinding him down physically and mentally. “Zamp” became obsessed by his hatred for The Bird, vowing revenge no matter how far off in the future.
The war ended in August 1945. The POWs were repatriated, and Zamp’s homecoming with his family was all he had hoped for. Because of his Olympian fame, he got more press and adoration than the average returnee. There was enormous interest in hearing him speak. He soon met and married a 20-year-old beauty named Cynthia Applewhite. He couldn’t believe his good fortune when she accepted his proposal. Even then, he doubted his worthiness.
This was only the first of many doubts that would haunt him. The social whirl and demand for his presence started going to his head. He started drinking more of the drinks people wanted to buy him. Soon he was adding whiskey to a normal cup of coffee at breakfast. He had become more and more obsessed by his hatred for The Bird. He would plot in his stupored mind how he would return to Japan to hunt down and kill The Bird. He had nightmares about his POW days.
He began to mistreat Cynthia, who was now pregnant. She attended a revival session, held in a tent near their Hollywood apartment. She urged Louie to come and listen to the words of a young preacher named Billy Graham. He did, but when Graham announced the alter call, Louie “took Cynthia by the arm and bulled their way from the tent.” When she threatened divorce, he gave in once more. The next night, when Graham invited the alter call, Louie stood up in that back row of the tent ready for another fast exit. But suddenly he had a flashback: He was lying on the bottom of a rubber raft, and he recalled a promise he had forgotten until that very moment: “God, if you will save me, I will serve you for the rest of my life.” This was the last flashback he would ever have.
The next morning he lay still next to Cynthia. As Hillenbrand wrote: “What was resonating with him now was not all that he had suffered, but the divine love he believed had intervened to save him. He was not the worthless, broken, forsaken man Bird had striven to make of him. In a single silent moment, his rage, his fear, his humiliation and helplessness had fallen away. That morning he believed he was a new creation. Softly, he wept.”
The shame is that the movie ended right after his release from the Japanese prison and portrayed none of his struggle to forgive and move on — a struggle in many ways more difficult than the years as a POW. Ultimately, the message of Unbroken is about the redeeming qualities of forgiveness. All of this was only summarized in three brief paragraphs of script at the end of the film — a real disappointment for those who had read the book.
-- Jerry Coffee, Midweek January 14, 2015
The story, briefly, is of a bright, high-spirited, live-onthe-edge kid raised in the small town of Torrance, Calif. Because he was frequently in trouble with local cops for petty crimes, he learned how to run very fast. He honed his running skills to the point of eventually making the varsity track squad at University of Southern California, and qualifying for the 1936 U.S. Olympic team to compete in Germany. He was a shoo-in for the 1940 team to compete in Japan, but the onset of World War II made those games impossible, so instead — like many of his “Greatest Generation” contemporaries — he enlisted in the military.
In May of 1947, as an Army Air Corps bombardier, his crippled, Hawaii-based B-24 bomber crashed into the Pacific. He and a fellow crewman survived in a rubber life raft, drifting westward for 47 days. Ultimately, they were captured by a Japanese patrol boat, then transferred to a prison ship to Japan, where they were POWs for the next two years.
Zamperini’s time as a POW was made even more hellish by a certain Japanese prison commander, who knew of Zamperini’s Olympic experience and immediately detected the American’s defiant attitude. “The Bird,” as he was known by the POWs, hounded him mercilessly, administering frequent beatings without reason. He singled him out for the hardest prison work details, grinding him down physically and mentally. “Zamp” became obsessed by his hatred for The Bird, vowing revenge no matter how far off in the future.
The war ended in August 1945. The POWs were repatriated, and Zamp’s homecoming with his family was all he had hoped for. Because of his Olympian fame, he got more press and adoration than the average returnee. There was enormous interest in hearing him speak. He soon met and married a 20-year-old beauty named Cynthia Applewhite. He couldn’t believe his good fortune when she accepted his proposal. Even then, he doubted his worthiness.
This was only the first of many doubts that would haunt him. The social whirl and demand for his presence started going to his head. He started drinking more of the drinks people wanted to buy him. Soon he was adding whiskey to a normal cup of coffee at breakfast. He had become more and more obsessed by his hatred for The Bird. He would plot in his stupored mind how he would return to Japan to hunt down and kill The Bird. He had nightmares about his POW days.
He began to mistreat Cynthia, who was now pregnant. She attended a revival session, held in a tent near their Hollywood apartment. She urged Louie to come and listen to the words of a young preacher named Billy Graham. He did, but when Graham announced the alter call, Louie “took Cynthia by the arm and bulled their way from the tent.” When she threatened divorce, he gave in once more. The next night, when Graham invited the alter call, Louie stood up in that back row of the tent ready for another fast exit. But suddenly he had a flashback: He was lying on the bottom of a rubber raft, and he recalled a promise he had forgotten until that very moment: “God, if you will save me, I will serve you for the rest of my life.” This was the last flashback he would ever have.
The next morning he lay still next to Cynthia. As Hillenbrand wrote: “What was resonating with him now was not all that he had suffered, but the divine love he believed had intervened to save him. He was not the worthless, broken, forsaken man Bird had striven to make of him. In a single silent moment, his rage, his fear, his humiliation and helplessness had fallen away. That morning he believed he was a new creation. Softly, he wept.”
The shame is that the movie ended right after his release from the Japanese prison and portrayed none of his struggle to forgive and move on — a struggle in many ways more difficult than the years as a POW. Ultimately, the message of Unbroken is about the redeeming qualities of forgiveness. All of this was only summarized in three brief paragraphs of script at the end of the film — a real disappointment for those who had read the book.
-- Jerry Coffee, Midweek January 14, 2015
Friday, September 12, 2014
Wisdom of the Elders
We’re always told to listen to our elders. That tradition takes on
exalted essence next week as three preeminent world leaders come to
Hawaii.
Friends, activists, students, lend me your ears.
Pillars of Peace Hawaii, an initiative of Hawaii Community Foundation, will host The Elders Aug. 29-31. Three distinguished global kupuna will engage in a series of exchanges on peace, compassion and ethical leadership.
The Elders who will be in Honolulu are former prime minister of Norway and former director-general of World Health Organization Gro Harlem Brundtland; renowned lawyer/pro-democracy campaigner and Pakistan women’s movement leader Hina Jilani; and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate, veteran anti-apartheid activist and peace campaigner.
“We are honored to have such an esteemed group of leaders come to Hawaii to share their global experience and perspectives,” says Kelvin H. Taketa, president and CEO of Hawaii Community Foundation. “Their visit enables us, in turn, to share our approach to peace influenced by the spirit of aloha and our community that merges numerous cultural influences.”
The Elders is an independent group of global leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela in 2007. They use their collective wisdom, experience and influence to support peace building, address major causes of human suffering, and promote the shared interests of humanity.
Pillars of Peace Hawaii is supported by a lead grant from Omidyar Ohana Fund. Pam Omidyar, co-founder with husband Pierre Omidyar of The Omidyar Group, says, “Our main philanthropic goal is to help people have the life they want and to enable them to thrive. Having a peaceful environment is a requirement for that.
“I’m looking forward to The Elders engaging with Hawaii’s own kupuna,” adds Omidyar, a former Iolani student. “We are sharing with them the definition of aloha and the interpretation of ‘ha,’ the breath of life. How do you harm someone when you are sharing the same breath?”
With that intent, we posed three questions to each of The Elders as a preview of their dialogue here.
***
3) How you do define peace?
DT: “To me, peace can mean many things, but I think one word can sum it: Ubuntu. This is an African saying that means ‘I am because you are.’ We are bound together. I need you in order to be me.
“We cannot hope to bring peace to the world unless we can empathize with each other, offer one another forgiveness and work together. Despite all of the ghastliness in the world, humans are made for goodness.
Friends, activists, students, lend me your ears.
Pillars of Peace Hawaii, an initiative of Hawaii Community Foundation, will host The Elders Aug. 29-31. Three distinguished global kupuna will engage in a series of exchanges on peace, compassion and ethical leadership.
The Elders who will be in Honolulu are former prime minister of Norway and former director-general of World Health Organization Gro Harlem Brundtland; renowned lawyer/pro-democracy campaigner and Pakistan women’s movement leader Hina Jilani; and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate, veteran anti-apartheid activist and peace campaigner.
“We are honored to have such an esteemed group of leaders come to Hawaii to share their global experience and perspectives,” says Kelvin H. Taketa, president and CEO of Hawaii Community Foundation. “Their visit enables us, in turn, to share our approach to peace influenced by the spirit of aloha and our community that merges numerous cultural influences.”
The Elders is an independent group of global leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela in 2007. They use their collective wisdom, experience and influence to support peace building, address major causes of human suffering, and promote the shared interests of humanity.
Pillars of Peace Hawaii is supported by a lead grant from Omidyar Ohana Fund. Pam Omidyar, co-founder with husband Pierre Omidyar of The Omidyar Group, says, “Our main philanthropic goal is to help people have the life they want and to enable them to thrive. Having a peaceful environment is a requirement for that.
“I’m looking forward to The Elders engaging with Hawaii’s own kupuna,” adds Omidyar, a former Iolani student. “We are sharing with them the definition of aloha and the interpretation of ‘ha,’ the breath of life. How do you harm someone when you are sharing the same breath?”
With that intent, we posed three questions to each of The Elders as a preview of their dialogue here.
***
3) How you do define peace?
DT: “To me, peace can mean many things, but I think one word can sum it: Ubuntu. This is an African saying that means ‘I am because you are.’ We are bound together. I need you in order to be me.
“We cannot hope to bring peace to the world unless we can empathize with each other, offer one another forgiveness and work together. Despite all of the ghastliness in the world, humans are made for goodness.
Thursday, August 21, 2014
paying it forward
[8/21/14] A woman started an act of kindness chain that lasted for hours at a Starbucks drive-thru in Florida.
She ordered an iced coffee around 7 a.m. Wednesday in St. Petersburg and asked to pay for the caramel macchiato for the stranger in the car behind her. He returned the favor. The chain kept going as employees began keeping count.
The Tampa Bay Times reports the chain finally ended around 6 p.m. when customer number 379 pulled up and ordered a regular coffee. Barista Vu Nguyen leaned out the window and explained the chain that started earlier in the day, asking if she'd like to participate. She declined, saying she only wanted to pay for her coffee.
Nguyen says he doesn't believe she understood the concept of paying it forward.
***
Aloha Pamela,
I waited in a six-car-long drive-through line at the Pearl City Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. When I reached the window to pay for my drink, I was told by the friendly employee that my drink had been paid for by the lady in front of me! So, of course, I paid for the girl behind me! The week had been a pretty rough one, and something this amazing could not have happened at a more perfect time! I think we all try our best to do at least one good deed a day, though sometimes we can’t help but wonder if anyone else makes the same efforts. Your Applause column is an amazing bearer of great news and great people right here at home. I love it!
Jimell Silva
Pearl City
Dear Pamela,
My son, his friend and I had dinner at Denny’s in Royal Kunia. A pair of military men walked in after us, and we decided to thank them anonymously for their service to our country by treating them to their dinner. After we paid for their meals, we noticed that as they were leaving, they stopped at the cashier and paid her, too. We asked our waitress to check on it, and she returned to tell us that the military men were grateful to have received our thanks, then anonymously paid for another family’s meal! Wow. It was a chicken-skin moment for me, and a great example for my teenage son and his friend. Mahalo to all our military personnel.
Leimomi Wang
Royal Kunia
Dear Jimell and Lei,
Mahalo for reminding us of how good will takes on a life of its own. Paying it forward can be so rewarding, whether you do it with a monetary gesture or a simple act of kindness.
-- via roy, 4/25/13
She ordered an iced coffee around 7 a.m. Wednesday in St. Petersburg and asked to pay for the caramel macchiato for the stranger in the car behind her. He returned the favor. The chain kept going as employees began keeping count.
The Tampa Bay Times reports the chain finally ended around 6 p.m. when customer number 379 pulled up and ordered a regular coffee. Barista Vu Nguyen leaned out the window and explained the chain that started earlier in the day, asking if she'd like to participate. She declined, saying she only wanted to pay for her coffee.
Nguyen says he doesn't believe she understood the concept of paying it forward.
***
Aloha Pamela,
I waited in a six-car-long drive-through line at the Pearl City Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. When I reached the window to pay for my drink, I was told by the friendly employee that my drink had been paid for by the lady in front of me! So, of course, I paid for the girl behind me! The week had been a pretty rough one, and something this amazing could not have happened at a more perfect time! I think we all try our best to do at least one good deed a day, though sometimes we can’t help but wonder if anyone else makes the same efforts. Your Applause column is an amazing bearer of great news and great people right here at home. I love it!
Jimell Silva
Pearl City
Dear Pamela,
My son, his friend and I had dinner at Denny’s in Royal Kunia. A pair of military men walked in after us, and we decided to thank them anonymously for their service to our country by treating them to their dinner. After we paid for their meals, we noticed that as they were leaving, they stopped at the cashier and paid her, too. We asked our waitress to check on it, and she returned to tell us that the military men were grateful to have received our thanks, then anonymously paid for another family’s meal! Wow. It was a chicken-skin moment for me, and a great example for my teenage son and his friend. Mahalo to all our military personnel.
Leimomi Wang
Royal Kunia
Dear Jimell and Lei,
Mahalo for reminding us of how good will takes on a life of its own. Paying it forward can be so rewarding, whether you do it with a monetary gesture or a simple act of kindness.
-- via roy, 4/25/13
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Zero Nukes?
HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) — In this place where a fearful age was born one fiery instant 65 years ago, the Flame of Peace still flickers on, awaiting the day when the world is rid of nuclear weapons.
Many believe that day may be approaching.
"I saw a light in a dark tunnel," says Emiko Okada, 73. "President Obama said, 'Yes, I can.'"
For her and other "hibakusha," survivors of Hiroshima 1945, abolishing nuclear weapons has been a lifelong crusade. But the cause that Hiroshima never abandoned is now also the cause of a growing movement worldwide, embraced by statesmen in Washington and other capitals, endorsed by old Cold Warriors, promoted by Hollywood, financed by billionaires.
Ordinary people, too, in country after country, want "zero nukes," opinion polls show.
But is it achievable? Can doomsday arms be banished from the face of the Earth? Will man stop reaching for ever more powerful weapons? And, more immediately, will an American president, following his ambassador's unprecedented visit, finally walk this year among the cherry trees, the memorials, the unspeakable memories of Hiroshima?
Many believe that day may be approaching.
"I saw a light in a dark tunnel," says Emiko Okada, 73. "President Obama said, 'Yes, I can.'"
For her and other "hibakusha," survivors of Hiroshima 1945, abolishing nuclear weapons has been a lifelong crusade. But the cause that Hiroshima never abandoned is now also the cause of a growing movement worldwide, embraced by statesmen in Washington and other capitals, endorsed by old Cold Warriors, promoted by Hollywood, financed by billionaires.
Ordinary people, too, in country after country, want "zero nukes," opinion polls show.
But is it achievable? Can doomsday arms be banished from the face of the Earth? Will man stop reaching for ever more powerful weapons? And, more immediately, will an American president, following his ambassador's unprecedented visit, finally walk this year among the cherry trees, the memorials, the unspeakable memories of Hiroshima?
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Nobelity
I happened to see the DVD One Peace at a Time at Blockbuster (featuring the music of Willie Nelson and others). I thought it was in the $3.99 bin, but it turned out to be a rental. So I put it back.
Anyway looking at the comments on Amazon, it's sort of the sequel to Nobelity which is a film which interviews Nobel Laureates about their ideas on solving the world's problems. The project was spearheaded by Turk Pipkin who is an actor turned activist (well, I think he's still an actor).
The Nobelity Project has a website and a series of videos on youtube.
I see they're selling Nobelity for $24.95 and One Peace at a Time for $19.95.
I'm thinking I should begin by solving my own problems first (and I should -- just looking at the piles I stuff around me). But it looks like I can pick up Nobelity for "free" (well for a credit) at swapadvd, so maybe I should pounce on it. Maybe it'll give me a kick in the pants..
...
Do it! (Especially since there's only one copy available.) It'll be my first DVD ordered through swapadvd. (Right now, I have four credits to use. One free one to start. Two from three books I sent. And another from the Star Trek DVD I posted. And hopefully two more to come when the Star Trek gets received -- one for the DVD and one Movie Mogul credit.
Put it this way. If I saw this used on sale at Blockbuster, I would probably pick it up. And if it were to suddenly be gone from dvdswap, I would regret not grabbing it.
Doing a search at swapadvd for Nobelity also turns up Beyond The Call which is a DVD containing three short movies including an interview apparently from Nobelity. Evidently Beyond The Call appeared on PBS.
...
One Peace at a Time. Let's start with the pile on the coffee table..
***
[5/17/10] Cool. Turk Pipkin himself left a comment. Here's a link to his blog.
***
[5/24/10] Got the DVD on Saturday, watched it early this morning (woke up and went back to sleep). A very noble effort. Kind of reminded me of Charles Kuralt show, except Turk traveled around the world, talked to important people, and asked important questions. I can see where it might be slightly controversial, especially regarding comments on global warming. And some comments by Desmond Tutu. But I take everybody's opinions in high regard. Now to see if I can scoop up One Peace At A Time (and perhaps try to do my small part).
***
[3/22/13] Browsing Popcorn Flix on my Roku and notice that both Nobelity and One Peace at a Time are available on it (for free!). I see they're also on hulu. 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama is also on popcorn flix (and hulu too).
[6/9/12] One Peace at a Time on youtube.
Anyway looking at the comments on Amazon, it's sort of the sequel to Nobelity which is a film which interviews Nobel Laureates about their ideas on solving the world's problems. The project was spearheaded by Turk Pipkin who is an actor turned activist (well, I think he's still an actor).
The Nobelity Project has a website and a series of videos on youtube.
I see they're selling Nobelity for $24.95 and One Peace at a Time for $19.95.
I'm thinking I should begin by solving my own problems first (and I should -- just looking at the piles I stuff around me). But it looks like I can pick up Nobelity for "free" (well for a credit) at swapadvd, so maybe I should pounce on it. Maybe it'll give me a kick in the pants..
...
Do it! (Especially since there's only one copy available.) It'll be my first DVD ordered through swapadvd. (Right now, I have four credits to use. One free one to start. Two from three books I sent. And another from the Star Trek DVD I posted. And hopefully two more to come when the Star Trek gets received -- one for the DVD and one Movie Mogul credit.
Put it this way. If I saw this used on sale at Blockbuster, I would probably pick it up. And if it were to suddenly be gone from dvdswap, I would regret not grabbing it.
Doing a search at swapadvd for Nobelity also turns up Beyond The Call which is a DVD containing three short movies including an interview apparently from Nobelity. Evidently Beyond The Call appeared on PBS.
...
One Peace at a Time. Let's start with the pile on the coffee table..
***
[5/17/10] Cool. Turk Pipkin himself left a comment. Here's a link to his blog.
***
[5/24/10] Got the DVD on Saturday, watched it early this morning (woke up and went back to sleep). A very noble effort. Kind of reminded me of Charles Kuralt show, except Turk traveled around the world, talked to important people, and asked important questions. I can see where it might be slightly controversial, especially regarding comments on global warming. And some comments by Desmond Tutu. But I take everybody's opinions in high regard. Now to see if I can scoop up One Peace At A Time (and perhaps try to do my small part).
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[3/22/13] Browsing Popcorn Flix on my Roku and notice that both Nobelity and One Peace at a Time are available on it (for free!). I see they're also on hulu. 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama is also on popcorn flix (and hulu too).
[6/9/12] One Peace at a Time on youtube.
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