Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change

I've not written my 2009 Blog Action Day post yet. It will go up tomorrow. However, I want to remind folks that it's tomorrow.

This is the concept:

Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be one of the largest-ever social change events on the web.

You can check out the link in the sidebar or just click on the link above. However, if you blog, seriously think about joining and helping to focus the conversation on climate change tomorrow!

(I need to fix the code, so the "read more" leads you nowhere...sorry). 

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Dona nobis pacem

This is a cute I idea that I heard about when Mimi left a comment a few days ago.

I figure why not?

Here is my peace globe:

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October 15, 2007 - Blog Action Day

Interesting idea.

From BlogActionDay.org:

What would happen if every blog published posts discussing the same issue, on the same day?

One issue. One day. Thousands of voices.

I'm down. If you are, click over to the site and register. Also, spread the word to other bloggers.

Blog Action Day

On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind. In 2007 the issue is the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future.

We’re looking for bloggers of all nationalities and backgrounds, writing about all topics to join in. Here’s what you have to do:

Publish on October 15th
Publish a post on their blog which relates to an issue of their own choice pertaining to the environment.

For example: A blog about money might write about how to save around the home by using environmentally friendly ideas. Similarly a blog about politics might examine what weight environmental policy holds in the political arena.

Posts do not need to have any specific agenda, they simply need to relate to the larger issue in whatever way suits the blogger and readership. Our aim is not to promote one particular viewpoint, only to push the issue on the table for discussion. So write in whatever way suits your readers and your blog, just relate it back to the environment and make sure it goes up on October 15th.

Other things you can do
You can also participate in Blog Action Day by posting a banner on your site (http://blogactionday.org/promote) or by donating your day’s blog earnings to an environmental charity of your choice.

Register your blog
We are keeping track of all the blogs that have committed to participating on BlogActionDay.org and it would be very helpful for you to register your blog at http://blogactionday.org/commit

At this time the form is only available in English, but the form fields are as follows:

1 - Blog Title

2 - Blog URL

3 - Approximate RSS Subscriber Number
(This will not be published. It is used to generate an approximate ‘reach’ for Blog Action Day. Simply enter an average, recent feed count from Feedburner or similar service. If you don’t know the audience size, just enter ‘0′. )

4 - Your Email
( You will ONLY receive two emails. The first will be two days prior to Blog Action Day 2007. And a second in August 2008 about next year’s day.)

5 - The final field is to test whether you are a human or spam robot. Simply type in the number written there

Thank you for participating in Blog Action Day 2007! In future years we hope to have the entire site translated in many languages :-)

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Olympic Boycott Over Burma?

My first post on the crackdown in Myanmar has rolled off the front page and this is big enough that it deserves its own post.

I got this in an email from the people over at OpenMindProjects.org: Pressure the Chinese government to compel the Burmese generals to stop killing and oppressing the Burmese people? In this blog they call for a boycott of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Here is the blog in full:

Some may say politics and sports should be kept separate. Does anybody believe the Chinese leaders are that (i think that's meant to be "that are" - ExJane) interested in Marathons, 100 m? It’s about politics, and about Chinese prestige. Any political or sports leader suggesting the opposite is either ignorant, or worse.

Chinese support to ‘political stability’ in Burma, means support to the Burmese military. It means providing arms to the Burmese generals?

Against what enemy? Thailand? Laos? China itself? (Burma has no external enemies. The Chinese arms allow for Chinese exploitation of Burma’s natural resources. It benefits greedy Burmese generals and Chinese business while enslaving the Burmese people.

The Chinese government will hardly listen to UN Security Council talk. They veto instead. But they don’t want to lose face. They don’t want to risk the Olympic Games. That is their weakness. So why not use this weakness, to help the Burmese! Persuade sportsmen, Olympians, their leaders, to speak out, to threaten to boycott the games unless China stops sending arms to the generals and uses its influence in Burma, to force the generals to stop killing people, to move to democracy and an economic growth that benefits all the people, not just the generals and their children.

Today the diverse Burmese opposition actually may have a chance to cooperate, the monks and students and the minority peoples, the Shan and Karen, who have for decades fought for their rights and therefore have been persecuted and murdered by the Burmese military. They could join forces if they were able to communicate, via mobiles, Internet. ICT may again prove to be one of the poor and unfree men’s best help. Let’s hope it will.

But the rest of the world should also go on to use the power of ICT, talk to, email, tell politicians, sportsmen, Olympians, their leaders. Tell them to threaten the success of the upcoming Olympic games in China.

I've posted it on a couple of groups on Facebook following the events in Burma and I'll just paste here what I wrote there.

From OpenMindProjects.org blog. A call to press countries to boycott the 2008 Olympics. It's worked in the past, why not this time? At least it will send a very STRONG and economically devastating message. China is prepping like gangbusters right now. They building tons of new buildings, expanding the infrastructure, meddling with the rainfall, etc. If the world says they're not coming to the party that would be huge.

Sports diplomacy has happened in the past and it's effective. It can be used in both a positive since by bringing atheletes and nations together but also in a negative sense which people are pushing for now. Clearly, a boycott is in the negative, but when the stakes are high it can work. Plus, let's not forget the Darfur region of Sudan. That's a thorny issue too. However, maybe the combination of Darfur and Burma can get the momentum going on this idea. It usually takes more than merely boycotting Olympic games, but combined with other efforts, sports diplomacy can be very effective.

For those who don't remember or don't know, I've found a couple of links on sports diplomacy. I'd never really thought of it, but my classmate wrote her master's thesis on sports diplomacy last term. She talked about some of the ideas she had and I gave her some research suggestions. To see people calling for it in this situation is great, because it could definitely make an impact.

Here are some articles:

Washington Post - Countdown to Beijing by Victor Cha
CNN Cold War: Spotlight: Olympic Boycotts

If you run a search on Google for "olympic-boycott, china, burma" you get a page full of results and I've not read them all, so here is that search link: "olympic-boycott, china, burma".

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Myanmar Crackdown - People Mobilizing Via the Net

from the Democratic Voice of Burma website (linked below)
Update 7 (Oct 18, 2007 @ 9:32am)

The news on Myanmar is slowing to just a few snippets. However, those are worth posting. My fear is after this surge interest our ADD/quick cut media culture will forget.
United Press International: Myanmar said to be still making arrests
Agence France-Presse: Defiant Myanmar junta says it won't back down
International Herald Tribune: Japan cancels large aid grant to Myanmar


Update 6 (Oct 10, 2007 @ 1:21pm)

Some new articles from the BBC: What Burma wants from the world and Burmese junta appoints go-between.


Update 5 (Oct. 6, 2007 @ 5:46am)

Maybe some hope that the information lines are opening up, not likely, or the Myanmar fuzz is checking to see what's out there on the crackdown, more likely. Anyway, I was checking the traffic on my blog. I noticed I got a hit from Myanmar that chose to stay on the page for awhile. That person found my page via this Google search "myanmar crackdown pics". Interesting.

Update 4 (Oct. 3, 2007 @ 2;44pm)

Videos are now being submitted to CNN by people who fled Myanmar after the crackdown. It's shows what happened to protestors who got caught by the junta. There are a series of these.

CNN: Video of brutal crackdown - Exclusive video smuggled out of Myanmar shows protesters arrested and beaten by police. CNN's Dan Rivers reports. (note: I couldn't view it in Netscape, but Internet Explorer worked fine.)

Update 3 (Oct. 2, 2007 @ 10:56pm)

The UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari has been in Myanmar for a few days and has met with Aung Sang Suu Kyi twice. I'm not really updating that because the mainstream news is covering that.

However, here is a good BBC article: Burmese monks 'to be sent away'. It has some good links.

Also, it's disturbing but it's really easy to ignore what's going on without visuals too. Here is a disturbing photo of the dead body of a monk floating in a riven in Rangoon that I saw on CNN International. It's in the BBC article too.

I found it at on the Democratic Voice of Burma website. This needs to be seen, so that the government in Myanmar will be held accountable.

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Update 2 (Oct. 1, 2007 @ 11:44am)

An article fromt he Times Online: Bloggers who risked all to reveal the junta’s brutal crackdown in Burma

They provide some great multimedia, background and other related links.
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Update 1 (Oct. 1, 2007 @ 8:10am)

These are some videos from Mizzima News website that I discovered today.

No title
Protest in Rangoon: Flag of Fighting Peacock Flying High (1)
There are quite a few other videos and I won't link them all. You can just go to their main video site and click around: Mizzima TV

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You know, I feel really bad about myself as I spent Chuseok sitting here watching the reports on the protests and escalating tensions in Myanmar (aka Burma). I don't really care that George W. Bush talked about it a couple of days ago at the UN considering he's spent the almost all of his two terms in office blasting the wrong nations, sometimes literally. However, this is something that needs to be watched, so I'm doing my part by organizing some links in one spot.

As a blogged earlier this year, Kim Dae Jung's request to visit fellow Nobel Peace Prize receipent Aung San Suu Kyi was denied. The protesters did make it to Suu Kyi's door at the start of the protests, but now they're blocked.

For some reason, I really thought the government wouldn't resort to violence - what was I thinking?

I got home tonight and saw an interesting report on CNN International.

They were talking about how the government is cracking down. In spite of this crack down there are some brave people getting pictures out and blogging on Myanmar who are trying to get the word out. I linked both Israel and Lebanon blogs during last year's conflict.

I think it's good to link to these blogs reporting what's going on in Myanmar right now because they really need the world to watch what's going on there.

Here are some links and video:

Ko Htike's Prosaic Collection

MoeMaKa Media

Democratic Voice of Burma

Burma (Myanmar) Blog

On Facebook: Support the Monks' protest in Burma and Myanmar (Burma) Uprising: Worldwide support

The Nightwatchman: Myanmar Will Be You Tubed

Myanmar Blogs All Over the World - I haven't clicked on most of these links, so I'm not sure what's live and what's not. However, I figure it doesn't hurt to link to the list. This way YOU can click around if you're so inclined.

AP article: Cell Phones, Web Spread News of Myanmar

Interesting blog on "hacktivism" in Myanmar: Empowering Myanmar, one blog at a time

Wear Red on September 28th to Show Your Support

Find Companies Doing Business with Myanmar and Lobby Them to Stop: The Dirty List - The Burma Campaign UK

Help support Burma Issues - Their mission is here BI Ideology

Some YouTube videos:

Life under Myanmar's military government - 18 Sept 07


Monks Revolution Continue in Burma


BUDDHIST MONKS LEADING PROTEST IN RANGOON BURMA


Monks' Revolution in Rangoon

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Vote for "A Girl Like Me" - CosmoGirl Film Contest

Update: A Wee Bit of a Scandal

AfroBella: How Odd
Radar Online: Black Blogger's Beef With CosmoGirl Contest

I'm in the library, but just read the posts. I've commented on AfroBella, so I think that covers my perspective on this. Now I have to get back to the books.

Update: The Voting Is Over

I got into work today ready to cast a few more votes from my office and other computers I'd find along the way. However, it seems that some people weren't playing fair, so the voting has been suspended.

We have determined that the online voting has been corrupted as a result of one or more instances of tampering with the voting process by users. As a result, none of the online votes will be counted, and we will submit all three of the semi-finalists to our panel of experts for final judging and selection of a winner.

The winner will be featured in the August 2007 issue of CosmoGIRL!

What sucks, of course, is the time that people spent voting and urging others to vote. Now that effort is a loss. Anyway, now it's in the hands of a "panel of experts" and it's not clear when the winner will be announced.

Something appeared to be fishy when on Monday A Girl Like Me's votes increased at a steady pace but votes for the others spiked and jumped over 2000 votes in that same amount of time. I captured some screen shots and mailed them to CosmoGirl.

Now I'm hearing all sorts of stuff. I mean the winner will be featured in the August 2007 issue, but when will the suspense be over? Too bad someone or some people ruined the fun for all of us.

Update: The voting ends on April 13th at 12noon EST.

I checked maybe 10 minutes ago and she was just over 400 votes from first place!

I HAD to update this blog and hope that folks check it and vote.

Please vote! Bug your friends and get them to vote too! If she gets a big surge, she can take it.

Thanks so much!
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Original posted: April 7, 2007 at 12:56am, KST

I blogged about the A Girl Like Me short documentary a few months ago.

I just heard that she'll win a $10,000 scholarship if she wins the CosmoGirl Film Contest.

Try to vote daily until it's over. I'm so organized I'll calendar it so I won't forget ;-)

So check out the video via my post here: My A Girl Like Me blog post, August 7, 2006

Then go and help Kiri Davis out and give her your vote here: VOTE HERE FOR A GIRL LIKE ME

Thanks!

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Myanmar Rejects Visa For Kim Dae-jung

Aung San Suu Kyi on tour (from ibiblio.org)

Okay, I'm tired of superficial and catty celebrity gossip. I'm guilty of indulging, but now I need to switch gears. I've dived right back into those news stories I've been avoiding.

For those who don't know who he is, Kim Dae-jung, is the former president of the South Korea and the winner of the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize.

He wanted to visit Myanmar's Aung Sang Suu Kyi, who has been in detention in Myanmar for over 10 years because of her efforts to free Burma. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. It seems that Kim's visa request was immediately rejected

on the grounds that the purpose of his visit constituted "interference in the domestic affairs" of Myanmar...

It's just a sad and unfortunate story, and more people should be aware of it.

Here is the link to the news story: Myanmar rejects South Korea Nobel laureate Kim's visa

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The Art of Elysium

This is a great cause and I just want to spread the word about what they're doing.

The name of the organization is called The Art of Elysium. What they do is bring artists to work with and inspire children who are hospitalized with serious illnesses.

Here is how they describe the work they do:

E.ly’.si.um: a place or condition of ideal happiness

Mission: The Art of Elysium, a non-profit 501(c) (3) organization founded in 1997, encourages working actors, artists and musicians to voluntarily dedicate their time and talent to children who are battling serious medical conditions. We provide artistic workshops in the following disciplines: acting, art, comedy, fashion, music, radio, songwriting and creative writing.

Here is a video link featuring a few artists, including Jordan Lawhead, doing their thing through the Art of Elysium. It's nice to see artists giving back in ways that involve more than writing a check or going to a party. More should try it.

I was blessed as a kid with pretty good health. As I got older, I've been hospitalized a couple of times. Even though I put on a brave face and cracked a lot of jokes, it's terrifying. I can't imagine what it's like to experience that as a child.

These folks are doing some great work! It seems to be L.A. based now, but it would be nice to see it expand.

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I heard about this non-profit from a member at MySpace. Thanks Lori!

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