World Community Grid - Mash Up

I've got both my home and work computer signed up to the World Community Grid.

They've created a video mash up of various grid participants saying why they do it.

All you have to do is download the software and when your computer is idle it basically processes data for very important experiments. I've been a member since around 2005 when an office mate told me about it.

'I Dedicate' – World Community Grid Members Video Montage

In October 2008, we asked members to send in their personal video dedications. There were many great submissions, and while we couldn't include all of them (even though we wanted to), we hope that you will enjoy this mash-up that we've put together.

And tell everyone about the new video! We share the same passion about making the world a better place, so let's show more folks how simple it is to make a real difference!

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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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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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