Fascinating story of a young boy in India who takes the initiative to “Be the Change you wish to see in the world.” At 16, he goes to school during the day, and teaches hundreds of children who can’t afford school fees in the afternoon.

Okay, so a bit of a random check-in post since I couldn’t think of any pressing thing to write about. Mostly I tend to avoid personal update posts on this blog, but occasionally I like to check in, so here you go. And yes, I’m gonna bullet point it.

Someone in the past year recommend this book, Unclutter Your Life in One Week. It was at the library the other day so I picked it up and I’m gonna give it a whirl. I’ve always tried to keep a minimal amount …

Spurred on by my failure to realize Monday was International Women’s Day, I’ve decided to start a small project to create a significant events calendar. Several years ago I had one of those pocket daily calendars with a random quote on each day, and those 365 calendars with a random fact or puzzle each day where quite popular. My idea back then was to create a similar calendar with historically significant events related to social justice (Juneteenth, end of S. Africa Apartheid, Assassination of Oscar Romero), and have that published …

It’s 10:36pm on March 8th, and I just realized, thanks to my wife pointing it out, that’s it’s International Women’s Day. I’ll blame my own ignorance primarily, but it’s both sad and surprising that in my web browsing and activities of the day I didn’t notice a single recognition of this global celebration of women. I was well aware, thanks to several status updates, that yesterday was the Oscars, and I’ve already been reminded that St. Patty’s day is coming up, so how is it that we as a community …

The Celebrity
Carrie Bloom was used to being a star, it came with the territory. Like others in her profession, her stardom hadn’t diminished over time, if anything, it actually had increased. The truth was, she had always appreciated the perks, it was a reminder to her that what she did was important. It had been her husband, many years ago at the beginning of her career, that had taken a while to come around.
“I’m not saying what you do isn’t important, honestly.” He had said that evening twenty years ago, …

“There is enough for everyone’s need but not enough for everyone’s greed.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

You’ve probably heard this quote before, as have I, but somewhere amidst the recent earthquake, tsunami warnings, or more foreclosures news, the quote hit me afresh. There really is enough.
We as a global society have enough resources to rescue the hundreds and thousands from the rubble of natural disasters. We have enough food to feed every hungry mouth on the planet. We have access and the ability and knowledge to produce medicine and vaccinations to stop preventable …

The videos below are created by famous directors about the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set, in 2000, by the international community (189 countries) to reduce extreme poverty by 2015.
They are interesting and engaging videos, not high speed dramas, but intriguing. The player below (click through the email or RSS to view) has all 8 videos, starting with one about Development.

(By http://www.notimeleft.org)

Even today, over a month later, thousands are in desperate need of help in Haiti. It has been encouraging to see the global community come together in the moment of crisis to help an entire country recover from near total destruction. But this post isn’t about Haiti. It’s not about devastation we saw when Katrina or the Tsunami hit or the carnage of lesser publicized natural disasters in China, Pakistan and Iran over the last several years. This also isn’t about belittling the need in those moments or the compassion …