My students alerted me to a website, www.freerice.com, wherein you attempt to select the correct definition to a series of increasingly difficult words. Each correct answer results in 10 grains of rice being donated to the United Nations World Food Program, the largest food aid agency in the world. Advertising on the site generates income to buy the rice.
I played for the first time this morning. I made it to level 42. The highest level is 50.
Have fun and feed the world.
C
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poverty. Show all posts
Friday, January 25, 2008
Friday, June 8, 2007
Tracking candidates stands on the issues
Waiting for me in my inbox this morning was an email from ONE, the campaign to make poverty history. (You can access the ONE website through the rotating banner at the top of this page.) The message was an invitation to sign up for a teleconference to discuss the launch of a campaign to "make every 2008 presidential candidate take a clear position on extreme poverty and global disease. "
According to the email: "We are just days away from launching an aggressive field effort, placing ads on the air, and launching a new website that will track the '08 candidates on the ground and on the issues like AIDS, malaria, access to clean water, and universal basic education.
"But to reach the widest audience possible, we need to tap in the power of the ONE community. I need you to share your vision for an America that leads the global fight to end extreme poverty and disease. So on Monday I'll be kicking-off ONE Vote '08 by hosting a conference call with Senator Tom Daschle, Senator Bill Frist, and you."
Whether you're interested in the ideals of ONE or not, the notion of tracking candidates stands and making those public is a great idea. It accomplishes a couple of things. It provides a focal point for public interest; it keeps the issue in the media; it allows people to easily compare candidates stances; and it makes the candidates aware of public interest.
If you're interested, Sign up for the conference call Monday, June 11th at 7:30 pm eastern time.
Colleen
According to the email: "We are just days away from launching an aggressive field effort, placing ads on the air, and launching a new website that will track the '08 candidates on the ground and on the issues like AIDS, malaria, access to clean water, and universal basic education.
"But to reach the widest audience possible, we need to tap in the power of the ONE community. I need you to share your vision for an America that leads the global fight to end extreme poverty and disease. So on Monday I'll be kicking-off ONE Vote '08 by hosting a conference call with Senator Tom Daschle, Senator Bill Frist, and you."
Whether you're interested in the ideals of ONE or not, the notion of tracking candidates stands and making those public is a great idea. It accomplishes a couple of things. It provides a focal point for public interest; it keeps the issue in the media; it allows people to easily compare candidates stances; and it makes the candidates aware of public interest.
If you're interested, Sign up for the conference call Monday, June 11th at 7:30 pm eastern time.
Colleen
Monday, May 21, 2007
The Girl in the Café
Saw a really good movie on DVD last night, The Girl in the Café with Bill Nighy and Kelly MacDonald. Nighy was perfect as the tightly-bound, lonely, vacillating civil servant. How I ached for him and his inability to emote. When he says: "I know a lot about certain things. Transport. Development. But sod all about everything else. Including, obviously, real life" you want to, I don't know, inject him with something, some colour, some chutzpah, something.
What's brilliant about the movie is that it doubles as a bit of propaganda for the issue of world poverty. The tag line: Love can't change what's wrong with the world, but it's a start, doesn't do it justice, but it gives you an idea.
I become horribly angry when I watch or read anything about the unfairness that is our world. I want to immediately race out and fix something. I feel so frustrated with my uselessness, my inability to make a difference.
As I lie awake in bed thinking about what I could do, I began thinking art and its potential to make us think... to make us feel.
Oddly, my brain flipped to The Scream by Edvard Munch. Let me begin by saying how much I hate this picture. If I come across it in a book, I will flip by the page trying not to look at it. If it's on a wall somewhere, I will look away and be very conscious about not looking back. The Scream fills me with despair. It makes me think of concentration camps, of insane asylums. In his diary, Munch wrote about his inspiration for the piece: "I was walking along a path with two friends—the sun was setting—suddenly the sky turned blood red—I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence—there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city—my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety—and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature."
It is the image of this painting that came to me as I was thinking of the agony of parents who cannot feed their children or keep them safe. Who can see those images in the news and not be moved to think "what if...?"
(Perhaps, by definition, The Scream, is for me the greatest painting ever. It's impact on me is tremendous.)
I think our feelings of helplessness keep us from doing anything. It keeps us focused on those things we can do something about. Mundane things like preparing a meal or ridding the garden of weeds. Accomplishable, realistic goals.
The thing of it is, I think we can do something concrete to make a difference. One of the most effective actions is to make our voices heard. Politicians do what we require of them to do. Was the environment on the political radar in any serious way even five years ago? Now, every political party in Canada is arm-wrestling to be seen as greener than the others.
We can do the same on the issue of poverty. Get involved. Write a letter. Sign a petition. Give of your time. There comes a point when critical mass weighs in our favour and world leaders can no longer ignore the voices of the masses.
It's a matter of political survival.
Colleen
What's brilliant about the movie is that it doubles as a bit of propaganda for the issue of world poverty. The tag line: Love can't change what's wrong with the world, but it's a start, doesn't do it justice, but it gives you an idea.
I become horribly angry when I watch or read anything about the unfairness that is our world. I want to immediately race out and fix something. I feel so frustrated with my uselessness, my inability to make a difference.
As I lie awake in bed thinking about what I could do, I began thinking art and its potential to make us think... to make us feel.
Oddly, my brain flipped to The Scream by Edvard Munch. Let me begin by saying how much I hate this picture. If I come across it in a book, I will flip by the page trying not to look at it. If it's on a wall somewhere, I will look away and be very conscious about not looking back. The Scream fills me with despair. It makes me think of concentration camps, of insane asylums. In his diary, Munch wrote about his inspiration for the piece: "I was walking along a path with two friends—the sun was setting—suddenly the sky turned blood red—I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence—there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city—my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety—and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature."
It is the image of this painting that came to me as I was thinking of the agony of parents who cannot feed their children or keep them safe. Who can see those images in the news and not be moved to think "what if...?"
(Perhaps, by definition, The Scream, is for me the greatest painting ever. It's impact on me is tremendous.)
I think our feelings of helplessness keep us from doing anything. It keeps us focused on those things we can do something about. Mundane things like preparing a meal or ridding the garden of weeds. Accomplishable, realistic goals.
The thing of it is, I think we can do something concrete to make a difference. One of the most effective actions is to make our voices heard. Politicians do what we require of them to do. Was the environment on the political radar in any serious way even five years ago? Now, every political party in Canada is arm-wrestling to be seen as greener than the others.
We can do the same on the issue of poverty. Get involved. Write a letter. Sign a petition. Give of your time. There comes a point when critical mass weighs in our favour and world leaders can no longer ignore the voices of the masses.
It's a matter of political survival.
Colleen
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