Fifteen years ago, twelve-year old Severn Suzuki scraped together enough money to travel from Canada to the Rio Summit. She gave this speech to the delegates - a bone-chilling reminder of their responsibility.
It seems more relevant today than ever.
The European Union is seeking again to ban the swastika symbol. There has been a flurry of debate about the vastly different meanings the symbol has to different cultures.
This has centred on the feelings of the German nation, European Jews and Hindus.
From YNet News (via Anarchaia):
Germany plans to use its presidency of the EU to launch an initiative which could lead to common laws across the bloc making it a crime to deny genocide and display Nazi symbols.
“The swastika has been around for 5,000 years as a symbol of peace. This is exactly the opposite of how it was used by Hitler,” said Ramesh Kallidai of the Hindu Forum of Britain.
“It is almost like saying that the Klu Klux Klan used burning crosses to terrorize black men, so therefore let us ban the cross. How does that sound to you?”
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Prout (PROgressive Utilisation Theory) is a visionary socio-economic system to encourage a cooperative society. A new short story competition has been announced for writers to open a window on a future, Proutistic society. From the press release:
IMAGINE A SOCIETY IN WHICH…
…food, clothing, housing, education and medical care are guaranteed to everyone.
…most farms, banks, industries and services are run as cooperatives owned by the workers.
…there are no multinational corporations.
…different voices, languages and cultures are respected.
…there is self-sufficiency in food, medicines, clothing, housing, and local transport.
…the environment is protected and restored, all agriculture is organic, waste is recycled and renewable energy is used.
…universal spirituality is valued, not religious dogmas or conflicts.
…leaders are selfless servants of the people. Read more…
There are plenty of wrongs to right in the world. We can but deal with one at a time…
I don’t know about you, but email spam really annoys me. There’s something repulsive about deceitfully and repeatedly forcing useless products onto millions of people who really couldn’t care less about viagra logo enhancements or anything else on offer. So…
Take Action
If you’ve ever made your email address public on a website, the chances are that it’s been detected by a spam robot and added to its database.
For the benefit of such bots, I’ve written a little script to churn out scores of random addresses, with a link to a page that has more of the same. The result is the SpamPit. May they never come out again…
To Add a SpamPit to your Website… Read more…
Auroville is an experimental city, under development in south India. It is intended to be a model township - an international and universal place for personal, spiritual growth and social advancement.
Auroville exists for nothing less than to hasten the evolution of the human species - to develop the mind from its animal instincts to sublime intuition, and to manifest the inspiration of the Divine in the material world. Read more…
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