Monday, May 21, 2007

_____ Killed in _____________

I fired up the browser this morning and popped over to Yahoo News to see what was going on only to see 4 killed here, 7 killed there, 25 killed over there. You could fill in the blanks with Iraq, Afganistan, Palestine, or Lebanon. Day after day week after week month after month. It's enough to keep you permenantly depressed and in need of a permenant prozac prescription. I went instead to the site of Nickolas Negroponte you may have seen him on 60 Minutes with his one laptop per child. I'd love to start a grass roots movement to help with this program. Think about it for one minute. Not only would you be providing kids with more knowledge than any encyclopedia, but you give them the chance to meet and understand cultures from all over the world. Throw a line or two in the comments section (if it's there) and let me know what you think.

3 comments:

2foot9 said...

"Not only would you be providing kids with more knowledge than any encyclopedia, but you give them the chance to meet and understand cultures from all over the world."
I guess that an equally important step would be to give yourself a chance to do just that. Knowing that there are indeed 'others' out there should be the very first step. Then meeting and somehow understanding how these 'others' are and how they see you, is vitally important to understand who YOU are! Without that, how can you possibly pass onto your kids what it is that is out there and why it is important.
In order to get a good understanding of how people see you (your country, your actions) go and visit sites like www.watchingamerica.com.
I have just recently started working with them translating foreign press articles into English. This is done to provide an insight into how the rest of the world thinks about the US and is quite possibly the only service which provides a real time 'commentary' by the foreign press on current issues and it is a crucial tool enabling 'meeting' and 'understanding'!

Demeur said...

Tim you must understand that I am very much aware of how the rest of the world views the U.S. and as you may have noted from my comments at Blah3 and here at my own blog that I've been fighting for the truth for some time now. The thing I and others can pass on to our children is respect for others no matter what their culture. And I believe that providing access to other cultures is the means of accomplishing that. I've read blogs from all over the world and what really surprises me is that even though people speak a different language, wear different clothes and have other traditions that are different from my own we are very much the same.
You must also understand that a very self serving radical element of politicians has taken over this country and it's not been a fun ride. So while they are busy trashing the world I'd like to take a few moments and focus on something positive like helping others as I am unable to stop those in power. I've tried. I voted for the other party and have written my senators and congressmen and yet has anything changed? Yes I am aware of how others see us but this is not the true spirit of average Americans.

Chuck said...

Hey Demeur!

I didn't even know that you were blogging- been out of the loop for too long.

Anyway, just stopping over to say hi.