After a 15-year civil war, Mozambique was one of the world’s most heavily mined countries. Twenty-two years after the war ended, the country was declared officially mine-free this month. Key to this success have been trained de-mining rats used by the Norwgian-supported organization APOPO. The rats sniff out the mines and their handlers destroy the […]

Today is the last day to support your favorite causes and get the tax credit in April (if you pay taxes in the U.S.) – so do it! Support the people and charities that “fight the good fight!” Her are the charities I supported this year: Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) MSF is an […]

One of the most insightful comment about the Sandy Hook shooting comes from the mother of a mentally ill 13-year-old:  I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am Jason Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And […]

Fight PIPA and SOPA today! The Stop Online Piracy Act (H.R. 3261), known as “SOPA,” is scheduled for consideration at a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee [today]. The bill is aimed at taking down sites that allow Internet users to acquire pirated versions of original artistic content online. At a recent hearing, the ACLU expressed opposition […]

As the Left in the US has become quite disillusioned with the Obama administration, and the conservative Tea Party movement is deflating, Occupy Wall Street and the entire Occupy movement managed to shine a huge spotlight on the biggest problem in America: corporate greed. Occupy’s actions bring focus to populist anger about the “1 percent” […]

Friday morning, around 2:00 AM, I was at work dealing with a major email server problem, when I started noticing the news headlines about the disaster in Japan. It sounded bad, but I was too tired and too preoccupied with my work for the magnitude of that disaster to really sink in. Later that morning, […]

The World Togolese Foundation (WTF) will hold its first conference on Sept 12 in Atlanta, Georgia (USA). I find this particularly interesting because on our last trip to Togo we had many discussions with folks in our village Yikpa about how to rally the diaspora to help the development of the village. Apparently one  Emmanuel […]

Happy Global Orgasm for Peace Day! What a wacky idea … The Global Orgasm for Peace certainly has the same winking cleverness, but it also invites us to consider the power of collective thought. Does what we think really effect anything? The project’s Web site points to the work of another group, the Global Consciousness […]

On our trip to Iceland last year, I fell in love with this unique country, with its stark, fragile natural beauty and its friendly, quirky inhabitants. I learned a bit about the Icelanders, and I think I understand why they want to resume whaling. Please don’t do it, Iceland. There are many better ways to […]

This weekend was fun. Friday after work, I drove down to Pittsboro in Chatham County for a 2-hour discussion forum on biodiesel. And Saturday and Sunday the program was all-biodiesel, all-day, at girl Mark’s workshop at Chatham County Community College. Both events were organized by the tireless folks at Piedmont Biofuels Coop. Friday’s discussion brought […]

I just watched Robert Greenwald’s new documentary Wal-Mart: The high cost of low price. Greenwald also did Outfoxed a great documentary about Rupert Murdoch’s attack on American journalism. Now Greenwald skewers the world’s largest retailer with a relentless mix of very individual stories of family businesses that were ruined, workers who were intimidated and harassed, […]

The Public Voicemail service by Air America Radio looks like a very creative solution to help people in disaster areas notify friends and family of their status – IF they know about it … Air America Radio’s Public Voicemail 1-866-217-6255 Air America Radio’s Public Voicemail is a way for disconnected people to communicate in the […]

Interesting project by the the American Progress Action Fund and the Genocide Intervention Fund to raise awareness about the genocide in Darfur: use Journalism-School science for an activist campaign called Be A Witness.

Have you fixed your bicycle yet? The end is near! The end of cheap gas, that is. More and more people are acknowledging that peak oil is indeed upon us, possibly in the next few years. That means that just as fossil fuel consumption is skyrocketing, we may be hitting the top of the Hubbert […]

The HSUS estimates that at in the last 3 days, 5 hours 62,800 seal pups have been clubbed to death in Canada. I urge you to join the boycott of Canadian seafood until they stop this butchery. HSUS’s Director of Canadian Wildlife Issues is out on the ice off of Prince Edward Island, documenting how […]

Since this morning, Canadian sealers slaughtered an estimated 4200 baby seals, as the annual seal hunt on Canada’s Atlantic coast began. By the end of the this year’s hunting season, sealers will have clubbed and skinned 300,000 seal pups. According to the US Humane Society, this is the largest commercial slaughter of marine mammals on […]

In an their LA Times editorial Taking Child Slavery Out of Valentine’s Day, Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), touch on an important issue that needs much broader attention: the refusal of major chcolate manufacturers to stamp out child slavery in cocoa production. However, they miss one important aspect of this issue. There […]