Daniel Lubetzky

by Adeena Schlussel

This great video will be shown at the opening plenary of the Rio Forum, before 2000 civil society and world leaders.  Watch Darya speak about OneVoice and Daniel speak about PeaceWorks Foods as a model to harness market forces to bring people together.  Others featured in the video include the UN Secretary General and the President of Brazil.

By Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

The dictator Hugo Chavez continues to use the judicial system to jail judges who disagree with him and to expropriate property of any one he is “threatened” by.  He is out of control and the global community should be more serious about condemning and countering his totalitarianism.

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By Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

This is a scary article about threats to a pro-human rights activist from Venezuela…

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This interview mentions my uncle Larry Lubetzky – my Dad’s older brother.  I recall how as a child my Dad recounted his liberation by American soldiers.  It was many years later that I learned the platoon that rescued him was composed of all Asian-Americans – Japanese Americans to be specific. 

A few weeks ago my sister uncovered an interview by the Yale Archives of my Dad, from 1987, which I am embarrassed I had never seen, sharing his life’s story, including the dark episode of Dachau.  The video was dubbed into DVD and I made several hundred copies.  If anyone wants one, please reply to this posting, or email me or call our office at +1 212 616 3006 x104 and I will gladly send you a copy – while supplies last.

Poem forwarded by my cousin Sergio.  Apologies to non-Spanish speakers…

Final del año

Ni el pormenor simbólico

de reemplazar un nueve por un diez

ni esa metáfora baldía

que convoca a un lapso que muere

ni el cumplimiento de un proceso astronómico

aturden y socavan

la altiplanicie de esta noche

y nos obligan a esperar

las doce irreparables campanadas.

La causa verdadera

es la sospecha general y borrosa

del enigma del tiempo;

es el asombro ante el milagro

de que a despecho de infinitos azares,

de que a despecho de que somos

las gotas del rio de Heráclito,

perdure algo en nosotros:

inmóvil.

     – Jorge Luis Borges

I was surfing through TIME Magazine’s Top 10 Everything of 2009 list. While many of their choices seem random and uninspired at best, some gems hidden among their finds included their choice of Adam Lambert’s "Mad World" among their top songs. I read the lyrics several times, pasted below, and listened also to the original Tears for Fears performance (also below). 

When I was a kid in San Antonio, Texas, newly arrived from a sheltered upbringing in Mexico City, I enjoyed the song but didn’t relate to it – or understand why it resonated so much among American kids who "had it all." 

In Mexico City, in every corner on popular streets there was an indigent kid begging for alms and struggling to survive, so kids that had a home and a family didn’t generally question their lot.  Why then, would kids who could eat American cereals for breakfast and go to Malibu Grand Prix feel deprived? 

In retrospect, this song hits such a chord with the alienation and loss of meaning that many feel in modern society, primarily in the developed world.  Serious challenges of course are faced every day by struggling kids. But much of it also has to do with the framing of those challenges.  "How bad do I have it relative to the 30,000 children who literally starve to death every day?" 

The search for depth and meaning, and reaffirmation of our special fortune amidst so much wealth and excess, and of our role and duty to find our own way to make this a better world for others, are critical to the health and happiness of future generations.

In very real ways, thinking of others and kinding others (ie, doing conscious acts of kindness for others) gives us meaning and fulfillment.

Mad World lyrics
Songwriters: Orzabal, Roland;

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Goin’ nowhere, goin’ nowhere
Their tears are fillin’ up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dyin’
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
‘Cause I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad world, mad world
Mad world, mad world
Children waitin’ for the day they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sits and listen, sits and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what’s my lesson?
Look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dyin’
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
‘Cause I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad world, mad world
Mad world, mad world
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dyin’
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
‘Cause I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad world, mad world
Mad world, mad world
A raunchy young world
Mad world
© ROLAND ORZABAL LIMITED;

Very much in OneVoice, and very much with a sentiment like that of the KIND Movement, Starbucks bested all videos I got this season with this awesome compilation (which I received from Jason Alexander): musicians and ordinary citizens across the world joined on the same day at the same time to sing the same song:

Among all of KIND’s retail partners, Starbucks certainly ranks among the classiest, most professional and most sincerely committed to truly make this a better world.  In this case the above is part of a partnership with Project RED to fight AIDS.

Here is an interview about OneVoice, PeaceWorks, and "my life" (the title and theme of the show, Hayati) that aired on the Arabic TV Network Al Hurra.

It is painfully funny to watch how chubby I was…

His face is so calm
Full of love and tranquility
How blessed we are
to have warm shelter and peace for him.

How hard and how painful
for the millions upon millions
who lack peace, or water or heat,
who may not have bread or milk to give their children.

How hard and how painful
for the parents who’d lose a baby to a missile
or the babies who’d lose a parent to a bomb
and the nations who’d lose their innocence along the way.

That juxtaposition gives me anxiety:
the peaceful nap of our little baby
against the horrors and hatred brewing around our world,
whether a few blocks up, or 7,000 miles away.

For my baby’s peace cannot be guaranteed
his Spring cannot be counted upon
so long as babies anywhere else in our globe
are suffering, being targeted or killed.

It is for our baby here
that peace must be waged there.

As reported earlier in The Real Axis, a major threat that is not sufficiently explored or countered is the alliance between drug gangs, terrorists, and the authoritarian regime of Hugo Chavez.  Now Colombia has uncovered a Hezbollah-linked drug ring that was trafficking drugs and laundering cash.

Hezbollah-led drug stashes seized in Colombia

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