Kim, Erica and Natalie at KIND Snacks put together a really neat internal presentation at KIND’s Growing Together Retreat earlier this spring and I wanted to share it:
http://blog.peaceworks.net/wp-content/uploads/KIND/
It takes a little bit for it to upload but I think it’s worth it. Make sure volume is on.
You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thx to Natalie, Erica and Kim for pointing me to this one and including it in the Essence of KIND presentation – very much in sync with KIND and the KINDED campaign.
Andrew Sullivan’s blog documents the atrocities perpetrated by the ruling regime in its efforts to suppress protests after it stole the election.
He shares the following:
This list was being passed around among the resistance in Iran today:
1. Remove Khamenei from supreme leader because he doesn’t qualify as a fair supreme leader
2. Remove Ahmadinejad from president because he took it forcefully and unlawfully
3. Put Ayatollah Montazeri as supreme leader until a review group for the ghanooneh asasi ( "constitution" ) is set up
4. Recognize Mousavi as the official president
5. A goverment by Mousavi and start a reform of the constitution
6. Free all political prisoners without any ifs ands or buts, right away
7. Call off any secret organization such as "gasht ershad"
And compiles dozens of videos such as this:
This is the beginning of the end of this regime.
When President Obama was elected, many Israelis fretted that he would side with Palestinians, while the majority of Palestinians were elated.
When Obama selected Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff, Palestinians were devastated and paralyzed in fear, while Israelis celebrated Rahm’s service in the Israeli Defense Forces.
And so on, with every appointment or every announcement by the Obama Administration, Middle Easterners have interpreted the signals as a game of ping-pong – a score for this side or the other.
If Obama is to score a historic agreement among Israel and Palestine, and between Israel and the Arab and Muslim World, his task first and foremost is to do to the Middle East what he did to the American landscape – i.e., to Obamize the Middle East.
Obama was elected because he rejected false paradigms of division and helped people celebrate their human commonalities.
And so in the Middle East, Obama’s philosophy has been to show that if we work together, it will not be for the benefit of one side at the expense of the other, but humanity’s benefit and that of both sides.
Obama’s transformation is moving at a faster pace than anyone anticipated.
This week, moderates in Lebanon rejected the charismatic but divisive policies of Hezbollah’s Sheikh Nasrallah, instead reaffirming a parliamentary majority for the pro-Western government.
Obama may be in for yet another influential game-changer, after his poignant speech in Cairo, if next week Iranians elected a reformer to dethrone Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President. Yes, the Iranian President may not be the Supreme Leader of Iran. But he certainly wielded enormous (negative) global influence and a rebuke of his vision will be refreshing and encouraging to the world order.
Now hopefully Israelis and Palestinians will also press their governments to stop dillydallying and once and for all deliver a realistic agreement for a two state solution.
One of entrepreneurs’ and CEOs’ greater challenges is learning the art of contraction.
CEOs and entrepreneurs may feel they can do a task better than their team members because they have more experience.
But then they will never will build the professional potential of their staff, and their organizations will not reach their full potential, limited as they are by the hours of one human being.
Similarly with children, if overbearing parents control the lives of their kids, these are more apt to become meek children living in the shadow of their parents.
Same with Professors and Coaches and Doctors and Lawyers who have apprentices.
Philosophers of religion, when trying to explain why G’d, though all-powerful and omni-present, does not dominate our lives or otherwise prevent all forms of evil, talk about the supreme power of contraction from G’d, to allow free will to reign. Were G’d not to contract its power, humans would never be able to have self-determination or otherwise do anything.
The power and the talent of contraction is thus vital to all pursuits where you want to build the strength of your team or eco-system.
Click play on the link here to see an example of excellent data visualization, and to get a sense of the depth of this recession.
From Phil in KIND’s communication dept:
All,
Fans of the popular, long-running soap opera “Days of Our Lives” may have noticed a special cameo on Monday, June 1st! When Brady and Melanie found themselves trapped in the Kiriakis family mausoleum, things suddenly turned around for Melanie when she found a KIND Almond & Apricot Bar she had in her purse.
Just goes to show – carrying a KIND Bar can save the day, whether you find yourself trapped in a mausoleum or just craving a delicious and healthy on-the-go snack! Please enjoy and feel free to distribute the link below.
http://www.kindsnacks.com/media-center/2009/06/kind-cameos-on-days-of-our-lives/
Best, Phil
A year ago we conceived a project to help young Palestinians and Israelis visualize what their lives would be like ten years from now if peace were to come. To dare them to believe, hoping this will then prompt them to invest into turning this vision into a reality. The project, Imagine 2018, received thousands of essay submissions from students, and captivated the imagination of millions.
Now its next phase – turning children’s winning essays into short films by award-winning directors – is also becoming a reality, as described in this email from Gil from OneVoice Israel. The next step is to make peace a reality.
Soldier and Boy Tel Aviv Damascus
Dear all,
We would like to update you that OVI had filmed the 2 short movies of the "imagine 2018" project.
There were two days of shooting : 24-25 of may.
Overall the outcomes were beyond our expectations, since the producers and directors were very professional and organized, and they were able to recruit some of the best actors in the local market, that made this project very prestigious .we had: Yona Elian – A very famous and respectable theater and movie actor. an Israeli icon, Aki Avni, a very talented and well known actor. worked in LA in the past few years, Clara khoury, who played the "Syrian bride", Oshri Cohen, played a leading role in "beau for" Ali Nassaer (an Arab Israeli actor and director) and the amazing kid , Abdallah Akkal.
Dan Bar-On was an extraordinary man who, together with Sami Adwan, conceived a powerful shared narrative project, where Israelis and Palestinians read about their and their counterparts’ historical narrative – helping them understand they don’t need to give up their patriotism to better understand the other side. Bar-On, who gave his life to peace efforts and who was an inspiration to OneVoice, lost his battle to cancer last fall. He once wrote:
"[Hope for achieving co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians may in the end depend on] giving up the romantic, monolithic desires of the idealized past in favor of a less perfect but more complex understanding of the world and ourselves, an understanding that can create new possibilities for dialogue within our selves, among ourselves within a collective, and with the Other."
From "Tell Your Life Story" by Dan Bar-On, as related by Dr. Saliba Sarsar
