Research & Rescue

Deportee

This is my favourite rendition, by far, of the old Woody Guthrie song, Plane Wreck at Los Gatos Canyon (Deportee).

RIP Blake Edwards

RIP Blake Edwards, Director of The Pink Panther Films.

Google Demo Slam: Epic Docs Animation

Brilliant presentation, done completely in Google Docs

Le Flash Mob, c'est magnifique

Random Acts of Kindness

This is quite beautiful:

Video: Aaron Huey: America's native prisoners of war

According to City-Data.com, the percentage of Pine Ridge residents living below the poverty line is more than 60%. For children, it's about 74%. The unemployment rate on Pine Ridge is somewhere around 85% (backpacksforpineridge.com)

From Aaron Huey's talk at TEDxDU:

"The suffering of the indigenous peoples is not an easy a simple issue to fix. It's not something everyone can get behind, the way they get behind helping Haiti or ending AIDS or fighting a famine. The fix, as it's called, may be much more difficult for the dominant society than, say a $50 check or a church trip to paint some graffiti-covered houses or a suburban family donating a box of clothes they don't even want anymore. So, where does that leave us? Shrugging our shoulders in the dark? The United States continues on a daily basis to violate the terms of the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie treaties with the Lakota. The call to action I offer today - my TED Wish - is this: Honor the treaties. Give back the Black Hills. It's not your business what they do with them."

If you want to help the Lakota Nation in some way, here are two resources that you can go through. Feel free to leave other reputable ones in the comments:

Grassroots Non-Profit Assistance Programs for the Lakota Siouxan Nations

Betty Tuininga on Twitter

Stephan Wolff on Ending Ethnic Conflicts

Can leadership, diplomacy and institutional design be used to wage peace? Seems like a no-brainer. Historically, there's been a gap between power and leadership. Hopefully a global change in thought will result in a change in the trend.

Watch Your Pet

Hooray for Altair Engineering! Good advice for pet owners and, from the geek side of me, how cool that they made this ad with Solid Thinking! 

 

Congratulations to the Silly Party

Happy Halloween - Keep it Real

In The Know: Has Halloween Become Overcommercialized?