Salem-News.com Culture articles Page 11

Disagreement Without the Hate

Yet, there is indeed a peaceful, even collaborative, way to disagree.

(PORTLAND, OR) - Disagreement is an essential component of a healthy relationship, a healthy workplace, and a healthy democracy. Much research documents the dangers of surrounding ourselves with so-called “yes men” who always concur. Workplace echo chambers stifle innovation and reify bad policy decisions. Disagreement stimulates creative thinking and prompts innovation.

Yet, there is indeed a peaceful, even collaborative, way to disagree. And, I contend, that it never involves personal insults, ad hominem attacks, and strings of epithets and curse words.

Why Don`t We Try to Understand and End Human Violence?

Human beings will end violence or Violence will end human beings.

(TASMANIA, Aust.) - The pre-eminent problem confronting humankind is human violence. It is our own violence, in its various guises, including the ongoing possibility of nuclear war and the ongoing devastation of the natural environment, that threaten to consign us to the fossil record within decades, if not sooner.

And yet we devote virtually no effort to trying to understand human violence and to developing strategies to end it. Why?

`Necessary Illusion` by Noam Chomsky, Has Been Applied Forever

We have inherited a beautiful planet and nature, which sadly is being destroyed in so many ways, because Neanderthal mentalities, and beads and trinkets are ruling and ruining our planet.

(KELOWNA, BC) - It’s been more than 50 years since I’ve read the Bible, out of curiosity, and the recent news that “Winemaker brings sacred scroll (the Torah) to the Okanagan,” peaked my interest to read some of it again.

As a well-informed adult, I’ve read with amusement about this unjust and bloodthirsty god in the Bible, which could only have been fabricated in the minds of superstitious and uninformed people of thousands of years ago.

Court in Jaffna Dismisses SL Military Claim on Tamil Memorial Site at Theeruvil

No civilized army or government will ever destroy the memorials of the dead, but Sri Lanka will do it. Here is a Sinhalese government that not only destroyed the memorial, but also claimed the property as their own, fit only for Sinhalese colonization. - Visvanathan Sivam

(JAFFNA TamilNet) - District Court of Point Pedro in Jaffna on Wednesday dismissed the claim by the Sri Lankan military that the land, which the Urban Council of Valveddith-thu’rai (VVT) had chosen to build a public park at Theeruvil was a property that should belong to the SL military.

Legal sources in VVT said the civic body could now proceed with building the park which is situated at a key memorial site...

Kabul`s School of Rock Offers Lessons for Life

"It is very difficult and it is not very common here, particularly for girls, to learn music. Girls can go to school to learn how to read and write, but music is an unreachable desire" - Meena Yousufzai, 22

(KABUL AFP) - With a sense of showmanship that would have impressed Freddie Mercury, Salahdeen, aged seven, struts his way through a passionate rendition of "We Will Rock You" - all part of the learning process at Kabul's "school of rock".

Founded two years ago in a living room in the Afghan capital, the school has grown into a busy youth club based at an arts centre with a recording studio and 35 students mastering singing, the guitar and drums.

Portland AIDS Activists Named to `POZ 100` List

National list of "Unsung Heroes" all live with HIV.

(PORTLAND, OR) - POZ magazine, an award-winning print and online brand for people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, today announced the fourth annual POZ 100.

This year, POZ asked individuals and organizations to nominate an HIV-positive person in their community who is an unsung hero in the fight against AIDS.

Intaction Anti-Circumcision Activists Picket Home of Leading Pediatrician

On Saturday November 16, members of the anti-circumcision activist group INTACTION http://www.intaction.org picketed outside the home of Susan Blank, M.D., chairperson of the American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on Circumcision.

(NEW YORK CITY) - Members of the anti-circumcision activist group INTACTION picketed outside the home of Susan Blank, M.D., chairperson of the American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on Circumcision.

The Intaction picketers are demanding the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Task Force retract it’s recently released report (Pediatrics Vol 130 No 3 Sept 2012 "Circumcision Policy Statement") that promotes infant circumcision.

Breakfast in Restaurants and Cafés of Tehran

A sampling of Tehran's best breakfast options...

(TEHRAN) - Most people, who have to wake up early in the morning all through the week to go to work, will probably prefer to get out of bed later on Friday mornings [which is the official holiday in Iran].

They may also want to have their breakfast, say, at 11:00 a.m., and dine on a single meal as their lunch and supper, or at least, suffice to a light lunch. Having breakfast with one’s family is one of those blessings of which most of us are deprived as a result of the new urban lifestyle that we have adopted since we began to live in the cities.

The Discovery of America

I once spent a year in Philadelphia - I think it was on a Sunday - W.C. Fields

(DAYTONA BEACH) - America was discovered by nomads who crossed a land bridge to Alaska 10,000 years ago. They came on foot, before the invention of the wheel or the horse Some of them may have come from as far away as India, which may explain why they called themselves Indians.

Their ethnic origin has been widely debated, although since they wore feathers in their hair, they definitely weren't Chinese. They did talk funny, but so does everybody in southeast Asia.

Stifling Activism, the Bureaucratic Way

Those who have power can lord over those without, curtailing their efforts to envision and begin creating a better world.

(PORTLAND, OR) - I am writing and raging. Raging because I am tired, oh so tired, of my activism being repressed or limited by bureaucratic minutia and ridiculous protocol.

I am even more upset at the ways bureaucracy stifles my students who, because they are informed and outraged, want to act and are told they can’t, or can only under certain conditions…blah, blah, blah.