Facilitating Change

I don’t allow meat into my house and periodically go through militant vegan phases — but sometimes order a tartare or a foie gras when out with friends. I adore veggies, sprouts, whole grains, beans, tofu, tempeh, and seitan — but then fight with my son over who gets the marrow when my mom makes Osso Bucco. I prefer to eat things that are close to their natural state. Processing and packaging annoy me — except when it comes to fancy chutneys or crackers or chocolate or wine. I’m inconsistent, and not feeling bad about it.

When I travel — and this year I had the good fortune to visit every continent except Australia and Antarctica — I eat what’s put in front of me because it’s an important way to share and to learn about others. Eating together is precious. Making food for the people I love and getting together and cooking with friends are at the core of my being.

Recently I’ve been obsessing over TED. I loved this talk — What’s wrong with what we eat — by New York Times food writer Mark Bittman. We’re singing the same song.

Skye Bender-deMoll’s Network Analysis and Mapping Report (April 2008) examines how network analysis and network mapping can facilitate human rights work. It introduces non-academics to network concepts, gives some examples of this work in practice, discusses risks and challenges, and provides a series of recommendations.

The report was prepared for the Science and Human Rights Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. You can download it from Skye’s blog.

My knowledge of history sucks. Badly. This is not good, because understanding what has come before is key to making change now. Luckily, in my travels, I’ve worked with some smart, smart people who love to read history books: Joost Vandenborre and Patrick Meagher.  I harassed them to give me their list “must-read” history books. Now you have it too.

Both recommended:

• Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples

Joost’s list:

• Martin Meredith, The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence
• Orlando Figes, A Peoples Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924
• Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything
• Jonathan Fenby, Chiang Kai Shek: Chinas Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost
• Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game
• Anthony Beevor, Stalingrad
• Henry Kamen, Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492-1763
• Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
• Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa

Patrick’s list:

• Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August & A Distant Mirror
• Simon Schama, Citizens
• Ron Chernows, Biography of Hamilton
• Antonia Frasers, Biography of Mary Queen of Scot
• Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War & The Cash Nexus
• Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club
• Matther Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic
• David Fromkin, The War to End All Peace
• David Lewis, The Race to Fashoda
• Riczard Kapuchinski, Imperium
• Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople
• Robert Man, Genghis Khan: Life, Death, Resurrection
• Roy Jenkins, Churchill
• Richard Winston, Charlemagne
• John Keegan, A History of Warfare
• Don Cook, Charles De Gaulle
• Ian Buruma, Inventing Japan
• Anthony Gottlieb, The Dream of Reason
• Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization

Now I just have to find the time to read…

This week I was in Kampala and had the opportunity to meet a friend-of-a-friend, John Gattorn, a super-cool dude who does human rights and democracy work. As I’m obsessed with finding practical ways to use technology for social change, I told him about Global Voices Advocacy and their guide to blogging anonymously. Two days later, my friend Zach Everson sent me this Economist article: Blog standard: Authoritarian governments can lock up bloggers. It is harder to outwit them. (Zach has the best habit of occasionally sending me Economist articles that might interest me. I love him for that.)

The article gives a great overview, but it does not provide any practical links. So here they are:

• Anonymous Blogging Guide: A step-by-step way to protecting your privacy and your safety
• Blog for a Cause: How to use blogs as advocacy tools for political and social change (in English, Spanish, Arabic)

Beyond using blogs, people are also using cell phones (see FrontlineSMS and Mobile Active) and Twitter for similar types of work (see Andy Carvin’s Can Twitter Save Lives?, Ethan Zuckerman’s Never thought of using it that way…, and the KM4Dev’s community’s Twitter knowledgebase).

Let me know if you come across any other ideas or resources. These technologies can also be used in other sectors. Environmental activists, for example, can use them to alert authorities and mobilize people to combat illegal logging or poaching.

PS. You can also use Twitter to take care of your plants while you’re away saving the world. Check out Botanicalls.com.

Polarized and paranoid. This is how I’ve been describing public discourse for the last few years now. I’d like to see it change. This post will explore what I mean by this, why I think it’s happening, and what we can do to reverse this dangerous trend.

Learn why this post is incomplete.