Eastward toward Liberia

One of the things I like about "This Child Will be Great"(2009), the autobiography of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is her prologue.... She starts by describing her country, not herself painting it as a

wonderful, beautiful, mixed-up country struggling mightily to find itself.

If you've read it, post your comments.
I'll be blogging here w. fotoz after I arrive Friday in Monrovia. Follow me, ask questions, comment.

8 Goals For Africa

The Promise of World Peace - A Baha'i Perspective

Haiti's schools six months into crisis

UNICEF radio reports on Haitian schools six months after crisis. Our energies, time, and money are best invested in the lives of children and youth. If we want a better world, this is the road to walk. Education is the key to eliminating poverty. These global citizens of the present and future in the developing world deserve what many of us have received in the developed world. And our urban and rural school systems in the U.S. need a massive reformation. I hope American school kids will pressure their local, state, and federal governments toward revolutionizing education in the U.S.

International Day of the World's Indigenous People - Zunia.org

International Day of the World's Indigenous People - Zunia.org

The FAST Project

Providing personal hygiene products and peer health educators to improve girls school attendance in developing countries. An associate of the Tahirih Association at:
Donate to support this project.

My book release: "Women, war, and violence: Personal perspctives and global activism" (Eds. Chandler, Wang, Fuller)

Become aware of the impact of gender and violence around the world. My current work on the ground in Liberia is documented in the introduction, chapter two-"Speaking with Post-war Liberia..". The book cover features "Capoeira", a collage work featured on my web site:. Available for purchase on Amazon at

Root Capital and the Liberian Women's Sewing Project - Extended Version

The Girl Effect

Many Species. One Planet. One Future - WED 2010

May 14, 2010 - Replicating the prison conditions of the 7 Baha'i Leaders

Worldchanging: Bright Green: The Battle Against Malaria: Turning Away From DDT To Greener Weapons

Worldchanging: Bright Green: The Battle Against Malaria: Turning Away From DDT To Greener Weapons

PhilanTopic: 3rd Annual Clinton Global Initiative University Meeting

PhilanTopic: 3rd Annual Clinton Global Initiative University Meeting

ART is an investment! Buy RChandler

Art is an investment. Start your spring art collection. Purchase works by R Chandler online at DiscoveredArtists.com

Earthquake in Haiti

Photos of our friends in Haiti devastated by recent natural disaster

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/01/earthquake_in_haiti.html

Worldchanging: Bright Green: Worldchanging Interview: Shana Dressler on Global Giving Circles

Worldchanging: Bright Green: Worldchanging Interview: Shana Dressler on Global Giving Circles

We change the world one person at a time, but start by changing ourselves. Live on less and share the toys, children!

AP reports extensive child slavery in Haiti

Before the French Revolution of 1789, Haiti launched a revolution in 1791. Under Dessalines the Haitian Constitution guaranteed freedom of religion, elimination of race prejudice among the mixed populations, and declared slavery illegal. How did the first Black Republic in the western hemisphere pass from its "enlightenment" through to social and political instability, poverty, and educational deprivation?
" ..[I]t is incumbent upon the friends of God to exert such an effort and strive with such eagerness to promote divine knowledge, culture and the sciences, that erelong those who are school children today will become the most erudite of all the fraternity of the wise....that every child, according to his need, will receive his share of the sciences and arts-until not even a single peasant's child will be found who is completely devoid of schooling."
-'Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i Education: A Compilation:38-9

Go to Yahoo News:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091222/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_child_slaves

Reviewing Avatar: 'Let us pray, let us chant, let us holler, let them be'

Clyde Taylor's concept of a 'Master Text' (Screen, 1988) is as ever-present in Avatar as it was in Stars Wars cycle decades past. It seems all western European mythologies orbit around recurring plots of modernity vs. primitivism as discourses of power. Whether Disney or Cameron, "the indigenous" haunts Americas' sense of shame, re-exploiting the rubble of imperialism with the instant replay of the noble savage and his spiritual habitat-the wilderness that we desire ravish once again. That spiritual habitat-Pandora-is opened, entered, of course without permission, and plundered, in yet another phallic dream undeferred. We've read other critics referencing Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves and I do wonder why the 'white man' needs to keep rubbing this old wound? Coming so soon after a disappointing Copenhagen climate treaty talks, the billions spent to make this movie might have relieved the requirements of global warming provisions in several small countries. Will we continue to be mesmerized and conquered by the visual text-the seduction of technological visual effects-and lose no sleep over the colonial nightmare of indigenous conquest that continues into the 21st century in many countries of Asia, Africa, the Americas, the Middle East? I believe in the oneness of humanity. And I believe there are many more compelling stories to be told in the cinematic medium, one of the most significant wells in which science and art coalesces. Don't miss those other subtexts here-cloning, the military industrial complex, and the western superman going native with the native princess, thus disgracing her intended. Thus spake [Cameron].
'Something's rotten in Denmark', Cameron-of-the-dying-planet. Let the natives be. Let them be.
[*"Let us pray....let them be" from the poem Museums (2001-Robin M. Chandler); Collage entitled Taking Away the Medicine.]

samimi-extremie is boss.: Iranian B-Boys

Follow transcultural b-boying in Iran! The mobility, versatility, adaptability and energy of Black American culture makes us one
people. The Iranisn 'differently-abled' bro makes the case for the beauty of art to transform and inspire. This is from the early 1990's,
but it's a great meditation on why Iran needs to join the community of nations.

samimi-extremie is boss.: Iranian B-Boys