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

International Aids Day!!

Let's support compassionate health care. Check out Gordon Brown's International Aids Day message from the UK at : Let's support compassionate health care at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63B0PP0UugQ

Race Talk

From the U.S. to India, the Dominican Republic to China, the media report on our underlying attitudes and feelings about skin color. What do u say?

BOSTON OPEN STUDIO
ROBIN CHANDLER
OCTOBER 24 & 25, 2009
12Noon-5:00PM

ALL WORKS FOR SALE

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
DETAILS: rchandler82@gmail.com
www.robin-chandler.com

The UN -Doing the right thing?

"UN to Consider New Structure for Women: Making Change Matter" - Zunia.org

Shared via AddThis

FRANCE Express blog-Laissez le bontemps rollez

Yes, let the good times roll! We spent a few days in Paris (as you can see), then drove to Carcassonne by car through windmill and agricultural country, rainstorms and high winds in our Opel Minerva. Here are some of our visual treats for you*, express from France. This is French holiday time, so everyone in France was on the road. So much of where I am located in the south of France - an artists' retreat-is mountainous and reminds me of my stay in Cayey, PR-winding, steep roads, lush vegetation. Differences you ask? Well in Cayey the waftings of the lechoneras, felled babmboo across the roadway, children in the street, immovable dogs sleeping in the middle of the road, and drunken guys riding up the mountains on horses in the dark--- Ain't none of that in France. People tend to live in their interior spaces a lot more. More on that next time.
* View of the Seine from top/ Le Tour Eiffel, Cathedral de Notre Dame de Paris)
-A bientot

Voice your concern for the upcoming trial of the Baha'is now in prison in Iran fighting for their religious freedom!

The report was done at a meeting held at the Los Angeles Baha'i Center last month.
http://www.myfoxla.com/dpp/news/local/Bahai_Leaders_Await_Trail_in_Iran_20090629

Global Human Rights in the 19th century

American diplomat and former slave, Frederick Douglass delivered this speech in July 1852. In another part of the world, in August 1852, the Bab'i heroine and poetess Tahireh was killed in Iran for asserting the equality of men and women and removing her veil in public.

"What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mock; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.

Go search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival."

Frederick Douglass - July 4, 1852

Human Rights Unfolds in Iran

Iran is in the midst of a comprehensive human rights struggle. A new generations' worldview is putting social justice at the center of that nations' vision for the future. What constitutes a 'religious state' and how do citizens create unity through peaceful, nonviolent change? This photo(above) from Salvador, Brazil, says that the struggle of Mandela is our struggle, against apartheid there(South Africa) and here(Brazil).Baha'is in Iran have struggled for human rights and religious freedom for more than a century, including those currently imprisoned, and are a model for social justice and peace. In so doing, they are "serving the entire human race", or in the words of the Sioux-Mitayuke Oyasin (We are all related).

Gender HIV and the Church: A Case Study

For those concerned about spiritual solutions or whole life approaches to preventative health in communities of color around the world, Development Gateway's Imran Uddin reports "Gender HIV and the Church: A Case Study". This two-year pilot project in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe used a faith-based , culturally-specific intervention to confront issues of gender inequality, human sexuality and relationshsips, and HIV disease prevention. Go to Development Gateway, become a member, and read more at: http://www.developmentgateway.org

MAKE ART NOT WAR-"Fear No Art" exhibition on point

Last nights' exhibition reception of Fear No Art at the Achilles project in Boston featured some of planet earth's prominent "underground artists" including Marka 27, Problak, and Kenji Nakayama with 13 other artists displaying their creative chops. Combining traditional media, portraiture, 3-D toys-for-adults, and technology, artwork snaked its way through the space molting a call and response aesthetic that celebrates a global urban sensibility. Spectators were awed at the multiple screens playing Wildstyle, wii stations in tables at the boutique-cum-gallery, and open bar ambiance.
Check out the one-month-long exhibition at 283 Summer St, Boston, MA. For more information go to http://www.fearnoart3.blogspot.com/.