VIDEO OF NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND - SACHUEST WILDLIFE REFUGE, THE CLIFF WALK, BEACHES

We are visitors on this planet.
We are here for ninety or one hundred years
at the very most.
During that period,
we must try to do something good,
something useful, with our lives.
If you contribute to other peoples happiness,
You will find the true goal, the true meaning of life.
H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama

...........................................................

...........................................................
Rawandan Sisters Tribute
Uploaded by ilovemylifesblog

Since 2005, I have sponsored a sister in Rwanda annually through womenforwomen We exchange pictures of ourselves and letters. The sisters get training in their rights, income-earning skills and ways to improve their families' lives, therefore improving the community, as well. My sisters live without electricity in their homes, without indoor water and oftentimes cannot afford to send their children to school. My sister this year was able to buy a goat and some chickens with the $27 a month that I provide. This has enabled her to send her children to school. This is very satisfying to me because children need to go to school. Many women are raising other women's children because the children's mothers or grandmothers were murdered.

Knowing that the world abandoned the 800,000 to one million Rwandans in 1994 who died in a genocide, I wanted to reach out to the women one-to-one and help them have a bit better lives.

I currently volunteer as a community leader trying to bring the needed attention to the Darfuri people who have had genocide by their own government on-going since 2003. The world has known this and virtually has done nothing.

The paintings in the video are by Sandra Hammel, as are the photos and video. Except for the paintings, everything in the video is of Aquidneck Island where I live. The paintings are done of photographs from Oprah's first televised trip to South Africa.

Original music: "Our Shared Breath".

The photography and video locations: Sachuest Beach and Sachuest Wildlife Refuge, Middletown, Rhode Island. The Cliff Walk, Eastons Beach, Brenton Cove all in Newport, Rhode Island.

This video is a tribute to my sisters of Rwanda who are an inspiration to me. Whenever I feel my life is not going as I want, I think of their lives, as well as the millions of Darfuri refugees who are trying to survive dire situations in the camps. It puts things in perspective immediately.

No More Empty Promises

Websites to learn about Darfur:

By a Darfuri living in the United States of America:
while we wait sudan

The basics about Darfur:
savedarfur.org/pages/primer

www.savedarfur.org

www.stopgenocidenow.org

Comments to President Obama:
www.whitehouse.gov/contact
202-456-1111
1-800-GENOCIDE

Thank you for standing for justice and peace
and being a voice for this defining issue

GENOCIDE WILL STOP WITH US

The same video at vimeo
...........................................................

RWANDAN SISTERS TRIBUTE ~ WomenforWomen.org from ilovemylifesblog on Vimeo.

...........................................................

WHEN YOU LIE UPON YOUR DEATH BED ~ WHAT WILL HAVE BEEN THE IMPORTANT THINGS YOU DID

OR SAID?

To gain and keep perspective in my life, I visualize and feel what I expect to feel if I get to my end knowing my death is soon to be. It instantly makes all things right for me. What will be important then comes front and center and what I once labored or fretted over just loses its grip on me. It won't matter that my family is broken, disconnected or differs from me in their beliefs, politics and ways of handling the truth. What will matter is how I lived my life. What I said, but more how I said... It will matter to me if I chose to be silent when I should have spoken up. Clear and with passion. It will matter to me if I consistently had truth as my anchor, strength and target.

This is one of those things that has my attention. And I feel stories such as these are neglected, dismissed and thrown out while our narcissism consumes our behavior.


The following is from the Enough Project

September 30, 2008

Peace process near collapse in eastern Congo

The peace process in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo is on the verge of collapse due to resumed hostilities between Government forces and rebels loyal to Congolese general Laurent Nkunda. Absent immediate and robust diplomatic pressure on the Congolese government and a more impartial effort by United Nations peacekeepers to stop the fighting, the region could descend back into total war.

After weeks of tit-for-tat violence, large-scale fighting between the Congolese army and Nkunda's National Congress for the Defense of People, or CNDP, began again on August 28 in the territory of Rutshuru, North Kivu. Violence has since spread to Masisi territory in North Kivu, and Kalehe territory in South Kivu. The clashes are the largest violations to date of the cease-fire agreement signed last January in Goma (capital of North Kivu) between the Congolese government, the CNDP, and 21 other armed groups active in the East.

The fighting has newly displaced an estimated 100,000 civilians in North Kivu, and has curtailed access for humanitarian aid agencies across the province. On September 25, the Enough Project -along with 82 other NGOs-released a statement on the humanitarian costs of faltering peace efforts. This follow-up examines why those diplomatic efforts are failing and what steps the international community must immediately take to halt the violence and reinvigorate the peace process.

• To read the full statement, click here
• To read the Congo Advocacy Coalition's September 25 release, click here
• To join our Raise Hope for Congo Campaign and learn what you can do to help protect and empower Congolese women, click here

Check out the Enough Project's website for our new Raise Hope for Congo Campaign

A WEAPON OF WAR NEVER IN A MILITARY BUDGET

I have sponsored sisters through www.womenforwomen.org
for years. It is an annual commitment to sponsor her so that she can improve her life, her children's lives and her community ~ and therefore improve the world.
Letters and pictures are exchanged. If you can offer some help, please do.

...............................................

...............................................
WAR
Edwin Starr
Uploaded by cooyah

...............................................

...............................................
Uploaded by WomenforWomenIntl
Women Used as Weapons of War

Remember Darfur
www.darfurolympics.org

ARE WE WHO WE THINK WE ARE?

The most important things to me are truth and justice. I would like my country and my government to be based on these things. But if We the People don't know what is being done in our name, we are missing the point of being a government "of the people, by the people and for the people".

We've been wrong: The USA and slavery
We've been wrong: The USA and indigenous people
We've been wrong again
and we've been wrong again
and we've been wrong again
and again

"Abraham Lincoln best described democracy as 'government of the people, by the people, and for the people.' For that government to be 'by the people,' however, requires that the people decide who shall be their leaders. Without free and fair elections, there can be no democratic society, and without that constant accountability of government officials to the electorate, there can, in fact, be no assurance of any other rights. The right to vote, therefore, is not only an important individual liberty; it is also a foundation stone of free government." Source: usinfo.state.gov

The Gettyburg Address

A speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. Lincoln was speaking at the dedication of a soldiers’ cemetery at the site of the Battle of Gettysburg. The opening and closing lines are particularly memorable: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…. [We must] be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth.”

1

‡ Lincoln surprised his audience at Gettysburg with the brevity of his speech. He delivered the Gettysburg Address, which lasted about three minutes, after a two-hour speech by Edward Everett, one of the leading orators of the day.

.............................................................................

.............................................................................
John Dean on George W Bush

From: THXl138

The Presidents of the United States of America
I think we have had some awful Presidents. In my opinion, we have voted for the wrong candidate sometimes. Also, in my opinion, a word to describe us is fickle. Just tonight, I heard pundits on MSNBC make generalizations about the country's feelings about Barack Obama based on a poll taken tonight only with people in Mississippi. Poll those same people in 7 days and it could be a different result. And a poll of Mississippians surely isn't enough to gauge the entire population. But not one pundit on the panel, thought to mention this possibility. The danger is that these people make statements that perpetuate their personal feelings and they get amplified because they are on television.

My experience is that many people don't think for themselves and are influenced by immaterial and irrelevant things they hear, as well as lies and manipulations by candidates.
.............................................................................

.............................................................................
Women for Obama

From: AkinScribe5

Democratic Primary and Caucus Results Center