Rosalie Bertell – USA

Linked with The International Institute of Concern for Public Health IICPHoct, and added on Nov. 2, 2008: The Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Rosalie Bertell has worked for more than 50 years to expose the effects of radiation on the citizens of the world. A member of the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart, this « antinuclear nun » is an internationally recognized expert in the field of radiation. A doctorate in biometry gave her the academic background and her faith gave her the spiritual strength for her life’s work–to fight against the earth’s environmental contamination. She is founder and president of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health and editor-in-chief of International Perspectives in Public Health. She says: « We have to be part of something larger than ourselves, because our dreams are often bigger than our lifetimes. Religion has a profound effect on our staying power ». (1000peacewomen).

… The International Institute of Concern for Public Health (IICPH), of which she is Founder and Immediate Past President, opened its doors in 1984 in Toronto Canada and continues to serve as an institutional support for her work. She is also a founding member of the International Commission of Health Professionals, and the International Association of Humanitarian Medicine … (full text).

Dr Rosalie Bertell – MAKE IT VISIBLE- chemtrails, oct. 1, 2008.

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Rosalie Bertell – USA

Watch her video: DEPLETED URANIUM IN THE HUMAN BODY, by Sr Rosalie Bertell, PhD, 10.16 min, July 19, 2007.

More videos about Depleted Uranium, by Google video-search.

… Obviously in such an unbalanced and unfair globalization, there will be a build up of tensions as people become desperate for food, drugs and jobs. The global response to this frustration is the global arms trade, promoting war and violence as the way to obtain the basic necessities of life. This is a clear recipe for global suffering, wars and violence, with children, the elderly and the weak the losers! … (full text).

Find her and her publications on rat haus reality; on amazon; on Google Video-search; on Google Group-search; on Google Book-search; on Google Scholar-search; on Google Blog-search.

She tells: … In Japan, during the occupation after World War II, two grandmothers strongly objected to U.S. military presence and military exercises on the sacred mountain Fuji. The two women had a small camp at the foot of the mountain, and during military exercises they would pop up in front of the guns and cry: Shame on you. You should go home to your Mother. This so unnerved the young men that they could not fight. The police finally came, twelve men with shields and battle armor, to arrest the two old women. Even after the women left, the troops were spooked and could no longer desecrate the sacred mountain with their war games. Life is stronger than death … (full text).

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Andrew Clapham – England

Andrew is Director of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights ADH and a Professor of Public International Law at its Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He specialises in international human rights and has acted in several ECHR cases. He has been a special adviser on Corporate Responsibility to the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, and was adviser on international humanitarian law to the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.  He was the Representative of Amnesty International at the United Nations in New York from 1991-1997, and has participated as the representative of Amnesty International in numerous inter-governmental meetings as well as in Amnesty International missions to Mozambique, Rwanda, Burundi and Liberia. Andrew appeared in the case of Osman vs UK before the European Court of Human Rights … (full text).

… His current research relates to the role of non-state actors in international law and related questions in human rights and humanitarian law … (full text).

… He worked as Special Adviser on Corporate Responsibility to the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson and Adviser on International Humanitarian Law to Sergio Vieira de Mello, Special Representative to the UN Secretary-General in Iraq. (full text).

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Andrew Clapham – England

Secession, terrorism and the right of self-determination, Andrw Clapham.

He says: … « The creation of the Council of Human Rights has been the catalyst. And in Berne, with Micheline Calmy-Rey, the interest around Geneva has increased. At the academic level, the creation of a new Institute for International Studies and Development and Academy for International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights has added to the momentum. It is now important to be inventive. In my report, I put forward other proposals to build momentum around Geneva: offering grants for young people from developing countries to study humanitarian subjects in Geneva or setting up an institute for human rights in order to build links between the two fields » … (full interview text).

Google download books:
Human Rights, by Andrew Clapham (Taking an international perspective and focusing on issues such as torture, privacy, health and discrimination, this book aims to help readers in understanding the controversies and complexities behind the vitally relevant issue of human rights. It also explains what our human rights actually are, and where the human rights movement is heading, also on kriso.ee, and also on OfTheSelf.ch;
Enforcing International Law Norms Against Terrorism, by Andrea Bianchi, Yasmin Naqvi;
Justice for Crimes Against Humanity, by Mark Lattimer, Philippe Sands;
International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, by Francisco Forrest Martin, Stephen J. Schnably, Richard … .

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Tania Singer – Germany

Linked with the University Research Priority Programm URPP, and with Meditation may increase empathy.

Bio: Tania Singer is Assistant Professor of Social Neuroscience and Neuroeconomics at the Center for the Study of Social and Neural Systems at the University of Zürich. She studied psychology and media at the University of Marburg and the Technical University of Berlin. She was Pre- and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, where she worked on cognitive development over the life span … Her main research interest is in the understanding of the foundation of human social behaviour and cooperation as well as social emotions such as empathy and fairness from the perspective of social neuroscience, developmental and social cognitive psychology as well as economics. In her spare time, she pursues interests in the arts, participating in drama and film productions as well as studying music, voice, and dance. (at congress.com).

More Bio on URPP; on Max Planck;

She is:

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Tania Singer – Germany

She works for the URPP Foundations of Human Social Behavior, Altruism and Egoism.

Her work’s Main Goals/Keywords: Main Goals, Keywords: Investigation of the social brain including the study of the neuronal, hormonal and behavioural foundations of empathy, cognitive perspective taking, social learning, trust, and revenge. fMRI and behavioural studies of deficient social behaviour in pathologies such as Autism and Alexythimia. Development and plasticity of social emotions (social brain, Asperger, insula, pain, reward learning, empathy, pro-social behaviour, emotional plasticity, oxytocin) … Group Members, Previous ans Current Research, Future Projects, Techniques and Equipment … etc. (UZH / ETH Zürich).

She says: « My main research interest lies in the foundation of human social behaviour from the perspectives of social neuroscience, developmental, cognitive, and social psychology, as well as economics » … (full text).

How your brain handles love and pain.

Men’s vengeful brains.

Putative neurobiological substrates of punishment.

Empathy, Serious Drill, Placebo Effect, etc.

Empathy for Pain Involves the Affective but not Sensory Components of Pain.

Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk from Tibet with a PhD in molecular biology, has been working with neuroscientists to find out. Brain scans of regular meditators, including Ricard himself, have shown that they have greatly increased levels of high-frequency brain activity called gamma waves. Does the secret of happiness lie in this unusual brain activity, and the meditation training that seems to produce it? … (full text).

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Cora Weiss – USA

Linked with Inventing peace.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

« To have a peaceful population, » says Cora Weiss, « we must teach peace. » This belief is the cornerstone of Cora’s life’s work. As president of the Hague Appeal for Peace, she is leading a campaign dedicated to the abolition of war. She brings her skills as a convener and an educator into diverse venues–from the classroom to the boardroom. She began her work in the early 1960s, when she cofounded Women Strike for Peace, which helped to bring about the end of nuclear testing in the atmosphere. In 1969, she led in organizing the largest protest against the Vietnam war. She says: « You cannot have peace without human rights, democracy, gender equality, and clean water. Look to the root causes of war and you will find, in their reverse, the root foundations of peace ». (1000peacewomen).

Bios: on NNDB; on the Hague Appeal for Peace, on Discover the Networks.org.

She is:

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Cora Weiss – USA

Her video: Sari Sansar At The UN 1, 10.01 min, March 8, 2006.

During the Vietnam War, Weiss attempted to coerce the families of American POWs to make pro-communist propaganda by promising them contact with their loved ones in Hanoi. Directed the Disarmament Program at New York’s Riverside Church in New York City … (full text).

TESTIMONY OF CORA WEISS.

Cora Weiss, from the Review.

She is also a BetterWorld Heroe and says: « To have a peaceful population, we must teach peace » … and: « To raise new generations of people with the skills, values and knowledge to create and maintain peace, we need peace education » … and: « I firmly believe that it will be women, acting together, acting strategically, teaching, and organising who will be responsible for enacting the “culture of peace” that will be necessary for the survival of humanity ». (BetterWorldHeroe).

Question on wikiansers.com: When did Cora Weiss give evidence at the Chicago 7 trial?

… In 1963 the Samuel Rubin Foundation created the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), which lays claim to the title of « the nation’s oldest multi-issue progressive think tank. » Samuel Rubin’s daughter, Cora Weiss, was a director of the Rubin Foundation from its inception, and was instrumental in the funding decision to create IPS. Today she is the Foundation’s President. Her husband, Peter Weiss, was the first IPS board chairman and is currently the Rubin Foundation’s Treasurer … (full text).

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Gaither Stewart – USA

Linked with Definitions: The Intelligentsia, with Definitions: The proletariat, with Just East of Eden: Iran, images and reflections.

GAITHER STEWART: left journalism four years ago in order to write fiction full-time. Originally from Asheville, North Carolina, he has lived most of his life in Europe, chiefly in Germany and Italy. For many years he was the Italian correspondent of the Rotterdam daily newspaper, ALGEMEEN DAGBLAD. His has been a varied life: from university studies in Slavistics and political science in the United States and Germany, to intelligence officer in Europe, to correspondent for European and American radios, to public relations for Italian corporations, to full correspondent for a major European newspaper. Today, he lives in the hills of north Rome with his wife, Milena. His debut short story collection, Icy Current, Compulsive Course was released in March by Wind River Press. Its companion volume, To Be a stranger, will be published this winter. (on critique on writing II).

Gaither Stewart is a Senior Contributing Editor at Cyrano’s Journal and a seasoned professional journalist and essayist. He has lived in Europe for several decades, and currently resides in Rome with his family. In addition to Cyrano, his essays and reports are widely read on many Internet venues, including Online Journal, The People’s Voice, and other sites. His collections of short stories, « Icy Current Compulsive Course », « To Be A Stranger » and « Once In Berlin » are published by Wind River Press. His new novel, « Asheville, » is published by Wasteland RUNES.

Gaither’s daily scared blog.

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Gaither Stewart – USA

Impulso de hegemonia dos Estados Unidos no mundo.

Filosofia: SOLIDARIETA’ E UGUAGLIANZA, QUALCOSA IN CUI CREDERE.

He says: … “What is so bewildering is the conviction—and it is becoming more and more general—that in all the perils that confront us the direction of affairs is given over to a way of thinking that no longer has any understanding of itself. It is like being in a carriage, descending an increasingly precipitous slope, and suddenly realizing there is no coachman on the box.” … (full text).

Italy: Between Anarchy and Servility.

The German Woman and The Carpenter.

Bono Speaks Out Against Torture and Gets Censored.

Gaither Steward’s To Be A Stranger, a book review: Summary: Displacement, exile and return haunt the pages of Gaither Stewart’s second short story collection, To Be A Stranger. Though most of the sixteen stories are set in the author’s hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, the stories touch only lightly on the real Asheville, today’s renowned tourism destination. Stewart says, “The Asheville I depict rather hazily is the misty, intangible town I imagine from a distance or see when I visit there. It is a strange Asheville, an Asheville of great secrets, an Asheville of a distant past, an Asheville removed from the present. It is also an Asheville as a destination and a hope. It is the hometown of the exile, seen now close at hand, now in the past, now as in a dream … (full text).

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Audre Lorde – USA (1934-1992)

Linked with The Audre Lorde Project ALP.

The Great Debate / Audre Lorde Project, Wednesday, October 29, 2008, 7:00pm – 9:00pm, Where: @ALP.

Audre Geraldine Lorde (February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an Caribbean-American writer, poet and activist. Lorde was born in New York City to Caribbean immigrants Frederick Byron Lorde and Linda Gertrude Belmar Lorde, who settled in Harlem. Nearsighted to the point of being legally blind, and the youngest of three daughters, Lorde grew up hearing her mother’s stories about the West Indies. She learned to talk while she learned to read, at the age of four, and her mother taught her to write at around the same time. She wrote her first poem when she was in eighth grade … Lorde set out actively to challenge white women, confronting issues of racism in feminist thought. She maintained that a great deal of the scholarship of white feminists served to augment the oppression of black women, a conviction which led to angry confrontation, most notably in the scathing open letter addressed to radical lesbian feminist Mary Daly … (full text).

BLACK./WOMYN.: CONVERSATIONS WITH LESBIANS OF AFRICAN DESCENT.

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Audre Lorde – USA (1934-1992)

Audre Lorde Scholarship Fund.

It is with great sadness and loss that I report the death of Audre Lorde, black lesbian feminist, poet, essayist, warrior and mother.  Audre, who was a personal heroine of mine, died Tuesday night, November 17, at her home in St. Croix, Virgin Islands. She was 58 years old.  She had been fighting cancer for the past 15 years; first breast and finally liver cancer. Audre was born in New York City of West Indian parents in 1934. At the time of her death, she was New York State Poet for 1991-1993 (Walt Whitman Citation).  She was Professor of English at Hunter College and was a founding member of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press as well as Sisterhood in Support of Sisters in South Africa (SISA). My girl lectured in Russia, Australia, Africa, (among other countries) and taught frequently in Berlin (where there are black German sisters and brothers and Africans, too).  It was there in Germany she received alternative cancer treatments for 8 years … (full text, Nov. 25, 1992).

Some of her books:

… Her first volume of poems, The First Cities, was published in 1968. In 1968 she also became the writer-in-residence at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, where she discovered a love of teaching. In Tougaloo she also met her long-term partner, Frances Clayton. The First Cities was quickly followed with Cables to Rage (1970) and From a Land Where Other People Live (1972), which was nominated for a National Book Award. In 1974 she published New York Head Shot and Museum. Whereas much of her earlier work focused on the transience of love, this book marked her most political work to date … (full text).

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Suzanne Pharr – USA

inked with In the Time of the Right, Reflections on Liberation, with October is Domestice Violence Awareness Month, with Southerners On New Ground S.O.N.G., with LESBIAN INFORMATION SERVICE; and with The Enemy Without and Within.

Suzanne Pharr: she sees herself as Organizer, Strategist, Educator, Author, and Political Handywoman.

She writes: … My work is focused on building a broad-based, multi-racial, multi-issued movement for social and economic justice in the United States. Major themes are intersectional issues and strategies, anti-violence, racial and gender equality, cross-generational collaboration, democratic participation, economic justice, and human rights based on equality and justice. At the center of every effort is the question, “How can we make it possible for everyone to live as a whole person, to have self-determination, to be treated with dignity and respect, and to have access to material necessities as well as joy?” … (full text).

Arkansas Women’s Project Collection, M95-03: The Arkansas Women’s Project was founded in 1980, as a grass roots organization intended to promote support for women’s issues in the state of Arkansas.  Originally called The Arkansas Women’s Training Project, it was operated under the direction of Suzanne Pharr.  The funding was issued from the Methodist Board of Global Ministries and focused on issues such as; abuse, rape, non-traditional employment, minority rights, and gay and lesbian rights … (full text archives.uca.edu).

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Suzanne Pharr – USA

The video: USSF Plenary Liberating Gender and Sexuality, 5.51 min, Jul 8, 2007.

Google download books:

She writes also: It is virtually impossible to view one oppression, such as sexism or homophobia, in isolation because they are all connected: sexism, racism, homophobia, classism, ableism, anti-Semitism, ageism. They are linked by a common origin-economic power and control-and by common methods of limiting, controlling and destroying lives. There is no hierarchy of oppressions. Each is terrible and destructive. To eliminate one oppression successfully, a movement has to include work to eliminate them all or else success will always be limited and incomplete … (full long text, March 31, 2006).

Elements of Oppression.

… Pharr has spent her entire adult life working to build a broad-based social and economic justice movement, founding the Women’s Project in Arkansas in 1981, co-founding Southerners on New Ground in 1984 and serving as the director of the prestigious Highlander Research and Education Center from 1999-2004. She is also the author of two books — “Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism” and “In the Time of the Right: Reflections on Liberation” … (full text).

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Mandy Carter – USA

Linked with The National Black Justice Coalition NBJC.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Mandy Carter has formed connections among a range of issues: opposition to war and violence, support for social and economic justice for people of color, and equal rights for women, lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transgender people. She works in grassroots campaigns and national coalitions, especially focused on the religious right’s antigay organizing in black communities. She is a brilliant coalition builder, highly respected by people from diverse backgrounds. Her work has been essential to the inclusion of gay/lesbian issues as social justice issues in the United States. She says: « We get so wrapped up in ‘just us’. The question of the day – this to me is the question of the future – are we about justice or ‘just us ». (1000peacewomen).

Her photo on the National Black Justice Coalition NBJC.

Fellow Durham resident, Nobel Prize nominee and long-time LGBT activist Mandy Carter has been named to the Obama National LGBT Steering and Policy Committee. Mandy Carter has been organizing North Carolina African Americans and LGBT people for years, and has served as a member of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). She co-founded Southerners On New Ground (SONG) in 1993 and was a leader in Harvey Gantt’s two campaigns for U.S. Senate. She has done the hard work of organizing LGBT grassroots networks, especially of people of color, throughout the South. She was a member of Hillary Clinton’s North Carolina LGBT Steering Committee … (full text, Aug 27, 2008).

The video: Mandy Carter Honored, 2.55 min, February 09, 2008.

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2x Mandy Carter – USA

She works for the Southerners On New Ground S.O.N.G., for the National Call to Resist, and for the National Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum (named on Idealist.org).

Mandy Carter’s grassroots work on anti-war and social justice fronts is gaining global recognition.

Mandy Carter spoke about the importance of the LGBT vote (I just added that video below the fold). Also, I forgot to mention that we also had one pathetic McCain supporter on the sidelines screaming « McCain, McCain, McCain. » She couldn’t even manage to round up a few friends to make a decent show of things … (An Obama-loathing fundie serves up hellfire on a pizza box at NC Pride, 09/28/2008).

Defending my sista: I have fixed the Mandy Carter, Pepper LaBeija, and Dorian Corey links that weren’t working. I wasn’t aware of it until it was brought to my attention. I also added a new link that gives a list of lgbts of color via wikipedia … (full text).

She says also: … « Ifill argues that the Black political structure formed during the Civil Rights movement is giving way to a generation of men and women who are the direct beneficiaries of the struggles of the 1960s. She offers incisive, detailed profiles of such prominent leaders as Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and U.S. Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama, and also covers up-and-coming figures from across the nation. Drawing on interviews with power brokers like Senator Obama, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vernon Jordan, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and many others, as well as her own razor-sharp observations and analysis of such issues as generational conflict and the « black enough » conundrum, Ifill shows why this is a pivotal moment in American history » … (full interview text).

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Antonio "Toni" Negri – Italy

Linked with naked punch.

Antonio (« Toni ») Negri (born August 1, 1933) is an Italian Marxist political philosopher. Negri is perhaps best-known for his co-authorship of Empire and his work on Spinoza. Born in Padua, he became a political philosophy professor in his hometown university. Negri founded Potere Operaio (Worker Power) group in 1969 and was a leading member of the Autonomia Operaia. Accused in the late 1970s of various charges including being the mastermind of the Red Brigades (BR), involved in the May 1978 assassination of Aldo Moro leader of the Christian-Democrat Party, among others, Negri was later cleared of any links with the BR. He was, however, sentenced to a long-term prison sentence on controversial charges of « association and insurrection against the state. » Negri went to France and taught at the Université de Vincennes (Paris-VIII) and the Collège International de Philosophie, along with Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. In 1997, he voluntarily returned to Italy to serve the end of his sentence. He now lives between Venice and Paris with his partner, the french philosopher Judith Revel … (full text).

His book: EMPIRE, downloadable in pdf, 2000, 496 pages.

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Antonio « Toni » Negri – Italy

Video: Antonio Negri: A Revolt That Never Ends, in english, and french and italian english translated /english subtitled, 52.35 min, Nov 23, 2007. (Same – short vision, 9.59 min).

His Political thought and writings.

He says: … « it is indeed necessary to recognize as a fact the emergence of the B.R. [Red Brigades] and NAP [Armed Proletariat Nuclei] as the tip of the iceberg of the Movement. This does not require one in any way to transform the recognition into a defense, and this does not in any way deny the grave mistake of the B.R. line. At one point I defined the B.R. as a variable of the movement gone crazy … I state again that terrorism can only be fought through an authentic mass political struggle and inside the revolutionary movement ». (quotes).

He says also: « Prison, with its daily rhythm, with the transfer and the defense, does not leave any time; prison dissolves time: This is the principal form of punishment in a capitalist society ». (quotes).

… In their project Empire (notable as an academic and trade success), Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri examine the loss of political borders. The permeability of our own country on September 11 is evidence that national borders are ill protected, ill conceived, and increasingly less relevant in the world today. This is in part, why American’s harbor such fear over the border with Mexico. What this all means is that the next President will be forced to confront the War from a different worldview then President Bush. It requires recognition that the War on Terror cannot be fought from border to border and country to country. Each candidate has already offered ample evidence of how they would prosecute the war … (full text, September 22, 2008).

Continuer la lecture de « Antonio "Toni" Negri – Italy »

Index September 2008