videos i made for centre for mediation, peace and conflict resolution..

Here are two 1.5 minute videos i did for competitions on the two topics. It would be really great if we got some money out of this, but i enjoyed doing it none the less.. you can post your thoughts here, or on youtube. Thanks

On Reclaiming Peace from the Hippies - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCRVLqdJr5I

On Human Rights (and why they're only for other people) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoNrzrT0Ic0

Who is actrually in charge..?

Dear Mr CEO.

If you do not use free trade zones (sweatshops built on developing countries soil effectively not under rule of law of that country) to make my shoes, you lose me market share.

If you do not fire half your staff to cut costs, you lose me market share.

If you do not employ illegal immigrant cleaners you lose me market share.

If you will not do this, we will get someone who will.

Only the harshest company/individual/ government gets the full prize. And the prize is the sweetest of all. 

Your etc..

Mr shareholder.

polerisation of power

There seems to be a polarisation of what is allowed by people in power. I'm thinking - everyone in local authorities has to dress in black and drink coffee to seem dynamic and businesslike. Everyone has to work harder in order to get more done. Everyone has to wear rimless glasses. Even MPs maybe used to be more radical? (tony benn and hilary ben anyone?) 

Maybe there is now a convergence or linear path to power - and every decision that we take is either a pass or a fail along this scale. It either expediates or hinders our career. At least until the black swan comes along and everyone is proved wrong..

policymakers trying on different lives.

Do you think people in government could be demanded to try out different lives..? I was thinking of setting up training courses (they probably already have them under different names) for decision makes to feel the impact of their decisions. (I'm also thinking of the anonimity that famous people in the west enjoy in developing countries - trying on normal lives). 

So policy makers on prison reform would have to spend some time in prison as work experience in order to be sufficiently qualified to be offered a new post. That way they would be forced to think of their decisions in a human (as well as logical) way. I'm thinking George Orwell's down & out in Paris being an advocate of homelessness.

hippies..!

I am currently doing a 2 min promo video called 'reclaim the peace', so i'm collecting pictures of hippies, cliches, peace signs. a murder of doves.. If anyone has anything bat it over..

shoe shine boys

shoe shine boys
Originally uploaded by invitation-to

Quito old town looks a bit like this..

Road, she gone..

Road, she gone..
Originally uploaded by invitation-to

And this was the landslide that kept us in the mountains overnight..

Sunday afternoon? no, but still..

Sunday afternoon? no, but still
Originally uploaded by invitation-to

I wonder what they do with the boot when it rains..?

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Liberty

Its funny how tke US and UK talk so often about liberty, yet have loads of rules we commonly break. People talk about the developing world as if the rich have all the liberty (freedom from prosection for example), but in reality everyday people with small sums of money can do much more of what they want. Parks are full of dangerous swings, you can buy food that might be on the turn, you can cross roads in dangerous places. And yes people get hurt etc. and there's no safety net. but the things that kill most of us are not these things. It's depression, lack of friends (they've done studies) work stress, or self handicapping behaviour. 

Freedom from destroying ourselves would be a difficult one to get on the statute books..

social justice

How much is social justice about income redistribution? and therefore, how much can be written off by indivual enterprise??? Here in ecuador colombians are the ones who have are notorious for making a good business. In former communist states they have to explain venture capital on the newly formed (and hugely popular) Dragon's Den. So equality comnes at the expense of success, even as success breads inequality. - It has been 200 years since Charles Darwin was born, and 150 years since he published his thoeries on a voyage to the Galapagos..

NHS

Someone said to me "you live in a developed country, why do you spend so much tax on social programmes? All your infrastructure is working". it made me think about the NHS. When it was first set up in 1948 the government (Tory would you believe???) that it was set up to make the population healthy after the war. It was assumed that once the wartime health needs were met the NHS could close down as it wouldn't be needed any more. 

How funny. 

Now we just assume it will continue spending more and more forever. Almost all of the issues for our generation require a collective response. even nationalising the banks takes us back to nation states. How does that fit with individuals and thier need? 

Infrastructure helps everyone and you can see it (that's why the UN like it) but education is harder to track. Maybethe UK should have spooned the last 10 years of cash on the world's best public transport, instead of health and education projects. just a thought..

Human rights

One of the pieces of work i'm doing at the moment is a two minute video on "the meaning of human rights" and i don't really know where to start. Lots of cliches, lots of hippy stuff - they've been degraded so heavily in the UK with the asylum thing. Are we all born equal? What would a world like that look like. Is it sooooooooo unrealistic as to be useless? Anyway, if anyone has any ideas what it means to them, I think its for $$$$$$'s so worth thinking about (cash=freedom?). Huh. xxx  

Buying social change

If we are serious about buying social change, why do we not reward success..? 

As someone who is now writing funding bids I encourage everyone to lie on their application forms. the only time you will ever be penalised is if you forget to return some paperwork. or you go to Barbados on the cash. otherwise everyone is just happy for the money to fall off the end of the conveyor belt. So i would suggest having peer review (possibly through social audits) of how successful the intervention was creating a hierarchy of social change orgs (not a silly accreditation scheme). good orgs get more money long term, poor orgs change or don't get money. this could be orchestrated by the national lottery in coordination with charity commission or someone. It still seems crazy that end of year reports contain all the information no-one cares about, and nothing about how much has been done with other people's money.. 

Oh - we moved house by the way, things are better now..

Driving my car

So far, as much as i can see, January has been about individual choices versus collective choices (and maybe always has been). the usa exemplifies the individual freedoms, and other countries exemplify the collective (chavez?). so we roll along this continuum swinging from middle left to middle right (depending on the financial situation, and how much people feel threatened). 

From the office window here i can see cars - which i think are a really interesting way of quantifying the results in hundreds of individual incidents (and those people who have done all sorts of studies on behaviours on motorways etc across different countries must think the same), however a supposedly collective society bahave well on the roads (mostly) but are not at all collectively minded. there is no sense (which i think there is in the uk) of us all getting there quicker. Just a thought. 

Oh - I should prbably mention, we're well by the way..