avad

"...Omidyar is pioneering a third way, a philanthropy that's fanatically bottom-up. It's anti-vision. Anti-dictate. And, in a sense, Omidyar isn't even choosing how his $10 billion is given away -- or to what causes it goes. He wants you to do that. How? For starters, there's omidyar.net, where Pierre and Pam recently opened up a conversation with the world to discuss the direction of their philanthropy. People already engaged in solving social problems know a lot more about how to fix them, they figure, than a cloistered elite ever could...."
read more: The eBay Way

Finally watched Hotel Rwanda in the theatre last night. Last week we rented The Killing Fields about the Cambodian Holocaust. Sense a pattern? Yup. I'm Trying to get something...Something in me to understand WTF is going on in the Sudan right now. And why why why this keeps moving from place to place...what IS it in humanity that keeps going so terribly terribly Wrong. This Detachment from the Other....not just apathy (which is pretty bad in itself)...but the kind of completely severing detachment that would allow one to commit such Heinous Unimaginable violence to innocent people. I JUST DON'T GET IT!! The FOOLISH FOOLISH arbitrary divisions. Hutus vs. Tsusis, Aryans vs. Jews, Israelis vs. Palestinians, Bloods vs. Crypts, North vs. South, my freekin clubhouse against yours. GROW UP HUMANITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! STOP WASTING ALL YOUR DAMN ENERGY/TIME DESTROYING EACHOTHER!!!!!!!!!!
*bangs head against wall*
*repeatedly*
On a hopeful note...just seeing that a group of folks on omidyar.net got together their upset and collaborated through a thread to create a website StopGenocideNow.org and other projects to raise awareness soothes my heart a wee bit. It's so important for us to keep thinking of ways to show how the individual can DO something positive...to design more intuitive/easy systems and ways. Keep pointing. You know, like:
Click Here if you give a shit.
Or Here
much love,
D
OH! and watch the movie(s) if you haven't!duh;)

So after the my moodcrash yesterday I went to the gym to run out some of the frustration on the gerbilwheel (treadmill). And halfway into my run, the treadmill just stops. Completely.
Won't start.
SO, annoyed, I move to another treadmill across the way. And there's an Esquire mag there, something I would never have picked up on my own to leaf through...but hey it's there so I do.
And I fall upon this article that seems Damn appropriate to all that's been running through me:

The Next Way to Give
Copyright (c) Esquire 2004

Pierre Omidyar is the modest man who founded eBay and now has $10 billion with which to change the world. The thing is, he wants you to tell him how he should give his money away.
By John H. Richardson

Pierre Omidyar sits in front of me in a blue shirt and khaki pants, looking like nobody special. "I think we're on to something," he says. "It's about changing the way we think about our roles in communities and changing the way we think about fellow human beings."

He's modest but self-assured, cordial but caught up in his thoughts. Every so often, I have to remind myself:
The last time this thirty-seven-year-old man had a big idea, it made him $10 billion.

"It's a pretty hard problem," he says. "But if we move the needle just a tiny bit, it could have great societal impact."
His plan for moving that needle:

Give away all of his money in his lifetime.
Reach down into the very source code of humanity and change a few critical lines. ..."
(read the whole article here )

Coincidence? Or the universe nudging me/us to go check it out and think about joining in this discussion/forum?