Bob, an individual I know on the Internet often has this tag on this e-mail messages:
“war is a failure of imagination”
Alan Moore
I like the idea. But I thought the source might have been older than Mr. Moore, who’s noted for his comics over several recent decades (though he might be something approximating a polymath). There’s a site attributing it to H. G. Wells and another that says that’s the correct answer to a question about which quote H. G. Wells did not coin. Sheesh. My search is failing.
Pardon me for mixing my interests in basketball and peace. Here’s a story worth promoting, though. In the Los Angeles Times, Chris Hine has a story entitled “Lakers’ Jordan Farmar to go on peace mission to Middle East: Lakers guard, who is Jewish, will travel to Israel in August to run basketball camps for Israeli and Palestinian children, with the goal of giving them a lasting foundation of friendship and goodwill” that caught my eye. Here’s the lead:
Like other NBA players, Jordan Farmar will head overseas this summer, only with a different mission — to facilitate peace in the Middle East.
The Lakers’ guard, who is Jewish, will travel to Israel to run basketball camps for Israeli and Palestinian children in association with the Peres Peace Center. The goal of the camps, which take place Aug. 4 to 11, is to bring Israeli and Palestinian children together through basketball and create a foundation for peaceful relations between them in years to come.
Mr. Farmar, thanks.
Link to Mr. Hine’s story.
Yo, folks. Anyone able to translate Italian? I came across this site and it looked sort of promising.
Mubarak Awad, who established the Palestinian Centre for the Study of Nonviolence, is one of those folks whom I admire for their persistence in promoting non-violence in the face of daunting examples of disappointment. Mr. Awad advocates Gandhian solutions to conflicts in what has to be one of the most difficult regions of the world: The lands along the eastern end of the Mediterranean.
Wikipedia entry about Mr. Awad. Here’s a link to a news report about a presentation at a Modesto (CA, US) church, to a blog entry about one of Mr. Awad’s talks, and (of course) to Nonviolence International.