Category: rePosts

I came here to Vietnam to see John Wood hand out his 10 millionth book at a library that his team founded in this village in the Mekong Delta — as hundreds of local children cheered and embraced the books he brought as if they were the rarest of treasures. Wood’s charity, Room to Read, has opened 12,000 of these libraries around the world, along with 1,500 schools.
Yes, you read that right. He has opened nearly five times as many libraries as Carnegie, even if his are mostly single-room affairs that look nothing like the grand Carnegie libraries. Room to Read is one of America’s fastest-growing charities and is now opening new libraries at an astonishing clip of six a day. In contrast, McDonald’s opens one new outlet every 1.08 days.
It all began in 1998 when Wood, then a Microsoft marketing director, chanced upon a remote school in Nepal serving 450 children. Only one problem: It had no books to speak of.
Wood blithely offered to help and eventually delivered a mountain of books by a caravan of donkeys. The local children were deliriously happy, and Wood said he felt such exhilaration that he quit Microsoft, left his live-in girlfriend (who pretty much thought he had gone insane), and founded Room to Read in 2000.
He faced one challenge after another, not only in opening libraries but also in filling them with books that kids would want to read.
“There are no books for kids in some languages, so we had to become a self-publisher,” Wood explains. “We’re trying to find the Dr. Seuss of Cambodia.” Room to Read has, so far, published 591 titles in languages including Khmer, Nepalese, Zulu, Lao, Xhosa, Chhattisgarhi, Tharu, Tsonga, Garhwali and Bundeli.
via His Libraries, 12,000 So Far, Change Lives – NYTimes.com.

After the event, Warren reflected on the man’s outburst, which she said was her first such encounter. “I actually felt sorry for the guy. I really genuinely did. He’s been out of work now for a year and a half. And bless his heart, I mean, he thought somehow it would help to come here and yell names,” she told HuffPost.The assault stuck with Warren, and she continued to think about it throughout the night. Hours later, she said she wasn’t upset with the man himself, but rather with those who attempt to channel his anger in a malevolent direction.“I was thinking more about the heckler. I’m not angry with him, but he didn’t come up with the idea that his biggest problem was Occupy Wall Street. There’s someone else pre-packaging that poison — and that’s who makes me angry,” she said.
via Elizabeth Warrens anger – The Plum Line – The Washington Post.

I see Obama a Luke and Warren as Leia although in this timeline Luke succumb to the dark side!
Can’t think of anywhere else but the Daily Show that this would happen!

Update: This afternoon, Elizabeth Warren sent an email to supporters that included the photo, with the subject line “There’s something happening here.” Here’s the full text of Warren’s email:
Tommy,
There’s something happening here in Massachusetts.
I see it as I travel across our state, meeting hard-working men and women who know that the deck has been stacked against them for far too long, people who just want a fair shake again — and want leaders in Washington who will fight for them.
Just take a look at this photo I took from the stage in Framingham Tuesday night — a packed house and tons of enthusiasm for our campaign’s first volunteer organizing meeting:
This is what a real grassroots campaign looks like: A campaign not accountable to Wall Street and its armies of corporate lobbyists, but to working families in Framingham, in Springfield, across the Commonwealth, and around the country who know that we can — and must — do better.
The early days of this campaign have been so inspiring, and I’m glad that you’re a part of it. But we have so much work to do, so many powerful interests lining up against us, and we have to keep the momentum going.
Click here to share this inspiring photo with your friends on Facebook, or post it on Twitter. Show everyone you know the energy of our grassroots movement for the middle class — and invite them to join us.
Together, we can make sure that working families in Massachusetts and across America have a chance to get ahead again. But to do it, we need to keep our grassroots campaign growing strong over the weeks and months ahead.
Thank you for being a part of this,
Elizabeth
via Scary (For Scott Brown) Photo Of Elizabeth Warren Volunteer Meeting Goes Viral | Mediaite.

While right-of-center critics might be quick to dismiss her anti-deficit rhetoric as more “blame Bush,” it’s Warren’s comments on the so-called “class warfare” that are resonating the most among progressives (transcript below via TheBlaze):
“I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever. No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody.
“You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.
“Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”
“Social contract” is a phrase that should resonate across the the political spectrum, as it takes the onus of constructive behavior on the individual and away from the perceived “victimization” angle that riles the conservatives so much.
via Elizabeth Warren Class Warfare Video | Mediaite.

this one is inspired by vince the tapa prince! thanks for the pizza!

Television is reportedly a writer’s medium, and the aforementioned writers did an astonishing job, telling the story of around a dozen characters over a period of several months (not an especially wide scope, but the level of detail involved is intimidating); it helps that O’Hara doesn’t attend the story conferences developing the plot lines but does rewrite the script when it arrives on the set, helping keep the dialogue effective and real (or as real as possible within the confines of melodrama). All that said, the two directors helming the project do an amazing job of keeping the series visually distinct. O’Hara’s classic style (John Ford by way of Gerardo de Leon) makes for an interesting contrast against Red’s young-punk style (Leone by way of Johnny To, I’m guessing, with the occasional homage to Paul Greengrass). Red deals mainly with the younger cast, and his restless, flashy camera reflects their restless, flashy acting style; O’Hara’s stoic understatement, on the other hand, perfectly complements Aunor and De Leon — in their scenes together you sense a serenity and quiet intimacy that comes from years of having known each other, worked with each other, at one point even loved one another.
Best television you’re likely to see this year? I don’t know; I haven’t had a chance to watch much Filipino TV (asking around, people do tell me it is). I can say this much: it’s the best storytelling I’ve seen this year to date, and that includes everything released this year on the big screen — Hollywood, independent, international.
The series continues for one more week in October at TV5; the previous episodes are available for online streaming (there are roughly 10 episodes to catch up with). If you’re at all interested in what Aunor or O’Hara (arguably the two finest Filipino artists alive, in their first major collaboration in over twenty years) are up to, or if you only want some sharp and intelligent storytelling — in this case an imaginatively entertaining retelling of our history of the past three decades — you could do worse than to watch this. Highly recommended.
via Sa ngalan ng Ina: Best of the year, arguably | BusinessWorld Online Edition.

“Its spectacular, my husband has this variation called LRRK 2,” she said.Academics “jaws dropped” when they found out 23andMe had made a discovery of that caliber, she said. Thats because most pharmaceutical companies keep data close to the chest so they retain a competitive advantage over other companies, she said.”Through the research is the first time that consumers having participant driven research, weve been able to identify the gene SGK1 that looks like its a modifier and protecting against LRRK2 a gene associated with increased risk of Parkinsons,” 23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki said. “The community has been so successful that in such a short time frame we found something that could be a modifier that could lead to a druggable target.”
via Sergey Brins Wife Might Have Figured Out A Way To Save His Life.