Youth Anti-Violence Summit

Grow Dat Youth Farm

Grow Dat recently hosted a Youth Anti-Violence Summit on the farm in response to the shooting on Mother’s Day which deeply touched our Grow Dat community.

It was a day of reflection, sharing, and an attempt to envision a world different than the one we inhabit today. Filmmaker John Richie screened a section of his film Shellshocked and answered questions. Youth wrote letters to someone in their lives that had been touched by gun violence, and then shared their letters with another crew member.

Crew members were invited to create two kinds of trees: an unhealthy tree that maps systems of violence in New Orleans and beyond;  and a healthy tree that maps systems of individual and community-wide success, peace and happiness. Youth were encouraged to identify the roots of both trees, brainstorm what sustains the roots and helps the trees grow (the trunk), and what sort of leaves or fruit…

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This Event Isn’t For You: Family Friendly Spaces

Nuestra Vida, Nuestra Voz

“I’ll count to 10 and you hide!”
“That’s not fair, I WAN TO COUNT!”
“I’ll count and you can count next time?”
“Ok!”
“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10! Ready or not, here I come!”

The kids ran around the conference room looking for each other, oblivious to the fact that their mom’s and dad’s were in the other room getting information and building on their skills in order to raise healthier families and better futures.

However, it wasn’t all rainbow colored ponies. As I took a small break from the conference and made my way to the bathroom, I caught a conversation between two of the guards on the floor. Both were annoyed at the children. The screaming, laughing, jumping and overall awesomeness was too much for them. Complaints were exchanged about several things. Both agreed that the work environment was being disrupted because of…

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China and the Middle-Income Trap: Indiscriminate Tuna Fishing

Read carefully – Danny Quah is seldom wrong and nearly always ahead of the curve.

DannyQuah

Like a spectre, the Middle Income Trap stalks China and the rest of the world’s successful emerging economies. This Trap says that no matter how fast-growing initially, all emerging economies will slow.

(In January 2013, Google returned 400,000 references  to the term “Middle-Income Trap”; by July that number had risen to 1.3mn.)

The proposition that fast-growing economies will slow eventually is called “neoclassical convergence” — when capital-deepening has run its course and any further advance in prosperity can come only from technological progress, whether through indigenous innovation or through importing techniques from any economies still running on ahead.

But neoclassical convergence is an old idea. Moreover, its prediction is that slowdown occurs when emerging economies smoothly and gradually catch up with and achieve equality with the advanced ones. In contrast the newer hypothesis of the Middle Income Trap puts forwards two further claims: first, that the slowdown occur with a…

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Beijing is delicately super-sizing the country’s farms | China Economic Review

In the northwestern Chinese town of Wuliming, farms are being consolidated into a vast tract, the likes of which haven’t been seen since collective farms under Mao Zedong.

But the plots aren’t being combined under the directives of commune leaders as they were in the late 1950s. Farmers won’t be eating gruel in communal dining halls. And there will be little need for them to sweep across the fields en masse turning up soil or harvesting crop.

via Beijing is delicately super-sizing the country’s farms | China Economic Review.

Same song but this time banks, government, and international investors will try to control agriculture in China and for sake of profit – will likely kill the land with over production and industrialized agriculture – all so they can force farmers and rural people to move to cities to become factory workers – think factory communes or starve… 

FAQ – Farm Alliance of Baltimore – A vibrant network of urban farms

What’s the difference between an urban farm and a community garden?

Definitions for both can vary, and many projects fall somewhere in between. In general, a community garden is run by a core group of community members with the goals of growing food for themselves and their families – this can take many forms including individual plots or communal rows. We tend to define an urban farm as an entity that is production-oriented and growing food for others – whether for sale or for donation.

via FAQ – Farm Alliance of Baltimore – A vibrant network of urban farms.

Ghana deports thousands in crackdown on illegal Chinese goldminers | World news | guardian.co.uk

This year the Guardian exposed the scale of illegal Chinese goldmining in Ghana in a film that showed widespread excavating and use of toxic chemicals, and allegations of human rights abuses. Following the film’s publication, Ghana’s president, John Dramani Mahama, established a high-level taskforce, saying it was necessary to bring “sanity” to the mining sector.

Since then the government has launched a series of raids through the combined military, immigration and police taskforce. Towns that had swelled with the presence of illegal miners have been significantly affected, officials say. In Dunkwa, where the Guardian filmed this year, sources said the departure of Chinese had drastically affected the local economy.

“A very big change has happened in Dunkwa,” said one source, who did not want to be named. “They were the ones who provided the mining equipment – most of the Ghanaians left behind cannot continue their operations. It has really affected the mining. The local people are complaining because they say the Chinese were good for business. “Now everything has slowed down.”

But many Ghanaians have lauded the government’s efforts to curb illegal mining. The Chinese have attracted heavy criticism from Ghanaians for taking local jobs, wielding weapons such as AK-47 rifles, and polluting lakes and rivers.

“This illegal goldmining was compromising the environment. It was compromising the security of this country. It had a lot of social consequences and the government was losing a lot of resource revenue,” said Fuseini, the mines minister. “The Chinese were just plundering the resources. So what we have done is take action to stop the plunder and ensure that the resource needs of this country are not any way depleted in ways that breaks resource revenue of the state.”

via Ghana deports thousands in crackdown on illegal Chinese goldminers | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Tripoli’s Best Cafe: Ahwak Ben Tafesh Threatened By Extremists

A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

Ahwak Ben Tafesh Tripoli - 1

I remember when I first went to Ahwak ben Tafesh in late 2012. I was reluctant to visit. I figured the place was definitely over-hyped. Why would I want to visit the go-to place of Tripoli’s liberal crowd?

How wrong was I?

I remember being captivated by the restroom. It was filled with graffiti, the most surprising of which was a sentence scribbled at the top right corner saying: “your lack of scientific knowledge is not proof that god exists.” Someone later on scribbled out the word god. I guess blasphemy is somewhat haram even on bathroom tiles. But these exchanges are all kind of peaceful and refreshing.

Ahwak Ben Tafesh Tripoli Lebanon

I’m not a coffee person so I don’t visit Ahwak for the beverages which are, based on my modest experience, quite good. What they serve, however, and I find exquisite is their carrot cake. It’s homemade and all kinds of awesome. Simply…

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Weekend Gun Report: July 12-14, 2013 – NYTimes.com

A 2-year-old boy is fighting for his life after he was shot in the chest outside his apartment complex in Marrero, La., Saturday night. A 2-year-old was accidentally shot in the leg by her uncle, Ricardo Moreno, 23, as he discharged his weapon on the south side of Tucson, Ariz., Saturday afternoon.

via Weekend Gun Report: July 12-14, 2013 – NYTimes.com.

CDC – Blogs – Public Health Matters Blog – Animal Rescue: Caring for Animals During Emergencies

In 2008, Hurricane Ike devastated the upper Texas coast with many animals lost and many more suffering needlessly.  This storm triggered a request for the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences to form a deployable veterinary emergency team.

The Texas A&M Veterinary Emergency Team (TAMU VET) is comprised of veterinary faculty, staff, and senior veterinary medical students. Since the inception, the TAMU VET has been deployed for Hurricanes Rita and Gustuv, the 2011 Grimes County Wildfire and Bastrop Complex Wildfire, an Alzheimer’s patient search in Brazos County in 2012, and the 2013 West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion.

via CDC – Blogs – Public Health Matters Blog – Animal Rescue: Caring for Animals During Emergencies.

Second Look Behind the Headlines – News you can use…

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