On 24th May the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) – www.dec.org.uk launched a new campaign for Darfur, Chad and the Central African Republic - With 4.5 million people affected by the ongoing conflict, the looming rains are bringing the risk of deadly conditions like diarrhea and malaria, especially for children, pregnant mothers and the elderly.

With malnutrition levels already rising in some areas, aid agencies are appealing for vital help to respond to the rapidly growing crisis.

Aid agencies also need to bolster life-saving food and medicine stocks before the downpours hit any time within the next 4 weeks.

In the same week we see that the USA congress is seeking to commit $100 Billion Dollars to Iraq.

Both are troubled areas and both have been the result of people against people.

Earlier in the week the situation with the Congo was also aired.  Since 1996 over 4Million people have died in the conflict.

I recently heard of a course called, Peace and conflict studies. I also learnt that there are also different types of peace: Negative peace refers to the absence of direct violence, for example 1984 by George Orwell.

Peace Studies tend to cover
* peacekeeping
* peace building (e.g. tackling disparities in the distribution of world wealth) and
* peacemaking (e.g. education).

I wonder how much of these skills are used in diplomacy at large organizations such as the United Nations. I’m sure that these organizations try their best to broker settlements but often intra-country dictators become obsessed with power and turn against the same people that put them into the positions that they hold.

There must be clearly areas where we can innovate to generate peace. For example:

* Ensuring that all G8 conferences do not take place in luxury resorts.
* Establishing a leadership competency programme at the UN
* Freeing-up dictator off-shore funds to review where aid or a country’s assets turn up
* Discouraging the arms market from ‘pitching’ to nations at war
* Curtailing the development of weapons
* Start from the beginning - Teach Peace Studies at School & then keep it going!

With regard to the latter, where are these bombs and guns being manufactured?

Becoming peace orientated means that those that live in peace have a responsibility that this peace is communicated.

Maybe the root  of the problem is that there is too much in-balance in the world in terms of shared riches. Ironically, in some countries where there is access to great resources, there is the mess of war – take for example, Angolia.

Therefore, another area for us to get our governments to focus on, is the basic struggle for survival by some countries. Teaching people about peace is one thing but putting in place programmes that sustain nutrition or self sufficiency is another. Too much money is being wasted in fighting and not enough on, ‘giving peace a chance’

Interestingly, on June 12, 2007, a John Lennon covers album, Instant Karma (includes his famous, ‘Give peace a chance’ single): The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur, will be released, with proceeds going to Amnesty International. The aim of the CD is to raise awareness of the Darfur situation.

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This afternoon I had a crazy little idea. No, not because I had some spare time. Inspired by laughing clubs in the East I wondered, ‘What if I could re-create the magic of feeling good, but virtually’. As I said, for a start this was a crazy idea and I was really taking a risk on what kind of people could join in or what they would say. Therefore, I set some ground rules. Jokes had to be clean and we had to try and make each other laugh by initially some false laughter – hopefully generating a momentum to joint laughter. In addition, a starting statement that I would not be responsible for the impact of laughing, for example, someone falling off their chair or doing themselves some damage!

The Motivation behind the task
The motivation behind all of this was the thought that laughter apparently does lead to reduced blood pressure and de-stressing. How did I arrange the virtual and International tie-up?
At approx 2pm today I set-up a: Skypecast. This allows up to 100 people to conference call on the Internet for free! What is also excellent about this service is the way in which the assigned host can control the session.The Result…
Within 60 seconds, over 30 people turned up – quite good in one sense as a total of only 55 people internationally were using Skypecast. Unless I misread the statistics, especially as just under 9,000,000 people were online performing one-to-one calls.. It took me a few moments to understand how to use the system. I decided to get only one person at a time to talk, with the rest on listening mode.People tuned in from London, Manchester, Netherlands and China. One person had just come back from a business trip in London, some were using the system for the first time. Anyway, they all loved it - That was what they said!

I also had some instant messaging going on at the same time and noticed that some people were happy to just listen in the background and occassionally comment.As the host I got people to introduce themselves, talk about where they were, what time it was in their part of the world and then attempt to tell us some clean humour. I even setup some laughing tasks, for example, 10 second burst? Or, suggesting, ‘Please give me an example of how you would chuckle’. At one point I was talking to a couple in the North part of China and doing Star Wars Yoda impressions – for example, reversing the first and last word’s and producing Star wars Jedi phrases! The couple in China found this really funny - Thanks.

At times the whole session felt a little crazy and stupid but the whole exercise gave me a buzz. Surprisingly it reinstated my faith in humanity. Across national boundaries it brought us together. Many placed friend requests in my contact list, hoping to build new online relationships. I felt for once that the Internet was not being used for profit or mistermenia. The Internet was allowing people in their homes to switch-off their televisions and widen their contact horizons.Unity through laughter was awesome. Shall I set it up again?    

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In the High street near my office a new Tatto parlour has opened up. I must first say that I am anti this form of self decorative activity from both a moral and health perspective.

What was surprising was that not only have a noticed an increase in this type of shop but I was also astounded by the seated queue inside the shop.

The expression, ‘BEAUTY IS ONLY SKIN DEEP’ came to mind The proverb has been traced back to ‘A Wife’ (c.1613) by Thomas Overbury (1581-1613).” From the “Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings” by Gregory Y. Titelman (Random House, New York, 1996).- “What you don’t see is hidden under the skin and it may be more important than physical beauty.

Another related expression is, BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER - This proverb appear to have come from the English dramatist John Lyly, who wrote in ‘Euphues in England’ (1580).

We may spend time on our physical being but how much do we dedicate to our inner beauty or spiritual existence?

Interestingly, after researching this area I discovered that some Health coaches suggest that fitness training alone is not enough, people need to also de-stress. I’m not suggesting that becoming spiritual is just another tick box. One fitness piece of advice suggested that everyone has 4 basic health needs:  Physical, Mental, Emotional and Spiritual.

Emotional development is an interesting area, especially in the context of respecting each other and ensuring that we do not degrade others. Bad mouthing never helped anyone.
Statistics have shown that people who have strong religious beliefs and convictions are less likely to have health problems in the other 3 facets of their health.  In addition, it has been suggested that commitment to prayer is helpful and can fight off potential illness and depression.

As I said before, becoming spiritual should not be seen as an add-on or a simple health supplement. We cannot and should not perform any tests on our religious beliefs – It does not work like that. I remember a few years ago a BBC documentary divided a group of patients and families up into two groups. One group prayed for the wellbeing of their patients and the other did not. You cannot test God !

Commitment to prayer and meditation has the potential to make us a better physical person but also remembering God. Our existence in this world is really only temporary, therefore we should aim to be fair to each other.
Hey! We leave it all behind anyway, only our soul is what we need to value and enrich.

The aim should be to merge with God through the guidelines given to us.

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I’m not a big fan of shows like Idol or X-factor but I did manage to catch the latest episode of American Idol on Sunday afternoon.

As the programme approaches the final showdown, the remaining hopefuls are treated to being coached by an established band or artist, then singing their songs in front of a live studio audience and let us not forget the public eagerly waiting at home to sms / text their votes (at a cost!).

This week it was the turn of Bon Jovi. Both Jon and the band’s keyboardist primed a number for each budding starlet. A particular favourite of mine is Blaze of Glory, from the film Young Guns. I love Jazz and Soul music and Soft rock. I believed that I had the song on tape somewhere but whilst shopping at Asda the next day I managed to find a wonderful CD compilation entitled: The Best of Bon Jovi – Crossroad. On the way home in the car I slide the newly acquired CD into my car stereo and clicked forward to track 9.

Later in the evening I considered that I had not seen the accompanying video for years. The first place I thought I could try and find it was, yes you’ve guessed it – YouTube. After a few seconds of searching there it was. I sat back and reminisced.

The video can be seen at my website: Amazingly, since the video was loaded almost a year ago it has been viewed 360,524 times!

Why the long story about a single track?

I wondered about the power that we all have. Firstly, to be entertained, and then to be able to locate product and own it. Finally, to go online and find additional references and resources to further fuel my enjoyment.

I wondered how easy it was for me to fulfill my desire to remember the past by feeling good about an old song and then spending £6 for a compilation CD. I did not think twice about gaining that good feeling.

For today’s consumer, researcher, student or collaborative initiative, technological innovation continues to drive both personal motivation and the economy.

Is this power a force for good ? Potentially, yes – especially if initiatives such as: http://www.keepachildalive.org/  make a difference - KEEP A CHILD ALIVE is an urgent response to the AIDS pandemic ravaging Africa. It aims to help by raising funds for urgently required medication. The website also talks about how Anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment has transformed the lives of people with AIDS in the West, returning them from sickness to health. But less than 5% of children with AIDS have access to these life-saving drugs. It encourages the site visitor to help by donating.

Maybe if we were all taught to feel good about giving or contributing to the world as part of our daily life, for example, apportioning some of our earnings with tax breaks to help or even looking at how we twin our cities across the world (developed to developing) – we would make the world a better place. If 360,524 people have seen the Bon Jovi video for a good feeling, imagine how much potential motivation for ‘good’ that totals.

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