“Getting to know you” is a lyrical description of the premier event that took place in Chicago this past weekend. Partners of the Americas (POA), one of the largest volunteer organizations in the Western Hemisphere, hosted the first Midwest Regional Conference on volunteerism that featured the power of citizen diplomacy, the primary force in bringing…
DetailsMy first reaction? Totally inappropriate. My second reaction? If it meant not raising taxes due to new revenue streams, why not? Although, “why not” might be answered by Conan O’Brien’s experience with international advertising (below). The Wall Street “China Journal admittedly hasn’t verified this with Robert Gibbs, but we’ll go out on a limb and…
DetailsThat’s Grace and Nicole. Two teenagers enjoying an outing together. Except that Grace is from Nicaragua, and Nicole is from Wisconsin. The two met through the Wisconsin/Nicaragua Partners of the Americas Youth Ambassadors Program. “The Youth Ambassadors program, begun in 2002, brings outstanding public high school students from across Latin America to the United States…
DetailsPhoto by Miguel Yuste, El Pais Yesterday I don’t know that I would have even clicked to open the article on NPR about the kidnapping of Honduran President Manuel Zalaya and essentially the coup that is taking place there as we speak. Today, I am desperate to find cell phone numbers for my three friends…
DetailsI took Dillon and his friend Zachary on a road trip to Peoria, IL last week. As we conversed over ice cream sundaes in Lacon, Zachary shared that another classmate, who is from Poland, told him that “he hated Mexicans.” Well, Zachary is Mexican. When I asked him how it made him feel, he answered,…
DetailsI still remember an article I read several years ago about an informal ‘competition’ among Korean Culture Schools about who was teaching the ‘right’ traditions. As immigrant parents strove to teach their US born children about their cultural heritage, there was concern about consistency and capturing the ‘real culture’ of their…culture. Indeed, when I was…
DetailsNPR article questions where free speech crosses the line to criminal, in wake of recent killings at the Holocaust Museum, Army Recruiting Center, and in Church, of Abortion doctor. “And it raises another one the nation has long wrestled with: Would enforced silence of the most abhorrent speech prove a more dangerous enemy of the good?”
We stopped in Ottawa, IL, to see the “Shoe Tree,” on a road trip to Peoria, IL this week. As described on Roadside America (a treasure trove of the kitschy things around the US, including the locations of all of the re-appropriated Muffler Men–such as Hot Dog Man, Tire Man, etc.), the tree boasted 30…
DetailsPhoto “Holi in Udaipur” by Andifeelfine I happened to see a commercial for the Banzai Color Stream Battle Blaster between SpongeBob’s (ahem—I mean, MY SON happened to see a commercial for it between SpongeBob’s…) and immediately thought of the Hindu holiday Holi (actually—I thought—wow, that’s a commercialized version of that Indian holiday where they splatter…
DetailsFirst off, I have to tell you my husband HATES the word “play date.” In the olden days (both in the US and Brazil) you just went outside and whoever else was out, that was who you played with. But in today’s world of single parents, two working parents, carefully orchestrated schedules and a good…
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