Picture of Haiti before the Earthquake

Paula Abdul mentioned on Twitter /Last night’s CNN benefit for Haiti raised $8,944,956! WOW! What a tremendous feeling it was to be a part of something so rewarding

Haiti How to help Look at the site below and see the money options

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/impact/

Haiti Earthquake Aftermath

I have a dream, MLK on Ted, Freedom

Eddie Veder Society and Greed

Lilith Music festival goes green with Reverb

– Sarah McLachlan and the 2010 Lilith Tour are thrilled to reveal the first set of artists confirmed for next summer’s tour. Mary J. Blige, Sheryl Crow, Erykah Badu, Colbie Caillat, Ke$ha, Tegan and Sara, Miranda Lambert and Metric are among those set to join McLachlan on the road. Others include A Fine Frenzy, Indigo Girls, Emmylou Harris, Chairlift, Jill Scott, Sugarland, Brandi Carlile, Sara Bareilles, Zee Avi and The Weepies.

From 1997 through 1999, Lilith Fair was one of the highest grossing touring festivals in the world, with over 1.5 million fans in attendance and raising over $10 million dollars for national and local charities. Founded by Grammy-award winning artist Sarah McLachlan along with Dan Fraser, Marty Diamond and Terry McBride, Lilith Fair was the only tour of its kind—a celebration of women in music featuring artists like Sheryl Crow, Christina Aguilera, Erykah Badu, The Dixie Chicks, Missy Elliot, The Pretenders, Nelly Furtado, Jewel, Queen Latifah, Indigo Girls, Tegan and Sara and of course, Sarah McLachlan.

Nearly 6 months ago, Nettwerk CEO and Lilith Fair co-founder Terry McBride announced that the all-female festival would make its return in Summer 2010.

Reverb will be coordinating greening efforts to ensure a minimal environmental footprint during the Lilith Fair tour, from setting up recycling centers to fueling the fleet with biodiesel to interacting with fans in our on-site Eco-Villages. Please check back later for more details!

Efforts include:

• Waste reduction and recycling backstage
• Fueling touring fleet with B20 Biodiesel
• Non-toxic cleaners and post-consumer recycled bathroom tissue on tour busses
• Reusable water bottles for band and crew to reduce plastic bottle waste
• Biodegradable and compostable catering products, including potato and corn based utensils, bowls and cups
• Carbon offsets to neutralize all CO2 emissions from touring fleet, air travel, hotel accommodations, and venue energy use
• Working with the concert venues to help them be more green
www.reverbrock.org
www.lilithfair.com

W Hollywood Residences Goes Green & Vine

The Legendary intersection of Hollywood and Vine will be Green and Vine The Eco residences of Green & Vine is a new concept in urban-luxe, sustainable living. This unique dwelling has been meticulously outfitted with the most eco-friendly, locally derived

Food Rules by Michael Pollan

Eating doesn’t have to be so complicated. In this age of ever-more elaborate diets and conflicting health advice, Food Rules brings a welcome simplicity to our daily decisions about food. Written with the clarity, concision and wit that has become bestselling author Michael Pollan’s trademark, this indispensable handbook lays out a set of straightforward, memorable rules for eating wisely, one per page accompanied by a concise explanation. It’s an easy-to-use guide that draws from a variety of traditions, suggesting how different cultures through the ages have arrived at the same enduring wisdom about food. Whether at the supermarket or an all-you-can-eat buffet, this is the perfect guide for anyone who ever wondered, “What should I eat?”

http://michaelpollan.com/foodrules.php.

Garbage Dreams see the Movie

GARBAGE DREAMS

Director and Producer:   Mai Iskander

Winner of the IDA’s Humanitas Award, GARBAGE DREAMS follows three teenage boys – Adham, a bright precocious 17-year-old; Osama, a charming impish 16-year-old; Nabil, a shy artistic 18-year-old – all born into the trash trade, among Egypt’s Christian, Zaballeen minority.  The “garbage people” as they are called, live in a ghetto located on the outskirts of Cairo. It is a world folded onto itself, an impenetrable labyrinth of narrow roadways camouflaged by trash.  The Zaballeen survive by recycling the city’s waste.  Astonishingly, they repurpose 80% of the garbage, creating what is arguably the world’s most efficient waste disposal system.   When Cairo’s city government suddenly decides to replace them with multinational garbage disposal companies, the community finds itself at a crossroads and face to face with the globalization of their trade.

Academy Short List for Best Documentary

http://garbagedreams.com/

A BEAUTIFUL AFFIRMATION TO BEGIN THE NEW YEAR

On this day, I will strive to see the peace

that is everywhere and access the abundance of

beauty and joy that lie in every moment.

It is the Eternal Now that I am after.

I will strive to set aside everything I have learned

and presume to know

in order to allow new knowledge and new

experiences to flood my being.

I will strive to be a magnet for powerful,

positive, and miraculous truths, images, words, and music.

Read more

Avatar review, Gaia and the interconnectedness of nature

www.naturalnews.com

NaturalNews) If you see just one film this holiday season (or even this year), make it James Cameron’s Avatar. It’s a powerful, inspiring film that demonstrates movie-making at its best, and it delivers a crucial message for our time: That all living beings are connected and that those who seek to exploit nature rather than respect it will only destroy themselves.

Much of the press about Avatar has focused on the special effects, the motion capture and the 3-D presentation. These are modern filmmaking marvels, for certain, but the film succeeds for a far more important reason: Its story — and its message. Others have reviewed the film in a more critical light; notably Alex Jones who sees it as more of a propaganda piece (http://www.infowars.com/alex-jones-…). But I see the film differently, and I think it carries a strong, positive message. (Spoiler alert: This article discusses some of the plot elements of the film.)

With Avatar, Cameron has delivered a fast-paced fantasy adventure that weaves together a stream of powerful themes that are so important to our modern world that they extend far beyond the world of fictional film: Issues like corporations destroying nature for profit, the lack of respect for living creatures, and the failed policies of “military diplomacy” that the USA continues to pursue. The themes in Avatar reflect the greatest challenges of our modern world, and the message of Avatar is both deeply moving and highly relevant to the future of human civilization.

Not many who view Avatar will understand all this, of course. To the younger crowd, Avatar is simply a cool action-adventure film with a compelling love story that makes it a great date flick. But to those who’ve been around on this planet a little longer, the story of Avatar is a far important story of good versus evil, war versus peace, destruction versus healing and isolationism versus interconnectedness. This depth of sensitivity to life is rare to find in any film these days, much less a blockbuster feature film, but that’s what makes Avatar so truly remarkable: It speaks to viewers at many different levels, intertwining the core themes of human mythology in an extremely tight, fast-paced screenplay that doesn’t let a second go to waste.

That’s classic James Cameron, of course: Cutting scenes, dialog and seconds out of the film until it becomes a polished, tightly-presented story that transports you into the on-screen world and doesn’t let go of you until the credits roll. It’s an emotional story, too. Much like Titanic, Avatar convincingly pulls you into the minds and hearts of the key characters, delivering an authentic emotional connection with the on-screen characters even though their skin is blue.
Colonialism
The overriding theme of Avatar is one of western Colonialism, where western nations use their military might to invade lesser developed countries, terrorize their people and pillage their lands for valuable natural resources.

And yet these acts of military imperialism are always justified by the imperialists. As the top military commander says in the film in response to the natives resisting their lands being pillages, “We’ll fight terror with terror!”

It remains the standard operating procedure of any military imperialist nation: Invade whatever country you wish, and if the locals fight back, condemn them as terrorists and use that as an excuse to turn up the heat with even more bombs and weapons.

Gaia and the interconnectedness of nature
One of the more interesting elements in Avatar is the neural connection fibers that each living creature is born with on the planet. Animals, humanoids and even the trees have these neural connection fibers, allowing all living creatures to “plug in” to each other’s neural networks. Once connected, they can feel each other’s emotions and thoughts. They are, in essence, operating as one single being with expanded sensory awareness.

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