I've heard that in Japanese the word for "problem" is the same as the word for "opportunity". That is appropriate. Problems, challenges and conflict provide us with opportunities to evolve.

The challenges that arise in our lives are what motivate us to evolve. In the Darwinian sense evolution occurs as a response to challenges and stresses in relation to the physical environment; survival of the fittest. On the other hand in the personal, communal, societal and cultural sense evolution occurs in response to challenges to our ideals. read more »

I just ran across a website called googlism.com that paraphrases search result content from Google. For example, I typed in the word "peace" to get a summary of content of search results for that word. Interesting results:

http://www.googlism.com/index.htm?ism=peace&type=2

My favorites are "peace is at your doorstep" and "peace is a puzzle waiting to be solved". What are yours? read more »

A poem by Dr. Maya Angelou

Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes.
And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
Floodwaters await in our avenues.
Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche.
Over unprotected villages.
The sky slips low and gray and threatening.
We question ourselves.
What have we done to so affront nature?
We interrogate and worry God.
Are you there? Are you there, really?
Does the covenant you made with us still hold? read more »

Political parties as we know them are obsolete. The unity that they ostensibly represent no longer exists, and possibly never did in the first place. In this age of lightning fast communication, organization and activism, we no longer need to cling to a party identity in order to make our collective voice heard and to exercise our power as American citizens. As was aptly pointed out on this site this past week (see Multipartisan Democracy) the Republicrats cannot hope to represent the diversity of combinations of stances on issues taken by citizens in this country. read more »

Check out this article about the tiny Himalayan nation of Bhutan, which pursues happiness as a political goal. It holds Gross National Happiness as more important than Gross National Product. Want ideas for an enlightened world: click here. read more »

We watch in expectation as more and more of our elected officials hear their constituents' wishes to end the madness going on in Iraq. But there is also a sense that just getting the military out, however slowly and whatever the competence of the Iraqi security forces, is not enough. Beyond an exit strategy for our military, we need our elected officials to focus on peace-building, mediation and conflict resolution. Let's neither "stay the course" nor "cut and run". Let's send in 160,000 peace-builders, mediators and conflict resolution specialists to get some real work done. read more »

Greetings propeace community!

Today the 200th registered user joined our online community! Thanks to all of you who have spread the word about propeace.net. And many thanks to those who have contributed their ideas, stories, favorite quotes and other content to the website. Your presence and your efforts are to be commended for bringing an online propeace community to life, and for doing it in such a way as to avoid avarice, disparagement, rancor, acrimony and all the other politics-as-usual games and stunts that are the rule rather than the exception (for now) in our culture and on the world wide web. read more »

Dear PDA,

I think our country, and democracy itself, will in a short time be in great need of healing. Wounds have been inflicted upon our families in an ill-advised war, our livelihoods in corporate profit-taking, and our liberties in fear. The anger and hatred that is abound today, that I read in your recent messages, are perfectly understandable.

But we should organize ourselves not around our outrage at what exists, but to create something better. What do we want for the future? What do we want to build? What are our values? Those are the messages we should be broadcasting. Do that and votes will follow. There is no need to reduce to the same smear and derision that "the other side" uses. read more »

Two minutes is all that we need for this global ritual of reconciliation. On November 11th, fall silent for two minutes in honor of all innocent victims - in London, in Afghanistan, in New York, in Iraq, in Chechnya, in Madrid. Two minutes of silence, of remembrance, of reflection, to consider the choices that we have made and the path we will follow into the future.

See: http://www.twominutesofsilence.org read more »

The three Massachusetts congressmen, Lynch, Markey and Meehan, who voted to authorize President Bush to use military force against Iraq have now expressed regret publicly for their vote. Read the Associated Press aricle here.