TED

Thanks to my friend Bill I just discovered TED.  Here’s the scoop on what TED is and why it’s so cool.  This text is lifted directly from their website:

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. Almost 150 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.

Our mission: Spreading ideas.

We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we’re building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other. Over time, you’ll see us add talks and performances from other events, and solicit submissions from you, as well. This site, launched April 2007, is an ever-evolving work in progress, and you’re an important part of it. Have an idea? We want to hear from you.

The TED Conference, held annually in Monterey, is still the heart of TED. More than a thousand people now attend — indeed, the event sells out a year in advance — and the content has expanded to include science, business, the arts and the global issues facing our world. Over four days, 50 speakers each take an 18-minute slot, and there are many shorter pieces of content, including music, performance and comedy. There are no breakout groups. Everyone shares the same experience. It shouldn’t work, but it does. It works because all of knowledge is connected. Every so often it makes sense to emerge from the trenches we dig for a living, and ascend to a 30,000-foot view, where we see, to our astonishment, an intricately interconnected whole.

In recent years, TED has spawned some important extensions.

TEDGlobal is a sister conference held every other year, and in a different country on each occasion. The first conference was held in Oxford, England, in 2005; the second, in June 2007, was held in Arusha, Tanzania. The themes of the global conference are slightly more focused on development issues, but the basic TED format is maintained.

The TED Prize is designed to leverage the TED Community’s exceptional array of talent and resources. It is awarded annually to three exceptional individuals who each receive $100,000 and, much more important, the granting of “One Wish to Change the World.” After several months of preparation, they unveil their wish at an award ceremony held during the TED Conference. These wishes have led to collaborative initiatives with far-reaching impact.

TEDTalks began as a simple attempt to share what happens at TED with the world. Under the moniker “ideas worth spreading,” talks were released online. They rapidly attracted a global audience in the millions. Indeed, the reaction was so enthusiastic that the entire TED website has been reengineered around TEDTalks, with the goal of giving everyone on-demand access to the world’s most inspiring voices.

Today, TED is therefore best thought of as a global community. It’s a community welcoming people from every discipline and culture who have just two things in common: they seek a deeper understanding of the world, and they hope to turn that understanding into a better future for us all.

Posted by Mark Wallace Posted in: Charity, Education, God, History, Humor, News, Photography, Politics, Science, TED, Useful Info No Comments » December 2007

True Hero

When I was a boy growing up in Montana my dad had a good friend who we knew as Mr.Haws.  I was always impressed by the things he would do; cut wood with an axe, drive his manual transmission truck, kill chickens that would later be used for food. Mr. Haws was amazing to me because he only had one arm.

I remember lots of things about Mr. Haws. He drove all of us kids to camp every summer. He showed me how to pick rhubarb and eat it with sugar (yummy).  I remember trying to get a stain off a wall and not having much luck.  Mr. Haws grabbed the rag and told me I needed to use some “elbow grease”. He put some effort into the scrubbing and the stain came right off.  “Now you try it,” he said.  I did, and it worked.

As kids we were expressly forbidden to ask Mr. Haws about his arm.  I once thought of asking him what happened to his arm but my mother gave me a cold stare and I changed my mind quickly.

When I was older I learned that Mr. Haws survived the Baatan Death March.  He’d lost his arm while he was a POW in Japan.  I also learned that Mr. Haws brother was on that march, and died.

A photo of Alfred Haws taken by the Japanese sometime during his 3 years as a Prisonerof War.

A photo of Alfred Haws taken in 2007.  Alfred shows some of his WWII memorabilia, he is now 89 years old. I recently discovered that Alfred Haws is still alive.  He now lives in Amarillo,TX.  There was an article about him just recently. Here’s the article written by Jon Mark Beilue.  It was originally posted on Amarillo.com.

Sixty-five years ago. Alfred Haws shakes his head. April 9, 1942, doesn’t seem like that long ago to him, not that long at all. “Time flies,’ he said. “I try not to think about it too much, but it’s always there.

‘Odd, isn’t it, how fresh memories are of an older brother, Claude, dying in his arms just before they got onto a Filipino boxcar? Or what death must feel like when a Japanese soldier pulls him out of line, shoves a pistol in his stomach and repeatedly cocks and uncocks the hammer as he plays with his life?

Sixty-five years doesn’t dim anything when part of one of the most horrific war crimes of World War II, when losing 90 pounds and a right arm, when losing everything, it would seem, except his faith and hope that he would survive.

“I was a Christian and that helped an awful lot,’ Haws said. “I promised God I would serve him to the best of my ability as long as I lived if he would bring me back …and I’ve done that.’

Haws is now 89. He and wife Mary, married 61 years, have lived in a comfortable apartment on the fourth floor at the Continental Retirement Center since 2001. They have three grown children, including a son who is an area missionary in Clarkston, Wash.

They faithfully attend chapel service at the Continental each Sunday, especially this Easter Sunday. Haws used to serve as host of the service until recently, when arthritis began getting the better of him.

He knows he could have been dead, maybe should have been dead, at age 24 as an Army private just a year out of Clovis, N.M. All he can figure is the Lord had other plans.

Haws was part of an overwhelmed and undermanned U.S. Army contingent that surrendered to the Japanese 65 years ago. The U.S. was backed to the edge of the Bataan Peninsulain the Philippines with the South China Sea behind them and the Japanese in front.

“We were out of food, out of ammo, out of everything,’ he said. “We were eating horses and mules. We had no choice. All we had to fight with were our bare hands and some 30-30 rifles.’

And the next day, April 10, 1942, began The Death March of Bataan. It has always deserved capital letters, one of the most infamous times in American war history.

There were a total of 75,000 prisoners of war, of which 12,000 were American soldiers. It was a much larger number than the Japanese expected.

They were to move 63 miles north to a prison camp at Camp O’Donnell. Only 54,000 made it during the five brutal days.

There were some who escaped, but more who died. They succumbed to malaria, dysentery, and dehydration as they marched in the 100-degree heat with little water and no food.

They died at the hands of the Japanese. Atrocities such as beheadings, shootings, and bayonettings were frequent. Those who staggered and became too weak to continue were often put out of their misery.

“They were the most cruelest nation in the world at that time,’ Haws said. “We knew there was a prison camp somewhere, but had no idea what would happen.’

Haws was a strapping 190 pounds when he began, one reason he made it. That, and he already had malaria.

He was given a piece of rice the size of a golf ball during the march and no water. He never saw any atrocities committed, but he saw some buddies who were called out of line, never to return.

Haws said the Japanese motioned some Americans to a hut and some welcome shade. More than a few went, and he never saw them again.

A Japanese soldier pulled Haws out of line to carry his pack. He searched him, and then took what he could from him.

“Then he shoved a revolver in my gut and kept cocking it and uncocking it,’ Haws said. “Then he yelled at me to get back in line. I didn’t save myself - God saved me. Nobody told that Jap not to shoot me.’

After several days, a portion of the trek was on rail cars. Many prisoners suffocated in the transfer. Haws would have liked for him and his brother Claude to have risked it.

“He made it all that way, and then he just gave up on the way to the train,’ Haws said. “No noise, not a sound. Just died in my arms.’

Haws said when soldiers surrendered, he expected it to be no more than six weeks before they were freed. Instead, for the next 40 months, Haws was a prisoner of war. Japanese looked at prisoners as cowards, and in their samurai culture, a waste of a human life. They were often treated as such.

“The Jap in charge of the camp got on a table and said that he’d kill us all if he had his way,’ Haws said. “And, listen, we thought any of them could kill us at anytime.’

He saw executions by firing squad. He saw a Filipino head perched on a pole. An American POW was tied to a guard post, and every guard change, the new guard beat him with a club. That continued until he died.

Haws was never beaten, but he contracted dry beriberi, a painful nervous system ailment.His weight dropped to almost 100 pounds, lowered by work and a diet of a bit of rice and something called whistle-weed soup.

He was at McDonnell, moved to Cabanatuan camp, and eventually volunteered to go to Japan to work there. His reasoning was it was better to volunteer then than later when U.S. ships would have a better chance to sink a Japanese vessel that Haws might be on.

How terribly ironic. It was in the last days of the war in August 1945 that Haws lost an arm from an American bomb. He was working as a prisoner in a Japanese steel mill, unaware how near the end of the war was.

He could see the glow of the atomic bomb on the seaport city of Nagasaki, about 100 miles away on that Aug. 9, 1945. Something was happening.

The next day, U.S. planes dropped conventional and incendiary bombs on key industrialsites. Including the steel mill where Haws was.

It was the darndest thing. Haws had survived for three years as a POW, and then an American bomb exploded one week before the war’s official end. Haws didn’t feel a thing, but his right arm was blown off.

He took his belt and used it as a tourniquet. Sulfa powder was put on his burns, and he was told to lay on a bunk for three days, in Haws words, “to see if I’d live.’

He did, and he has.

Haws came home, married Mary Moss from Clovis, who lost two brothers in the Philippines. His final surgery on his arm was March 1946.

He took home with him a Japanese samurai sword, but thinks a grandson may have it now. There are framed reminders of that time that began in earnest 65 years ago, some small newspaper clippings, the belt that later saved his life, a POW declaration.

To look at Haws now at his kitchen table is to see a man’s man, generous, yet firm, sometimes funny, but often stern. It’s easy to imagine 65 years ago what a tough son of a gun he must have been.

He’s still strong at nearly 90, one of just a few living survivors of The Death March of Bataan. But life has taken its toll, too, and a proud man can’t do what he once could.

But it’s Easter, and Albert Haws has celebrated maybe 65 of them that odds say he probably shouldn’t have. But he knows why he has.

“God brought me back,’ he said. “It was all up to him.’

Posted by admin Posted in: Family Stuff, God, History No Comments » May 2007

Africa is not a priority…

From a 2003 interview with Philip Gourevitch on NPR’s Onthe MediaAfrica is not a priority. It’s not a priority for the government; it’s not a priorityfor the business community; it’s not an economic priority; and it’s not a press priority.”  – Philip Gourevitch

Posted by admin Posted in: History, Politics No Comments » May 2005

Trilogy of good stuff

I try to read as much as possible.  I also like to watch a lot of good movies. In the past few months I’ve read some good books and seen some decent films,but three things seem to stick out and work together.  If you’re lookingfor something to open your mind I suggest taking on two good books and a movie.The first book I recommend is TheSmoke Jumper by Nicholas Evans.  The main character, Connor Ford, is a warphotographer from Montana.  The book is mainly set in Montana but has a few chaptersset in Africa and Bosnia.  After reading this book I decided I didn’t knowenough about African History, specifically Rwanda.After you finish TheSmoke Jumper I recommend you read WeWish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by PhilipGourevitch.  The book will take you through the history of Rwanda and recountwhat happened their in 1994 when over 800,000 people died in just 100 days. You’ll swear, “Never Again.”After you’ve read both of these books I suggest you watch the Oscar nominateddocumentary WarPhotographer directed by Christian Frei.  This amazing documentary followsfamed photographer James Nachtwey ashe photographs poverty, war, and famine.  I’m convinced this is the personthat Nicholas Evans used as his inspiration for Connor Ford in Smoke Jumper. See more about War Photographer at themovie website.In 1985 James Nachtwey wrote about war and his decision to photograph war.  Hispoint is made very clearly when you see the documentary.  Here’s what hehad to say:

There has always been war. War is raging throughout the world at the present moment.And there is little reason to believe that war will cease to exist in the future.As man has become increasingly civilized, his means of destroying his fellow man havebecome ever more efficient, cruel and devastating.Is it possible to put an end to a form of human behavior which has existedthroughout history by means of photography? The proportions of that notionseem ridiculously out of balance. Yet, that very idea has motivated me. For me, the strength of photography lies in its ability to evoke a sense of humanity.If war is an attempt to negate humanity, then photography can be perceived as theopposite of war and if it is used well it can be a powerful ingredient in the antidoteto war.In a way, if an individual assumes the risk of placing himself in the middle ofa war in order to communicate to the rest of the world what is happening, heis trying to negotiate for peace. Perhaps that is the reason why those incharge of perpetuating a war do not like to have photographers around.It has occurred to me that if everyone could be there just once to see for themselveswhat white phosphorous does to the face of a child or what unspeakable pain is causedby the impact of a single bullet or how a jagged piece of shrapnel can rip someone’sleg off - if everyone could be there to see for themselves the fearand the grief, just one time, then they would understand that nothing is worthletting things get to the point where that happens to even one person, letalone thousands.But everyone cannot be there, and that is why photographers go there -to show them, to reach out and grab them and make them stop what they are doing andpay attention to what is going on - to create pictures powerful enough to overcomethe diluting effects of the mass media and shake people out of their indifference- to protest and by the strength of that protest to make others protest.The worst thing is to feel that as a photographer I am benefiting from someoneelse’s tragedy. This idea haunts me. It is something I have to reckon with every daybecause I know that if I ever allow genuine compassion to be overtaken by personalambition I will have sold my soul. The stakes are simply too high for me to believeotherwise.I attempt to become as totally responsible to the subject as I possibly can. Theact of being an outsider aiming a camera can be a violation of humanity. The onlyway I can justify my role is to have respect for the other person’s predicament. Theextend to which I do that is the extent to which I become accepted by the other, andto that extent I can accept myself.-James Nachtwey

Posted by admin Posted in: Books, History, Movies No Comments » May 2005

The Triumph of Evil

For those of you who read yesterday’spost about the 1994 Rwanda genocide, and want to know more, I’ve found a valuableresource.  It’s called thetriumph of evil and it was created by PBS. This gives some insight into why the West turned it’s back as 800,000 people werekilled in just 100 days.  See how the debacle in Somalia (remember BlackHawk Down) influenced the West’s policy in Rwanda.The site has a special section just foreducators.  Teachers, use this as a resource to inform your students. They should understand how policies in the US affect the lives of millions of peopleworldwide.Clickhere to go the the triumph of evil website.

Posted by admin Posted in: Charity, History, Politics No Comments » November 2004

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families

The letter begins, “We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families.”  It was a written plea for help from 2,000 Tutsis in the African country of Rwanda.  The next day those 2,000 people were slaughtered with machetes, clubs with nails, hand grenades, and bullets. 

These are only a fraction of the 800,000+Tutsis that died in 1994 in Rwanda.  The Hutu people of Rwanda systematically clubbed, raped, and chopped these people to death, and they did it a twice the rate that the Nazis killed the Jews in World War II.  I’m ashamed to say I don’t know much about the genocide in Rwanda, or much of Africa’s history. 

While on vacation last week I read the book The Smoke Jumper by Nicholas Evans.  One of the characters in the book, Connor Ford, spends years in Africa and the books climax is set in 1994 Rwanda during the genocide.  After reading Evans’ fictional account of the war I decided I should educate myself. I bought the book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch.  He visited Rwanda just a short time after the genocide and interviewed survivors and killers alike.  He recounts the horrors and attempts to give a historical framework for the genocide.  But even he admits that there is no way to understand what happened.

I was surprised to find a total lack of information about African history in my local Borders bookstore.  There were about 20 books total.  Only one that had anything to do with the Rwanda Genocide.  Let me put this in perspective. In Vietnam 59,000 US soldiers died over a 10 year period.  In Rwanda over 800,000 Tutsis died in just 100 days.  The majority of US soldiers were killed by bombs, bullets, and grenades.  The overwhelming majority of Tutsis died by machete. They were killed close up, by hand.

I’m ashamed to say I knew very little of this history. Why is it that we don’t study African history in the US?  Why do we not intervene in the wars in The Dark Continent?  What’s different about these people? Are we to believe that the suffering of Africa doesn’t impact our lives, that we have no duty to respond to it? I challenge myself, and you, to learn more about Africa.  To study Her history, to find ways to involve yourself in making a change there.

Diane has already been making a change.  She sponsors a Rwandan child through Compassion International.  I’m sure there are many others who are reading this who have done similar things. Please share them with us by adding a comment to this entry.  Just click “Comments”below and enter your thoughts.

Posted by Mark Wallace Posted in: Books, Charity, History No Comments » November 2004

TARGETED: OSAMA BIN LADEN

I just saw an amazing HistoryChannel documentary about Osama Bin Laden and the rise of Al Qaeda.  I thinkthis is a must watch video that will help you understand the war in Iraq and Afghanistanfrom a historical perspective.Featuring former and current CIA agents, Special Forces soldiers, Washington insiders,and best-selling authors such as Mark Bowden (”Black Hawk Down”), Steve Coll (”GhostWars”), Phillip Smucker (”Al Qaeda’s Great Escape”), and Simon Reeve (”The New Jackals”),we take a 2-hour groundbreaking look at the hunt for the world’s #1 archenemy. Filmedin 10 countries around the world, we trace bin Laden’s rise through the Jihad againstthe Soviets in Afghanistan to his present incarnation.TARGETED:OSAMA BIN LADEN travels to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen and Saudi Arabiato tell the story of Bin Laden’s emergence as a global terrorist. See how Bin Ladencame to prominence battling the Soviets in Afghanistan, trace the establishment ofAl Qaeda, and examine his betrayal of the Saudi royal family and the alliance withthe Taliban. Insiders detail how he plotted strikes against U.S. interests in Africa,the Middle East and New York, as well as offering an up-to-the minute look at thehunt for the Al Qaeda leader.

Posted by admin Posted in: History, News No Comments » August 2004

Apollo Image Gallery

You can view all of the Apollophotography archives at the Apollo Image Gallery.  This is part of the ProjectApollo Archive.  I’ve been looking at the Apollo11 gallery, this is the mission that went to the moon.  This is some reallyinteresting stuff for historians and photographers alike.  You can actually seepictures of Buzz Aldrin practicing with his Hasselbad medium format camera.Click hereto view the Apollo 11 photos!

Posted by admin Posted in: History, Photography No Comments » July 2004

Thank you

Thank you to those who fought on the beachesof Normandy.  Thank you to all of the men and women who fought to preservefreedom not just in our country, but the world.  We will not forget.

Posted by admin Posted in: History, Politics No Comments » June 2004

Cool Teacher alert!!

Diane and I were surfing the web and found a very cool website, and a very cool highschool english teacher from Idaho.  Ms. Erin Daniels teaches a journalism classand has built a very impressive site.  I just wish all teachers were this cool. Oh well.Take a look at the website byclicking here.[I’m going to get a C- for this entry because I used “very cool” twice in the samesentence and didn’t capitalize “english”.  I’m such a failure!]

Posted by admin Posted in: Education, History, News, Photography No Comments » January 2004

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