Villagers

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Travel recommendation

Guatemala. Just go.

(Pictures from Semuc Champey and Volcan de Pacaya)

Save lives; give blood

I donated a unit of blood this morning. Check out the facts and links below about blood donation, and please consider donating as well.

To support the 4.5 million+ people who need blood every year in the U.S., including accident/trauma victims, surgery patients, cancer patients, and many more, the Red Cross needs to collect millions of units of blood. An estimated 43,000 pints of blood are used every day in the United States and Canada. Currently, only about 10 percent of eligible donors give blood annually. The Red Cross estimates that if one percent more of the U.S. population gave blood every year, blood shortages would disappear for the foreseeable future.

If you're 17 and older (or 16 with parental consent), you can donate blood as often as 6 times a year. The entire 4-step process takes about an hour: a few minutes to register and wait for your turn to donate, a short physical and questionnaire to determine eligibility, the blood donation process (about ten minutes long), and 10 to 15 minutes for recovery, while drinking juice and eating cookies.

Check out the overview of the donation process, eligibility requirements, and enter your zipcode here to find donation centers and blood drives near you.

One day without shoes

Visit TOMS Shoes to learn about One Day Without Shoes: an event to raise awareness for the TOMS cause, and the health risks millions suffer because of a lack of a basic commodity we take for granted every day. Providing shoes to people in need is a small step, but it's significant. And when you buy a pair of shoes from TOMS, you're also giving a pair to a child in need.

"Imagine a life without shoes; constantly aware of the ground in front of you, suffering regular cuts and scrapes, tending to infection after each walk, and enduring not only terrain, but heat and cold...

One Day Without Shoes is the day we spread awareness about the impact a simple pair of shoes can have on a child’s life. On April 8th, we ask people to go the day, part of the day or even just a few minutes, barefoot, to experience a life without shoes first-hand, and inspire others at the same time."

History of the Middle East

For an international relations geek like me, this map showing the imperial history of the Middle East is fascinating. Here's hoping you enjoy it too. Watch below or click the link above to view the map fullscreen.

The modern territorial and cultural situation in the Middle East has been greatly influenced by the string of events starting with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, subsequent European colonialism and control in the region, and eventual independence for Middle Eastern nations.

Education

I aspire to teach political science at a university someday, so discussion about learning is particularly interesting to me. Here's one of my favorite speakers on the subject, Taylor Mali, giving some slam poetry about teaching. I have this piece memorized due to how many times I've seen it.

"Curiosity is the very basis of education, and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly." -Arnold Edinborough

"Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner; put yourself in his place so that you may understand... what he learns and the way he understands it." -Soren Kierkegaard

"In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be teachers, and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have. " -Lee Iacocca

Heritage > wealth; a modern-day calculation

In Australia there's a man named Jeffrey Lee who could make 5 billion dollars with a snap of his fingers, simply by choosing to sell his land, which sits on a tremendously valuable uranium deposit. Lee is the last remaining member of the Djok clan of Australian Aborigines, and this land has been in his family for generations. So despite the fact that he could probably own his own island by tomorrow if he so chose, Lee is holding on to his ancestral land and all the history that goes with it, hoping to pass on this legacy to his children someday.

Read the full story here.

Getting old doesn't mean slowing down

Anthony Mancinelli of New York holds a Guinness World Record as the oldest barber in the world. He's 98 years old, and he's been cutting hair for 86 years... since a time when a shave and a haircut really cost two bits.

Check out the New York Times article here.

If you want to feel very small...

Speaking of astronomy, here's a very cool video by the American Museum of Natural History, giving an overview of what we know about the universe and our place in it.

“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.” - Douglas Adams

Astronomical pictures

Few subjects fascinate me more than astronomy. If I wasn't studying political science, there are a vast multitude of other fields I'd be choosing from... astronomy easily makes the top ten.

Check out the beautiful images the Hubble Space Telescope has captured at the telescope's website. The image above is of the Crab Nebula; found here, among other gorgeous pictures of nebulae and stars.