My dad, Patrick Hughes, started the Walk for Hunger in 1969 when he was a priest. It is now the oldest pledge walk in the country and has raised millions of dollars to feed the hungry. This year 42,000 people participated and raised 3.8 million. It happens on the first Saturday every May. My dad died in 1980 when he was just 40. He had big and lasting impact. He catalyzed real change. I am so proud and miss him, everyday.
The National Endowment for Democracy site is live! In partnership with our sister organization Hairpin Communications we worked on this honking overhaul. We are grateful for the support of the great team at NED. Special thanks to Burt Glass for keeping it all on track. Nathan Lamont for his development skills and overall big-brainedness. And Anna Engle for holding the center on this massive project with patience and fierce intelligence. Go ahead!
We are particularly excited about the first three video installments of the Democracy Stories. Many thanks to Joe Rubin, the talented and dogged reporter and producer for FrontLine World.
The video above features The Democratic Voice of Burma’s, Executive Director of Khin Maung Win, as he tells of the huge risks he and his organization take to make sure new and independent ideas are heard. DVB reporters also operate secretly inside Burma at great risk and many have been jailed. NED has been a consistent supporter of DVB over the past decade.
“But above all, [Howard Zinn] had a genius for the practical meaning of love. That is what drew legions of the young to him and what made the wide circle of his friends so constantly amazed and grateful.” James Carroll.
Here is to a life well lived, fights hard fought, boundless courage and unshakable hope.
Rise up!
Cold Case Project site is live! We designed this site for the Center for Investigative Reporting. This unprecedented collaboration and ongoing multimedia project investigates long forgotten civil-rights era murders. Their reporters have uncovered evidence resulting in the FBI reopening hundreds of cases; crucial new facts for prosecutors; and a successful murder conviction of a former KKK member. It was an honor to be part of the team. Special thanks to the producer, Carrie Ching, for her skills, patience and expert wrangling.
The Center for Investigative Reporting’s crack journalist, Mark Shapiro, is blogging from the climate change summit in Copenhagen. Follow him on their Muckraker blog. Check out Carbon Watch their partnership with Frontline/World. Here is hoping all those world leaders and climate experts make some real progress, set meaningful goals and do the hard, right thing.
Paul Van Zyl is a former anti-aparthied activist and the Executive Secretary of the Truth and Reconciliation commission. He is cofounder and the Executive Vice-President of the International Center for Transitional Justice. His talk here is about America and our use of torture – a practice repeatedly condoned by our former Vice President. Van Zyl lives in the U.S. now with his wife and child. Calling us all out, he asks, when you allow torture where does the line get drawn? He speaks of this as a matter of self interest, “We need repudiation of torture not just because it’s wrong, but because once you’ve opened the Pandora’s box, the violence and degradation are seldom confined to your enemies alone.” Americans can not be ambivalent about torture. We need our own Truth and Reconciliation commission.
I’m reading the Art of Possibilities by Rosamund and Ben Zanders. Ben Zanders is a conductor and professor of music. Rosamund is a renowned family therapist. One of their ideas is to give the music students an A at the beginning of the semester. With the stipulation that they have to write a letter to Mr. Zanders about what, as A students, they had accomplished. The results are amazing – no longer are they working out of competition, limits and fear. As A students they live in their full potential.
It is similar to what preacher, Eddie D. Smith Sr., is preaching as he teaches the meaning of “namaste.” The practice of seeing the best or divine in yourself and the divine in others. Bold!
I give you an A. I give myself an A.
Designed for our sister company, Hairpin Communications, we’ve just finished this policy report for Corporate Accountability International. It is a pleasure to watch and participate as CAI challenges corporate greed – in this case, the control of water sources. This piece lays out compelling stories from around the world illustrating the World Bank’s broken practice of trusting private corporations to supply the world’s water needs. Another example of a recent CAI campaign is its efforts to force the Coca Cola Company to reveal the source of its Dasani water (spring water it is not.)
My brother, Brendan, restored one of our dad’s documentaries. Patrick Hughes could not abide injustice, of any kind. He was also hilarious, generous and fierce. A true mensch. He was ahead of his times. This is one of his slideshows (you can hear the beeps in the sound track) that exposed corporate greed. Guess Who’s Coming to Breakfast details the exploitation of sugar cane laborers in the Dominican Republic by Gulf +Western. G+W owned Domino Sugar, Paramount Pictures, The NY Nicks and Madison Square Garden among many, many other things. We spent a summer in the D.R. while he did research. I turned six that August. I ate myself sick on the mangoes that grew in our yard. We lived in a borrowed house up a dirt road from the village where some of these pictures where taken. Gulf and Western sued my dad. Oh, how he relished it! As the story goes, the National Council of Churches formed an amicus curiæ with my dad in court, and Gulf + Western was forced to back down. (Thanks Brendan!)
