Trentino- Italia 

SOCIAL JUSTICE

To fight is to stand

To regret is to mistake

And to jump is risk

To see is to know

To smile is to make amends 

And to think is wise

To sing is happy

To sin is unforgiven

And to try is bold

To soar high is proud

To be yourself is unique

And to be alive

To dance is vibrant

To fear is the enemy

And to give is kind

To feel is caring

To seek is the adventure

And to win is strength

To aim high is brave

To understand is clever

And wonder is pure

To dream is to rest

To break is to be broken

And faith brings spirit

To play is to live

To focus brings ambition

And to stare is speech

To trust is secret

To have faith is courageous 

And loss takes you down

Rest in Peace John Lennon
October 9, 1940- December 8, 1980 ♥
“You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.”

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
♥

I look at you all, see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at the floor and I see that it needs sweeping
Still my guitar gently weeps

I don't know why nobody told you
How to unfold your love
And I don't know why someone controlled you
They bought and sold you

I look at the world and I notice it's turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps

And I don't know why you were diverted
You were perverted too
And I don't know why you were inverted
No one alerted you

I look at you all, see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at you all
Still my guitar gently weeps

Remembering George Harrison ten years later...

.:February 25, 1943-November 29, 2001:.

"Remember that nothing is small in the eyes of God. Do what you do with love." 
--Saint Theresa

by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

"...And these children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds are immune to your consultations. They're quite aware of what they're going through..." -David Bowie, Changes

"The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but not human. They cannot be human in the sense of being an image of God..." --Adolf Hitler (May 1923 speech, Munich)


Why and how did racism and discrimination derive? It is true that the human species is more alike to each other than any other animal species. It is true that our genetic code is 99.999% the same. It is true that we share all these characteristics, yet we treat each other so differently. It is true that we are the most violent animal species. It is true that our species kills its own species more than any other animal. It is true that the only differences we have is our appearance, which was inherited through history and geography. It is true that our only differences are so minute and miniscule that the colour of our skin is nothing compared to the content of our character. It is true that for centuries, many different people have influenced youth and adults to believe racism is right and racism is wrong. It is true that racism should not exist in a world where we all need to work together to love and make peace. Therefore, it is true that Adolf Hitler was indeed the second anti-christ and that he rewrote the commandments so they could suit how he saw the world, (in his own way). Therefore, it is true that if the people of Germany opened their eyes to the violence and stood up to the German army, the holocaust may have been avoided. Adolf Hitler.. May he rest in peace and find clarity in his resting place..

180

A SINGLE DREAM. A WORLD OF HOPE. 

Terry Fox was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and raised in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, a community near Vancouver on Canada's west coast. An active teenager involved in many sports, Terry was only 18 years old when he was diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma (bone cancer) and forced to have his right leg amputated 15 centimetres (six inches) above the knee in 1977.

While in hospital, Terry was so overcome by the suffering of other cancer patients, many of them young children, that he decided to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research.

He would call his journey the Marathon of Hope.

It was a journey that Canadians never forgot.

After 18 months and running over 5,000 kilometres (3,107 miles) to prepare, Terry started his run in St. John’s, Newfoundland on April 12, 1980 with little fanfare. Although it was difficult to garner attention in the beginning, enthusiasm soon grew, and the money collected along his route began to mount. He ran close to 42 kilometres (26 miles) a day through Canada's Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Ontario. However, on September 1st, after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 miles), Terry was forced to stop running outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario because cancer had appeared in his lungs. An entire nation was stunned and saddened. Terry passed away on June 28, 1981 at the age 22.

The heroic Canadian was gone, but his legacy was just beginning.

To date, over $550 million has been raised worldwide for cancer research in Terry's name through the annual Terry Fox Run, held across Canada and around the world.

On Wednesday, September 28th, my school had their annual Terry Fox Run to raise money for cancer research. Our run was very successful! Also, there were other fundraisers alongside the Terry Fox Run that also contributed to cancer research; Hennas, Volleyball Buy-In and Raffle Tickets were three other side charities that contributed to our overall success. Thanks to everyone who contributed; student government, students and teachers! Everyone did a fabulous job! 

By Thursday, September 29th, 2011, my school, so far, raised over $10,300! 
By Thursday, October 6th, 2011, my school, so far, raised over $15,000! 

Environmental Council did something very inspirational and beautiful this year... They placed a prosthetic leg in the main hall, and filled the giant poster with Band-Aids to symbolize that we are doing everything we can as catalysts, by racing towards the cure to cancer. To speed up the healing process, the Band-Aids are filled with inspiring quotes that our students wrote as motivational tips! What beautiful and incredible work! Here they are:

  

     

In Memory of Terry Fox; (July 28, 1958 - June 28, 1981)... I do too believe in miracles too, I have to.. because you inspired me to, as well as inspiring millions of others. You are a true hero!

If someone calls themselves a child of God, 

yet still have the indecency to say something so hateful, 

they do not know the meaning of brother or sister.

We are all together, serving as God's children.

To go against any one of His children,

based on the colour of the skin God gave him, 

is to directly disrespect the work God has created.

To go against any one of His children, 

based on the colour of the skin God gave him, 

is to show your cowardice and the way you see society.

To go against any one of His children, 

based on the colour of the skin God gave him, 

is to confess that your morals are weak, and you are unable to stand.

Martin Luther King Jr., I and so many others...

We all have the same dream, and expect others to open their eyes, 

and succumb to the truth of the tragedy caused in the past, 

and the truth of the tragedy that still continues to this day...

Dream Variations by Langston Hughes

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me-
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening...
A tall, slim tree...
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.

This is the ending of a very beautiful movie, "La Vie est Belle."

This movie, despite its title, is tragic, but warms ones heart, 

because of the innocence and purity the characters in the movie reveal.

Only so many fathers would go to those lengths to savour the innocence in his son...

Only so many fathers would pretend war is just a game, where prizes and points are given...

Only so many fathers would smile and laugh, while they sacrifice their life for their family...

The Music Of Love. This picture was taken in Tenganan Village, Bali (2010). Tenganan is the most famous Bali Aga (original Balinese) village and is located close to Candi Dasa in East Bali. A man was playing bamboo music to entertain a disabled child which is not his son, but he loves this child likes he loves his own son. (Photo and caption by Ario Wibisono)

I'm sick and tired of hearing things

From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites

I've had enough of reading things

By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians

I'm sick to death of seeing things

From tight-lipped, condescending, mama's little chauvinists

I've had enough of watching scenes

Of schizophrenic, ego-centric, paranoiac, prima-donnas

All I want is the truth now

Just gimme some truth now

June 5, 2011

Doctors claim to have "functional cure" for HIV

Timothy Ray Brown was diagnosed with HIV in 1995, but is now the first to have the virus completely eliminated from his body

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  Timothy Ray Brown, the first man to have received a "functional cure" for HIV.  (CBS News)

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(CBS News)  

Thirty years ago from Sunday, the Centers for Disease Control issued the first report on the emerging AIDS epidemic. Now, after years of progress in holding back the disease, there is finally an apparent case of one successful cure.

CBS News correspondent Hank Plante, with San Francisco affiliate KCBS, reports that 45-year-old Timothy Ray Brown, now living in the Bay Area, tested positive for HIV back in 1995, but now has entered the scientific journals as the first man in world history to have his HIV completely eliminated from his body. It's what doctors call a "functional cure."

He was living in Berlin, Germany, in 2007, dealing with HIV and leukemia, when scientists there gave him a bone marrow, stem cell transplant that had astounding results.

"I quit taking my HIV medication on the day that I got the transplant and haven't had to take any since," Brown says, adding that his diseases are effectively gone.

In fact, his only medical problem these days is one involving his speech and motor skills because of neurological damage after the treatment, but that's getting better.

"The Berlin Patient," as Brown is known, received stem cells from a donor who was immune to HIV. In fact, about one percent of Caucasians are immune to HIV. Some say it goes back to the Great Plague; People who survived the plague developed an immunity, and that immunity was passed down to their heirs today.

Brown says being the first man to be cured of HIV makes him very, very happy.

Needless to say, Brown is now being monitored by doctors at San Francisco General Hospital and here at UCSF, where we sought out a medical opinion from one of the most respected AIDS researchers in the world, Dr. Jay Levy, who was one of the co-discoverers of the HIV virus.

"If you're able to take the white cells from someone and manipulate them so they're no longer infectable by HIV, and those white cells become the whole immune system of that individual, you've got essentially what we call a functional cure," Dr. Levy says.

We also sought out a medical opinion from Dr. Paul Volberding, another pioneering AIDS expert, who has studied the disease for all of its 30 years.

"One element of his treatment, and we don't know which, allowed apparently the virus to be purged from his body. So its going to be an interesting, I think, productive area to study," Dr. Volderding says. "He hasn't had any recurrence now for several years I think of the virus, and that hasn't happened before in our experience."

Timothy Brown's radical procedure may not be applicable to many other people with HIV, because of the difficulty in doing stem cell transplants, and finding the right donor. But this one case does open the door to the field of "cure research," which is now gaining more attention.

"I'm cured of HIV," Brown says. "I had HIV, but I don't anymore."

Those are words that so many in the scientific community are now cautiously clinging to.