Resilience Dividend ~ Boston's Prep, Readiness...

The Guardian excerpts Judith Rodin's The Resilience Dividend: Managing Disruption, Avoiding Disaster and Growing Stronger in an Unpredictable World...

"The city of Boston proved it had developed an exceptional state of readiness for a citywide disruption when, on the afternoon of 15 April, 2013 -- Marathon Monday, as it’s known there -- two improvised explosive devices detonated on Boylston Street. Although the attack was unanticipated and unpredictable, Boston had been getting ready for just such an event for more than a decade -- through network building and streamlining communications to improve awareness, undertaking situational drills and exercises to fine-­tune integration, and finding and adapting best practices from colleagues worldwide to bring in a broad range of ideas and solutions. [...] Being prepared is not a matter of luck [...] It was a matter of carefully and methodically building the char­acteristics of resilience that enable an effective response to crisis. Resilience is not only about responding to shock and stress. It is also about learning and continuing to adapt and grow because of the ex­perience. This process of “revitalisation” can further increase your readiness for sub­sequent disruptions, find opportunities that emerge from what you have learned, affect positive changes, and build even greater resilience (“the resilience dividend”)."

Before the Massacre ~ Visiting Charlie Hebdo...

NYTimes visits Charlie Hebdo well before the massacre...

Hitchens on Islam ~ "God Is Not Great" ~ Ch 9...

Christopher Hitchens on Islam -- reading Chapter 9 of his God is Not Great ~ How Religion Poisons Everything...

"Hitchens asserts that there is no evidence for any of the "miraculous" claims about Muhammad, and that the Koran's origin was not supernatural. Hitchens contends that the religion was fabricated by Muhammad or his followers and that it was borrowed from other religious texts, and the hadith was taken from common maxims and sayings which developed throughout Arabia and Persia at the time. Hitchens also identifies similarities between Islam and Christianity, as well as identifying plagiarisms of the Jewish faith."

Hitchens further clarifies about Islam... And more generally, how ridiculous religion is... Protecting Danish cartoonists -- pointing out that we must judge religions by their extremes (and extremists)... Finally, Hitchens debates Islamite...

No Great Religions ~ All Stupid and Dangerous...

Friendly Atheist spots Bill Maher on Kimmel telling truth to power:

"There are No Great Religions. They are all stupid and dangerous. And we should insult them."

Later, Maher hosts Rushdie, et al, on Real Time and the scathing continues...

Capitalist Cure ~ De Soto on Unlikely Heroes...

Peruvian economist and founder of ILD Hernando de Soto writes in the WSJournal about The Capitalist Cure for Terrorism...

"Military might alone won’t defeat Islamic State and its ilk. The U.S. needs to promote economic empowerment. [...] Today we hear the same economic and cultural pessimism about the Arab world that we did about Peru in the 1980s. But we know better. Just as Shining Path was beaten in Peru, so can terrorists be defeated by reforms that create an unstoppable constituency for rising living standards in the Middle East and North Africa. To make this agenda a reality, the only requirements are a little imagination, a hefty dose of capital (injected from the bottom up) and government leadership to build, streamline and fortify the laws and structures that let capitalism flourish. As anyone who’s walked the streets of Lima, Tunis and Cairo knows, capital isn’t the problem -- it is the solution. [...] The people of the “Arab street” want to find a place in the modern capitalist economy. But hundreds of millions of them have been unable to do so because of legal constraints to which both local leaders and Western elites are often blind. They have ended up as economic refugees in their own countries. To survive, they have cobbled together hundreds of discrete, anarchic arrangements, often called the “informal economy.” Unfortunately, that sector is viewed with contempt by many Arabs and by Western development experts, who prefer well-intended charity projects [...] All too often, the way that Westerners think about the world’s poor closes their eyes to reality on the ground. In the Middle East and North Africa, it turns out, legions of aspiring entrepreneurs are doing everything they can, against long odds, to claw their way into the middle class. And that is true across all of the world’s regions, peoples and faiths. Economic aspirations trump the overhyped “cultural gaps” so often invoked to rationalize inaction."

Acid Victims ~ Vile & Inhuman Attacks Epidemic?

The DailyMail shocks/spots Victims of Colombian acid attacks...

"Doused in a searing chemical; disabled and scarred for life; struck by a depression which can make it hard to go on -- the plight of Colombia's acid attack victims is truly heartbreaking. And the number of these horrific assaults is on the rise. At least 250 Colombian women have been disfigured in the last three years, with this year’s victim reports already outpacing 2011’s. [...] many are believed victimized by former lovers or some [...] for their looks. [...] 51-year-old Consuelo Cordoba was attacked by her boyfriend 11 years ago -- requiring her to wear a mask to prevent infection and a tube to breathe out of her nose [...] Today she walks a market in Bogota begging for change after, like many acid victims, being unable to find work for herself due to her appearance. 'I've thought about committing suicide, yes sir, I've thought about taking my life three times. I say to myself, why live? With a life like the one I have, what for?'"

Wow. I'm beside myself with both disgust at the subhumans who do this and wanting to embrace these women and convey strength and salute their resilience. Employers, please hire them. Doctors, treat. Everyday citizens, acknowledge their humanity. And politicians -- get your shit together and really criminalize these despicable acts.

Razia Jan ~ Afghan Girls' Schoolteacher Heroine

CNN's Allie Torgan tells of girls' school founder-teacher Razia Jan in Acid attacks, poison: What Afghan girls risk going to school...

"There were at least 185 documented attacks on schools and hospitals in Afghanistan last year, according to the United Nations. The majority were attributed to armed groups opposed to girls' education. "It is heartbreaking to see the way these terrorists treat... women," said Jan, 68. [...] They are scared that when these girls get an education, they will become aware of their rights as women and as a human being." Despite the threat of violence, Jan continues to open the doors of her Zabuli Education Center, a two-story, 14-room building where 354 area girls are receiving a free education. [...] "My school is very small. It's nothing big. But for this to start here, I think it's like a fire. And I think it will grow," she said. "I hope that one day these girls... will come back and teach."