40 years ago the first remote connection between computers ushered in the age of the internet. On October 29, 1969, a computer lab at UCLA connected to the Stanford Research Institute, and then continued to spread out and connect with computers across the planet. The internet and its ability to connect the entire world and share understanding and knowledge is the most profound technology ever invented for creating world peace.

The internet is a technology whose benevolent uses far outweighed any military application alone. It was originally called ARPANET, and was a project of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Defense established in response to the Soviet launching of Sputnik. Its mission was to keep U.S. military technology more sophisticated than that of any other nation. They were sourced with creating the technology, then allowing military and civilian use of these "most sophisticated" tools. One of the early projects was the study of space. In 1960, all of its civilian space programs were transferred to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the military space programs to the Air Force. Shortly after that, ARPA's investment in information technologies and networking computers would lead to the creation of the internet.

ARPA, now called the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is no longer directly involved with the running of the internet. As the internet grew into a worldwide project, its management was handed over to the U.S. government-run Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann). After years of criticism from the rest of the world, the U.S. government eased its control over Icann, signing an agreement which came into effect on October 1, 2009 and putting the control of Icann under the scrutiny of the global "internet community". Less than a month later, the internet regulator voted to end the exclusive use of English scripts, a policy that is about to transform the online world make the internet far more global.

The board of Icann's annual meeting in Seoul this week formally approved plans to allow non-Latin-script web addresses for the first time, allowing domain names in Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and other scripts. More than half of the 1.6 billion people who use the internet speak languages with non-Latin scripts. The move is being described as the biggest change to the way the internet works since it was created 40 years ago. The first Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) could be in use next year.

Below is a picture of the router at UCLA used to make the first Internet connection.

Mother's Day has its origins as a peace holiday, so it's appropriate that this year's How Weird Street Faire (a peace celebration) occurs on Mother's Day. It is also fitting that How Weird is on May 10th this year, as the first formal Mother's Day was observed on May 10th.

The history of Mother's Day is rooted in peace. In 1858, Ann Jarvis, a young mother from West Virginia, started organizing Mother's Work Days. These were initially focused on improving sanitary conditions. After the Civil War, they focused on reconciling former enemies of the Union and Confederacy, and honoring mothers who had lost family in the war.

Inspired by the work of Ann Jarvis, and the traditional British day of Mothering Sunday, social activist Julia Ward Howe championed the cause of a national day for mothers, to unite women against war. Jarvis was popular at the time as the author of the words to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic". She was horrified by the death and suffering of war, especially the recent Civil War and Franco-Prussian War. In 1870, she wrote the Mother's Day Proclamation as a call for peace and disarmament. By 1873, women in 18 cities across America celebrated Mother's Day for Peace. While Julia Ward Howe failed in her attempt to get formal recognition of a Mother's Day for Peace, she sowed the seeds of a national day for mothers.

When Ann Jarvis died in 1905, her daughter Anna Jarvis took over the task of creating a memorial day for mothers. The first Mother's Day service was celebrated on May 10, 1908 at the Grafton, West Virginia church where Anna's mother had taught Sunday School. The holiday was intended to be a sacred day. It quickly caught on and spread throughout the country. In 1912, West Virginia became the first state to make it an official holiday. And then on May 8, 1914, the U.S. Congress passed a law designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day. President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother's Day in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war.

Unfortunately, the holiday was soon coopted by commercialization. Anna Jarvis was devastated, and spent all her inheritance and the rest of her life fighting what she saw as an abuse of the sacred celebration. She stated at one point that she "wished she would have never started the day because it became so out of control." Well, now it's time to take back Mother's Day for peace.

From the words of Julis Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation...

"From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: 'Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.' Blood does not wipe our dishonor, nor violence indicate possession."

So in honor of all mothers, and all those affected by war, we gather in peace.

(Mothers Day for Peace)


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The World Peace Through Technology Organization recently affiliated with a technology user group, the Chicago Drupal Meet Up Group (CDMUG), to help inspire community-building and world peace through advanced technological tools.

The Chicago Drupal Meet Up Group organized Drupal Camp Chicago's (DCC) educational and philanthropic activities. Drupal Camp Chicago was held October 24-25, 2008, with over 180 attendees. The program included the second Code for a Cause event.

Code for a Cause (C4aC) volunteers work in small teams on specific real-world applications, addressing identified needs within the non-profit community. Projects are led by CTC staff that have years of experience working on non-profit technology projects. C4aC creates innovative applications for non-profit organizations that would have difficulty funding such robust projects by themselves.

Code for a Cause is a Chicago Technology Cooperative (CTC) project that brings together volunteer web developers and designers to build sophisticated social web sites and applications for small non-profit organizations, using the Drupal content management system and other free and open source software.

Drupal is a leading open source content management system, which allows anyone to create and organize online communities with no programming expertise. In fact, the World Peace Through Technology Organization web site (peacetour.org) is built with Drupal.

During Drupal Camp Chicago, Code for a Cause volunteers built a prototype website for Skoolade.org, an online repository of educational resources for parents and teachers working with students with autism. The site allows users to upload, categorize, rate, and share autism resources.

The inaugural Code for a Cause event was held in conjunction with the 2008 Flourish Conference at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Code for a Cause Hack-a-thon was a two day coding sprint where Flourish attendees had the opportunity to contribute to small development projects to create applications for local non-profit organizations and community groups.

The event was extremely successful with approximately two dozen active participants and another 50-60 observers who visited the Hack-a-thon to learn more about the use of open source software in the non-profit/volunteer sector. The participants developed an online homeless shelter search for Chicago, a prototype website for a non-profit organization called Green World Campaign, an online survey management and reporting tool, and a screen scraping tool for website migrations.

The World Peace Through Technology Organization is excited to be working with the Chicago Drupal Meet Up Group and supporting Code for a Cause. We hope to bring some events to the west coast soon.

The Third World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace took place December 16-17, 2008 in Paris, France. Imams and Rabbis came from all over the world to bring the voice of Judaism and Islam to build bridges of dialogue and help solve conflicts motivated by religion in the Middle East, Europe, and the world. This year was expanded to include Christians. There were meetings and talks, and in the evenings the music of the band Andalucia, who have mutual Jewish and Islamic heritages, brought people closer together.

Religious dignitaries, Imams and Rabbis, together with Christians and other religious experts from around the world met to defend the sacred character of peace. Their aim is to voice the common view of Islam and Judaism, and create a joint monitoring group to support, develop, and propagate initiatives that encourage peaceful coexistence and dialogue.

An Israeli Rabbi and an Iranian Iman.

The Congress brought together 85 religious leaders and experts from over 22 countries. Participants included the President of the Republic of Senegal, who was also the Chairman of the 11th Session of the Islamic Summit Conference. After being elected President of Senegal in 2000, His Excellency Abdoulaye Wade implemented noble ideas for unity and peace in West Africa and for sustainable development.

A Rabbi chanting in Arabic to Islamic music.

The Congress was organized by the UNESCO Division for Cultural Policies and Intercultural Dialogue in cooperation with the Hommes de Parole Foundation.

Tens of thousands of people converged today on the border between Colombia and Venezuela for a free concert called Peace Without Borders, held as a call for peace after the region’s worst diplomatic crisis in decades. The concert featured some of the biggest names in Latin American music, and was organized by Colombian rock star Juanes, who said he wanted the event to ease tensions and promote good relations. It was intended to send a message to the leaders of the two countries to give peace a chance.

"The place we chose is something symbolic. It does not mean that this is intended to promote peace between Colombia and Venezuela only. The border means the border of all countries," explained Juanes. "It would have been much more practical and simple to do it in a city, but the border is a symbol of peace between all countries. And this message is for everyone, all the countries in Latin America and the U.S. as well."

The artists and many of the attendees dressed in white in a show of cross-national solidarity. The concert took place on the Simon Bolivar bridge linking Cucuta, Colombia, and San Antonio del Tachira, Venezuela, surrounded by white flags. Children’s choruses from both countries started the concert, with each artist performing three songs and then joining together for several songs in the finale.

"It’s not that a song is going to change people. But music becomes an excuse to send a message, that we’re all here together building peace, that we are here as citizens and this is what we want, and we have to be heard. I think the governments have to understand and listen. We don’t want to get involved in conflicts between people," said Juanes.

"Peace is the most important thing we have and we have to fight for it."

It is inspiring how quickly the symbol created for nuclear disarmament has spread around the world as the "peace symbol", becoming one of the most recognized symbols on earth. It seems to show a huge demand for expressions of peace, especially after the World Wars. People everywhere identify with the concept of peace, and feel a need to express that concept universally. There has never been that desire to have a symbol for war, which seems to reflect people's basic preference for peace.

The "peace symbol" was designed on February 21, 1958 by Gerald Holtom in England. The symbol is the composite semaphore signal of flags for the letters "N" and "D" standing for Nuclear Disarmament ("N" is two flags held down at a 45 degree angle, and "D" is one flag up and one flag down). The symbol was introduced at the Aldermaston March, the first action of the newly formed Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). The "Disarmament Symbol" made its public debut on April 4, 1958, in front of 5,000 people gathered in London to show support for the Ban the Bomb movement.

They came to demonstrate against Britain's first hydrogen bomb tests. The Cold War was in full swing and Britain had just carried out its first hydrogen bomb test at Christmas Island in the Pacific. They assembled at Trafalgar Square, and then thousands walked to the town of Aldermaston, site of an atomic weapons research plant being built.

It was a very socially mixed, musical affair. Musicians kept up the marchers' spirits by playing their instruments, a key role in this historic event. Over the next four days, the marchers braved rain and snow to march over 50 miles. By the time they reached Aldermaston, they had grown to a procession of marchers a mile long.

Gerald Holtom was a professional artist and graduate of the Royal College of Arts in London. He was one of many intellectuals in Britain during the 1950's who were deeply disturbed by witnessing the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and then watching in disbelief as their own government, despite being in a time of post-war material hardship, raced to join the nuclear club.

The peace symbol was first drawn on home-made banners and ceramic badges. Although the symbol was originally designed only as a sign for nuclear disarmament, it quickly spread around the world and within ten years had become the international symbol of peace. It has deliberately never been copyrighted. Throughout the years it has taken on many different meanings, including freedom and unity.

Millions of people around the world, regardless of race or religious beliefs, have looked to the peace sign to unite them. It has become an enduring cultural icon. It is probably the most commonly used non-religious symbol of hope in the world, instantly recognized anywhere as the universal sign for peace. Quite an accomplishment for an image which, instead of being based on some famous existing object, was created from scratch to represent a common idea.

Unfortunately, after 50 years we live in a world no closer to nuclear disarmament than it was in 1958. In fact, it seems we are farther away than ever before. Although the world is currently filled with wars, the peace symbol is a reminder of how much people long for peace.