This week at the Global Conversation, we heard about life, liberty, immigration, exclusion, corruption, the past and the future. All in a normal week around here:
Xu Wenli on Human Rights
Andy Blackadar shares this video of an interview with Brown University's Xu Wenli in the aftermath of the recent Nobel Peace prize announcement that has re-focused attention on China's human rights policy.
The Morenos, Pt. 5
Meanwhile, in southern Mexico, Hannah Olson continues her profile of one family that's emigrated from Minnesota south and back across the border. Most poignantly, in this post, she talks to the children of the illegal immigrants who took them out of the country in which they had been born:
Poor kids know the cost of food and rent.
Kids whose parents are migrant workers learn to know the road.
Children of workaholics learn to entertain themselves and rely on nannies.
Kids whose parents drink too much know the scent of alcohol on breath.
Jorge and Araceli’s kids know immigration laws. They are keenly aware of the fact that they are American citizens because they were born on United States soil and that their parents are illegal immigrants.
Read more about the Morenos here.
Mario Rakar Gets Even
The name might not mean much to you, but to Croatian citizens Steven Ellis has talked to, the words "Mario Rakar" speak volumes. Rakar is undoubtedly a public figure there, perhaps most famously for an episode he told Ellis about:
Rakar’s fame as a marketer comes from a virally successful website he created in 2009, when he pieced together a crowd-sourced exposure of massive voter fraud that had allowed Croatia’s ruling party, HDZ, to win countless elections with nothing but thousands of fake votes.
Rakar recalls, “I put out a call online. I said ‘I have a way to prove that the government is faking votes, all I need is a copy of the voter registry’. One week later, some man, a man I have never met and do not know, comes to me with an envelope and says that these CDs have what I want. Two days later, I launched the site and the entire thing begins.”
You should also check this post later, as Ellis says a video of his interview with Rakar is forthcoming.
Videos from BWxD
And finally, we have these videos, posted from the Better World By Design Expo at Brown. Keep an eye on some of these projects and teams; their innovation might be very important for the future.
