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International Day of Peace

Today the world celebrates Peace on an unprecedented scale and it's never been easier for anyone to participate and make their own special contribution to promoting World Peace and Harmony.

Visit the International Day of Peace web site to learn of events near you and be sure to add your own special slide to our PowerPoint for Peace presentation.

Many thanks to Patrick Pawlowski for his special and numerous contributions. And many thanks to Jacqueline Stone, who not only contributed a lovely slide, but wrote to me personally and let me know about International Peace Day.

I'd like to remind our contributors to double check the criteria for submissions. You must submit a single slide at a time for inclusion in the presentation. We've had also 150 entries to the presentation, but only 48 met the entry criteria. It really breaks my heart to reject any entries, but only the first slide in a presentation will be added and I know that won't truly represent the entries we're receiving.

Lastly, on this day I'd like to pay tribute to a very special friend who always promoted peace in his own special way.
Brian Reilly passed away this past Monday and will be so sorely missed by his friends and family. Brian's enduring legacy is how he made every single person he met feel welcome, valued and equal. There is no single better way for an individual to promote peace in their lifetime than to live the principle and Brian did that. Go in peace our special friend.

For those of you who knew him, his family invites you to join with them on Sunday the 28th to observe a Minute of Silence in memory of Brian at the following time:

8:00am Seattle and California - Pacific Daylight Time
11am New York and Cincinatti - Eastern Daylight Time
4pm London and Surrey - British Summer Time
8:30pm Chennai, India - Coordinated Universal Time + 5:30hrs

PowerPoint for Peace Launch

I grew up during the 1960's in America. It was an age of idealism and hope and had a profound impact on shaping who I am. I think that's why I've been so excited that Al Gore has made it hip to be green again. And now it's time to make promoting Peace, Love and Harmony cool again.

Barack Obama was the first place I heard the quote, "We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." And then a short time later I again heard something similar in a class I attended. I decided to research those phrases and found multiple sources for the concept (if not the exact phrasing) of those words; from Mahatma Gandhi, to June Jordan the poet, to being attributed to Hopi Elders.

And I was moved to take action myself.

I knew I wanted to do something that everyone around the world could easily participate in. What I envisioned was some way for everyone in the world to be able to figuratively hold each other's hands and celebrate the fact that we do love and help one another in many, many different ways. I was thinking about the Aids Quilt and that's when I realized that we could use PowerPoint to create a virtual unity. PowerPoint and the internet are the perfect medium for a project like this. PowerPoint is ridiculously easy to use and the Internet is the great equalizer.

I am so grateful to Geetesh Bajaj and AuthorStream for bringing my vision to fruition. I know it was no small task and they have done an excellent job. Now we're ready for the world to participate. It is my sincerest hope that this initiative will allow persons from all over the globe to recognize and celebrate our kindness and love to one another.