This is a translation of post originally written in Spanish at Blogs de Bolivia.
As a result of the successful Second Meeting of Bloggers and Mundo al Reves Users held last Saturday, July 8th in Santa Cruz with a record attendance of 26 people, (mostly bloggers and blog readers), the dynamic group has launched a blogger campaign called “Crazy for Blogs” whose details, in words of one of the main actors of the movement, Sebastian Molina, are as follows:
What does it consist of?? In driving crazy those closest to you with the following: what are blogs, what is the concept, what is the world of blogs, and mainly, to convince everyone possible to start one and to update it. And then those convinced will repeat the scheme, successively, in an expansive wave.
This is “a decentralized” campaign, that will have at its center each one of blogs that wishes to take part, take hold, and be followed by mundoalreves.com. But, we must repeat, we will each take part with what we feel represents the popularization of blogs and their possibilities, from our own blogs and the spaces of circulation that we each have accessible.
So far there are several bloggers that have been joined the campaign, and from their weblogs they are in charge of spreading this initiative to which we foresee our best successes.
Blogs that already has been pledged to the campaign:
It may not seem so - but it's a very small world. To know that someone we hold dear is directly affected by what for us is nothing but a headline is one way to feel this smallness.
As the conflict in the Middle East escalates, a Ukrainian LJ user parasolya reacts to the sad news by telling the stories (UKR) of two of her friends: George, a Lebanese foreign student, and Polina, a Ukrainian-born Israeli.
Lebanon-Israel-Lebanon-Israel-Lebanon-Israel
What follows is lengthy and somewhat confusingThere were two Lebanese students at my department - a boy and a girl. They rarely interacted with each other. I think they belonged to different social strata and different religions.
The girl resembled an Italian: dark, curly hair, good-looking, dressed like a European. I think she was Muslim. When she finished the year, she got married to one of our classmates, the sweet Sean, a Canadian.
The boy's name was George, we all loved him. When I say “we” I mean the Slavic girls (Ukrainians and Russians). He was the only boy in the class, but we loved him not because he was a hot guy, but because he was really sweet. Sometimes we called him Zhora, sometimes Goga. He wanted to learn our words, was spending much time with the Slavs, used to go to museums with us. Once, when I put on a Ukrainian headscarf, he said it looked a lot like the headscarves worn by women in his country. and he was about to order a batch of these headscarves for his mama and sisters :). He was a very good friend. He looked a bit like a character out of [a famous Soviet film] “Mimino” - like someone from the Caucasus. He liked to brag. The way we brag about [brothers] Klitschko or Milla Jovovich, that they have a direct link to Ukraine - and he was bragging about Shakira like this :). He was Christian. Used to tell us about his country, said that Christians constitute nearly 50 percent of Lebanon's population. Was wondering why on holidays or on other occasions, the Slavs passed through police cordons without problems, but he always had his passport checked.
Third day after the beginning of the never ending Middle East conflict; Israel/Lebanon war, the Arabic blogsphere speaks.
Ranging between anger, celebration, condemnation and support, on both sides of the conflict, the bloggers views vary depends where they come from. Some sound extreme, others sound objective and reasonable, but all hopes that this ends with persistence peaceful and just solution for all, soon.
And the conspiracy theory popup to marginalize and depress what the Shia't Hezbollah did. First they said, its aim is to ruin ‘Lebanon Summer', which pumps a large sum of money to the Lebanese economy, and then they said it is a ‘play,' and many other useless imaginary stories.
I don't know why I have the feeling that it's because Hezbollah is a Shia't party, nothing else. I don't know why all the Sunni power uprise against anything Shia't. The problem is that this Shia'a thing called ‘Hezbollah' is embarrassing them. Not only the Sunni political failure, but even the Sunni as faith, and as they pretend to forget what the ‘Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement' and other Sunni parties are doing.
From Jordan, Rami simply lay few unanswered questions, he said:
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Santiago in 100 Words (ES) is an essay contest of, you guessed it, no more than 100 words about the Chilean capital. Entries are restricted to Chilean nationals.
Jonathan Olguin has translated an interview with Evo Morales from the Argentinean daily Página 12.
Sergio Cariviano points to a study that found both rich and poor Argentineans tend to define themselves as “middle class.”
Robert Wright makes a case for the refurbishment and improvement of Buenos Aires' Plaza de Mayo.
John Guzman and Tim Muth are among the many bloggers to point out that Latin American countries did quite well in the Happy Planet Index.
Ceci Connolly points to a Washington Post interview with Felipe Calderón, emphasizing that “he would accept a partial recount but that a complete recount would be ‘absurd' and illegal.” Ana Maria Salazar clarifies that, although Calderón insisted he needs to practice his English, “we have heard Felipe speak English, a couple of times, on my radio show Imagen News. He did quite well…”
Diana Zorrilla Ríos takes a look at how Peruvian food has evolved over the past century (ES).
A.K. explains why today is a sad day for fans of Uruguayan cinema.
Oil Wars applauds the CNE for announcing that “both the European Union and the Organization of American States will be sending observation teams to oversee the Venezuelan presidential elections this coming December 3rd.” Francisco says the opposition needs to focus on the recent increase in crime.