tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41225082007-05-29T21:43:06.595+01:00BrandonBlogger342125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-47461255116017267902007-05-17T10:45:00.000+01:002007-05-25T15:33:03.581+01:00

When I was flying from Johannesburg to Belfast recently, I was caught out by the new system some airlines have started of weighing bags before you check in. As a result, I was found to be carrying a 24-kg bag. I was subsequently reprimanded by an official, who claimed he was just doing his job and that I had to shed four kilos or pay for the extra weight. I removed two large books and a file from

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-72919327274294700522007-03-19T15:07:00.000Z2007-05-17T10:53:42.638+01:00

There are many challenges that face parents, but there is one that only faces certain parents. It is a complaint that I wish every one in the world would have, and it is called guilt. Let me explain: children’s charities, certainly in the UK, now target dinner times to run adverts featuring starving children followed by a call for a donation. The result is that, when- ever we sit down for a meal

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-83995168317796391882007-05-06T21:47:00.000+01:002007-05-06T21:50:26.838+01:00

Recently, Grainne Kelly and I published a short article in the Scope, a social affairs magazine in Northern Ireland, on our reconciliation research. This research looked at definitions of reconciliation. The article focuses briefly on how this research has been taken up by the EU, to download the article click here.

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-7963546253696015792007-04-30T15:28:00.000+01:002007-04-30T15:31:13.331+01:00

Healing Through Remembering is calling for a Private Day of Reflection on 21 June 2007 focused on the conflict in and about Northern Ireland. The Day of Reflection website - www.dayofreflection.com - is now live. The website contains all the latest information regarding the forthcoming initial Day of Private Reflection on Thursday, 21 June 2007.

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-58481126363992908682007-04-16T12:56:00.000+01:002007-04-16T12:57:28.813+01:00

A 15-year old girl in Florida in the US, recently hiccupped nonstop for five weeks. Before her hiccups stopped, she was hiccupping 50 times a minute. All manner of remedies, including various juices, breathing into a bag and consulting neurologists, were tried but nothing helped. Remarkably, the hiccups stopped on their own. The moral of this tale seems simple: sometimes, despite our best efforts

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-14894759115753970622007-03-19T14:34:00.000Z2007-03-19T14:37:30.257Z

If you are feeling upbeat about life, I have the medicine: read a copy of the Stern Report. The report, commissioned by the UK government and written by Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank, focuses on the potential impact of climate change. It is gloomy reading. In short, we are destroying the planet and dramatic climate change is on the way. Stern concludes that “the

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-12987764656828395412007-03-19T14:34:00.000Z2007-03-19T14:34:20.933Z

Recently, when I checked into the newly renamed George Best Belfast City Airport, I was asked if I was carrying any liquids. I found myself gagging as I suppressed a giggle. Attempts at humour in airports these days are enough to leave you sun-tanning in an orange jumpsuit in Guantanamo Bay. Further, my snigger was in bad taste. Not everyone would see the funny side of the question, least of all

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-21046966646199961072007-02-21T20:49:00.000Z2007-02-21T21:20:01.591Z

Today I was reminded, by two separate emails that the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan still requires ongoing attention. RAWA have now produced a great little news ticker to give you a news feed for a website on the situation in Afghanistan. I have installed in on my news page or if you want one for your site, click here. I was also emailed by a group called Arms Against War so I added a link

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-73827268980153610992007-02-20T09:41:00.000Z2007-02-20T09:42:41.212Z

In the song There is a War, by Leonard Cohen, there are the lines: “There is a war...between the man and the woman. There is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say there isn’t.” These words capture the essence of research colleagues and I carried out over the last two years on gender and security in a number of countries in transition. As part of the study, we looked

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-39194398355698539792007-02-14T17:25:00.000Z2007-02-14T17:27:11.467Z

The INCORE Summer School provides a structured learning opportunity to analyse the dynamic and constantly changing field of conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Focusing on the latest research and concepts in specific topics of conflict resolution, participants are invited to compare, contrast and learn from different perspectives. The School offers a unique opportunity to create links

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-45240243031766653212007-02-06T11:23:00.000Z2007-02-06T11:27:03.782Z

The musician Burt Bacharach wrote a song, probably at the time I was entering this world, called Knowing When to Leave. It contains the clichéd lines, “Go while the going is good. Knowing when to leave may be the smartest thing anyone can learn...Sail when the wind starts to blow.” Simple advice, but many people pay no attention to the wind, and sometimes even miss a hurricane when it is blowing

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-50586756927789155162007-01-15T11:31:00.000Z2007-01-15T11:34:51.433Z

Since the end of apartheid, South Africa has been exporting many things to other African countries it never exported before. South Africa’s DStv dominates the airwaves across the continent. It is not unusual to meet Africans thousands of miles away from Johannesburg who have an intimate knowledge of Egoli, the South African soap opera. Security companies run by South Africans are major players in

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-1166715019697631532006-12-25T15:27:00.000Z2006-12-25T00:25:35.149Z

Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah and Eid Mubarak.

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-1166715617772407912006-12-24T15:38:00.000Z2006-12-24T20:52:34.248Z

For 12 months now, I have been trying to think of something interesting to say about Christmas. This has proved no straightforward task. Currently, like at the end of most years, I feel exhausted and am struggling to say something out of the ordinary on any subject, let alone remember all the witty things I thought up about Christmas in March. On top of this, Christmas is much the same each year,

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-1166305068942083132006-12-16T21:36:00.000Z2006-12-21T14:45:51.236Z

Oddly, it was the old chestnut of whether sport and politics mix that came to mind while watching the golf Ryder Cup recently. This was not because the Ryder Cup is particularly political, but because it appears so apolitical. The two world super economic powers, the EU and US, competing is presented as a jolly good struggle going back for decades. On one level, it is simply that, yet on another

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-1165405847546422492006-12-06T11:49:00.000Z2006-12-16T18:46:59.053Z

In the US and Canada, each State has a slogan under the number plate of cars registered in it. For example, Washington, DC, plates have the phrase ‘Taxation without representation’ on them, making reference to the State’s lack of voting representation in Con-gress. Nova Scotia plates have the less political ‘Canada’s Ocean Playground’ emblazoned on them. On a recent trip to South Africa, this got

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-1161253495799986912006-10-19T11:22:00.000+01:002006-10-19T11:24:55.816+01:00

The website on Political Apologies and Reparations maintained by Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann at Wilfrid Laurier University invites submissions for its working papers series. Please see the Submission Guidelines on the website: http://political-apologies.wlu.ca. Papers should be submitted to political-apologies@wlu.ca.

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-1159226892808857662006-09-26T00:26:00.000+01:002006-09-26T00:28:12.833+01:00

Last month, the second-richest man in the world, Warren Buffett, gave the richest man in the world, Bill Gates, $31-billion. But this was no ordinary investment. Buffett was not investing in Microsoft but, rather, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which works to reduce inequities, largely through funding health and education work the world over. The result was that the world's largest

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-1155635525463235362006-08-15T10:50:00.000+01:002006-08-15T10:52:05.480+01:00

Zinedine Zidane’s infamous headbutt in the soccer World Cup final has become a global Rorschach test – in other words, a tool for people the world over to read anything they want into the incident. There are those who see the headbutt as just deserts for excessive verbal abuse, while others see it as unacceptable. I have even read articles praising Zidane for his stand against racism. In another

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-1153066241824778162006-07-16T17:09:00.000+01:002006-07-16T17:10:41.826+01:00

There is something about money I do not get. I understand bartering. Two people exchange things that have roughly equal value. But modern money as a concept makes little sense. Milton Friedman, in Money Mischief, writes that money, as we know it, has no intrinsic value and what gives it value is that it is used for exchange. He goes on to say that the value is what we attribute to it, and all

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-1152711087555266252006-07-12T14:28:00.000+01:002006-07-12T14:36:24.803+01:00

In May 2006 David Becker and Barbara Weyermann from the Office of Psychosocial Issues or OPSI, a group I helped co-found and am a consultant to, completed the Toolkit: Gender, Conflict Transformation & the Psychosocial Approach. This was a major project undertaken for the Swiss Development Corporation. In developing the toolkit it was acknowledged that the literature on the issue of trauma is

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-1152547251713393822006-07-10T16:52:00.000+01:002006-07-10T17:00:51.756+01:00

WANTED: IDEAS ON A MUSEUM TO THE CONFLICT IN AND ABOUT NORTHERN IRELAND Healing Through Remembering (HTR) has issued an Open Call for Ideas on what form a Living Memorial Museum to the conflict in and about Northern Ireland should take – and as part of the project there will be a 7 public art-based workshops across Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland and Great Britain. The LMM sub group are

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-1152179293674082322006-07-06T10:44:00.000+01:002006-07-06T10:48:13.676+01:00

I am not one to complain (well, not too much), but writing this column can be depressing. This is because it demands a constant vigilance of the news, and newspapers are gloomy. The adage that bad news sells is true. So I was delighted to stumble across the website South Africa: The Good News. The site is dedicated to highlighting good-news stories and is littered with helpful headings, such as ‘

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-1150474213138456982006-06-16T17:09:00.000+01:002006-06-16T17:10:13.156+01:00

As the soccer World Cup invades our TV screens, there is only one topic worth discussing at this moment in time, and that is, of course, football. Over a billion people will tune into the tournament, driving nonfootball fans crazy as the worldwide soccer fiesta sucks up airtime and drives people, well, largely men, to levels of hysteria. The International Association of Football Federations, or

Brandontag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4122508.post-1149500188046321252006-06-05T10:33:00.000+01:002006-06-05T10:36:28.063+01:00

A dead swan was recently found about a mile from our house in a nearby lake. The poor creature had the misfortune, first, of dying and, second, of dying at the same time as another swan in Fife, in Scotland, several hundred miles away. The swan in Fife died of bird flu. So, suddenly, the swan down the road from our house found itself the posthumous centre of attention as tests ensued. The

Brandon