CO.NX Team — CO.NX Upcoming Programs (Feb. 7-23, 2012)

Reducing the Demand for Drugs in the U.S.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

 13:00 EST (18:00 UTC)

URL: http://conx.state.gov/wha  (Short URL: http://goo.gl/hj3WD)

Description: According to the law of supply and demand, in order to reduce the long-term supply of a product in the marketplace, you must first reduce demand.  How is the U.S. working to reduce the demand for illegal drugs?  On February 15 at 13:00 EST (18:00 UTC), join a Spanish-language webchat on U.S. drug demand-reduction programs.  Brad Hittle, Chief of the Source Country Branch, Office of Supply Reduction at the Office of National Drug Control Policy, will moderate a discussion with Eric Siervo, Manager of International Programs at Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America.  Online participants can submit questions for Siervo and Hittle at any time before or during the program via the live chat box beneath the video. 

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Internet Freedom and Online Piracy

Thursday, February 23, 2012

09:30 EST (14:30 UTC)

URL: http://conx.state.gov/digital-diplomacy/  (Short URL: http://goo.gl/od5nw)

Description: How can we prevent online piracy while protecting internet freedom?  In an effort to stop online piracy, the U.S. Congress recently proposed two bills, SOPA and PIPA, which sparked controversy because of their potential impact on internet freedom.  Join Corynne McSherry and Richard Bennett, two experts who will offer a balance of perspectives on this topic.  Corynne McSherry is the Intellectual Property Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Richard Bennett is a Senior Research Fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF).  Join this discussion to learn more, share your thoughts, and ask the experts your questions! Format: This will be a video webchat in English.

Hattie Caraway: First Woman Elected to U.S. Senate

Not a lot of Tennesseans have heard of Hattie Caraway, but perhaps they should have. A native of Tennessee, she was the first woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate. Hattie Ophelia Wyatt Caraway (February 1, 1878 – December 21, 1950) was the first woman elected to serve as a United States Senator. Senator Caraway represented Arkansas. 

Read More: http://www.facebook.com/usdos.ukraine, http://www.tnhistoryforkids.org/people/hattie_caraway

Presidents' Day Activities / 2012 / Book Display

Presidents' Day, originally known as Washington's Birthday, falls on the third Monday of February. This year Presidents' Day falls on February 20, 2012.

GET TO KNOW MORE ON PRESIDENCY AND AMERICAN PRESIDENTS. BOOKS AND CDs WILL HELP YOU BE ERUDITE IN THIS ASPECT, OBTAIN EXPERIENCE, GENERATE FRESH IDEAS AND CREATE ORIGINAL ACTIVITIES FOR PRESIDENT'S DAY.

Celebrate Presidents' Day by creating your very own White House!   How to make it: / http://crafts.kaboose.com/craft-stick-white-house.html/

http://holidays.kaboose.com/presidents-day/presidents-day.html

Celebrating the 200th Birthday of Charles Dickens. American Notes

Dickens 2012 is an international celebration of the life and work of Charles Dickens to mark the bicentenary of his birth, which falls on 7 February 2012. How is this connected with the American History.

/Book Display: Olha Svirgun/

On January 3, 1842 Charles Dickens, a month shy of his 30th birthday, sailed from Liverpool on the steamship Britannia bound for America. Dickens was at the height of his popularity on both sides of the Atlantic and, securing a year off from writing, determined to visit the young nation to see for himself this haven for the oppressed which had righted all the wrongs of the Old World. The voyage out, accompanied by his wife, Kate, and her maid, Anne Brown, proved to be one of the stormiest in years and his cabin aboard the Britannia proved to be so small that Dickens quipped that their portmanteaux could "no more be got in at the door, not to say stowed away, than a giraffe could be forced into a flowerpot."

/Book Display: Olha Svirgun/

Chronicle of Dickens' first American visit in 1842. Written largely from letters that Dickens sent home to his friend John Forster, American Notes sold well but received negative reviews on both sides of the Atlantic.

Today American Notes offers an interesting glimpse of an America experiencing the growing pains that would eventually lead to civil war. Many of Dickens' observations of the time are hilariously quaint today, particularly his view of the American habit of tobacco chewing.
Read More: http://charlesdickenspage.com/minor_works.html#american_notes/.

Dickens in America is a 2005 television documentary following Charles Dickens' travels across the United States in 1842, during which the young journalist penned American Notes.

The 10-episode series was hosted by British actress Miriam Margolyes, a life-long fan of Dickens.

In Dickens In America, distinguished English actress Miriam Margolyes follows Dickens' 1842 American footsteps while encountering 21st century USA and some of its residents.

Interspersing history, travelogue and interviews, Dickens In America offers a fascinating insight into Charles Dickens' love/hate relationship with North America and paints a personal and revealing portrait of modern day USA.

This 10-part road trip is suffused with optimism, a social conscience and the usual Dickens eye for the comic, the critical and the satirical. Dickens In America assesses a young radical Dickens' view of the emerging country's manners and morals, its flaws, fashions and its fascination with celebrity. It was produced by Lion Scotland for BBC Four.

Read More: http://www.dickens2012.org/world-celebrates-dickens%E2%80%99s-200th-birthday-7-february

Abolitionist Movement

For Those Who Want to Know More

on 'Black Month'!

The first slaves in America were black Africans who arrived in the 1600s. European settlers set them to work on farms, in mines, or in the home. Late in the 17th century some religious groups started arguing that slavery was wrong and should be abolished. many Americans pressed the government to abolish slavery. it was a long fight,, but by 1804 slavery had been abolished in many Northern states.
In 1808 it became illegal to import slaves to the United States, though slaves' children remained slaves. 

In 1833 the American Anti-Slavery Society was founded. Still, the situation in the South did not change. As America expanded westward in the 19th century, settlers in new states could choose whether or not to allow slavery. On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. It promised that any slave would be 'forever free'. 

The Civil War ended in a victory for the North in April 1865. later that year the 13th Amendment to the Constitution made slavery illegal in the United States. 

Read More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionist_Movement

       Sojourner Truth was born a slave in about 1797. In 1843 she began travelling the country, speaking out against slavery. She died in 1883.               

Sojourner Truth ( /soʊˈdʒɜrnər ˈtruːθ/; c. 1797 – November 26, 1883) was the self-given name, from 1843 onward, of Isabella Baumfree, an African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, Ulster County, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son, she became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man. Her best-known extemporaneous speech on racial inequalities, Ain't I a Woman?, was delivered in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. During theCivil War, Truth helped recruit black troops for the Union Army; after the war, Truth tried unsuccessfully to secure land grants from the federal government for former slaves.

 

Sojourner Truth - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sojourner_Truth

Let's Read Together

"When you're curious, you find lots of interesting things to do." - Walt Disney

A new project for our users!

Let's read a book  "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury and discuss it  together. 

Duration of a project - February - March/ 2012.

If you want to participate in this project and get to know more details on it, you're welcome to the Information Center "Window on America" (from 10 a.m. till 6 p.m. every day).

NEW BOOK OF 2012 WAS PUBLISHED

“Sharing: Culture and the Economy in the Internet Age” by Philippe Aigrain was published in Amersterdam University Press. It is available in print or for free download on a site. 
"In the past fifteen years, file sharing of digital cultural works between individuals has been at the center of a number of debates on the future of culture itself. To some, sharing constitutes piracy, to be fought against and eradicated. Others see it as unavoidable, and table proposals to compensate for its harmful effects".

Read More: http://infojustice.org/archives/7775
                      http://www.sharing-thebook.com/