Live Blogging at TEDxSMU, third session
6:00pm: And with Rabbi Stern’s words still ringing, Andres Diaz concludes this year’s TEDxSMU. Thanks to all those who have been reading our updates. Don’t forget to comment, and to carry on your own TEDx experience, at future conferences, or better, in your own lives. -MK
5:59pm: “May the lath that we see before us be one of power, responsibility, and hope.” -David Stern
5:58pm: The one voice that no one can take from you is how o respond to circumstance. Roundtrip Spirituality begets the question: What are you going to do?
5:53pm: “Roundtrip Spirituality” – the essence of Stern’s talk. It’s th spirituality of getting specific. Of walking the walk.
5:51pm: Going up the mountain doesn’t mean staying there. Stern advises us to come back with the new knowledge we have learned.
5:49pm: explore the Internet Sabbath – disconnect – take a trip up the mountain (but not after reading my totally awesome blog updates!)
5:47pm: Taking the first step in the journey out might be more difficult.
5:45pm: Heroes are made by their journey. You must be willing to take the journey out. Take the journey out. Venture, as Rabbi Stern says, outward.
5:44pm: Rabbi David Stern concludes with a talk on the Spirituality and Surviving’s intersection.
5:32pm: Our final tour of the Wyly.
5:32pm: Check out www.watchingamerica.com for international news. People Here at Home allows you to interact with immigrants visiting in your community.
5:31pm: By virtue of being Americans, we are Citizen Diplomats.
5:29pm: Three Keys to becoming a global citizen: 1. Intellectual Capital; 2. Psychological Capital; 3. Social Capital.
5:26pm: Guittard warns us about our reverse Brain Drain, where our immigrants that improve our country are now heading back home.
5:25pm: Guittard, along with the Meadows’ School of Advertising, helped create the “World Citizens’ Guide” to being better humans.
5:18pm: Cari Guittard
5:17pm: For the past five minutes, the audience bore witness to our emcee singing along with, wait for it, a hand projected on his iPad. My writing skills are vast and soulful, but cannot appropriately tell the story of what I just saw.
5:12pm: “I’m trying to be a ladder of hands reaching down and helping people reach up.”
5:09pm: “I believe that poverty is not an excuse for violence.” Beautiful words from Omar about his unrelenting optimism in his battle for peace.
5:08pm: Gang member’s mom had a bible and a bottle of whiskey. Quoth the gang member’s mom: “Sometimes this one works. Sometimes that one works.”
5:04pm: Basic advice: Don’t take any gang member on a furlough if he’s once shot himself in the head.
5:03pm: Omar let us know about a funny story, and if we don’t laugh, “I will bring gang members here to make sure you do laugh.”
5:02pm: Omar’s efforts to bring peace to crime-ridden Dallas neighborhoods involve approaching gang leaders directly and asking them to become ambassadors of peace.
5:00pm: Omar Jahwar, a local Dallas-ite!
4:55pm: A TED Talks video about a Cambodian’s attempt to flee the Khmer Rouge. A mother’s heroism is honored on the TED stage decades later.
4:54pm: “If you ever have the opportunity to meet with a survivor, take that opportunity…the stories that they tell are tragic, chaotic, and beautiful, because nothing but love comes from [the survivors].”
4:53 pm: The ballet started with early stages of creation, birth, families, separation, and ultimately, the interminable existence of life, love, and opportunity.
4:51pm: Mills’ ballet expanded to discuss not just the 1940s genocide, but it incorporated discussion from the Rwandan genocide, and for children, basic conversations about bullying.
4:47pm: Naomi’s Story: a young girl separated from her family in Auschwitz who watched them die. Naomi served as the inspiration for Mills’ ballet.
4:40pm: Mills coordinates ballet performances that try to bring meaning to world events. This lead to a ballet about the holocaust, something Mills initially called “one of the worst ideas I could have ever imagined.”
4:39pm: Stephen Mills
4:38pm: “We totally underestimate our youth.” – Zahab. Reflecting about his experience that involved sending four students through Tunisia, running a marathon a day.
4:30pm: Ray helped rally 8700 students in Canada through education to help fund water wells. The first of those wells is now operational, a mere six months from the time the concept launched.
4:27pm: Even crazier than the run? How many people Ray met that must walk inhuman distances for potable drinking water.
4:26pm: Facts about the cross-Sahara run: 40 miles a day. 4500 miles total. 111 days, 6 countries, 5 support crews. And of course, 2 showers.
4:24pm: Lace up! Ray Zahab explains his extremities, and the beauty of extreme running.
4:15pm: The Guinness World Record for Continuous Yoga is in the books! Congrats Jaya!