Vision of Hope Blog - October 2007

Babel

Nissim Dahan

The biblical story of the Tower of Babel is fascinating to me, in part because I sense that the story is replaying itself as we speak. Here are several passages from chapter 11 of the Book of Genesis:

The whole earth was of one language and of common purpose...

...They said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and burn them in the fire." ...And they said, "Come, let us build us a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for o [...]

What's In It For Us?

Nissim Dahan

Sometimes, as I write about Selling a Vision of Hope, I think to myself, "How are you ever going to sell this stuff?" At a certain point, people are naturally going to wonder, "What's in it for us?"

In the past several blog entries, I've tried to show that Selling a Vision of Hope could be a useful framework not only for the Middle East, but for solving other problems as well, such as Global Warming, Globalization, and our Inner Cities. The basic idea [...]

What's All The Killing About? (may not be suitable for people of a human persuasion)

Nissim Dahan

Daniel Pipes, a renowned analyst of the Middle East, just published a list compiled, in part, by Gunnar Heinsohn, showing how many people were killed, since 1950, in all the various conflicts around the world. His point was that the Arab-Israeli conflict gets undo attention because it ranks only 49th among the 67 bloodiest conflicts, with "only" 51,000 fatalities, as compared to some of the others.

Please take the time to look at some of the numbers.

& [...]

Hope and the Inner City

Nissim Dahan

My wife and I live on the outskirts of a great American city, Baltimore, Maryland. For many reasons, we are proud to call this city home.

Having said that, however, we cannot help but recognize that Baltimore suffers from a whole host of big city problems-problems which are endemic to a great many cities across the US: more than 50% of babies born in Baltimore are born out of wedlock, we're close to the top in homicides averaging close to one murder a day, drug use and drug s [...]

Global Warming and a Vision of Hope

Nissim Dahan

The good thing about Selling a Vision of Hope is that it is versatile. It can be used to solve almost any problem we face. Ideology plus Investment equals Hope. Use An Ideology of Common Sense along with some well placed Investment Dollars to sell people on a Vision of Hope.

Global Warming is one hell of a problem. Let's put it in perspective using Common Sense. Most scientists agree that man-made greenhouse gases are causing global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere. [...]