Distance Education arrives in Bhutan

When I first arrived in Bhutan, I was invited to help the government’s Department of Information demonstrate the power of technology in an effort to get more government funding. Today, I see that Ericsson have begun work with Bhutan’s education department to install videoconferencing into five remote schools so their students can take lessons from a central group of specialists.

PopMatters Review

John L. Murphy has completed a mammoth review of just about every book written on Bhutan. He understands the value of a book written by locals and residents. There are many more books about this amazing country than I knew of, and I’m delighted to see he rated some of my favourites highly – see… Continue reading PopMatters Review

Dragon Bones Supports Education of Bhutanese Girls

The first royalty cheque for Dragon Bones was for 502 copies sold over 6 months. That’s about 10% of my big goal of 5000 sales. My main driver for selling so many copies (it is a lot for an unknown writer) was to ensure substantial support for Bhutanese organisations. To put this in perspective, my… Continue reading Dragon Bones Supports Education of Bhutanese Girls

Occupy Wall Street for Open Source and Gross National Happiness

The recent ‘Occupy‘ movement has been criticised for not having clear goals. Critics wonder how they are meant to take it seriously if the protesters can’t say what they want? I think that’s harsh. I wonder whether many historical revolutions have had a clear idea of the future beyond toppling the existing regime. It would,… Continue reading Occupy Wall Street for Open Source and Gross National Happiness

Libya vs Al Qaeda

I’ve just been watching an old episode of SBS’ Insight where Rajat Ganguly said that terrorism is sometimes analysed as a type of warfare conducted in an asymetrical power relationship. Al-Qaeda didn’t have the same power base as the Western / Christian world they were rebelling against. They couldn’t wage a war on equal footing,… Continue reading Libya vs Al Qaeda

International NGOs Under Attack

An article on countries that hinder international NGOs starts off with ‘The news didn’t come as a surprise.’ While he may not be surprised, the writer clearly doesn’t agree with the changes. Personally, I can understand why countries would wish to limit NGO actions. International NGOs can’t help but bring biases from their own culture… Continue reading International NGOs Under Attack

Found In Translation

Language has always fascinated me. I love the way we can get the same message across with entirely different combinations of sounds and/or gestures. I love that I can have a conversation with a Japanese person that no one around me can understand (though that’s less likely these days). I guess it was this ‘secret… Continue reading Found In Translation