Civil Disobedience and Occupy Wall Street

This is a article posted by Forbes about a few hundred lawyers who are acting as legal observers for the Occupy Wall Street Protests. Even though the lawyers aren't exactly part of the "99%," they acknowledge the peaceful protests that are taking place right now in NYC, revolving around civil disobedience.

There's a whole bunch more articles online more or less bias but this one is straight to the point:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/shenegotiates/2011/10/19/lawyers-who-have-occupy-wall-streets-back/

Civil Disobedience and the Nobel Peace Prize!

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2011

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2011 is to be divided in three equal parts between Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.  We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society.
In October 2000, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325.  The resolution for the first time made violence against women in armed conflict an international security issue.  It underlined the need for women to become participants on an equal footing with men in peace processes and in peace work in general.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is Africa’s first democratically elected female president.  Since her inauguration in 2006, she has contributed to securing peace in Liberia, to promoting economic and social development, and to strengthening the position of women.  Leymah Gbowee mobilized and organized women across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the long war in Liberia, and to ensure women’s participation in elections.  She has since worked to enhance the influence of women in West Africa during and after war.  In the most trying circumstances, both before and during the “Arab spring”, Tawakkul Karman has played a leading part in the struggle for women’s rights and for democracy and peace in Yemen.
It is the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s hope that the prize to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman will help to bring an end to the suppression of women that still occurs in many countries, and to realise the great potential for democracy and peace that women can represent.
Oslo, October 7, 2011

Sesame Street

Richard Termine

It is almost too perfect that the first African-American president of the United States was elected in time for the 40th anniversary of "Sesame Street," which comes on Nov. 11, 2009. The world is finally beginning to look the way that PBS show always made it out to be.
The show's original intent was to present enjoyable and beguiling preschool education to poor children who did not have access to decent preschools while bringing diversity to children's programming. Forty years later, the program is a cultural landmark - it has taught generations of children to count, countless parents how to teach and is seen in 125 countries around the world.
When it debuted in 1969, it was the mixture of whimsy, pop music and didactic rigor that distinguished "Sesame Street" from everything else. That year "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" was the No. 1 show in the nation; "Mod Squad" was a hit, and so was "Julia," the first network series to star an African-American actress in a nonstereotypical role.
"Sesame Street" took its breezy magazine format and sock-it-to-me comic style from "Laugh-In," but its commitment to "relevance," in the parlance of the times, was in tune with the most serious social issues of the era.
Over the years, the pedagogy hasn't changed but the look and tone of "Sesame Street" has evolved. It's still a messianic show, but the mission has shifted to the more immediate concerns of pediatricians and progressive parents, especially when it comes to childhood obesity. "Sesame Street" takes the Muppets, rhymes and visual verve that were developed to instill tolerance, racial pride and equality, to preach exercise and healthy eating.
Forty years on, this is your mother's "Sesame Street," only better dressed and gentrified: Sesame Street by way of Park Slope. The opening is no longer a realistic rendition of urban skyline but an animated, candy-colored chalk drawing of a preschool Arcadia, with flowers and butterflies and stars. The famous set, brownstones and garbage bins, has lost the messy graffiti and gritty smudges of city life over the years. Now there are green spaces, tofu and yoga. — Alessandra Stanley