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The Geolinks section is UNDER RECONSTRUCTION, Spring 2020.
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"For the History of the Future":
Introduction and Welcome
WELCOME to Geotrees.Com, sometimes referred to as "the Tree." Use this home page to learn about Geotrees' vision and mission, the web pages and message groups it offers, and how to use those pages and groups.
Geotrees.Com is a virtual organization, or VO, created in the spring of 2001 to help people and organizations across the national capital region collect and freely share their civilization-building "news, notes and knowledge" in all areas of human endeavor. It provides access to web pages and e-mail message groups, as well as holding occasional public activities of its own. Our purpose is to help build bridges across the various divides of the human experience - including, importantly, the divides between you and what you'd like others to know, and those others themselves.
Founding Perception and Vision
The seed that was to grow into "the Tree" first took root in the mid-1990s, beginning with a single fundamental perception:
Most people, including many Americans, need to know more than we do
about each others' histories, cultures, traditions and ways
if we are to live together in respect, abundance, security, liberty and peace
in the complex times at hand, and into the future.
In March 2001, Geotrees was created to help meet that need.
In the years that followed, we've developed a line of inquiry around four basic questions. If we want a certain kind of future, what, specifically, are the causes and conditions needed to make it possible? What can we actually do, beginning now, to help create it? Conversely - how does our present situation reflect our choices, decisions and deeds of the past? And what kind of future can we reasonably expect if we do not act to change our ways?
With such questions in mind, Geotrees' vision and supporting conditions have grown organically:
Geotrees envisions, values and commits to a secure world of abundance, justice, equality, freedom and peace.
- To take birth and grow, such a world requires a context of certain causes and conditions, which we will create skillfully at all levels of the human family, individual and shared.
- This context includes knowledge, understanding, pluralism, cooperation, reconciliation, and informed action.
- To create these conditions, we'll need to apply certain tools and practices, personal and social: respectful and rational communication, local and grassroots activity, inquiry, discernment, accuracy, clarity, and hard work.
- Intentionality is crucial. We need to bring sustained vision and principle, purpose, commitment, will, and effort to bear at all times.
- We need to exert intellectual and moral character - integrity, empathy, authenticity, reflection and self-knowledge, courage, and imagination.
- The resources and working materials for this process are all around us: The arts, diplomacy, cultural life, youth leadership formation, journalism, travel, learning, education, religion and spirit, history, economics, statecraft, and similar activities - in fact, most areas of human activity - can be drawn on and engaged creatively to nourish this process, these goals.
- Geotrees' role is to be a crossroads, a catalyst, for sharing the unparalleled bounty of knowledge and activity, of curiosity and passion and imagination, from around the world and across the sweep of history that the Washington, DC region and its many peoples provide.
We're committed to the transmission of fact-based historical, intercultural, and historical news, analysis and knowledge throughout the national capital region. We place a wide and growing wealth of activities, events, and resources within your reach. We enable people and organizations to reach out and connect across the national, ethnic, generational, faith, economic, and other boundaries that so often divide humankind. And we recognize these connections as preconditions for understanding, unity, and peace.
Geotrees is completely independent, nonpartisan, inclusive, noncommercial, self-financed, and volunteer. While we focus on people and activities in the Maryland/Virginia/Washington, DC area, we also welcome those in the larger world who have a stake in international learning, cultural activity, and understanding. We extend a special welcome to educators, and to our young people.
Details about our mission and features, and links to those features, are provided below. You may use these links to move immediately to their pages.
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Our Core Values and Mission
Geotrees' core values and mission are organically intertwined, so we describe them together:
- To gather, organize and share "News, Notes and Knowledge" of one anothers' cultures and histories in behalf of understanding, transformation and peace
- To offer information and commentary that help grow community, culture and civilization
- To help build bridges across the divides of the human experience
- To cultivate the principles and practice of compassion, nonviolence and consistent life ethics in all aspects of the human adventure
- To defend and to foster respect, protection, stewardship and nurturing of the environment, of the earth, and of the life on the earth, including human life in all of its conditions, circumstances, and seasons
- To further civility, cooperation, justice, abundance, reconciliation, and unity within the entire human family
- And in general, to Boldly Go Forward "for the History of the Future."
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About "the Tree": Our Approach
International and -cultural Knowledge: A Pressing Need
Are you curious about other cultures and traditions? What do others need to know about your culture, your history and current issues, your aspirations and dreams, from your perspective? Conversely, if you're from overseas, what do you need to learn about navigating in the US? Geotrees can help answer these questions. We wish to help share such knowledge in an atmosphere of pluralism and respect, and to discuss the ways we create civilization and the future, as foundations for international and intercultural communication, understanding, reconciliation, and peace.
Geotrees is open and welcoming to all, without preference or prejudice - a place where people on all sides of an issue can cross the seas of hundreds of years of history and find themselves welcome to come and listen to others, and freely share what they feel is important for others to know and understand. Welcoming and presenting your "news, notes and knowledge" without borders and of all kinds in this cause is a top priority at "the Tree."
Youth Leadership Formation and the Educators' Mission
Few human activities at this time are more important than preparing our young people, in depth and in detail, for responsible, compassionate and skillful citizenship and leadership in the world of the future. This is a vast subject which we don't have room to discuss in any detail here. But it is central to Geotrees' vision, mission, and very raison d'etre.
One simple statement that we can make here is that we should never underestimate our young people, never cut them short, and continually challenge and stimulate them in creative, original and pioneering ways. For example, the region is rich in events, workshops, service programs, etc. designed and intended for adults, but for which many high school - and even some middle school - students have the interest, the intelligence, the character, and the passion to engage in in worthwhile ways.
We offer a special invitation to our parents, educators, other youth mentors, and to our young people themselves to pursue these ways, using the tools and resources presented by Geotrees, and to share your adventures here.
Why So Local?
The Washington, DC area is a special galaxy of experience, knowledge and imagination unique in our time. The people within this region can meet personally - can gather, face to face, to share discussion and activity. We feel that while virtual and electronic contacts can support the value of such encounters, it cannot replace them. Facilitating these live encounters throughout the region is one goal of our work.
Cultures and the Mesh of Civilizations
Geotrees presents activity and information from as many cultures as possible, encouraging their contact and interaction, while honoring the autonomy and integrity of all. We are especially sensitive to the need of traditional civilizations to remain autonomous in the face of globalization.
By "cultures" and "microcultures" - the smaller, self-identifying groups within larger "host" cultures - we mean human groupings based on shared perceptions, traditions, behaviors and identities, not necessarily to the exlusion of other groups or individuals. A healthy culture, like a healthy individual, does not need to make others "wrong" or "bad" in order to be "right." Nor do we have to go abroad to find vivid cultural contrasts and fault lines. In many regions - including the Washington, DC area itself - there are cultural distinctions within the domestic population that are almost as great as those to be found anywhere on the planet.
Domestically and abroad, we see cultures forming along several lines, including national, historical, traditional, ethnic, religious, spiritual, value systems, generational, linguistic, and conomic. Obviously, the interplays and overlaps can be complex. We use these categories as a provisional or suggestive outline to facilitate communication, and not as a set of rigid categories or conclusions.
Our Work
Geotrees' mission is to support activities and resources that further intercultural understanding, with the ultimate goal of seeing those so educated become an active influence for communication, understanding, and peace in the times to come. Such education requires new levels of intention, creativity, and deep commitment.
Geotrees addresses itself to a rich, largely under-utilized resource: The growing population of those who have spent important years - youth or adult - outside of their native countries, and who have interesting multicultural knowledge and perspectives as a result. This includes visitors and immigrants to the US, as well as returning Americans. We wish to help such intercultural people connect with one another, and share their knowledge with the larger public in schools, congregations, companies, cultural organizations, and other venues.
We recognize that there are also many intercultural people who've never left the US, but whose interests and commitments place them squarely in the pool of international culture and concern. They, too, are welcome into Geotrees' conversations.
Independent and Non-Partisan
Geotrees.Com is independent, inclusive and nonpartisan. Thus, some may be surprised to see postings of material about some of the most passionately controversial and partisan nations and civilizations of recent times - Cuba, China, Islam, the Balkans, Chile, Russia, Iran, Iraq, for example.
It is precisely because these are, in the West, among the most poorly known and understood societies that it is crucial for us to learn about their histories, their cultures, and the logic behind them. We need to hear from these people in their own voices, and on their own terms. As we wrestle with this unfamiliar knowledge, we often begin to grapple with our own ignorance, prejudices, and preconceptions - always a valuable and edifying experience! In this way we begin to open the door into understanding, growth, and reconciliation.
Some of our postings may have partisan political or issue-related content. We do not necessarily agree or disagree with any of them. But they are part of the cultural ecology, and available to your discussion and critique. Indeed, partisanship itself can be seen as an artifact for historical and cultural study - an organic outgrowth and reflection of the fundamental forces that we are concerned with, including human nature. In any event we invite the reader to distinguish fact from opinion, learn the history, ask your questions, and see for yourself.
And this is as it should be. Geotrees will not abide ignorance, bigotry, polemic, narrowmindedness, or cultural arrogance. We will, however, always welcome honest, principled, and open controversy.
Non-Commercial
All Geotrees activities are free of charge, and we accept no outside funding. We are completely advertising-free. We may mention commercial venues and businesses for the value of their contents, but we accept no material favors in return. While we share projects and partnerships with likeminded groups, including businesses, Geotrees is and will remain completely independent of all government, corporate, commercial, or other bodies.
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The Virtual Organization, or VO
We hope to connect with other intercultural organizations, such as those serving "global nomads," "overseas brats," and international alumni groups, to bring intercultural knowledge to people in the Washington, DC area in concrete ways. One idea is presentations to middle and high school educators alerting them to the intercultural students in their care, and the needs - and potential - of such young people.
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Community, Culture and Civilization:
The Geotrees.Com Web Pages
Geotrees is dedicated to helping share bridgebuilding news, notes and knowledge in a number of areas, and we serve that commitment with our evolving family of web pages.
- The APPLES 'N ORANGES INTERCULTURAL CAFE
Events of special interest, many of which bridge the boundaries of history, culture, faith, tradition, nationhood, generation, etc. that we often take for granted. The Cafe's "menu" and link are immediately available on the top fold of the home page.
- The GEOLINKS Resources Catalog
A growing web catalog of hundreds of intercultural and civilization-building groups and entities in the region, from volunteer grassroots groups to national and global institutions.
- The WORLD PRESS LINKS Page
Launched in the spring of 2008, this is Geotrees' newest and potentially most important page. It offers links to English language newspapers and media outlets, focusing on those of the peoples and nations least understood by, and often at odds with, the West. Each country's listing also includes links to basic facts, maps, appropriate etiquette, and its embassy or interests section in the US.
- The "PENNIES FROM HEAVEN" Youth Fundraising Model
A simple model or "recipe" enabling young people to help others, build bridges, learn cooperation, experience unity, and develop leadership, not unlike Trick or Treat for UNICEF, but available throughout the year.
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The Geotrees E-mail Message Groups
Perspectives for Civilization-builders
Geotrees.Com's e-mail groups were begun in the spring of 2001, and have grown to embrace a number of approaches to building community, culture and civilization - to give everyone a variety of bridge- and civilization-building voices and perspectives.
The following descriptions include links that will take you directly to the groups' home sites on Yahoogroups, where you can learn more, subscribe if you wish and, with the open posting groups, read the message archives and post messages without subscribing. We invite you to examine them all, and see how they can support you, your communities, and your work.
All groups accept attachments, and are moderated. Each Yahoogroups site offers links to posting, and viewing the message archives, on its upper left-hand side. For posting FAQs and guidelines, scroll down to "Your Messages, Our Mission" immediately following this list.
YahooGroups Note: Geotrees' groups are hosted on YahooGroups, so you can post to them either of two ways: directly, using the groups' home pages on Yahoo or the addresses below, or indirectly, by posting to events@geotrees.com, from which we will forward it manually to the appropriate group or groups. You will not need to subscribe to any group in either case. But Yahoo requires you to have a (free) Yahoo ID to post directly to their groups, while no Yahoo ID is required to post via events@geotrees.com. Note that indirect posting involves extra work for the moderator, and thus usually takes longer than direct posting.
- Open Posting
The Inclusive Sweep of the Original List:
The GeoTREES.COM FLAGSHIP LIST
This is the original Geotrees group, for sharing news, notes, knowledge and discussion that embrace all aspects of intercultural, internationalist, and civilization-building interest and activity. It covers many areas, including the arts, education, diplomacy, bridgebuilding, reconciliation, youth, the environment, travel, cultures, statecraft, empowerment, and more.
To Post: Send your message to geotrees@yahoogroups. com.
- Open Posting
Faith and Interfaith:
INTERPLAN
News, announcements and discussion concerning events, service projects, retreats, classes, and any other activities in support of faith- and interfaith-based bridgebuilders throughout the national capital region. Our mission is to support their work of outreach, fellowship and reconciliation, and to help bring the values of spirit and faith actively to bear in building a better world.
To Post: Send your message to interplan@yahoogroups. com.
- Open Posting
Activism and Transformation, Grassroots to Global:
DEESEEDS
Announcements, news and discussion of activism, including political, economic, and partisan activism, in behalf of building justice, abundance, self-determination, reconciliation and peace.
To Post: Send your message to deeseeds@yahoogroups. com.
- Membership
Expatriate and "Global Nomad" Interests:
GNOMADS
Have you lived overseas, or are you from abroad and living overseas at this time in the US? Or are you interested in living abroad? This group originally grew out of Norma McCaig's work with Global Nomads International and the popuation emerging from that work. It now embraces the interests, activities and experience of expatriates young and old, wherever they are from, wherever they are now, and wherever they may go.
To Join: Use the link above to visit the group's page and then engage the "Join This Group!" button.
- Open Message Archives, Membership to Post
Independent Public Radio:
OurWPFW
Pacifica Foundation's WPFW "Jazz 'n Justice" radio, at 89.3 FM, is probably the most independent radio outlet in the national capital region, with the most potential for becoming a truly diverse, intercultural voice for both cultural life and public affairs. OurWPFW is an independent group that supports the station, its staff and its many community volunteers, and that serves as a bridge between the station and the people and communities it serves.
To Join: Use the link above to visit the group's page and then engage the "Join This Group!" button.
For detailed guidelines for posting, see the section immediately below.
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Your Messages, Our Mission: How to Post to "The Tree"
Public Open Posting and Message Archives
Geotrees' flagship, interfaith, peace activists', right livelihood and employment, and cooperative housing e-mail groups have open e-mail message archives, and open posting - that is, anyone may read the messages, and post messages of their own, without logging in, having an account, joining or subscribing to Geotrees in any way. Note, however, that when posting to any Yahoogroups page, Yahoo will require you to have an account with them.
See and Download the "How to Post" Quick Guide
Simply click on this link:
"How to Post" Quick Guide. You'll see the quick guide, a two-page flyer with everything you need to know, and can save it to your desktop.
Guidelines and Practices for Posting
We welcome your items for our web pages and for the e-mail groups. The following detailed "how to" guidelines apply to both.
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Principles and Values:
Geotrees welcomes postings that support civilization-building, reconciliation, and peace in basic ways, as described in the section Our Core Values and Mission, above. At our discretion we may edit 'mails to support those values, for example, deleting personal attacks and foul language from an otherwise valuable post. We will include the tag EDITED in the subject line when we do so.
- Whom We Reach:
Geotrees posts and forwards messages to several different kinds of recipient.
- First, there are the message groups which we moderate, public and private. The public ones are described in the previous section. You can also see a current list of them on the "How to Post" Quick Guide.
- Second, we often forward messages to other, independent groups in a number of areas: community events, the arts, education, interfaith, advocacy, global cultures, and more.
- And third, we have a large number of private e-mail lists serving regionwide individuals, groups and organizations in education, youth leadership development, faith and interfaith, American Indian and indigene life, academe, the arts, expates and "global nomads," community volunteers, activists, and more - in fact, just about any kind of activity that contributes to human development, personal and social, and to the wellbeing of the planet and the life on it. We don't share these with others, but we do post to them as appropriate.
To post to any of the first groups, simply send your messages to their addresses - no subscriptions or memberships are needed. To have messages forwarded to those in the second or the third, send them here to events@geotrees.com.
- Formatting Your E-mails:
In addition to its content, your message's visual grace and readability are crucial to its effectiveness and success. There is a wide range of e-mail readers in use today, including plain text without graphics, plain text which displays most graphics, and fully web-enabled. These varying readers will display the same e-mail in varying ways. For this reason, it is very important that you format your 'mails for maximum visual readability over the full range of readers.
Many Geotrees readers are very active people, with large, demanding volumes of traffic. Avoid overly long 'mails that challenge the recipients' attention spans; you may wish to provide links to the details instead. Within the message itself, keep your paragraphs of reasonable length, and insert a blank line after each one. Use white space to refresh the reader's eye. It is important to avoid long, unbroken slabs of text.
We also recommend visiting the message archives of the groups to which you post, and viewing your 'mails as they appear to those archives' readers.
- The Communities We Serve:
Our attention is primarily, but not exclusively, to the Maryland/ Virginia/ Washington, DC region. National and global activities with local value or implications are also welcome, as are readers and correspondents from around the globe.
- Open to All:
Everyone and their organizations are welcome to post: large and small, including government, business, and academe; grassroots groups, clubs, congregations, schools, advocates, neighborhoods, projects, and more. Our flagship, interfaith, and peace activists' groups are open to all without subscriptions or memberships.
- Moderated:
Geotrees' groups and web pages are "moderated, but not censored" to prevent spam, for consistency with our core values, and for good faith, good will, good sense, good taste, and relevance.
- To Unsubscribe:
There are two general ways to unsubscribe from Geotrees e-mails. First, each of our lists on Yahoogroups provides for quick, automatic unsubscription. Simply send a blank note to that list at (group name)-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. Second, to unsubscribe from other Geotrees 'mails, send your request to us at editor@geotrees.com. When changing addresses, remember to first unsubscribe, then resubscribe under your new address.
- Using the Flagship E-mail Group:
Our lead discussion group is Geotrees, hosted on Yahoogroups. The group has open posting and public message archives, freely available to everyone. For details, visit the Geotrees.Com Message Groups section of this page.
- Multilingual Messages are Welcome:
Messages presented in two or more languages are welcome, as long as one of those languages is English. Note that some languages' alphabets may not appear accurately on US browsers.
- Open Expression:
We welcome a full range of information and opinions, from all sides of a given issue - especially from those who are controversial, or least known, understood, or visibile in the public arena. Avoid incivility and foul or abusive language.
- Writing Your Message:
Write your posting as you would like to see it when published - we post items largely verbatim and unedited, although we occasionally will take time to fix spelling, grammar, and punctuation. And if you have a distinctive linguistic or cultural flavor that reflects the interest and value of your post, such as turn of phrase or interesting vocabulary, we encourage you to use it!
- Plain Text or HTML?
Plain Text remains welcome, but is no longer necessary. Browser-readable mail has many advantages, including embedded active links, and we now encourage its use. We suggest upgrading to a current mailer if you haven't done so already.
- Timeliness:
Whenever possible, please send your notices at least FOUR DAYS in advance of the event. This shows respect for reader and for message alike, and allows time for system slowdowns at Yahoo and elsewhere. Last-minute messages will only be carried as time permits.
- Introduce Your Links and Attachments:
Please include some descriptive narrative in the body of your posting itself, and introduce your links and attachments. This enables you and the reader to connect more personally, and helps prevent the propagation of malware. Don't rely on unexplained attachments or URLs to tell your story.
- Privacy, Security and Personal Information:
For your security, Geotrees will not knowingly publish or post your personal information, including home address and telephone number. Your privacy and security are ultimately your responsibility - please don't include any information that may compromise your security or that of others.
- Disclosure, Ownership, and Anonymity:
Public ownership of your information is important. Please include your name, that of any organization, and points of contact as you wish them presented publicly. (Noms de plume are fine for literary or satirical entries.) But if you believe that your post could expose yourself or others to harm, and wish to post anonymously, contact the editor in advance. We keep all such inquiries confidential.
- Mutual Crediting of Sources:
When possible, we ackowledge and credit our sources by name and point of contact, for both e-mail and web page postings, and we appreciate it when people credit Geotrees when they quote us. If you wish to remain anonymous, however, let us know, and we will honor your request.
- Private Messages to the editor should be sent to to editor@geotrees.com. Any and all others may be posted publicly.
- Web Page Entries:
Send your posting directly to events@geotrees.com. Please include a descriptive cover message.
- E-mail Discussion Groups:
For rapid posting and to receive messages automatically, send directly and subscribe to your target group. (Scroll up to the preceding section for details.) To post to several groups at once, or from outside of a membership group, send to events@geotrees.com.
- Attachments:
Some of Geotree's discussion groups now distribute attachments, from trusted sources. But Yahoogroups does not keep attachments in their message archives. Check with the editor if you have any questions.
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Contacting Geotrees
Geotrees.Com is located in greater metro Washington, DC.
We welcome your comments, questions, suggestions, calendar items, or
other civilization-building postings at all times.
Send your comments, suggestions or questions to:
contact@geotrees.com
Send public notices, descriptive links, and other postings to:
events@geotrees.com
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Dedication
"To Build a School is to Build a Civilization..."
Dedicated, with great respect and great love, to the vision, the work and the legacy
of St. Joseph College / International School of Yokohama, Japan
and to the teaching, the lives, and the personal example
of its defenders and loyal faculty.
- For the History of the Future -
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(C) Copyright 2001-2020 by Geotrees.Com and Charles Stevenson. All rights reserved.
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