Kind Hearts
Kind Hearts: It Takes a Village
My humble, sincere and continuing thanks to the many individuals who have provided me numerous editorial, archival, and research services over the years (and in some cases, who continue to do so after many years of kindness and enthusiasm, with my deepest appreciation!) Their efforts have made it possible for me to continue my research in the absence of travel funds -- allowing me to pursue projects, virtually, at more than one archive, located on more than one continent, at the same time! Many of these most helpful colleagues I found through Craigslist.org, or were referred to me by friends of theirs whom I found through Craigslist, whose gigs listings have proven to be of enormous help -- turning the whole wide world into what feels more like a small, and refreshingly collaborative, village.
Indeed, thanks to the unique ubiquity of Craigslist, I've been able to find colleagues in so many different places, often on extremely short notice -- sometimes within a single day! -- making it possible to conduct globalized, distributed research from anywhere on Earth. I'd like to send a big thanks to the following for their greatly appreciated efforts on my behalf to painstakingly photograph thousands of archival documents, manually type up hundreds if not thousands of fragile pages of rare and protected documents, spending days and sometimes weeks in archives on my behalf, often all day long -- day after day, for weeks on end -- in libraries and archives that include the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the British National Library; the Sarawak State Library; the UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library's Special Collections; the USC School of Cinematic Arts Warner Brothers Archives; the Wilson Library at UNC Chapel Hill; the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and History in Raleigh; the Naval History and Heritage Command at the Washington Navy Yard; the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University; the Preston Library at the Virginia Military Institute; the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at the Carl A. Kroch Library at Cornell; the Anchorage Public Library; and the Hampshire College Library and other libraries associated with the Five College Consortium of Western Masschusetts.
Thus, a H-U-G-E thanks to the following:
Mallory Ann Ditchey, a brilliant and insightful young historian, for her many grueling archival immersions to review relevant and interesting documents, and for her tireless wordprocessing of selected documents, on Bernard Brodie at the UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library Special Collections; and on Lady Sylvia Brooke and the White Rajah Film Project at the USC School of Cinematic Arts Warner Brothers Archives; and for her efforts transcribing video interviews on climate change and on indigenous rights in Sarawak, as well as earlier assistance with quote-logging draft manuscripts, and her kind willingness to introduce me to several of her friends who also were willing to assist with additional projects (as described below).
D.D. Emmanuel, for her kind, patient, tireless and enthusiastic assistance scanning not only dozens of books on a wide range of topics, but also many articles, pamphlets, brochures and other miscellaneous documents - showing great care and diligence, and ensuring the highest quality of results (in addition to a rapid turnover of materials as I constantly add to the list of materials to scan!)
Kait Jensen, for her many, many contributions to so many of my projects these last few years including her original edit restoration of the James I. Waddell memoir; the recovered John Newland Maffitt manuscript proofing; climate change video transcribing; Sarawak interview video transcribing; Nagasaki and Hiroshima book scans; transcribing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima survivor testimonies; and research assistance on various additional projects.
Shaveta and Gopal Bansal, for their tireless and enthusiastic willingness to take on so many wordprocessing assignments for me, including several of the officer diaries from the CSS Shenandoah (including those of Francis Thornton Chew and Charles E. Lining); in addition to dozens of documents from the Brooke archive at Bodleian Library, Oxford University and the State Library of Sarawak; the wordprocessing of the recovered John Newland Maffitt manuscript and the recovered manuscript that rebuts the legend of Peter Stuart Ney of North Carolina, believed by many to be Napoleon's infamous Field Marshal, Michel Ney (but who was not!)
Caitlin Bolton, for her long and tireless immersion at Oxford's Bodleian Library photographing thousands upon thousands of pages of documents on the Sarawak cession, in addition to her scans of many now rare books authored by Lady Sylvia Brooke, numerous books on Socrates, and her creative scanning of the world's last surviving copy of Lady Sylvia's unpublished short play, The Merry Matrons, in the British National Library, in addition to her kind efforts to order copies of correspondence between Brooke and literary giants George Bernard Shaw and J.M. Barrie, Brooke's mentors, also held at the British National Library.
Lynette Tan, Esq., the esteemed (and brilliant) native rights lawyer and warm-hearted advisor to Dayak leader Baru Bian, who kindly introduced me to her colleagues when in Sarawak several years ago, for her frequent updates from Sarawak, and for generously and kindly finding and copying the long-lost (and miraculously sole-surviving copy) of Lady Sylvia Brooke's final collection of short stories.
Kristan Paner, for her tireless and remarkably accurate wordprocessing of the diary of John Thomas Mason of the CSS Shenandoah; wordprocessing of my very own long-lost-but-eventually-recovered 1988 Alaska motorcycle diary; and transcribing some of my early lectures on Cold War strategy that were delivered at Wesleyan University in the mid-1980s.
Michelle Chui, Esq. (a.k.a. "Genius Girl"), for her early wordprocessing of long-lost but newly recovered handwritten drafts of what was once called Visions of Order, a draft of a doctoral thesis written under the supervision of the legendary IR theorist Ken Waltz that challenged 'Waltzian realism' and proposed a countertheory that I now call 'constructive realism', that evolved into my four-volume 2011 Praeger treatise, The Realist Tradition in International Relations: Foundation of Western Order; in addition to many other documents that she enthusiastically wordprocessed for me in 2003-4.
Ibrahim Desooky, for his kind efforts at the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at the Carl A. Kroch Library at Cornell, photographing correspondence to and from Sylvia Brooke, and also for scanning several books authored by her held by the Cornell library; and for photographing and patiently uploading images of the pages of two handwritten diaries from the officers of the CSS Shenandoah.
Timothy Kelley, for his many scans of numerous Bernard Brodie publications at the Cornell University Library.
Sherwin Dillard, for his expertly photographed pages of the Francis Thornton Chew diary held at the Preston Library at the Virginia Military Institute.
Taylor Hayes, for her photography of the John Newland Maffitt manuscript and of the Inuit Land Use and Occupancy Project scanning, and for both uploading and snailmailing on thumb drive copies of the images.
Norma Rosado-Blake, for her expert photography and uploading of the James I. Waddell memoir held at the Navy Department Library, Washington Naval Yard.
Alyssa Fowers, for her archival search for letters and the still lost diary of John Grimball, Jr. at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University, and for her Shenandoah ship log photography at the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and History in Raleigh.
Sara Tulchinsky, for her book scanning efforts and interlibrary loan requests on my behalf for my Socrates Project and for my Hiroshima/Nagasaki Project.
Jessica Harris, for her book scanning efforts on my behalf at the Anchorage Public Library.
Quoc Duong, for his book scanning efforts on my behalf at the Anchorage Public Library.
Dylan Meyer, for her efforts wordprocessing documents included in the police records of the Columbine attack, and also for her tireless quote logging of my draft manuscripts.
Madeleine Meyer, Hallie McNeill, Chad Kawashima, and Rachel Ginsberg for their tireless quote logging of several of my draft manuscripts.
Kindred Spirits
Over the years we have come across many kindred spirits whose work we admire. The links below point to their websites. We encourage your to visit their sites. One element in common is that they all have hearts of gold and working to make our smaller planet a better place for all.
Thailand Hilltribe Holidays
Thailand Hilltribe Holidays offers cultural tours of northern Thailand, and aims to introduce travelers to the "real" northern Thailand - not the typical and all-too-often tokenized tourist version of it! We spent a wonderful day catching up with Thailand Hilltribe Holidays' husband and wife team, Pat and Melissa, who live nearby in Hang Dong to where we stay when in the area. They bring a wonderful mix of passion, dedication and skill to their work. While their company is a tour company, Pat and Melissa could be better described as cultural ambassadors working to bridge the indigenous and modern worlds. Pat, a member of the Shan nation, has a very deep, enduring and intimate connection to the Shan people and their history; his wife Mel, originally from the UK, brings business and marketing savvy to their project. In their hands, we believe you'll gain unique and genuine insights into northern Thailand's diverse tribal culture and history. You can reach them by email here.
Tomb Raider Tours
Tomb Raider Tours is a small, wonderful tour-guide business in Siem Reap, Cambodia. We met its owner Sarath San in 2006 and helped to bring him onto the web. Angkor Wat is a magical place, and Sarath is a wonderful, kind and gentle guide.
Sapa Sisters Treks
Sapa Sisters Treks is a small, wonderful trek guiding business in and around the hill tribe country near Sapa, Vietnam, where we met up with them back in 2006. All the Sapa Sisters are from the village of Lao Chai and members of the Black Hmong tribe. Their kindness, like Sarath's, is also off the charts, a sweet, gentle, and most wonderful group of young ladies working to introduce travelers to their community, and to teach them about Hmong life.
Gene Sharp & The Albert Einstein Institution
The Albert Einstein Institution is the small, nonprofit research organization founded by world renown theorist of strategic nonviolence, prolific author, and gentle soul Gene Sharp, whom is frequently nominated for, and deserving of, the Nobel Prize for Peace! After working in quiet isolation for many years, the Arab Spring revolts and their principled nonviolent foundations were found by some observers to have been directly influenced intellectually by Gene's writings and ideas, and Gene became a global celebrity over night, and is now widely cited in the world press, and a wonderful documentary about his work has won numerous awards! I was privileged to work for Gene way back in 1982, soon after launching my very first hunger strike as part of the anti-Apartheid movement. Inspired by Gene, I evolved from activist to theorist to author likewise toiling away in quiet isolation, as I continue to explore the underlying and persistent tribal foundations of world order. (Thanks for the inspiration, Gene!)
The Josephine Charles Foundation
While traveling in southwest China in 2006, our hearts were touched by a small educational foundation dedicated to educating young hilltribe girls from mountainous Sichuan Province: the Josephine Charles Foundation (formerly known as the Charles Foundation for Children in Need) based in Xichang. Originally from Australia, Jo and her equally dedicated daughter Louise, and their wonderful operations manager, Kristin Su Nan, have literally moved mountains building schools and funding scholarships for young girls from the hilltribe communities. Their work is a Herculean labor of love, the team they have built is truly inspiring, and the response by the local community to their dedication and perseverance is one of universal respect for their vision and hard work. While traveling through southwest China, they invited me to travel home with them and to be their guest at the Xichang Minority Middle school. Thus taking me in, they restored hope to my heart and transformed my view of China from a corrupt, oppressive and environmentally destructive Leviathan to a culturally diverse homeland of dozens of original peoples with connections across all of Southeast Asia, an international system forged one village at a time across centuries and which continues to stabilize much of the Asia-Pacific region.
My humble, sincere and continuing thanks to the many individuals who have provided me numerous editorial, archival, and research services over the years (and in some cases, who continue to do so after many years of kindness and enthusiasm, with my deepest appreciation!) Their efforts have made it possible for me to continue my research in the absence of travel funds -- allowing me to pursue projects, virtually, at more than one archive, located on more than one continent, at the same time! Many of these most helpful colleagues I found through Craigslist.org, or were referred to me by friends of theirs whom I found through Craigslist, whose gigs listings have proven to be of enormous help -- turning the whole wide world into what feels more like a small, and refreshingly collaborative, village.
Indeed, thanks to the unique ubiquity of Craigslist, I've been able to find colleagues in so many different places, often on extremely short notice -- sometimes within a single day! -- making it possible to conduct globalized, distributed research from anywhere on Earth. I'd like to send a big thanks to the following for their greatly appreciated efforts on my behalf to painstakingly photograph thousands of archival documents, manually type up hundreds if not thousands of fragile pages of rare and protected documents, spending days and sometimes weeks in archives on my behalf, often all day long -- day after day, for weeks on end -- in libraries and archives that include the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the British National Library; the Sarawak State Library; the UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library's Special Collections; the USC School of Cinematic Arts Warner Brothers Archives; the Wilson Library at UNC Chapel Hill; the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and History in Raleigh; the Naval History and Heritage Command at the Washington Navy Yard; the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University; the Preston Library at the Virginia Military Institute; the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at the Carl A. Kroch Library at Cornell; the Anchorage Public Library; and the Hampshire College Library and other libraries associated with the Five College Consortium of Western Masschusetts.
Thus, a H-U-G-E thanks to the following:
Mallory Ann Ditchey, a brilliant and insightful young historian, for her many grueling archival immersions to review relevant and interesting documents, and for her tireless wordprocessing of selected documents, on Bernard Brodie at the UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library Special Collections; and on Lady Sylvia Brooke and the White Rajah Film Project at the USC School of Cinematic Arts Warner Brothers Archives; and for her efforts transcribing video interviews on climate change and on indigenous rights in Sarawak, as well as earlier assistance with quote-logging draft manuscripts, and her kind willingness to introduce me to several of her friends who also were willing to assist with additional projects (as described below).
D.D. Emmanuel, for her kind, patient, tireless and enthusiastic assistance scanning not only dozens of books on a wide range of topics, but also many articles, pamphlets, brochures and other miscellaneous documents - showing great care and diligence, and ensuring the highest quality of results (in addition to a rapid turnover of materials as I constantly add to the list of materials to scan!)
Kait Jensen, for her many, many contributions to so many of my projects these last few years including her original edit restoration of the James I. Waddell memoir; the recovered John Newland Maffitt manuscript proofing; climate change video transcribing; Sarawak interview video transcribing; Nagasaki and Hiroshima book scans; transcribing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima survivor testimonies; and research assistance on various additional projects.
Shaveta and Gopal Bansal, for their tireless and enthusiastic willingness to take on so many wordprocessing assignments for me, including several of the officer diaries from the CSS Shenandoah (including those of Francis Thornton Chew and Charles E. Lining); in addition to dozens of documents from the Brooke archive at Bodleian Library, Oxford University and the State Library of Sarawak; the wordprocessing of the recovered John Newland Maffitt manuscript and the recovered manuscript that rebuts the legend of Peter Stuart Ney of North Carolina, believed by many to be Napoleon's infamous Field Marshal, Michel Ney (but who was not!)
Caitlin Bolton, for her long and tireless immersion at Oxford's Bodleian Library photographing thousands upon thousands of pages of documents on the Sarawak cession, in addition to her scans of many now rare books authored by Lady Sylvia Brooke, numerous books on Socrates, and her creative scanning of the world's last surviving copy of Lady Sylvia's unpublished short play, The Merry Matrons, in the British National Library, in addition to her kind efforts to order copies of correspondence between Brooke and literary giants George Bernard Shaw and J.M. Barrie, Brooke's mentors, also held at the British National Library.
Lynette Tan, Esq., the esteemed (and brilliant) native rights lawyer and warm-hearted advisor to Dayak leader Baru Bian, who kindly introduced me to her colleagues when in Sarawak several years ago, for her frequent updates from Sarawak, and for generously and kindly finding and copying the long-lost (and miraculously sole-surviving copy) of Lady Sylvia Brooke's final collection of short stories.
Kristan Paner, for her tireless and remarkably accurate wordprocessing of the diary of John Thomas Mason of the CSS Shenandoah; wordprocessing of my very own long-lost-but-eventually-recovered 1988 Alaska motorcycle diary; and transcribing some of my early lectures on Cold War strategy that were delivered at Wesleyan University in the mid-1980s.
Michelle Chui, Esq. (a.k.a. "Genius Girl"), for her early wordprocessing of long-lost but newly recovered handwritten drafts of what was once called Visions of Order, a draft of a doctoral thesis written under the supervision of the legendary IR theorist Ken Waltz that challenged 'Waltzian realism' and proposed a countertheory that I now call 'constructive realism', that evolved into my four-volume 2011 Praeger treatise, The Realist Tradition in International Relations: Foundation of Western Order; in addition to many other documents that she enthusiastically wordprocessed for me in 2003-4.
Ibrahim Desooky, for his kind efforts at the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at the Carl A. Kroch Library at Cornell, photographing correspondence to and from Sylvia Brooke, and also for scanning several books authored by her held by the Cornell library; and for photographing and patiently uploading images of the pages of two handwritten diaries from the officers of the CSS Shenandoah.
Timothy Kelley, for his many scans of numerous Bernard Brodie publications at the Cornell University Library.
Sherwin Dillard, for his expertly photographed pages of the Francis Thornton Chew diary held at the Preston Library at the Virginia Military Institute.
Taylor Hayes, for her photography of the John Newland Maffitt manuscript and of the Inuit Land Use and Occupancy Project scanning, and for both uploading and snailmailing on thumb drive copies of the images.
Norma Rosado-Blake, for her expert photography and uploading of the James I. Waddell memoir held at the Navy Department Library, Washington Naval Yard.
Alyssa Fowers, for her archival search for letters and the still lost diary of John Grimball, Jr. at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University, and for her Shenandoah ship log photography at the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and History in Raleigh.
Sara Tulchinsky, for her book scanning efforts and interlibrary loan requests on my behalf for my Socrates Project and for my Hiroshima/Nagasaki Project.
Jessica Harris, for her book scanning efforts on my behalf at the Anchorage Public Library.
Quoc Duong, for his book scanning efforts on my behalf at the Anchorage Public Library.
Dylan Meyer, for her efforts wordprocessing documents included in the police records of the Columbine attack, and also for her tireless quote logging of my draft manuscripts.
Madeleine Meyer, Hallie McNeill, Chad Kawashima, and Rachel Ginsberg for their tireless quote logging of several of my draft manuscripts.
Kindred Spirits
Over the years we have come across many kindred spirits whose work we admire. The links below point to their websites. We encourage your to visit their sites. One element in common is that they all have hearts of gold and working to make our smaller planet a better place for all.
Thailand Hilltribe Holidays
Thailand Hilltribe Holidays offers cultural tours of northern Thailand, and aims to introduce travelers to the "real" northern Thailand - not the typical and all-too-often tokenized tourist version of it! We spent a wonderful day catching up with Thailand Hilltribe Holidays' husband and wife team, Pat and Melissa, who live nearby in Hang Dong to where we stay when in the area. They bring a wonderful mix of passion, dedication and skill to their work. While their company is a tour company, Pat and Melissa could be better described as cultural ambassadors working to bridge the indigenous and modern worlds. Pat, a member of the Shan nation, has a very deep, enduring and intimate connection to the Shan people and their history; his wife Mel, originally from the UK, brings business and marketing savvy to their project. In their hands, we believe you'll gain unique and genuine insights into northern Thailand's diverse tribal culture and history. You can reach them by email here.
Tomb Raider Tours
Tomb Raider Tours is a small, wonderful tour-guide business in Siem Reap, Cambodia. We met its owner Sarath San in 2006 and helped to bring him onto the web. Angkor Wat is a magical place, and Sarath is a wonderful, kind and gentle guide.
Sapa Sisters Treks
Sapa Sisters Treks is a small, wonderful trek guiding business in and around the hill tribe country near Sapa, Vietnam, where we met up with them back in 2006. All the Sapa Sisters are from the village of Lao Chai and members of the Black Hmong tribe. Their kindness, like Sarath's, is also off the charts, a sweet, gentle, and most wonderful group of young ladies working to introduce travelers to their community, and to teach them about Hmong life.
Gene Sharp & The Albert Einstein Institution
The Albert Einstein Institution is the small, nonprofit research organization founded by world renown theorist of strategic nonviolence, prolific author, and gentle soul Gene Sharp, whom is frequently nominated for, and deserving of, the Nobel Prize for Peace! After working in quiet isolation for many years, the Arab Spring revolts and their principled nonviolent foundations were found by some observers to have been directly influenced intellectually by Gene's writings and ideas, and Gene became a global celebrity over night, and is now widely cited in the world press, and a wonderful documentary about his work has won numerous awards! I was privileged to work for Gene way back in 1982, soon after launching my very first hunger strike as part of the anti-Apartheid movement. Inspired by Gene, I evolved from activist to theorist to author likewise toiling away in quiet isolation, as I continue to explore the underlying and persistent tribal foundations of world order. (Thanks for the inspiration, Gene!)
The Josephine Charles Foundation
While traveling in southwest China in 2006, our hearts were touched by a small educational foundation dedicated to educating young hilltribe girls from mountainous Sichuan Province: the Josephine Charles Foundation (formerly known as the Charles Foundation for Children in Need) based in Xichang. Originally from Australia, Jo and her equally dedicated daughter Louise, and their wonderful operations manager, Kristin Su Nan, have literally moved mountains building schools and funding scholarships for young girls from the hilltribe communities. Their work is a Herculean labor of love, the team they have built is truly inspiring, and the response by the local community to their dedication and perseverance is one of universal respect for their vision and hard work. While traveling through southwest China, they invited me to travel home with them and to be their guest at the Xichang Minority Middle school. Thus taking me in, they restored hope to my heart and transformed my view of China from a corrupt, oppressive and environmentally destructive Leviathan to a culturally diverse homeland of dozens of original peoples with connections across all of Southeast Asia, an international system forged one village at a time across centuries and which continues to stabilize much of the Asia-Pacific region.
