GPF - USA 2008, Washington D.C. August 9th.

Alright, so you might heard me mention it before, but now I'm going to tell you a bit more about it.

The Global Peace Festival is a festival to celebrate the progress towards peace we've already made and the plans we have for the future. However, the biggest thing it is I think, is a call to arms, so to speak. We are calling out to the world that enough is enough, and that if we could all just put the barriers of our race, religion, and nationality behind us we could really have a wonderful place to live here on earth for everyone. Finally, it's also an awareness campaign, to make people aware of the root causes of war and poverty.

There are many reasons for war and poverty in the world. Disease, past colonial oppression, lack of freedom, lack of control, not enough water, not enough infrastructure, misunderstandings and/or stubbornness between people and nations. We at the Universal Peace Federation believe that the key to it all is the family.

The family is the place every one of us starts out life. If we don't learn respect and responsibility within our family, how can we be expected to respect others outside our family or take responsibility outside our family? If we don't have peace and a sense of oneness within our family, how can we be at peace with the world? How can we love our neighbor if we cannot love our brother? How can we care for the people of another nation if we do not care for the ones within out own?

This is why the theme of the Global Peace Festival is One Family Under God. First we have to make individual families which are full of love, respect and a sense responsibility and interdependence, and we believe the best way to do this is through the basic tenants that all different religions teach. From there, we can work towards making whole villages, cities, countries, and the whole world act as one family under God, where we all fallow the basic tenants of our various religions which all teach just about the same thing and we all teat one another as family. A big part of being able to do this is fostering a culture of service, where people learn to live for the sake of others by their own free will.

That's the gist of it anyway. Below is a video which talks about the GPF some more, and below that is the basic schedule which I will be fallowing next week. This schedule isn't for everyone attending the GPF, just those like myself who are also attending the American Youth Leadership Conference I have another, shorter video at the very bottom of this web page if you would prefer.

My Schedule

· Aug 5^th Arrival – all participants will arrive in DC, at the Washington D.C. National Cathedral Church (1610 Columbia Rd) and we'll have a short orientation after dinner. I will personally be leaving the Vineyard on the 6 AM boat, to take the 6:55 AM bus to South Station, to take the 11:05 AM train to Washington D.C., finally arriving in D.C. at 6:50 PM

· Aug 6^th Community-Wide "Peace Through Service" Day – we will join the service efforts of many partners in DC including some celebrities performing for GPF on this project from 10am – 5pm.

· Aug 7^th Outreach – we will join the local efforts of youth on this day, to spread the word on the GPF event on the streets of DC.

· Aug 8^th Sightseeing and Interfaith Prayer for Peace – we'll spend a day to discover DC. and God's hope for America, and close with a prayer on the grounds of the main event, at the Mall in front of the Capital building.

· Aug 9^th American Leadership Conference and Global Peace Festival – join this conference in the morning and afternoon and be side by side national and world level Ambassadors for Peace as they forge their commitment to hold America to it's founding creed and build One Family Under God. Join us at the Youth Breakout to discuss long-term vision and strategy for the movement of Young Ambassadors for Peace. In the evening we will all attend the Global Peace Festival main event together. The event starts at 5pm at the Capital West Lawn (Independence Ave. and Constitution Ave, SW). Come early for seats and to check out the GPF Service and Cultural Expo from 2-5 on the National Mall (between 3rd and 4th St. NW). My parents and younger brother will arrive for the main GPF event on a bus rented by our church, and I'll be leaving with them at 9 PM on one of those buses back for Massachusetts.

· Aug 10^th Youth Celebration – Join the hundreds of youth who have volunteered their time this summer for the Global Peace Festival as they celebrate this day and build up spirit and enthusiasm for many more events that uphold peace in the semester to come. I will have sadly had to miss this part, and instead will be arriving on the Vineyard with my family so I can get to work on time on Monday, the 11th.

If anyone out there feels inspired to help out, I think the best way is to tell everyone you know about it, and if you can, try to show up for the main GPF event on Saturday, the 9th in Washington D.C. Please go to www.gpfusa.org for more information. If you're not in the United States, or even if you are, you may be interested in going to www.globalpeacefestival.org or www.upf.org for more information about GPF events happening in other parts of the world, and other things the UPF is doing to promote world peace.

If you're feeling particularly inspired, or you know won't be able to attend any GPF or UPF events, another great way to help out other than telling all your friends and family is to donate funds to our cause.

Click here to donate to the GPF-USA.
Click here to donate to the Universal Peace Federation, which is the main sponsor of the Global Peace Festival as well as other peace-building initiatives.

To contact the organizers of the Global Peace Festival USA go to http://gpfusa.org/contact-us/

I hope you are inspired by what the GPF is doing and join us in truly making the world a better place by taking on the root causes of the worlds biggest problems.

Sincerely, in Libety and True Brotherly Love,

Christopher D. Osborn - Vineyard Haven, MA

Big Changes

You might notice a couple changes to the blog. Who am I kidding, you've probably never been here before and never will again. I'm sorry, that's not true, a few people in my family might check it every once in a while.

Anyway, the first change you should notice is the change to the name of the blog from Fipher.net to Min Sannhet. I've made this change because I've decided to slowly shed the name Fipher from my life. It will never go away completely. Anyone who has always known me as Fipher can continue to do so, but I won't be using it myself so much. It part of my past now, a past that had good and bad moments, but still thew past. I'm married and trying to move to Norge (Norway) and become more in touch with my inner self. It's time to move forward.

So, the blog is now titled Min Sannhet, Nosk (Norwegian) meaning My Truth.

Another couple of changes to the blog may seem superficial, but they really aren't. The first change I made was add a big banner linking to Free Rice, the online Vocabulary game where you improve your vocab while donated rice to the U.N. World Food Programme. Below is a great video about it.



The last change to the blog is the banner in the "Quote of the Unnamed Time Period" block. I made the change because Ron Paul no longer has any chance of winning the 2008 presidential election, however, his new book, The Revolution: A Manifesto has finally come out, and I would like as many people to read it as possible. Besides wanting others to read it, I'd like to read it myself. Anyone willing to get me a copy will be rewarded handsomely with a big warm hug.

Here's a video related to the book.



Now, how can I be a supporter of the WFP, a United Nations programme, while at the same time be a strong supporter of Ron Paul? Well, me not helping the WFP is not going to make it go away. Also, as far as government agencies go, the WFP does pretty good. They're not just giving away food. Granted, they're doing a lot of that, but a huge part of it is teaching people how to fish, rather than just giving them fish. The WFP is designed to not be a permanent organization feeding the poor and keeping them poor, and so while I'd rather it be funded by volunteer donations than tax money from various governments around the world, I can still be supportive of their mission. Besides, playing the Free Rice game doesn't cost me anything. Pluss, Free Rice doesn't just give the WFP more money to pay with and perhaps waste. Instead, they buy rice and give it to the WFP to distribute where their experts think it's needed.

The last change is not to the site, but to me. I'll be leaving for Boston some time during the second week of May. Orbitz.com is acting up so I haven't bought the tickets, but the plan is for me to stay from the ides of May to almost the ides of September. The reason is UDI gave us a no for my request for a family immigration living and working permit, and the appeal process can last "many many months" so I'm heading back where I can work.

Unfortunately Lisa won't be comming with me because her school doesn't end 'till June, starts back up in early August, and pay here is much better on average. So she'll stay in Bergen going to school and working for Helsebutikken, I'll go to the Vineyard working for MVSB, and we won't see each other for about 4 months. Oh well, that's the way life goes sometimes. We've just got to work through it and find the lessons to learn. There's now flashy video I can post about that, is there?