The Millennium Project

To commemorate the 69th anniversary of the 1945 Charter of the United Nations, President Barack Obama proclaimed October 24, 2014 as United Nations Day.

Postcard US-1779034 to Australia features Meg Bonenfant at age 20, to highlight one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),  Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education. The goals were a series of time-bound and quantified targets, set out in the Millennium Project at the United Nations' Millennium Summit in September, 2000, aiming to reduce extreme poverty in the forms of income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability, with a deadline of 2015.

The postcard was obtained at the World Urban Forum III in Vancouver, Canada during June 19-23, 2006. Another copy of the card was recently sent to the United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) in New York City for a postmark on the United Nations stamps in September, 2014.

Close the Book on Hate

Postcard US-2869236 to Germany was the product of a joint effort of Barnes & Noble and Anti-Defamation League (ADL) that was designed to use education to help break the cycle of prejudice and hatred. The campaign kicked off in September 2000, with thousands of people involved around the country.

Kofi Annan, the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1997 to December 2006, once said: “Ignorance and prejudice are the handmaidens of propaganda. Our mission, therefore, is to confront ignorance with knowledge, bigotry with tolerance, and isolation with the outstretched hand of generosity. Racism can, will, and must be defeated.”

In Michael Jackson's music video "Black or White" I mentioned yesterday, it did not include the last four minutes of the original music video where a black panther walked out of the studio and morphed into Jackson. He went on to perform some of his most physically challenging dance moves, which contained sexually suggestive and violent scenes. That resulted in MTV and other music video networks' censorship of the last four minutes from subsequent broadcasts. The censored video ended with a "Prejudice is Ignorance" title card.

In the background of the recent unrest accompanying the protests in Ferguson, Missouri against police shooting of unarmed Michael Brown, it occurred to me that Michael Jackson's visionary video had not lost its significance after 23 years. The campaign "Close the Book on Hate, Open Your Mind and Read," started 14 years ago by Barnes & Noble Chairman Leonard Riggio and Abraham Foxman, ADL National Director, offered "101 Ways to Combat Prejudice." Those methods remain valid and effective today.

Michelle Obama Visits the Summer Palace

Postcard US-2262748 to Portugal shows the Longevity Hill at the Summer Palace in Beijing, China. The front hill, as shown on the postcard, is rich with many splendid halls and pavilions. The Summer Palace, once an imperial garden in Qing Dynasty, has now been one of the UNESCO's World Heritage Sites since 1998.

First Lady Michelle Obama visited the Summer Palace in Beijing on Saturday, March 22, 2014, second day during her week-long trip to China. Mrs. Obama was accompanied by her daughters and her mother, and a group of visiting students from the U.S. They enjoyed a Chinese opera performance and took a boat ride on the famous Kunming Lake. The week-long trip, with the focus on the importance of education, from March 19 to 26 includes stops in Beijing from March 20 to 23, Xi’an on March 24, and Chengdu from March 25 to 26.

Kids Yoga from Germany

Postcard DE-2968396 from Germany shows an image of a kid (or a monkey?) doing yoga and a link to the Children's Yoga Academy. The website has a lot of information and offers for education and training of children's yoga in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in 2014. The first edition "Yoga for Kids" was a best-selling book on the subject. Now, with a brand new edition,  it even comes with a DVD! Of course, you can purchase 26 children's yoga themed postcards including this one from the book's website.

Just Move

November 14 each year is the World Diabetes Day. It was first introduced in 1991 by the International Diabetes Federation and the World Health Organization to increase awareness of the alarming rise of diabetes around the world. From 2009 to 2013, the theme has been Diabetes Education and Prevention. According to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, nearly 350 million people worldwide live with diabetes. By 2035, ten percent of world's population, or 592 million people, will have diabetes. Researchers found that adults at high risk for type 2 diabetes could reduce their risk in half by losing 5 to 7% of body weight and exercising 3 to 5 times a week for 150 minutes.

Postcard US-2334513 to France shows skateboarding activities. I have been looking forward to a new series of stamps “Let’s Move” advocating physical activities that would make a good match for this postcard. However, USPS has placed the "Just Move" stamps on hold and may destroy them due to safety concerns from the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition. While I considered those concerns well intentional, I also feel it's kind of over-reacted. First of all, those stamps are artist illustrations, not instructional graphs. Second, USPS should have consulted the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition before approving and printing the stamps. Now that the stamps has already been printed and in storage, it would be a waste to destroy the stamps especially when USPS is losing 4 billions this year. It will be a missing opportunity if the stamps are not brought back, with or without correction. In fact, the risks exposed by the stamps could be mitigated by educational campaigns accompanying the stamp issues.