Category Archives: ~ Culture & History

Can Skylar and Dominic count on you?


                          No Kid Hungry
“When am I going to get some more food?”That’s what Skylar and Dominic’s mom assumed her kids would be thinking about at school — instead of focusing on school work. That’s because there isn’t always enough food at home to feed them every day.Skylar and Dominic live with their mom and dad in a rural town outside Little Rock, Arkansas. Their father works 65 hours a week and their mom works nights to cover their bills and mortgage. Despite working so hard, their food budget is stretched very thin.

Can you imagine working more than full time and not being able to provide the basic necessities like food for your children? Or being the kid who worries when he’ll have his next meal?

This is the reality for too many kids across the country. And that’s why we need your help.

Will you join now to ensure that we can sustain and expand meals programs that help feed kids like Sklyar and Dominic this year?

                                                   JOIN NOW to help feed kids

Team No Kid Hungry is now 500,000 strong thanks to people like you who have taken action in support of vulnerable kids. And we’re connecting more kids with food than ever before — kids like Skylar and Dominic.

Be part of the solution to ending childhood hunger — please join today. Thanks for all that you do to end childhood hunger with No Kid Hungry.

Sincerely,

Team No Kid Hungry

 

Haiyan …


www.RedCross.org

Eric Pfeiffer, Yahoo News

It is estimated that millions of individuals will need some form of assistance after super typhoon Haiyan (Reu …

With reports of more than 1,000 estimated casualties, “super typhoon” Haiyan is said to be one of the most devastating storms ever to hit landfall .

The Red Cross and other agencies say they expect the number of casualties and total damage to soar as Haiyan is thought likely to return to category 5 status again.

Amidst the damage, several organizations are stepping up to provide relief to the victims and families of Haiyan .

“It is too early to tell what exactly we will need, but definitely after the relief operations there is going to be a lot of work in terms of reconstruction and rehabilitation, particularly for people who have lost their homes,” Philippines Ambassador to the U.S. Jose Cuisia Jr. told Voice of America.

And while the U.S State Department and military are stepping in to assist in the emergency response, there are a number of organizations that are accepting private donations to help in the relief effort.

Here are a few places where you can donate to help:
**  The United Nations World Food Programme estimates that 2.5 million people will need food assistance in the regions affected by Haiyan. They have set up a page where you can donate to efforts aimed at providing relief to families and children affected by the typhoon.

**  UNICEF is accepting donations to directly assist the children affected by Haiyan. “Children urgently need access to safe water, hygiene supplies, food, shelter and a safe environment to recover,” the groups said.
**  Catholic Relief Services is another major organization helping to collect relief funds for the recovery efforts.
**  Save the Children is directing donations to help children in the Philippines, Vietnam and Laos. They’ve also said they will set aside 10 percent of all donations to create a new fund for similar future emergencies.
**  Heifer is accepting donations to help residents recover from and prepare for future disasters.
**  The Canadian organization GlobalMedic is working to provide clean water to Haiyan victims. “Those people are vulnerable,” GlobalMedic’s Rahul Singh told the Toronto Sun. “And clean water is essential in order to prevent a secondary catastrophe.”

Official Google blog …


Conquer the Lonely Mountain in Chrome

In “The Hobbit,” a company of Dwarves tries to reclaim the lost kingdom of Erebor from Smaug the Terrible, a fire-breathing Dragon. While the Dwarves’ quest is fraught with danger, your journey to Erebor is just a click away in “A Journey Through Middle-earth,” the Chrome Experiment released a few weeks ago from Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures (MGM).
You can now follow the Dwarves’ journey to Erebor and try to outsmart Smaug on your desktop, mobile phone or tablet. But it might be wise to first pay a little visit to the folks who live in nearby Thranduil’s Hall and Lake-town—locations that recently became accessible in this Chrome Experiment—just in case you need their help against the mighty Dragon.

To best equip you on your journey, you may want to stop by Google Play. There you’ll find all sorts of Hobbit-related apps, games, books, music and films*. Together with the recent recording of a Google+ Hangout with director Peter Jackson and actors Evangeline Lilly and Richard Armitage, these can also help you get up to speed for the upcoming release in theaters of “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.”
And for those of you more interested in web development than Dragon-slaying, check out the second technical case study on “A Journey Through Middle-earth” (the first one is already available on HTML5 Rocks). You can also watch a Hangout with North Kingdom, the team of designers and hackers who built it, on December 18. We’ll be posting more updates for the developer community on +Google Chrome Developers.
Posted by Adrian Soghoian, Product Marketing Manager & a Fool of a Took
*Available content and promotions vary by country.