Topic: Culture & Society

An international foresight, strategy, and innovation firm has identified eight catalysts for change that will shape America's future over the next 10 years and beyond.

Don Abraham, a futurist with Washington-based Social Technologies, a division of UTEK, presented "Eight Catalysts for 2018" at the recent IIR Future Trends Conference in Miami, which was attended by more than 150 business leaders from global companies. Abraham provided an overview of eight trends which signal deep shifts in gender relations, how Americans see their role in the world, and new attitudes about education, privacy, and consumer values, among other topics.

A new book seeks to raise money for children affected by strife around the world. "The Trouble with the Alphabet: Through the Eyes of Innocence" is written and illustrated by Caryn West, a commercial artist with a passion for humanitarian initiatives. The book addresses the plight of hundreds of millions of children who suffer under a variety of afflictions - AIDS, poverty, hunger, war, rape, genocide, and child labor to name a few.

Since 2003, in the Darfur region of Sudan, over 400,000 people have been killed and over 2 million have been displaced, many of them children. In Oman, the fine for using child labor is only $1,300. It is estimated that approximately one out of every ten children die before they reach age five in Djibouti. In the Second Lebanon War, over 1/3 of the casualties were children. The average murder rate in Jamaica is four murders a day, of which 119 were children in one year. When a region is thrown into chaos, it is always the children who are most vulnerable.

Survey results from the American Board of Medical Specialties find Dr. House most loved and hated TV doctor

Gregory House (from the FOX program House) is America’s most loved and most hated TV doctor and the medical professional most people would want as their own doctor, according to a survey conducted by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS). The survey found that many people responded positively to Dr. House’s medical capabilities, while at the same time, many respondents didn’t like him because of his gruff bedside manner and poor communication skills.

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Hugh Laurie plays Dr. Gregory House on the Fox show House.

Not a sub division or group of another site, Rainbowletter.com is a social community specifically designed as a "G" rated, family oriented destination for gay and lesbian parents, their families and friends.

Gay and lesbian parents, their families and friends now have their own social network not a subdivision or group of another site. Rainbowletter provides a wide variety of opportunities to the GLBT community that were only a part of other sites. The freedom to express who they are in a family of other members with similar backgrounds and pursuits makes Rainbowletter unique.

The Sikh community can celebrate the fact that programs produced by the Guru Nanak Daata Baksh Lai Mission are now available throughout the U.S.

The religious programs of Guru Nanak Daata Baksh Lai Mission, which are being telecast by the reputed Punjabi Channel, JusPunjabi, are now available across the entire United States. According to a message received by the mission from the channel president and CEO, Penny Yogiraj Sandhu, "JusPunjabi is now being watched all over United States on three major platforms. ...on Dish Network's channel 809, Time Warner Cable's channel 573 and Verizon FiOS' channel 1757..."

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Sacred Gurpurab of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji.

Budding label Organically Grown Music serves up "nutrition for your ears" with three albums releasing in 2008; "Remains to be Seen" debuts in Top 100 at New Age radio; label owner-artists Christopher Taylor and Johnny Om launch grassroots performance series.

Christopher Taylor and Johnny Om refer to their label's repetoire as a relaxed, unbuttoned mix of mellow alternative folk/blues sounds. The co-founding singer/songwriters released three albums in the folk rock and new age markets in 2008, including Taylor's Remains To Be Seen and Om's Meet the Beast. Artistic vision, unique voices and a solid approach to business establish Organically Grown Music as an independent label to watch.

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Om andTaylor in the OGM studio.

New book reveals over 200 never-published photos of the Beatles at work in the recording studio.

A new book reveals over 200 never-published photos of the Beatles in the recording studio. In February 1967, Life magazine photographer Henry Grossman spent an evening with the Beatles while they worked on their ground-breaking Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album in London's famous Abbey Road recording studio. Though he took more than 250 photos that evening, only a handful of the images were ever published. The remainder have spent the last four decades safely tucked away in Mr. Grossman's archive. The entire collection has finally been published in a new limited-edition book, Kaleidoscope Eyes: A Day in the Life of Sgt. Pepper.

Author Frank Joseph discusses some of the unorthodox history of the New World that's included in his new book "Unearthing Ancient America."

At most, all Americans know of their country's prehistory is that Asiatic nomads wandered out of Siberia across an Alaskan land-bridge sometime during the last Ice Age into our continent, where they eventually became tribal Indians. Cut to Columbus planting the Spanish flag on the beach at San Salvador 12,000 years later, and that is just about everything they have learned from teachers and television.

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Sony/Tri-Star Pictures former business affairs executive Eric Mitchell is latest Hollywood player to pick up joint development interest, with filmmaker Armand Mastroianni, in new epic fantasy, "The Goddess Prophecies."

One of the chief architects behind the financing of The Chronicles of Narnia, Eric Mitchell is the latest player to enter the Hollywood pool of development interest in the epic fantasy, The Goddess Prophecies, by author D.R. Whitney.

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Bono calls them geniuses; Eckhart Tolle and Bob Geldof say they love them; Noam Chomsky opens his door to them whenever they're in town and Madonna does yoga to their music. 1 Giant Leap, the global philosophy and music concept band which brought us the double Grammy nominated Unity Through Diversity, returns with "What About Me?"

Through music and film, 1 Giant Leap explores the universal complexities of human nature. Jamie Catto (Faithless co-founder) and Duncan Bridgeman set out on their journey, recording musical jewels and words of wisdom with the cream of the world's thinkers, writers and entertainers along the way. The duo travelled to the furthest corners of the planet, to ensure immense cultural diversity in this time capsule of humanity at its most inspirational.

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Jamie Catto recording What About Me?