Fanatical Theories Pilfered By The Frightened Douche Bag

(CNN) — This year’s NATO summit in Chicago is the biggest one ever, with some 60 countries expected to be in attendance and a host of issues crammed into two short days of meetings.

It is coming at a time when the alliance is under stress, with pressure to wrap up a war in Afghanistan, member countries with dwindling money reserves trying to help finance Afghanistan as it prepares to stand on its own, and questions on how strong the alliance really is in terms of its capabilities.

While only two days long, the summit will entail a number of complex meetings and discussions that will not unfold in front of TV cameras for all to see.

The meetings will take place in a large, highly secured convention hall outside downtown Chicago. So to help you sift through the bureaucratic talk that will be coming, we here at Security Clearance have put together a handy guide to navigating the NATO summit.

NATO summit opens amid protests, foiled terror plot

What’s the point?

What does NATO really need to get out of this summit? It depends on what side of the ocean you are on. The Europeans will be looking at their pocketbooks and hammering out how they can pool resources and improve their military capabilities as they spend less on their militaries.

But, as the primary leader in the war in Afghanistan, the United States needs to have the alliance come together and hammer out details on what it wants the future of Afghanistan to look like.

The strategic partnership agreement signed by Afghanistan and the United States last month was nothing more than an outline, and U.S. officials have said they will use the summit to start defining what they want this relationship to look like.

As the 2014 deadline for the war in Afghanistan to end draws nearer, the United States and NATO need to use these two days to figure out how a post-NATO Afghanistan will look and how it will be paid for.

Why ordinary Afghans worry about NATO summit

2014 and beyond

As U.S. President Barack Obama moves away from a counterinsurgency plan, the United States and NATO believe that the key for Afghanistan’s success is to have a strong Afghan military and police force, neither of which is very strong at the moment. In order to build a stronger and more capable force, a good number of trainers will have to continue to work inside Afghanistan. You might be surprised at the number of U.S. troops left in Afghanistan for years to come, depending on the final number of Afghan security forces that will be put into place.

Also, keep an eye out for the number of actual U.S. troops that will be left to hunt Taliban and al Qaeda. That number, too, still has to be decided and will involve negotiations with the Afghan government, which is not keen on keeping actual combat troops within its borders.

The Afghan troop numbers game

As of now the top military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, says they are assuming Afghan military and police forces will total 352,000 personnel. Others have suggested around 275,000 or 250,000. The final number may come down to how much it will cost to maintain such a force for the country and how much commitment money the United States will get from its NATO allies and partner countries.

The number of Afghan security forces will also be a factor in the decision on how many U.S. troops will remain in country to train those security forces.

No tote bags, but pledges needed

One of the priorities for the United States will be to start pressuring member countries to kick in for what will be a multibillion-dollar economic plan. The bill could be at least $4 billion per year and the United States could put in about a quarter or as much as a half of that total. About 23 NATO partner nations have also pledged to donate. But while purse strings are being tightened in this world of austerity, the United States would like to see NATO members put in their fair share.

Pakistan … the problem and solution

Now that it has been invited to the NATO meeting, Pakistan is under pressure to reopen the supply lines into Afghanistan. The first step to watch is if Pakistan will accept the invitation to the conference.

NATO is not really the crowd Pakistan wants to be around because discussions will almost certainly surround the lack of security in Pakistan’s western tribal regions, where Taliban and al Qaeda militants hide and feed insurgents and weapons into Afghanistan.

However, look for more details to come out on Pakistan agreeing to more military operations in the border area.

Missile defense, Moscow takes offense

Outside of Afghan talks, the other hot topic will be the continued push to build up missile defense systems around Europe to protect from a ballistic missile attack from Iran, something Russia is vehemently opposed to.

U.S. officials have already said they do not expect a deal with Moscow this year, and Moscow is still pushing for an agreement by NATO that ensures the missile system would not be used against its missiles, something the United States and NATO will not do.

If NATO announces the placement of more systems around Europe, look for a blistering response from Moscow, which is already threatening arming its borders to counter, what it perceives as, a threat to its nuclear missile deterrent.

Damascus dilemma

While NATO has said there will be no Libya-style intervention in Syria because there is no legal authority, expect some conversations about Syria to take place even though it is not officially on the agenda.

Because Turkey is part of NATO, and it has some legitimate concerns along its border with Syria, Turkey could start to put heavy pressure on the alliance to make some kind of move. It is a long shot, but look to see if there are discussions on whether a NATO force could be created to protect safe havens along the Turkey-Syrian border.

The NATO facebook

New French President Francois Hollande: The new socialist leader will be attending his first head-of-state NATO conference just days into his job. Early thoughts, based on what he has said as a candidate, could be that he will remove French troops from Afghanistan earlier than his predecessor was planning — as early as the end of this year, not in 2013.

It is not clear if he will go through with that plan, but it is worth keeping an eye on him to see how he builds his new NATO relationships, or not — especially if he announces while in Chicago that he is pulling his troops early.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari: While it has already been announced by the White House that Obama and Zardari will not meet in the Chicago summit if the Pakistani leader shows up, that does not mean Zardari will be sidelined. He knows that NATO members, especially the United States, will tread lightly in public so as to not irritate the Afghan neighbor, especially if the Pakistani government is still deliberating whether to open the crucial NATO supply lines.

Zardari could also take advantage of the United States stepping on diplomatic eggshells and make some public demands on NATO and the United States. But he has to show up to do that.

Russian President Vladimir Putin: Some analysts believe that Putin is not sincere in his saying he decided not to attend the Chicago summit because he has to assemble a new government, especially as the new French leader will come days after his first day on the job.

The real excuses could be that as the key to al-Assad’s ouster, he does not want to face tough issues on Syria, and that he does not have much assistance to offer the West on Iran. He will be leaving that job to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who will be attending in his stead.

But expect the stone-faced but fiery leader to blast NATO from afar on its European missile defense program, which he believes is threatening his country’s nuclear deterrent.

U.S. Gen. John Allen, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan: Allen, who has overseen the transition from counterinsurgency operations to the new train-and-equip strategy in Afghanistan, has also voiced concern about withdrawing troops too quickly over the final two years.

But Allen could be getting a promotion. U.S. officials tell CNN the president is expected to nominate Allen in early 2013 to lead U.S. European Command and to be the supreme allied commander of NATO.

An announcement could be made as early as in Chicago that Allen will be moved from his Kabul post. The move would keep Allen involved in Afghanistan, through NATO, but make room for a commander more suited to the shift to counterterrorism and special operations.

Allen also gets to have some fun. He’s scheduled to throw a ceremonial pitch at a Chicago Cubs home game during the summit.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai: Karzai will leave office in 2014, the same year all U.S. combat forces are due out. He has been a thorn in the side of the United States for years now, but don’t expect a victory dance from the United States or NATO when Karzai’s time is up.

He undoubtedly will ensure the United States and NATO will not walk all over him in his final two years by leaving his mark on the ongoing strategic partnership agreement negotiations.

Toledo, Ohio (CNN) — Wanda Butts dropped the phone and screamed when she heard the news that her son was dead.

Josh had drowned while rafting on a lake with friends. The 16-year-old didn’t know how to swim, and he wasn’t wearing a life jacket.

“I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t want to believe it: that just like that, my son had drowned and he was gone,” she said, recalling the 2006 tragedy.

Butts had worried about her son’s safety when it came to street violence or driving, and she said she had always warned him of those dangers. But water accidents never crossed her mind.

“It did not occur to me that my son would drown because he didn’t know water safety,” she said. “Josh was never taught the basic life skill of learning how to swim.”

Josh was not alone in the black community. According to USA Swimming, 70% of African-American children cannot swim, compared with nearly 60% for Hispanic children and 42% for white children. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, African-American children between the ages of 5 and 14 are three times more likely to drown than white children in the same age range.

As Butts tried to make sense of her son’s tragedy, she realized she had passed her own inexperience to her son. Her father had witnessed a drowning when he was young and instilled in her a fear of water.

Giving kids a lifesaving skill

Because of this fear, Butts raised Josh without any exposure to water. But today, she is determined to prevent other mothers from doing the same. In 2007, she started the Josh Project, a nonprofit that provides low-cost swimming lessons for children in Toledo, Ohio.

“After losing my son, I wanted to do something to help other people, to help another mother not have to suffer the way I do every day from the loss of a child drowning,” she said.

To date, the Josh Project has helped more than 1,000 children learn how to swim.

“All children are at risk of drowning, but the majority of the children that the Josh Project serves are minority children, who we have found are more at risk,” Butts said.

Several cultural and historical factors can help explain why that is. One is the segregation of swimming pools during the 20th century, according to Jeff Wiltse, author of “Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America.” Relatively few swimming pools were built to serve the black community back then, so much of a generation was denied the opportunity to swim, Wiltse told the BBC.

Also, if parents can’t swim, their children are far less likely to learn how, according to a recent study conducted by the University of Memphis. The study, sponsored by USA Swimming, found that a fear of drowning and a fear of injury prevent many African-American parents from putting their children in swimming lessons. It also found that many avoid swimming for cosmetic reasons, such as the effect chlorinated water has on their hair.

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For some families today, it’s still tough to find an accessible pool.

“The public pools near our home have been closed in the past, and other places were not affordable,” said Lisa Haynes, whose 14-year-old son, Joshua, is one of 60-plus students in the Josh Project this season.

The swimming lessons take place at a local high school over four Saturdays for a total cost of $10.

“I am less worried if (Joshua) is near water because he has the basics of how to swim,” Haynes said. “And we’re thankful for that.”

Butts is doing much more, however, than just providing swimming lessons.

“She ups the awareness, and that is half the battle,” said Shaun Anderson, a swimming coach who was so inspired by her story that he created a Josh Project swimming program at Norfolk State University in Virginia. “Once these communities learn how to swim, they will pass it down, which results in future generations that know how to swim.”

Butts said she has two goals for the future: One is to change the drowning statistics of minority children, and the other is to have an aquatic center where the children can swim daily instead of just once a week.

“The joy on the faces of those children — when they see that they can learn, once they get it — they are so happy with themselves,” she said. “And it’s like all of them are my children. It’s like I didn’t lose my son.”

Want to get involved? Check out the Josh Project website at www.joshproject.org and see how to help.

Editor’s note: Timothy Stanley is a historian at Oxford University and blogs for Britain’s Daily Telegraph. He is the author of the new book “The Crusader: The Life and Times of Pat Buchanan.”

(CNN) — Barack Obama’s appearance on “The View” on Tuesday topped a week spent cozying up to the world of entertainment, including a dinner hosted by George Clooney that raised $15 million and a $5,000-a-plate extravaganza with Ricky Martin.

Presidents have always chased Hollywood’s vote. Herbert Hoover’s first overnight guest in the White House was Louis B. Mayer, and Richard Nixon had dinner parties with John Wayne. So Obama’s willingness to dish dirt on the “View” sofa is historically in keeping.

Some in the news media are convinced that Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage was designed to raise Hollywood dollars. They may have a point, but Obama wasn’t just after money. The movie community is enjoying a renaissance of cultural power this election cycle, and that’s what the president wants to harness.

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It’s noteworthy that Obama’s relationship with Hollywood is far from strong. His biggest problem has always been his lack of enthusiasm for massaging the egos of movie stars.

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In 2008, he was certainly happy to take Hollywood’s cash: One Beverly Hills fundraiser alone pulled in $9 million. But after the election, Obama remained aloof from those who had supported him, and invitations to the White House in the first year of the administration were surprisingly few.

There’s a glimpse of that alleged awkwardness in Edward Klein’s new book about Obama. In “The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House” Klein writes, Oprah Winfrey arrives at the White House for an interview and is shocked to find that she has to join the queue at security like everyone else. She even has to talk to staff who make only $75,000 a year (yes, Klein lists that as a complaint), and Oprah is humiliated when Michelle Obama fails to treat her as an equal. Clearly the wife of the leader of the free world needs to learn a little humility.

As a result, there had been rumors in the Hollywood press, before the gay marriage endorsement, about declining political and financial support for the president. Matt Damon’s complaint that Obama is too centrist (“I no longer hope for audacity”) summed up the mood of the liberal movie community nicely. When Obama visited Hollywood in September 2011, he was reduced to appearing at an event hosted by a sitcom actor at the House of Blues rock club.

Yet Hollywood is so good at raising cash that reliance on just a handful of loyal friends can still produce impressive results, as the astonishing $15 million takeaway from last week’s Clooney dinner suggests.

The biggest bundlers, bringing in $500,000 each, include producer Harvey Weinstein and DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, while actress Eva Longoria has raised at least $200,000. There have been $38,000-a-plate dinners with Will Smith, Spike Lee, Tom Hanks and Will Ferrell. Of course, the same-sex marriage endorsement has increased Hollywood enthusiasm for the president and induced liberal skeptics to give more. Producer Norman Lear, who had withheld support until now, announced that he and his wife would give the maximum $40,000 each.

Hollywood isn’t just about money; it also exerts a quiet cultural power. Joe Biden was right when he credited “Will and Grace” with shifting popular attitudes towards homosexuality. Television has the power to acculturate and acclimatize viewers to social change. Consider that “Modern Family,” which features a gay couple and their adopted daughter, was ranked the favorite sitcom among Republicans in 2010. Incredibly, Time magazine put “Glee” star Chris Colfer in its 2011 listing of the 100 most influential people in the world. That’s right: A comedy-musical star is just as important to humanity as Christine Lagarde or Kim Jong Un.

Hollywood’s soft power has been augmented in the past four years by two innovations. First, Twitter has dramatically expanded the reach of stars who aren’t even explicitly political. In 2009, actor Ashton Kutcher entered a contest with CNN to see who could reach a million followers first. Kutcher won. Today, he is followed by 10.6 million people, far more than Mitt Romney’s 500,000. Were Kutcher to write something political, it would require only 10% of his followers — and then 10% of each of their followers — to retweet it for it to become a viral sensation.

Second, Hollywood’s activist base has moved away from pushing candidates and toward campaigning for ideas. The falling price of media technology, and the platform that the Internet provides, means that moviemakers can now “do it for themselves” rather than wait for the Democratic National Committee to recruit them.

Same-sex marriage is at the center of this revolution, resulting in a plethora of homemade Hollywood ad campaigns.

Local Republicans and Democrats are often united in supporting legal efforts to support gay rights, and their focus brings attention to the issue. In March, Dustin Lance Black’s play about California’s Proposition 8, which blocked same-sex marriage, was performed in Los Angeles with an all-star cast. Such events, which pursue political rather than strictly electoral goals, are worth millions in publicity to the gay rights movement.

All this means that even as the money keeps rolling in, Obama has to stay on the right side of the moviemakers. Perhaps this is another reason why he’s intent on playing the culture war card.

Hollywood is full of rich people, so health care and jobs aren’t issues that interest the new power players. But two people denied the right to express their love through marriage? Now that’s a great story.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Timothy Stanley.

German photographer Claudius Schulze traveled to the mysterious archipelago of Socotra. Pictured, distinctive Dragon Blood Trees, native only to Socotra.

A traveler is greeted by a boy in a secluded bay that can only be reached by boat or on foot. Socotra is a group of four isolated islands off the coast of Yemen.

Tribal leader Sheikh al-Ghaddafi in front of his house in Socotra. The tribal Bedouin people of Socotra live mostly from goat herding, date plantations and fishing.

A local fisherman arrives home with a baby shark. Schulze said: “With the formerly rich fish grounds around Socotra depleted by pirating Western factory trawlers, this fisherman caught nothing but a barely edible baby shark.”

Schulze said of Socotra: “It blew my mind,” he said. “It’s incredibly amazing and other-wordly. The landscape is bizarre, with mountains, valleys that cut 600 meters into the landscape, moon-like desert plains and huge sand dunes and endemic plants that are completely different from anything I’ve seen.”

Editor’s note: Each month, Inside the Middle East takes you behind the headlines to see a different side of this diverse region. Follow us on on Twitter: Presenter Rima Maktabi: @rimamaktabi, producer Jon Jensen: @jonjensen and writer Cat Davies @catrionadavies

(CNN) — Most people would struggle to place it on a map, but Socotra is one of the world’s last unspoiled island chains — an archipelago off the coast of Yemen that has wildlife so diverse it has been described as the Galapagos of the Indian Ocean.

Its isolation lends Socotra a bucolic serenity and has blessed it with an array of unique animals and plants. A third of Socotra’s 825 plant species, 90% of its reptile species and 95% of its land snail species do not occur anywhere else in the world, according to UNESCO, which added the archipelago to its World Heritage List for its natural beauty.

 Expandable map of Socotra

Expandable map of Socotra

German photographer Claudius Schulze had been fascinated by Socotra since reading about it in a magazine, but he was led there by an old proverb.

“I had a project that didn’t work out and we have a proverb in Germany about being ‘ready for the island’ if you are exhausted — so I thought it was time to go to Socotra,” he said. “I started looking up flights and applying for a visa straight away.”

When Schulze, 27, finally made it there he was captivated by both the scenery and the people he met.

“It blew my mind. It’s incredibly amazing and other-wordly,” he said. “The landscape is bizarre, with mountains, valleys that cut 600 meters into the landscape, moon-like desert plains and huge sand-dunes and endemic plants that are completely different from anything I’ve seen.”

The archipelago has four islands, of which one is uninhabited and two others have only 450 and 100 residents respectively. Schulze visited only the main island, also called Socotra, which covers an area of 3,625 square kilometers. He has published a book of photographs and the story of his travels, called “Socotra, an island.”

The tribal Bedouin people of Socotra live mostly from goat herding, date plantations and fishing.

The population of the islands is estimated at 44,000, according to the Socotra Governance and Biodiversity Project (SGBP). However, Schulze said there appeared to be far fewer people, with official figures including many who now live elsewhere.

Although the official language is Arabic, most people speak an unwritten Socotri language of pre-Islamic origin, according to the SGBP.

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Schulze received hospitality from the Bedouin people of Socotra, staying in their homes and eating with them, but said he was never quite able to bridge the cultural divide he felt.

“I discovered I was alien to the people and they were alien to me,” he said. “They were extremely hospitable, they welcomed me in their houses and I had tea with the village elders, but there was an invisible world of extreme cultural difference.”

Schulze said he also witnessed the devastating impact of industrial fishing on the island’s small boats.

“I was a guest of fishermen on the coast and there were days when they didn’t catch anything so there was nothing to eat but yesterday’s bread,” he said.

“They are often victim of pirate European fishing trawlers illegally depleting their stocks, because neither Yemen nor (nearby) Somalia has effective coast guard to stop them.

“I realized for the first time what overfishing means. It’s not about running out of tuna in 10 years’ time, it means people will starve now because they don’t get their daily fish.”

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He visited Socotra three times over a year, each time for three weeks, in order to see it in different seasons.

Schulze has been unable to return to Socotra with his finished book, and a lack of a postal system makes it impossible to send it there. However, he has presented the book to members of the Friends of Socotra, an international group composed mainly of scientists interested in the unique biodiversity and culture of the islands.

In addition to its endemic plants, reptiles and snails, Socotra has 192 species of land and sea birds, including many threatened species, and diverse marine life, according to UNESCO.

The SGBP says the local population has developed strong traditional rules to protect the island’s natural resources because of its isolated position and history of self-sufficiency.

Schulze’s book is available through his website and at selected bookshops listed on the site.

Scaling Everest honors 1924 Olympic vow

Almost 90 years later, that dream is finally being realized as British climber Kenton Cool attempts to carry one of the medals to the peak of Mount Everest. CNN caught up with Kenton at base camp, where he is tweeting about his climb in real time.

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With less than 100 days until the London Olympics, it’s a touching tribute to the British men who captured the nation’s imagination.

iReporter Udayan Mishra captures trekkers as they walk their final steps to reach Annapurna base camp in Nepal.

“This photo was taken on a dawn hike up to Kala Patthar, towards the end of a two-week trek from Lukla to Everest Base Camp. It is about minus 30 degrees Celsius without taking into consideration the wind chill. A truly spectacular region – I can’t wait to go back,” says iReporter Ruth Stewart.

“Beholding the sunrise taking its time was an amazing experience and was worth all the walk uphill. The Fishtail Mountain, 6,997 meters (22,950 feet) on left, seemed to have been waiting for the first rays of sunshine to fall on it for quite some time,” says iReporter Udayan Mishra.

iReporter Ruth Stewart says her two-week trek to Everest Base Camp was one of the most challenging treks she has ever done.

iReporter Joseph Orona took this photograph of Mount Everest from a commercial aircraft flying from Lhasa, Tibet, to Kathmandu, Nepal.

“I first trekked in Nepal in the early 1980s. Without doubt, Himalayan glaciers in Nepal have shrunk dramatically during this period,” says iReporter Barry Wenlock.

“When the first sunlight hit the Himalayas, I was captured by the soft golden color of the first sunrise,” says iReporter Duangmon Chaturapitaporn.

“Don’t be discouraged, the Annapurna Circuit is a trail for almost everyone. There are tea houses along the way which offer a clean and simple place to stay and eat. There are even options to hire porters and guides, though for an experienced hiker, we didn’t feel it was necessary. This is one of the most amazing treks in the world and we can’t wait to go back to do it again!” says iReporter Dean Gakos.

“Home to the highest monastery in Nepal, the Tengboche Monastery is situated in the Khumjung Valley, Solukhumbu, within the Sagarmatha (Everest) National Park, Nepal. A peaceful, quiet, chilled and serene place, it is also home for Buddhist monks,” says iReporter Kuna Rajandran.

Trekking in Nepal

Everest may be taller, but real mountaineers know no peak on the planet beats K2 for sheer intensity.

You can hire a four-wheel drive to take you within five meters of the summit of the steaming Bromo National Park volcanoes.

If you want to go back to the birthplace of mountaineering the Matterhorn is the place to be.

Kilimanjaro is a top pick for sightseeing. You’ll travel through five different climactic zones en route to the “roof of Africa” and many guides offer safaris as an end-of-climb addition that will appeal to all ages.

If you’re short on time and trekking experience, it only takes two days to climb Grand Tetons’ peaks, making it a quick and easy way to get classic scenery and name appeal.

Le Corbusier called the Dolomites, “the most beautiful architectures in the world.”

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More than 250 Guardsmen mark 100 days until the London 2012 Olympics starts on on July 27. They are at Horse Guards Parade in central London, which will host beach volleyball.

China, which hosted the previous Olympics in 2008, also marked the milestone as athletes performed outside the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing.

Melissa Wu, a diving silver medallist four years ago, poses with Australia’s Boxing Kangaroo Olympic mascot as the 100-day landmark is celebrated in Sydney.

The future of London’s new Olympic stadium is one of the unresolved issues surrounding the Games’ legacy.

Olympic mascots Wenlock and Mandeville strike a pose outside the London 2012 store at Heathrow Airport.

Giant Olympic rings are towed on the River Thames in front of the city’s iconic Tower of London on February 28, 2012.

The Arcelor Mittal Orbit viewing platform seen next to the Olympic stadium. World-renowned sculptor Anish Kapoor designed the skyscraping sculpture that stands at 115 meters high.

London 2012 Olympic Torchbearers Dinah Gould and Dominic John MacGowan pose with Mayor of London Boris Johnson on March 19, 2012.

The Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, meets Great Britain’s Hockey Team at London’s Olympic Park on March 15, 2012.

Members of the emergency services take part in a London Olympics security drill entitled Exercise Forward Defensive on February 22, 2012. The exercise was to test responses to a possible terrorist incident during the Games.

British rowing legend Matthew Pinsent helps lift in the first of 16,000 beds to be installed in London’s Olympic Village on January 26, 2012.

Analyst Jignasha Patel prepares a sample for testing in the anti-doping laboratory which will test athletes’ samples from the London 2012 Games on January 19, 2012.

Workers carry out the installation of artist Monica Bonvicini’s “RUN’”sculpture in the plaza of the London 2012 Handball Arena at the Olympic Park on January 12, 2012.

Models wear the Volunteers Uniform for London 2012 at a photocall at the Olympic Park on November 22, 2011.

Organizers expect 80% of the eight million ticket-holders to use the various rail systems, including the tube, during the Games. There will also be an Olympic Route Network where road traffic will be shut off to allow 55,000 athletes, officials and media to get to venues each day.

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London 2012 Olympics: 100 days to go

The salute that changed the world

(CNN) — Facebook’s $104 billion initial public offering comes at a time when the United States is suffering a bout of self-doubt. Many wonder if America is falling behind as other countries are catching up fast. And yet the Facebook phenomenon did not occur in a vacuum.

You might say it could have happened anywhere. But it happened in America. And there was a reason for that.

A company created almost on a whim by a handful of college students rocketed to worldwide popularity in under a decade, bringing together some 900 million users and in the process transformed the way people communicate and interact with each other.

It’s no coincidence that Facebook, like Google, Apple, Twitter and Intel, started in the United States. It’s also no coincidence the car, the airplane, the light bulb and the telephone were invented here. The fact that America is the birthplace of revolutionary ideas is not an accident.

Here are some of things Facebook tells us about America — not just what is right but what requires careful, urgent nurturing to preserve.

Still brewing that magic potion

The modern world knows there is a special, mysterious magic about America. Despite many serious problems, the main ingredients of that unique recipe remain. The United States has created an environment that fosters innovation and promotes creativity. There is no better place on earth to break with convention, think differently and blaze one’s own path. America’s government may look dysfunctional, its schools leave much to be desired and its financial institutions have the potential to cause disasters, but on the individual level the drive to dream big is as strong as ever. And the structure of support for those who have great ideas is still in place.

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The days when Washington’s wish was the world’s command are over. But America’s “soft power” lives on. The great events of our time have unfolded partly as a result of American technologies. The Arab Spring of 2011 was aided by Facebook and Twitter. Interpersonal relationships have been recast by social media. The industrialized world could hardly function without its Google searches and iPhones. American movies, TV shows and music are emulated.

The drive of immigrant minds

America’s not-so-secret formula has always included attracting immigrants and helping them and their children flourish. According to a report by the Partnership for a New American Economy, more than 40% of the 2010 Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children. One of Facebook’s founders, Eduardo Saverin, was born in Brazil. Google’s co-founder, Sergey Brin, came from Russia. Zuckerberg’s ancestors, as well as those of Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, were Jewish immigrants. As long as America continues to attract and welcome people with intelligence and entrepreneurial spirit, the country will pulsate with creative force.

Designed in America, made in China

Americans may be rolling out one great idea after another, but other countries are getting many of the jobs that come from its inventions. The iPad alone has created 700,000 manufacturing jobs in China. While American students are falling behind in international tests, the U.S. still has one of the best higher education systems in the world. We need to make sure our students not only attend college, but study the areas that will be critical to the future: science, technology, engineering and math. Maybe then they will find the ways that will allow American ideas to fuel employment in the country.

Government policies matter

Facebook is successful because bright minds created it, venture capitalists supported it and consumers embraced it. But that’s not the whole story. Facebook and other similar high-profile companies would not have made it without the right government decisions, ones that made the Internet possible or lowered the price of the microchips. While government funding of key industries is crucial, so is the decision to get out of the way at the right moment. America is one of the world’s best places to do business since government does not interfere much with the private sector. China is trying desperately to become a science and technology competitor to America, but it drove Google out of the country and its heavy-handed tactics have led to technology that mostly copies other countries’ ideas.

It’s not always about money

In the United States, people can make monumental fortunes when they have good ideas. But many of the most influential entrepreneurs are driven more by a sense of mission than materialistic pursuits. Zuckerberg could have sold out years ago and lived a life of luxury. Steve Jobs seemed unconcerned with worldly comforts. The real driver for these innovators is a wish to create and build. Those people whose only goal is to make millions sometimes live less fulfilling lives and occasionally cause serious trouble for the economy. Getting rich is fine, but it’s good for society and the world when individuals work to build more than just a fortune. Young technology entrepreneurs can follow the examples of the giants of their field. As a society, America should highlight the need to create and build, not just accumulate.

So, hurrah for Facebook. Hurrah to those who have transformed the world and our lives. And congratulations to America for creating a place where people’s ideas can become reality. Now learn from what you did right, America. And remember, others countries are also learning from America’s success. The secret is out.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Frida Ghitis.

The musical ‘voice of South Africa’

Editor’s note: African Voices highlights Africa’s most engaging personalities, exploring the lives and passions of people who rarely open themselves up to the camera.

Watch the show: Friday : 0730, Saturday :1430, Sunday : 0800,1730, Monday : 0930,1630, Tuesday : 0430 (all times GMT)

(CNN) — He is lauded as one of Africa’s most unique voices, with a fanbase stretching across the world, but South African singing sensation Vusi Mahlasela remains faithful to his roots.

For more than 20 years, the legendary singer has been celebrated globally for his powerful vocals and universal messages of freedom and human kindness. He has toured the world extensively and collaborated with major music stars such as Sting, Paul Simon and Dave Matthews.

But despite all his success and international acclaim, Mahlasela still resides in Mamelodi, the small township northeast of Pretoria where he grew up and nurtured his passion and talent for music.

He says it all started for him here.

“Quite a lot of inspirations and also some of the songs that I wrote, I penned them here in Mamelodi,” says Mahlasela, who is known in South Africa as “The Voice.” “I still have very strong connections with this place,” he adds. “I feel rooted and connected to this place, I love it.”

A humble star, Mahlasela?s roots are reflected in his songs and lyrics, many written during one of the toughest times in South Africa?s history — the fight against apartheid.

Vusi Mahlasela with artists including Joss Stone and Angelique Kidjo at the 2007 Live Earth press conference in South Africa.

Somali rapper K’naan makes songs in the key of love

Perhaps his most famous song, “When You Come Back,” has become an anthem in the country, celebrating the return of those who escaped apartheid and lived in exile.

Mahlasela says the song’s hopeful lyrics, written years before South Africa?s democratic change, were also for those arrested, like former South African president Nelson Mandela — not surprisingly, Mahlasela was asked in 1994 to perform at Mandela?s inauguration.

With Dave Stewart, Cyndi Lauper, Angelique Kidjo, Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Baaba Maal and Jesse Clegg during the Mandela Day concert.

Passionate about spreading the traditional African philosophy, Ubuntu, many of Mahlasela?s global tours throughout his career have been benefit concerts. He has also become an ambassador to the 46664 foundation — named after Mandela?s prison number and dedicated to raising awareness about HIV/AIDS.

“That spirit of collective good, it’s still in the principle of ubuntu,” he says. “Everyday kindness, love, forgiveness, reconciliation, so everything about us that makes us human.”

Honoring a career that spans 20 years and 10 albums, Mahlasela was recently given a lifetime achievement award in South Africa.

Watch: Vusi Mahlasela’s creative process

The singer is now focusing on helping younger generations, supporting Africa?s future generation of musicians and songwriters through the foundation he created in 2000.

“It is to give music lessons, but also to develop even those who are playing already and we do have outreach programs for primary schools,” says Mahlasela.

“They’re trying to encourage the schools and the governments to give lessons to the young ones and to encourage also the musicians or the students to start picking up folk, indigenous, traditional instruments, because it’s something that they really have to be proud of and to infuse them with Western instruments.”

On stage, Ubuntu shines through. Mahlasela?s distinctive vocals blend in wonderfully with his enchanting music, taking the listeners on an emotional journey.

“My music is sort of more accessible to every listener, young and old, they love my music,” he says.

“And I’ve seen it also happen that I have also gotten that energy back from the people — performing and after that when I’m going out there to sign CDs people will come to me with quite a lot of different great compliments, so it gives me the pleasurable feeling that I can really give something to the people and that will really change their lives to the better.”

(CNN) — After being photographed without makeup while in Vancouver last month, candid shots of AnnaLynne McCord hit the Web, with with one site noting: “Her facial blemishes were completely visible.”

“This is newsworthy? Me not wearing makeup,” the “90210″ recently actress told CNN. “The more I thought about it, the more upset I got.”

And so, one week later, in her New York hotel room, a barefaced McCord snapped a photo of herself and posted it on Twitter for her more than 140,000 followers to see.

In the past few months, stars such as Bethenny Frankel and Jennifer Love Hewitt have also shared fresh-faced pictures of themselves via their Twitter accounts. Meanwhile, actresses Zooey Deschanel and Paula Patton, among others, posed without makeup for People’s Most Beautiful issue.

And we can’t help but look.

“It’s human nature,” said Brian Solis, a principle media analyst at Altimer Group. “There’s a level of mystique to celebrity, and social media can either add to it or take away from it.” More celebrities are realizing this and jumping on the au naturel-twitpic bandwagon, he added.

“A new generation of publicists are working with their (celebrity clients) to build this much more everyday relationship with fans, where social media is a channel that keeps them relevant in between the things they do that actually make them a celebrity,” Solis said. “(Publicists) will encourage celebrities to share more natural shots, but not completely unmade-up shots.”

For McCord, who said posting the photo was her reaction to society’s unrealistic standards of beauty, the act was just “spur of the moment. … I wasn’t even wearing Chapstick.”

“I was angry,” she said. “There are days where you just want to scream something to the world, and with social networking we can.”

But it’s not just the pictures celebrities share via social media that attract attention. On Tuesday, Us Weekly published the headline, “Beyonce Wears shorts, almost no makeup at Broadway show,” along with a picture of the fresh-faced singer.

Demi Lovato received similar attention last month when E! praised the 19-year-old for tweeting a photo along with the message: “No makeup.”

People are either looking to see a celebrity’s imperfections, to make them feel better about themselves, or because they’re a fan and they find it endearing, Solis said. But just like fans have different reasons for looking at such photos, he added, celebrities have different reasons for posting them.

While some people in the public eye might share a makeup-free photo to “build a more natural relationship with their community,” others might be blindly oversharing or merely pretending to foster a more organic relationship with fans, Solis said.

It loses something when the celebrity is posing in a beautiful setting with their hair done, and hoping it gets picked up by a magazine, he said, adding, “Like, ‘here’s a staged shot of me looking natural.’ “

McCord said she was on Skype when she decided to post a picture of herself without makeup.

“I was looking at (myself in the inset) and I was like, ‘You know what, I don’t care … that I have little dots on my face sometimes,’ ” she said.

Unsure, at the time, of how people would react to the photo, she added, “I thought, ‘You can excommunicate me from Hollywood if that’s what having blemishes does.’ “

Unlike the responses elicited by the candid photographs taken of McCord in Vancouver, fans and media outlets have praised the actress for her post.

“I was just reacting,” she said. “But because my reaction was to own what (the tabloids) were saying about me, I took the wind out of their sails, so to speak.”

McCord said many of her followers have thanked her via Twitter, and that one follower responded by posting her own makeup-free picture to the social networking site.

“I wake up and I go to work and I have a whole makeup and hair team make me up the way people usually see me,” McCord said. “I’m like a little doll. … I don’t try, in my personal life, to live up to that. … I’m very au naturel. I like to let my hair down. Let my skin breathe.”

And the actress hasn’t gone back.

Sporting only foundation and Burt’s Bees tinted lip color of late, she’s named her new makeup regime “the Dominic Purcell-look,” after her boyfriend, who she said encourages her to flaunt her natural beauty.

Whether more celebrities will follow suit in their daily lives remains to be seen. But, as Solis said, as long as people are receptive to such photos, you can bet the stars will be tweeting.

Trelise Cooper, pictured here at her home in Auckland, is an internationally acclaimed fashion designer. Having established herself with a range of popular boutique stores in the 1980s, the New Zealander went on to design clothes for the likes of Liv Tyler, Julia Roberts and even the cast of U.S. sitcom Sex and the City.

A model exhibits clothes from Cooper’s recent Spring range. Noted for her bold use of pattern, attention to detail and intricate stitching, Cooper has ascended the fashion world despite never having trained as either a designer or seamstress.

The view from Cooper’s beach-side home along the Auckland coast. Of her home country, Cooper says it’s a source of great creativity and freshness. “Being the first people to see the sun rise each morning, gives us a sort of freshness, an edginess,” she said.

The dusty heat of New Delhi proved a sharp contrast to the breezy Auckland air. For Cooper, the city’s “Red Fort” (pictured) epitomizes the flamboyant yet earthy Indian style.

During her journey, Cooper strolled the streets of New Delhi, taking inspiration from the exotic, bright colors and the traditional stitch-work of the local garments.

Cooper described the crowded shopping district as “exciting and chaotic and noisy and dusty and smoky and hot.” This, however, was small price to pay for the astonishing array of fabrics and accessories pouring from every street-side stall and shop.

The New Zealander was thrilled to find this particular outlet, calling it “a treasure trove of fabrics and other goodies,” including textiles, ribbons, bows, buttons and beads. She took samples back with her to her fashion studio in Auckland.

After months of preparation, Cooper’s “Fusion Journey” creations were ready for public view. This dress, with its gem-like embellishments, was hand-beaded in Delhi.

As this striking rainbow print illustrates, Cooper drew heavily from the Indian palette of vibrant colours to create her new line.

Here, the detailed embroidery of the fabric mirrors the intricate henna patterns adorning many Indian women’s hands

This fully sequinned dress, meanwhile, is inspired by the azure blue color of the Indian Ocean.

Most of all, Cooper returned to New Zealand inspired by the expert craftsmanship she encountered. This dress, with its ruffles and appliqué, was created using the delicate hand-stitching techniques still practiced across India.

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Editor’s note: Part culture show, part travel show, over six weeks Fusion Journeys takes six stars of the creative world to a location of their choice. There, they will create something new inspired by their experience.

(CNN) — With a star-studded client list that includes Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lindsay Lohan, Julia Roberts and Michelle Pfeiffer, Trelise Cooper is an internationally known fashion designer.

Starting out with a boutique store in Auckland, New Zealand, during the mid-1980s, Cooper’s ascent onto the fashion stage — and the front covers of Vogue and Marie Claire — is made more remarkable by the fact that she never received any formal training as either a designer or seamstress.

Instead, Cooper relied on her self-confessed “obsession” for detail, as well as a natural eye for fashion. “I was born a fashion designer” she says, and soon after she set up shop, her clothes acquired a reputation for their bold use of pattern and intricate stitching.

Cooper took up the “Fusion Journey” challenge to travel from New Zealand to New Delhi, India’s capital. Although it’s a city she had been to on business many times before, she says that she’d never allowed herself the time to study its traditional dress in earnest.

See more Fusion Journeys

There she was tasked with creating a new fashion line that would combine her own sophisticated modern style with the vibrant, brightly colored traditions of Indian dress-making.

In her own words, Cooper retraces the footsteps of her Fusion Journey.

Fashion designer Trelise Cooper

Trelise Cooper: I absolutely adore the historical aspect of clothing. My ranges are full of influences from 19th-century French, English, even American vintage styles. So it’s no surprise I have always enjoyed combing through flea markets in small towns and finding rare antique gems to steal some inspiration.

I’m also obsessed with detail, so when I find a Victorian gown or a 50s bridal slip that I like, then it’s important for me to be able to emulate the exact stitching, embroidery or beading used at the time. In the West, unfortunately, most of our expert hand-stitching traditions have been lost — the skills have not been passed on and the seamstress geniuses from the couture houses of Europe have not been replaced.

That is why I’m often traveling to India. It’s one of the very best places in the world to find that expertise still thriving. From one village to the next you find whole families, generations, that have their own specialties of stitch work.

Honestly, I can give them any old historical piece that I’ve found and they will either take it away and recreate it almost perfectly, or they’ll say “hmmm … I don’t know this stitching, but I know a place nearby that does.” It’s a fashion designer’s dream!

So in one sense, I’ve been fusing my clothes with Indian influences for a while. However, I think this was the first time I’ve traveled to India with a conscious intention to create a fusion of styles: their own traditional dress with my more modern, western creations.

I just love the color and the vibrancy that is India. New Delhi is exciting and chaotic and noisy and dusty and smoky and hot. Everything is so full of intense color and I realized that, on a subconscious level at least, I’ve been influenced by Indian style … In fact, when it comes to bold use of colors and the use of these rich, deep dyes, how can anyone deny the huge influence of India on fashion around the world?

Read related: Dancing to the music of love in Buenos Aires

Walking through the streets, you see color combinations that you’d never imagine would work. I recall a beautiful woman wearing a sari in bright, radiant pink mixed with a lime green print. I mean, lime and pink! It sounds garish, but on her, with the quality of the dye and the way the colors had been combined it looked absolutely stunning.

We made our way to a shop that I can only describe as a treasure trove of fabrics and other goodies. This was the place to find all the accessories, textiles, ribbons, bows, buttons, and beads that I could take back to my studio in Auckland to use as inspiration for the final creations.

There were ideas there, old and new, that I’d never thought about. Already I could envisage opportunities to use all sorts of different laces and braids, detailed examples of hand stitching, with some other antique dresses we’d picked up from a local supplier.

Much as I love them personally, I don’t sell things like saris — and I never would — it’s not a style that would appeal to the tastes of my particular customers. However, what I took back to New Zealand, was their techniques, their intense celebratory colors, their detailed embellishments, their expert use of beads and sequins.

I worked on the new line for many months, and these are the elements I hope I managed to incorporate into them. I think they’ve added an opulence, a romance. But I’ll only know I have finished the creative process when someone comes in and says that, no matter what, they have to have it.

The garment takes them on a journey, and so my journey with the garment has finished.

Editor’s note: Dov Seidman is the author of “HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything” and CEO of LRN a company that helps businesses develop values-based corporate cultures. You can follow Dov on Twitter at @DovSeidman and join the HOW community on Facebook.

(CNN) — Our world has rapidly gone from being connected to interconnected to interdependent. When the world is tied together this intimately, everyone’s values and behavior matter more than ever, because our actions affect more people than ever and in ways they never have.

Such was the case when one banker exposed his company’s culture in the New York Times and as a direct result his bank reportedly lost $2.15 billion overnight in market value and a debate erupted on social media over banking industry practices.

Today, “how” we do what we do — our behavior individually and organizationally — not only matters more than ever, it matters in ways it never has before.

The fact that customers can instantly compare price, features, quality and service requires leaders to fundamentally rethink how their organizations operate and how their people conduct business.

Competitive advantage has shifted from what we do to how. Further, we are now asking more of our employees than we ever did in the past. We ask employees to represent their company and nurture its brand, not only when they’re on the job, but whenever they publicly express themselves in tweets, blog posts, emails, or any other social interaction.

We’re asking for distinctly human qualities and behaviors and how leaders elicit and guide those inspired behaviors must shift accordingly.

Here are steps you can take to become a more inspired leader.

Connect and collaborate, don’t command and control

The days of leading companies via a one-way conversation are over. Power has shifted and our leadership must shift with it. The old system of “command and control” to exert power over people is fast being replaced by “connect and collaborate” — to generate power through people. Leaders and managers cannot just impose their will.

Now you have to have a two-way conversation that connects deeply with your colleagues, customers and other stakeholders. Netflix found this out the hard way last year when they lost 800,000 subscribers after arbitrarily increasing prices and splitting up their distribution channels without explaining their actions.

Inspire, don’t only motivate or coerce

There are three ways to get people to do things: coercion, motivation or inspiration. Leaders need to focus more on inspiration and less on coercion and motivation, since external rewards and carrots and sticks have limitations, particularly in hard times when there are fewer carrots to go round.

See also: Want to be a leader? Act like one

Those who have flown on Southwest Airlines can testify how flight attendants are encouraged to flex their creativity and sense of humor when walking passengers through the mundane process of safety procedures. There is no rule book; rather Southwest’s culture inspires its employees to innovate in their behavior. Yet Southwest is the exception rather than the rule.

Business today faces an inspiration deficit as demonstrated recently by “The How Report,” an independent study that my company LRN conducted with the Boston Research Group and Research Data Technology.

The report found that CEOs are six times more likely than “average workers” to believe they work in a company where people are inspired. Employees said they were primarily coerced (84%) or motivated (12%) by carrots and sticks at work rather than inspired by values and a commitment to a mission and purpose (4%).

Yet the study reveals that companies that do inspire their people through values significantly outperform those who don’t. These companies experience higher levels of innovation, employee loyalty, and customer satisfaction, and lower levels of misconduct, employee fear of speaking up, and retaliation.

Behavior as offense, not defense

The most successful sports coaches have shown that behavior is no longer a defensive tactic. Instead, behavior is now an offensive strategy that inspirational leaders need to deploy all over the pitch to create the conditions that result in the game being won, not just being played. There are simply too many shots on goal for them to block in our radically interconnected world. The best defense is to keep the ball.

Behavior has become a powerful source of excellence and competitive advantage. Bosses can no longer get away with telling subordinates, “Just get it done — I don’t care how.” Today’s successful leaders are those who flip the switch and replace task-based jobs (which are about what people must do) with values-based missions (how we get things done).

Extend trust, don’t inspect for it

We live in an era when trust is the currency of the age and the key to a winning business strategy.

But the value of trust lies in finding ways to give it away. A New York City donut maker boosted his productivity and profits through trusting his customers to make their own change, illustrating in practice the inspired behaviors that flow from extending trust.

The extension of trust is the key enabler that inspires others to take the risks that are so essential to spurring innovation. It is in this innovation that real performance and, most importantly, real progress are seen. This is the basic formula for thriving in our hyperconnected, hypertransparent world.

See also: Why we pick bad leaders

Recognize and reward for “how” and not “what”

Leaders and managers should go out of their way to recognize employees for how they do what they do, not for what they do or how much they get done. This could consist of starting their next meeting not by asking “What is on the agenda?” but “How are we going to connect and collaborate to make a difference?”

Or it could be emphasizing a principled decision that a colleague has made for their company in the interests of long-term sustainability at the expense of short-term expediency. Today’s most successful leaders realize the need to relinquish traditional modes of control and set an example to their employees for how they lead, speak and manage performance.

Hire for character, not just skill

“Who” is an anagram of “how” and in a world where “how” matters more than ever, it takes “who” to do “how.” The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “Character is fate” and it is the responsibility of leaders to enlist employees who can contribute their full character and creativity to perform their best work and whose reason and purpose for going to work every day extends beyond their paycheck.

By inspiring their employees to pursue a higher, more meaningful purpose and achieve real sustainable value, leaders can achieve significance, not just long-term success.

Confucius said over 2,000 years ago: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” The leaders who commit their companies to go on a journey to find new ways to innovate in “how” will be those whose organizations thrive, not just survive, in the 21st century.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dov Seidman.

Executive participants strain to stay afloat as they attempt to cross a lake in a vessel they have built on an Adventure Associates retreat in North Carolina, USA.

The boat goes down.

A man tries out the Jetlev water jet pack. First-time “flyers” can reach up to 15 feet; the jet pack can propel flyers a maximum of 30 feet high.

An executive participant strains before breaking an arrow pressed against her throat on a Be Legendary retreat in the desert in Nevada, USA.

A “quinzhee” snow shelter prepared by a corporate participant on a “Deep Snow Survival” retreat in the San Juan range in the Rocky Mountains.

Corporate participants are briefed ahead of taking to the skies for a dogfight.

A participant prepares for take off next to their instructor at Air Combat USA.

The view from the cockpit of a SIAI-Marchetti fighter plane ahead of an “executive dogfight.”

James Carter is CEO of Be Legendary, an American company that offers extreme “survival retreats,” held in the blazing heat of Nevada’s deserts, or the avalanche country of the San Juan range in the Rocky Mountains.

“The basics of human survival are shelter and security,” says Carter. “Executives, if they’ve ever lived in that world, have completely forgotten what it’s like.”

“We do what the military does in a safer way — to break them down so we can build them back up again. We give them the skills to survive.”

See also: To reach the top, do what others won’t

The desert experience involves archery and a “fire walk” across hot coals. The latter activity is intended to leave participants energized and on a “spiritual high,” ready to attempt an even more cathartic challenge — having an arrow pressed against their throat until it snapped.

“The arrows take 25 pounds of pressure to break, and it takes 75 pounds of pressure to pierce skin. But all of that information doesn’t matter when you’ve got an arrow against your neck,” said Carter.

“Even though they know they won’t really be hurt, there’s still a sharp pain. That’s a watershed moment when people cry.”

Perhaps even more grueling is the “Deep Snow Survival” retreat, held in the Rockies. Participants are given snowshoes, beacons and taught alpine survival skills, before trekking deep into avalanche country. Their guides then tell them there has been an avalanche, that they will have to overnight in the snow, and they need to begin building snow shelters immediately.

“Here’s a real survival situation,” said Carter. “You’ll see someone who starts absolutely busting their butt to build a shelter. But if you sweat in that environment you’ll get hypothermia. So you have to make sure they ease off, you have to take care of one another.”

After a couple of hours, when the participants have built their shelters, they are collected, told there is no avalanche and returned to base. Although the avalanche is not real, the camaraderie and shared experience it inspired is genuine, Carter said, which is the true value of the exercise.

“That night the beer we share around the fireplace has never been sweeter,” he said. “There’s more color in the world. That memo you wrote last week, the one I was so annoyed about, doesn’t matter now. Everything is put into perspective.”

Adventure Associates is another firm that specializes in physically demanding corporate retreats. On one of their regular offerings, based in North Carolina, participants are made to cycle, hike or kayak in pursuit of tokens they will then exchange for materials that can be used to make a boat. Having designed and built the boat, they must then try to row it across a lake.

According to Adventure Associates director Ed Tilley, the retreat, with its mix of experiential challenges and corporate-training workshops, provides a good forum to strengthen team dynamics and implement communication and decision-making skills.

“It enables our clients to put into practice some of the skills they’ve been learning — how to manage different team members’ strengths, and manage around their weaknesses,” said Tilley.

See also: Want to be a leader? Act like one

If that all sounds a little arduous, there are other offerings that focus on out-of-the ordinary bonding experiences that are more about thrills than endurance.

Jetlev Southwest, headquartered in Newport Beach, California, frequently caters to executive groups — particularly from the tech industry — seeking a novel team-building experience. A day out of the office trialling the Jetlev R200 — a personal, water-powered jet pack that can propel the wearer 30 feet in the air over water — fits the bill.

“It’s a bonding experience, one that very few people in the world have ever had,” said trainer Dean O’Malley, adding that first-time users typically managed to reach heights of 10 to 15 feet with the jet pack.

Another option for executives seeking an invigorating buzz is to take to the skies in an Italian military training plane for an old-fashioned dog fight.

Headquartered in Fullerton, California, Air Combat USA operates what marketing director Denise Jennings describes as a “fantasy camp for wannabe fighter pilots.” Corporate groups receive training before taking to the sky in a SIAI-Marchetti fighter under the supervision of an instructor. A popular format is for corporate groups to book the aircraft for the day so they can operate a 10-person knock-out dog fight tournament.

Jennings said that as well as being a unique and physically demanding team-building exercise — “People come back and say they feel like they’ve run a marathon” — the experience appealed to competitive spirits of “Type-A personality” executives. “They’re drawn to the fact that somebody’s going to walk away the top gun.”

Editor’s note: Each month, Inside the Middle East takes you behind the headlines to see a different side of this diverse region. Follow us on on Twitter: Presenter Rima Maktabi: @rimamaktabi, producer Jon Jensen: @jonjensen and writer Cat Davies @catrionadavies

Doha, Qatar (CNN) — Bahiya Al-Hamad is a 19-year-old college student and air-rifle shooter who is about to make history for her country.

When she travels to London to take part in the Olympic Games this summer, she will be part of the first group of Qatari women ever to compete at the Olympics.

Qatar is one of only three countries — the others are Saudi Arabia and Brunei — which have never sent female athletes to an Olympics Games. This year, three women will represent Qatar at London 2012. The others are swimmer Nada Arkaji and sprinter Noor al-Malki.

All three women have been given wild cards, but there is still a weight of expectation that is not lost of Al-Hamad.

“It’s an accomplishment for every Qatari woman,” she said. “I hope I can live up to their expectation.”

Training at her shooting club outside Qatar’s capital Doha, Al-Hamad added: “Every athlete’s dream is to reach the Olympics.”

Competing in London in July and August will be a high point in her life as well as a historic moment for Qatar. “I will be very excited to go see the atmosphere there and it will sure be one the most special days of my life,” she said.

Qatar’s first female Olympians

See also: Will Saudi women make Olympics debut?

One of her shooting club colleagues, Ali Rashid al-Mohannadi, 21, Gulf and Arab champion, and a senior engineering student, said he has nothing but respect for Al-Hamad.

“I think women now are better than us,” he said. “I’m very happy, because she’s a talented shooter. I’m very happy for her, and I hope she does well in the Olympic Games.”

However, not everyone in his socially conservative country feel the same.

“I feel men don’t realize the idea yet, but it depends,” said Al-Hamad. “Some of them are OK with it, some are not. They say ‘you’re a girl and you shoot?’”

She added: “Before, shooting was only for guys but now it became normal for females to an extent. When they saw women emerging in shooting they became a little bit more accepting.”

Also on Inside the Middle East: Iraqi artist inspired by George W Bush shoe thrower

Al-Hamad, who is in her foundation year at Qatar University, is now training two hours a day, five days a week with her Uzbeki coach to be ready to compete alongside the world’s greatest 10-meter rifle shooters.

“We participated in the junior Olympic Games in Singapore two years back but the result was not good,” said her coach, Ivan Shahov. “But I hope with this Olympic Games we have a chance.”

These are just some of the most common reports of bribery that can be found in ipaidabribe.or.ke, a recently-launched website dedicated to battling rampant public corruption in Kenya and uncovering its economic impact.

The initiative, which was launched last December by Antony Ragui, a 37-year-old financial services consultant, allows victims of graft to share their bribe stories anonymously and track incidents of corruption online.

“I came back to the country from the States about four years ago and I would listen to a lot of Kenyans complain about corruption on social media, on Twitter, on private blogs and I basically got tired of it,” says Ragui. “I said now it’s time for me to do something different.”

Antony Ragui is the founder of ipaidabribe.or.ke.

Read more: Crooked top officials should take a fall, says Kenyan corruption chief

Based on a similar site launched a few years ago in India to curb corruption, Ragui’s online platform is divided in three categories, containing detailed information about the amount of money paid and the location of the bribe.

The first section contains stories about bribes that were paid, breaking down the numbers by region and government department. The second collects stories from people who refused to pay a bribe, while the third contains stories of honesty, where citizens were not asked to pay a public official.

Until now, Ragui’s site has hosted nearly 600 cases of, mainly petty, bribery worth around 17 million Kenyan shillings (£204,000).

“Corruption is a huge issue: it’s so endemic and the worst part about it is it becomes a way of life,” says Ragui, who’s also about to roll out an SMS service that will allow citizens to report their stories instantaneously via their mobile phones.

“So what I’m trying to do with the site essentially is to get people to create a network of anti-corruption people — people who feel that this has to come to an end and we need to make a difference.”

Opinion: Can Kenya avoid Africa’s resource curse?

According to anti-corruption group Transparency International, Kenya is one of the world’s most corrupt countries. The group’s 2011 East African Bribery Index said that there is a 67% chance that Kenyans would be expected to pay a bribe every time they interacted with the police. Overall, the cost of corruption in Africa is estimated at more than $148 billion a year, according to African Union estimates.

Yet ipaidabribe.or.ke is not the only attempt to use information technology as a tool in the fight against corruption in Africa as an increasing number of similar websites have popped up across the continent.

Also based on India’s I Paid A Bribe, Bribe Nigeria was set up last summer by Leonard Raphael to raise awareness about corruption and address its impact on the West African country.

“Corruption is an endemic disease that has eaten up every facet of the Nigerian society,” says Raphael, pointing to the case of a father who was asked by police officers to give them money for fuel after they came to his house to search for his son who was just kidnapped.

“As soon as corruption can be controlled in Nigeria, every other sustainable development can henceforth progress,” adds Raphael.

In South Africa, Corruption Watch was launched in late January in a bid to encourage people to join their voices against the problem.

So far, the group says it has collected some 1,200 reports from all corners of the country through its online reporting form, an SMS line, social media and by email or post.

“It’s designed principally to show to people that by reporting and by speaking up something can happen,” says the group’s executive director David Lewis. “The way of changing things in a democracy is to speak up and to speak as much as possible with a connected voice,” he adds.

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Ben Elers, director of programs at Transparency International, says that all these initiatives can be a powerful tool in the fight against corruption.

“I think they are essential in giving citizens a voice, they’re enabling them to voice their frustrations,” he says.

He adds, however, that since the complaints are generally anonymous, it can be difficult to follow up on them.

“Ultimately they are tools and what happens afterwards in changing the physical world is what counts at the end of the day,” he says. “So, they are critical but in of themselves they’re not sufficient, they need concrete follow-up afterwards.”

Back in Kenya, Ragui is optimistic that the use of technology can help things change.

“Kenyans are tired,” he says. “We need a new generation of Kenyans who are actually positive, hard-working, people who don’t want to get a short-term gain, people who are actually thinking the only way to make a difference in our country is for people to say no to corruption.”

El Cajon, California (CNN) — Khalid Yohana was 7 years old when war reached his hometown of Mosul, Iraq.

For years, even the simplest activities, like walking to school, were an ordeal.

“It was too scary to go outside much,” Yohana, now 16, remembers. “If you walk on the street … you’re nervous you’d get killed.”

A group of men once tried to kidnap his father, a chef at a Baghdad restaurant that catered to Americans. The attempt failed, but a threatening letter arrived at his family’s home that same night.

“They warned us to get out of the country or they would kill us. … I was really scared,” Yohana said.

The family fled to a small village north, but when Yohana’s school was bombed a year later, they left Iraq for good. They traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, and applied for refugee status so they could move to the United States legally.

In 2010, Yohana and his family arrived in San Diego. The family appreciated the safety of their new home, but they also encountered new problems. Yohana’s father struggled to find work, and the entire family found it challenging to navigate a new country and culture.

“It was really hard because we (didn’t) speak the language,” Yohana said. He was often so discouraged by his poor English that he wouldn’t even try to do his homework.

Mark Kabban remembers how tough it was for him to adjust to the United States when he was a child.

The social isolation was worse.

“It was really hard to find friends,” Yohana said. “I was just sitting at home.”

While working as a refugee case manager for a nonprofit, Mark Kabban saw many families like Yohana’s struggle to find their footing in the United States.

“You lose a lot of your dignity when you become a refugee,” Kabban said. “You have to flee your country, depend on others. You lose your self-esteem.”

Kabban said the transition can be particularly challenging for children, who face educational and social barriers. The stress they endure often puts them at risk of getting on the wrong track.

“Their families have sacrificed everything for them to get here. So if (their kids) don’t succeed, that’s the biggest tragedy,” said Kabban, 25. “It’s something that I’m not going to allow.”

To help support young refugees, Kabban started the YALLA program in 2009. The name is an acronym for Youth And Leaders Living Actively, but in Arabic it simply means “Let’s go.” YALLA provides free tutoring and soccer training to 200 boys and girls in the San Diego area.

While soccer is what mostly motivates the players, it’s just a carrot to Kabban. Many of his players have missed years of formal schooling on their road to the United States, so the mandatory twice-a-week tutoring sessions are an integral part of the program.

“When they get here, they’re years behind, and they’re years behind in a different language,” Kabban said. “So the need is just immense. We’re working to get them literate in English, getting them … caught up.”

The YALLA staff also makes sure the players are registered to receive 25 hours of one-on-one tutoring from a statewide program. When necessary, YALLA also provides additional tutoring to those who are struggling. The hope is to help everyone get up to grade level and on a path to college.

Do you know a hero? Nominations are open for 2012 CNN Heroes

According to the U.S. State Department, more than 10,000 refugees from around the world have moved to the San Diego area legally since 2007, making it one of the largest refugee resettlement areas in the country.

Many of those newcomers, like Yohana, are Iraqis who are under 18. The vast majority live in El Cajon, a city in San Diego County where YALLA is based. Mark spreads the word about the group by visiting area schools.

Most of the players in the program are Iraqi, but the group has players from across the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Sometimes ethnic and religious differences can lead to conflict, but Kabban says that as the soccer season progresses, the differences fall by the wayside.

“Their families have endured the same struggles,” Kabban said. “When they realize that … they become like brothers and sisters.”

Some children have lost more than their homeland. Some have witnessed one of their parents being killed, or they’ve been kidnapped and tortured themselves. Kabban, who helps run many of the practices, tries to keep the atmosphere serious but fun so that time on the field is a much-needed escape.

“Soccer is (the) best therapy,” Kabban said. “They have an hour or two to forget about everything and just be kids.”

Kabban cares deeply because he faced many of the challenges the refugees are experiencing. He was never officially a refugee, but his family left Beirut during Lebanon’s 15-year civil war, a conflict in which three members of his extended family were killed.

Kabban’s family lived in several places — including the United States, where his father attended college — before permanently immigrating to the San Diego area when Kabban was 9. For him, the social adjustment was particularly rough.

“I had all the wrong clothes on, and I got made fun of,” he said. “They called me ‘poor kid.’ My self-esteem was really, really low.”

That changed when he discovered American football, scoring a touchdown the first time he got the ball.

“Sports was the way I got confident, made friends and felt I was like other kids,” he said. He went on to earn a football scholarship at Baker University, a small private school in Kansas where he studied foreign relations.

After graduating in 2008, Kabban planned to go to Egypt to get a graduate degree in refugee studies. But on a visit home that summer, he learned about the large influx of refugees that San Diego had experienced in recent years.

“I started thinking to myself, ‘Why am I going halfway across the world to learn about refugees when they’re all here in my own hometown?’ ” he said.

Instead of going to graduate school, Kabban got a job with Catholic Charities, helping refugees settle into their new lives. He was troubled to see so many children sitting at home, alienated, but he also noticed how they lit up when they saw a soccer ball.

One day, he brought a ball with him while making a home visit. As he approached the apartment complex, he heard a boy yell the Arabic word for ball. Kabban began kicking it around with him, and within minutes, 20 kids had joined the game. That moment gave Kabban the inspiration for YALLA’s approach.

Although the organization is relatively new, YALLA has managed to get funding from local foundations and businesses. Everything — tutoring, soccer and occasional field trips — is provided at no cost, something the kids appreciate, as nearly all of them know that money is tight at home.

Kabban has also made it a priority to reach out to those who aren’t refugees.

When refugees started arriving in the area, there was tension in schools between them, Latinos and African-Americans. To counteract this, Kabban started the Peacebuilders League, a soccer league open to everyone in the area.

“We wanted to bring them all together and start making a community,” he said. “Now it looks like the World Cup here every Sunday.”

Ultimately, Kabban hopes to build a “peace-building” charter school for refugees, immigrants and marginalized youth that would use soccer in a formal college prep program.

Kabban’s commitment to the organization is so strong that for more than a year he has worked full-time without a salary, living off his savings. The kids at YALLA know he quit his job for them, and they’re quick to acknowledge the huge difference he has made in their lives.

“I don’t know the way (to) say thank you to Coach Mark,” Yohana said. “They helped me to find friends, and they (taught) me how to speak English. … Now, with YALLA and Coach Mark, it’s a fun life.”

Stories like that are what push Kabban to keep going.

“This country gave my family the chance to succeed,” he said. “I want to help these kids do the same thing.”

Want to get involved? Check out the YALLA website at www.yallasd.com and see how to help.

“Dinner with the Smileys”: VIPs dine with Mom and the kids while dad’s deployed.

(CNN) — One day before the unofficial “Star Wars” holiday in May, an R2-D2 replica wheeled through the front door of the Smiley family home in Bangor, Maine, to the delight of the three young “Star Wars” fans in the house.

“May the fourth be with you!” exclaimed 5-year-old Lindell Smiley, decked out in full Luke Skywalker gear. In a house filled with excited shouts, it wasn’t apparent that a very important person was missing from the packed dinner table. But R2-D2 had a special surprise. The robot projected a video of deployed Navy pilot Dustin Smiley, father to Ford, Owen, and Lindell. His sons were shocked into momentary silence as they watched. In the video, Dustin Smiley told his family that he loved them and implored his boys to congratulate their mother on her graduation from a master’s program at the University of Maine.

Welcome to “Dinner with the Smileys.” Sarah Smiley is a Navy wife, syndicated columnist and author. She has already made it through two of her husband’s deployments, first in 2001 and again in 2003. His current 13-month stint overseas, which began in November, is his longest yet.

She used to mark his absence by the number of times that she had to take out the trash. “But that ends up not being a good way to count, because I take out the trash when he’s home, too,” she smiled.

Her sons Ford, Owen, and Lindell are now ages 11, 9, and 5, respectively, and she wanted to mark their dad’s absence with something special that would fill up their time while he was overseas.

Dinner can be a lonely time when he is away, she said. Before Dustin Smiley left, the children told their mom that they would be sad to see their dad’s empty chair at the dinner table. She told them that they could fill his seat with family and friends.

“It just kind of grew from there,” she said. So, now the Smileys each take a turn inviting a special guest to dinner every week for 52 weeks until dad returns. Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, was the first official guest in January, and she talked to the deployed dad by video chat. It was 11-year-old son Ford’s idea to send the invitation to Collins. Now it’s off to the races: “My kids got it in their head that they could invite anybody they wanted, if a senator came,” Sarah Smiley said.

News of the Smileys’ project spread all the way to Washington through her column and her Facebook page. “The White House contacted us and said that they loved this project and they’d love to be a part of it,” she said. “So my son sent a letter to the president and the vice president and invited them to dinner.”

The standing rule is one special guest per dinner (the invited guest gets a “plus one”), but when it comes to the highest office in the land, the kids will make a few concessions. “My son said in the letter, ‘Usually we invite one guest and tell them they can bring a guest, but we’ll make an exception if you would like to bring your wives and your children,” Sarah Smiley said. Jill Biden even responded to the invitation with a thank you note.

Sarah Smiley won’t reveal the identities of future guests to the public, but she drops hints on their Facebook page. “As much as I want to tell people who’s coming next, I know it’s been a fun thing for people in the community to guess so I have to keep my mouth shut,” she said.

Sarah Smiley did indicate that they have some exciting guests who are “involved with professional sports” lined up this summer. “It’s just killing [Dustin] that he’s not here for those dinners,” she said. She plans to invite all of their guests back to a big celebration once he’s had a chance to settle back in after his return in December.

Often, the family has lower-profile but just as meaningful guests over. When 5-year-old Lindell’s turn came to pick whom to invite, he selected his preschool teacher. His teacher initially hesitated, unsure about living up to the star power of other visitors, but Sarah Smiley insisted that she would make a wonderful guest.

“To my son, having his preschool teacher was pretty much like having Elvis or the president. He thought that was just amazing,” she said.

They’ve also met with neighbors, the town’s police chief, members of the University of Maine hockey team and a cancer survivor. All of the visits are photographed by Andrea Hand and chronicled on the “Dinner with the Smileys” Facebook page.

Sarah Smiley is always asked how she can possibly arrange a dinner party every week. “I’m not a cook … I’m serving people lasagna, spaghetti. There are a couple of times that we’ve gone out to restaurants. So there’s nothing fancy at all and my house is never clean,” she said. “It’s truly real life, exactly as we would be eating dinner if we didn’t have someone there.”

She said that people worry too much about presenting a perfect home and miss out on important opportunities to share memories with friends and family.

“I’ve never apologized to our guests,” she said, but then backtracked. “We had our minister to dinner. The kids truly had a knock-down, drag-out wrestling match on the living room floor. I did apologize that night.”

The entire family feels her husband’s absence. “I think it’s hardest on my oldest son because he’s right at the preteen years,” said Sarah Smiley. “My middle son just got on the little league team. So there’s a lot of ways that for the older boys they really need their dad right now.”

She said that the boys’ emotions about their dad come out in different, and subtle, ways: “You look back in hindsight and you say, ‘That wasn’t like him, and I wonder if it’s because his dad is gone.’”

Sarah and Dustin Smiley met when their fathers flew together in the same Navy squadron. She was born while her father was deployed, so she said that she actually met her husband, while they were babies, before she met her father.

Despite all of the unique guests and experiences the Smileys have had, the guest that the family looks forward to most is the one they’ll have at their table on the 53rd week. That’s when Dustin Smiley comes home.

Actress and model Pamela Anderson is fronting the Downforce1 racing team, which plans to compete in the 2012 European Le Mans and International GT Open series.

The Canadian star is pictured here with Markus Fux, the team’s sole driver who also doubles up as Downforce1′s marketing coordinator.

The former Playboy model gets a closer look at the car with German socialite Marcus Prinz von Anhalt. The car was due to enter its first race at an International GT race in France this weekend, but Downforce1 announced it had decided not to enter.

Anderson shot to fame in the hit U.S. TV show Baywatch, in which she played lifeguard C.J. Parker between 1992 and 1998.

Anderson is not the first female celebrity to enter motorsport. Socialite Paris Hilton co-founded the SuperMartxe VIP MotoGP team in December 2010.

“Fast cars and fast women go together,” the former Playmate of the Month said on the team’s website. “Here we are surrounded by men, I love it.”

The Canadian is described as a fan of motorsport divisions “from NASCAR to Formula One” and hailed the venture as “a dream come true.”

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Anderson is not the first female celebrity to be drawn to the track. Socialite Paris Hilton, heiress to the Hilton hotel fortune, co-founded the SuperMartxe VIP MotoGP team in December 2010.

Editor’s note: Editor’s note: Risa Brooks is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Marquette University and author of “Muslim ‘Homegrown’ Terrorism in the United States: How Serious is the Threat.”

(CNN) — Monday’s arrest of five men accused of aiming to bomb an Ohio bridge raises disturbing questions about the attraction to violence of some contemporary anarchists. But it also offers critical lessons to Americans about the nature of the domestic terrorist threat they face?a threat more diverse in its ideological origins than commonly appreciated.

Since 9/11 the country has been concerned primarily with terrorist threats from militants inspired by a violent jihadist ideology, like that associated with al Qaeda. In recent years fears have focused on Muslim “homegrown” terrorism, which typically involves plots in the United States initiated by American residents and citizens who are inspired by jihadi ideology, but lack formal connections to al Qaeda or foreign militant organizations.

Muslim homegrown terrorists may draw the attention of a nation still traumatized by 9/11, but such plots are no more numerous or serious than those perpetrated by other domestic terrorists in the United States. As the country’s history and Monday’s arrests underscore, extremism comes in many incarnations. Focusing only on terrorism perpetrated by American Muslims misrepresents the scope and nature of domestic terrorism in the United States. It risks leaving us vulnerable to attacks from other sorts of violent idealogues and promotes a hurtful?and pointless?tension between Muslim-Americans and other Americans.

Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter and Facebook/CNNOpinion.

There have been many instances of non-jihadist terror in the U.S. Some may recall that in the late 1960s and 1970s the country faced an onslaught of bombings and attacks by social revolutionary groups and Puerto Rican nationalists. That violent era eventually ebbed, but then in the 1980s and 1990s the country witnessed an upsurge of threats from right-wing militants.

While Timothy McVeigh’s 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was unusual in its lethality, it was unfortunately far from the only plot hatched by extremists on the right. The Southern Poverty Law Center documents 75 plots, of varying degrees of operational advancement, between July 1995 and June 2009 and an additional 22 from 2009 through November 2011.

Alleged plot to blow up bridge foiled

5 held in bomb plot on Ohio bridge

A study by the Institute for Homeland Security Solutions, a research consortium in North Carolina, found that from 1999-2009, in the United States there were 17 al Qaeda-inspired plots undertaken, 20 plots initiated by white supremacists and 17 by violent anti-government militants. Recent attacks include the 2009 shooting of a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the murder by “sovereign citizens” in 2010 of two Arkansas police officers at a traffic stop. In January 2011, a bomb laced with rat poison was found in a backpack along the route of a Martin Luther King Jr. parade in Spokane, Washington.

Eco-terrorists and animal rights activists too have perpetrated their share of bombings and attacks in the United States, especially in the last decade. While these groups aim to avoid civilian deaths, accidents can happen and produce sobering acts of violence.

Add to the mix militants inspired by jihadist ideology. In the decade following 9/11, by my own accounting, there have been 18 plots in which militants have taken at least some preliminary operational steps to realize their deadly mission. Like the alleged anarchist attack, 12 have involved informants and federal agents whose presence can help advance plots that otherwise may have remained aspirational.

All but two of these plots have failed or been foiled by law enforcement: Army Major Nadil Malik Hasan’s 2009 Fort Hood attack and a lesser known shooting, also in 2009, outside a Little Rock army recruiting center that harmed two soldiers. The perpetrators of all 18 homegrown plots had been known to law enforcement before their attempted attacks, with the exception of the May 2010 Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, whose own failings as a bomb-maker, despite his overseas training, underscore the challenges of successfully executing attacks in the contemporary United States.

Some may recoil at grouping right-wing, single-issue, and left-wing terrorists with militant jihadists. Yet, there are several benefits to promoting a more comprehensive assessment of the domestic terrorist threat. First, it ensures that society remains vigilant against threats from different sub-groups and that law enforcement has the support and bureaucratic incentives to do the same. As Norwegians learned with the 2011 attacks by Anders Behring Breivik, neglecting the threat from the right (or other ideological extremes) can leave society dangerously vulnerable.

Second, focusing our attention on domestic terrorism of all types and not just that generated by Muslim Americans can help heal the social rifts generated by 9/11. Singling out Muslim militants when we talk about terrorism in the U.S. adds to the mutual alienation of Muslims and Americans of other backgrounds. By unifying in opposition to extremism of all types, we demonstrate to ourselves and to our terrorist adversaries abroad that we remain true to American values and principles.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Risa Brooks.

Videos keep inmates, kids in touch

LeCroy was honored as a CNN Hero in 2008, and has since expanded her Messages Project to prisons in five states.

Her story inspired actress Holly Robinson Peete, who recently joined LeCroy on a visit to a maximum security prison.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper spoke with Peete about her experience.

Anderson Cooper: What was it about Carolyn’s efforts that first sparked your interest?

Holly Robinson Peete: I learned about a subset of the population that I never thought of before, which are the children of incarcerated parents.

There was something about how hard of a sell it is; anytime you are talking about inmates or people in prison, people automatically — there’s some pushback. But with Carolyn’s brand of philanthropy, I just found myself intrigued, and I had to help her out.

Read the 2008 story: Ex-con’s videos keep inmates, kids in touch

Actress Holly Robinson Peete visits a prison with Carolyn LeCroy to see Messages Project in action.

Cooper: How does the Messages Project work?

Peete: The Messages Project goes into prisons across the country and films messages of incarcerated parents who are either reading a book, a bedtime story, giving a very positive message, giving love to the caregiver watching these children.

Something so simple you would think wouldn’t be a big deal, but to a child who’s lost their parent to incarceration, they watch these videos over and over again. It has a really positive effect on them. So many times, a lot of these children end up in prisons themselves, and this is something that might be able to stop that chain.

I think about watching my father’s video. My father’s been deceased for many years. When he was at my wedding, he just said, “I love you.” I watch it over and over and over again, and it just lifts me up. To these children, these are not hardened criminals. Oftentimes they are just looked at as Mommy or Daddy. So, it’s very important that the children know it’s not their fault and that they know they’re loved.

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Cooper: How did you get involved with the program?

Peete: I met Carolyn in 2008 and we’ve been trying to get together. … The Messages Project is now in Oklahoma, in Nebraska, in Virginia.

And we kept talking about California. It’s the most incarcerated state in the country. And that’s where I live. So I said, “We’ve got to get in there.” And we finally made it in. It … was a lot of pressure; I wanted it to go well.

Cooper: What did that day involve?

Peete: It involved me driving for hours and hours and hours to the middle of the desert, to the middle of nowhere California. … It involved meeting five inmates who, most of them, may never come out of that prison. And they really didn’t strike me as people who had done anything except that they were dads in that moment and they wanted to get messages to their children.

Cooper: What’s it like seeing someone who is incarcerated and you know why they are there, and yet you see them in kind of a different light when they are trying to get a message to their child?

Peete: Apparently these are hardened criminals, people who are doing time for very, very serious offenses, often murder and armed robbery. I personally didn’t want to know until I left what they did. I just wanted to appeal to them as a mom and as a parent.

I think we don’t think about the impact of what the children of incarcerated parents have to go through. Sometimes their parents are just yanked, right in front of their eyes in some very difficult situations with policemen and guns. So, it’s a mind-boggling situation for children, and these tiny messages are so impactful.

Cooper: It’s an incredibly intimate act, the making of these videos.

Peete: Even being there and watching some of these men, I was moved to tears because I saw how gut-wrenching it was for them to say, “I’m sorry. This is not your fault. Daddy loves you and I just want you to be the best person you can be.” Those little anecdotal things sound very cliché. We take it for granted if we’ve got a parent in the home, but hearing that for a child can make all the difference in the world.

I felt like I was doing something not necessarily for the inmates, but for their children. I was impacted by it for the rest of the day, and still am.

Cooper: You were recognized by a couple of the prisoners. What was that like?

Peete: We walked into the cell block, and … two gentlemen that came out looked at me. One of them said, “Hey, Holly. What’s going on? Remember you met me in Vancouver, and it was 1980. You were shooting ’21 Jump Street.’” He said, “I’ve been trying to get a script to your agent.” … (laughs) Even in jail somebody has a script for you, Anderson. …

I was just very blown away at his resourcefulness, because sure enough, three days later my agent said, “Did you meet a screenwriter in jail?”

Cooper: What is it about the CNN Heroes project that really caught your interest?

Peete: I’m a CNN Heroes groupie. … The Heroes just use whatever it is that is at their disposal, and I’m always blown away by what they are able to accomplish with so little. And for no other reason than it is their calling, it is something they are drawn to.