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World’s Greatest Smile

News / Blog
Archive 2007

automatische
Google-Übersetzung

(nicht perfekt, aber
manchmal sehr unterhaltsam...)

20.11.2007, Tuesday, 10:53, Meike

Today is Universal Children's Day

It is UN’s “day of worldwide fraternity and understanding between children. It recommended that the Day was to be observed also as a day of activity devoted to promoting the ideals and objectives of the Charter and the welfare of the children of the world. The Assembly suggested to governments that the Day be observed on the date and in the way which each considers appropriate. The date 20 November, marks the day on which the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, in 1959, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in 1989.”
www.un.org/depts/dhl/children_day

 

19.11.2007, Monday, 17:48, Meike

Moving movements
We had a very busy weekend between packing cases and one of our farewell parties. A lot of sweat and tears drops - and a lot of fun as well!

The orange one is me.

The green one is Andreas and the black one is Lana - the most beautiful dog on earth
(I might not be very objective in this issue).

 

12.11.2007, Monday, 13:22, Meike

Yes, we do! Yes, we do! Yes, we do! Yes, we do! Yes, we really do!

Everybody who is thinking that people should change their places of residence from time to time to learn more about foreign countries, people, cultures, religions, languages and much, much more - is absolutely right!
We think the same!

That’s why at the end of November the organization of the international peace and communication project “World’s Greatest Smile - Start with a Smile!” (what basically means Andreas and me) will relocate. And even if there are so many nice and friendly countries on our wish list we had to decide where to go .

And the winner is ... hear an internal fanfare ...: Canada! More precisely ... hear an internal bagpipe ...: Halifax, Nova Scotia.

So we spend a lot of time these

days to organize things, pack our bags - no pipes, find a nice place to get a kilt and such things. (Of course we will be back in Germany from time to time to work here and visit family and friends as we are in other countries as well.)
And besides all the work we are going to do, now we are looking forward to play curling, watch whales and fondle porcupines if they ask us to.

P.S.:
Does anybody know a friendly place to buy vegetarian Marshmallows in Halifax? That would be great! Please let me know!

 

22.10.2007, Monday, 13:55, Meike

Ok, now that my fingers healed after I had one of my “Let’s see what we can find inside”-attacks on our printer (I learned my lesson: from time to time inspect how much blood is between all the ink, test if you can open your thumbs in any unusual way, and check how many metal splints are in the cut...) this time I screwed open our notebook. And yes, it survived! (For some reason the printer didn’t...)


 


So I think it’s time for a new World’s Greatest Smile Game:
(Yes, this one is much easier than the Super Mind

Play the Game! Spiel starten!

Game!)

Computer Adventure
Collect computers and diskettes and hunt viruses! Use the arrow Keys to move. Collect all disks, computers, and laptops. Use the Antivirus symbol to get the viruses.
Click here to find more games!
 

12.10.2007, Friday, 13:12, Meike


Nobel Peace Prize 2007

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 is awarded to the IPCC and Albert Arnold ‚Al‘ Gore, Jr.
"for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change". (Noble Foundation)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 by two United Nations organizations, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), to evaluate the risk of climate change brought on by humans.
Al Gore was the forty-fifth Vice President of the United States and the Democratic nominee for President in the 2000 election.

More info will be here soon:
Noble Foundation:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/
IPCC:
www.ipcc.ch
Al Gore:
www.algore.com


And this is the statement of the Noble Foundation:

“The Nobel Peace Prize for 2007

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 is to be shared, in two equal parts, between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.

Indications of changes in the earth's future climate must be treated with the utmost seriousness, and with the precautionary principle uppermost in our minds. Extensive climate changes may alter and threaten the living conditions of much of mankind. They may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the earth's resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world's most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states.

Through the scientific reports it has issued over the past two decades, the IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming. Thousands of scientists and officials from over one hundred countries have collaborated to achieve greater certainty as to the scale of the warming. Whereas in the 1980s global warming seemed to be merely an interesting hypothesis, the 1990s produced firmer evidence in its support. In the last few years, the connections have become even clearer and the consequences still more apparent.

Al Gore has for a long time been one of the world's leading environmentalist politicians. He became aware at an early stage of the climatic challenges the world is facing. His strong commitment, reflected in political activity, lectures, films and books, has strengthened the struggle against climate change. He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted.

By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC and Al Gore, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is seeking to contribute to a sharper focus on the processes and decisions that appear to be necessary to protect the world’s future climate, and thereby to reduce the threat to the security of mankind. Action is necessary now, before climate change moves beyond man’s control.

Oslo, 12 October 2007”
(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/press.html)

 

09.10.2007, Tuesday, 12:21, Meike

New communication exercise:

 

How we can work miracles…! / “Yes, I can”

You are looking for an exercise which could make a difference in your communication - and maybe cause a change to the better for your whole life?
Ok, here it is one:

Read full tip!

 

02.10.2007, Tuesday, 13:49, Meike


International Day
of Non-Violence!

Today is – next to the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi – the first International Day of Non-Violence. This day is referred to in India as Gandhi Jayanti.
On June 15th 2007 the United Nations General Assembly voted to establish October 2nd as the International Day of Non-Violence. The resolution by the General Assembly asks all members of the UN system to commemorate October 2nd in "an appropriate manner and disseminate the message of non-violence, including through education and public awareness." (UN)

You find more information here:

UN: International Day of Non-Violence:
http://www.un.org/events/nonviolence/background.shtml

Sixty-first General Assembly, Plenary:
“… the Assembly decided to observe the International Day, with effect from the sixty-second session, on 2 October each year.  Bearing in mind that non-violence, tolerance, full respect for all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, democracy, development, mutual understanding and respect of diversity, are interlinked and mutually reinforcing, it invited all Member States, United Nations organizations, regional and non-governmental organizations and individuals to commemorate the International Day in an appropriate manner and to disseminate the message of non-violence, including through education and public awareness.”

Hindustan Times:
„October 2 is global non-violence day
India won a small but significant victory at the United Nations on Friday with the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) unanimously adopting an Indian resolution to declare Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi’s birthday, October 2, as the International Day of Non-Violence.
The government tabled the resolution at the UNGA on May 31 this year to declare the Mahatma’s birth anniversary as a day of non-violence internationally.“

 

28.09.2007, Friday, 13:17, Meike

Ok, it has been quite a while since I published my last communication tip here - but to avoid that today’s ‘fry day’ is followed by a ‘weak end’ I proudly present a new one now.
Have fun!

New communication tip:

Phonological ambiguities or Give peas a chance!
One of my favourite ways to have fun with communication are phonological ambiguities.
Read full tip!

26.09.2007, Wednesday, 11:29, Meike


Action in shades of red
During these days there are people who have the courage to stand up for their beliefs again. The stories are about religious people, two Peace Nobel Laureates, and two students working on a more peaceful future. And all of them are worth to mention here and now.


“Suu Kyi prays with monk protesters

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi prayed with Buddhist monks who marched past police barricades to her home on Saturday, the Nobel Laureate's first public appearance since her latest detention began in 2003.
The monks were among thousands taking part in growing street protests against the ruling military junta in Yangon and other cities. They were allowed to march through the police barricades and stand outside her gate guarded by 20 police with shields.
… The junta is facing the most sustained protests since soldiers crushed a 1988 student-led uprising.
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won a landslide election victory in 1990, the first multi-party election to be held since 1960, but the military ignored it.
… Until now the monks, fearing reprisals against civilians and to ensure the protests remain peaceful, have discouraged others from joining the marches.
… The marches are a sign that what began as civilian anger at shock fuel price rises last month is becoming a more deep-rooted religious movement against the military, which has ruled the former Burma since a 1962 coup.
… Memories of the nearly 3,000 people thought to have been killed when soldiers fired on protesters in 1988 are still fresh. Monasteries were key players in that uprising and analysts say the generals are making sure they treat the monks carefully this time around.”
http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKSP6873420070922?pageNumber=1


„Merkel angers China on Dalai Lama

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has held historic talks with exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in Berlin despite protests from China.
China had criticised the meeting and, shortly beforehand, cancelled talks with the German justice minister.
Germany said the meeting with the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising, was a private event.
But China, which governs Tibet, says the meeting was part of the Dalai Lama's agenda for Tibetan independence.

'Conscious' decision
German officials refused to give details of the "private exchange", which marked the first time the Dalai Lama had been received at the chancellery.
But they said China had cancelled a meeting with German counterparts in Munich on legal and patent issues.
… In its weekend edition, the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung said that Mrs Merkel had pursued the meeting despite advice to the contrary from senior officials.
… The Nobel Peace Prize winner said he was not seeking independence for Tibet but autonomy.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7008931.stm


“N.S. students create 'sea of pink'
Provincewide pink-in pushes back against bullies

… Pink shirts for peaceful schools is an idea that grew out of a bullying incident earlier this month in the Annapolis Valley.
On the first day of school, a Grade 9 student was bullied by a group of older boys who called him a homosexual and threatened to beat him up for wearing a pink shirt at Central Kings Rural High School.
In response, two Grade 12 students David Shepherd and Travis Price decided to take a stand. They convinced many of their fellow students to come to school the next day dressed in pink. They also went out and bought 75 pink tank tops and handed them out in the school lobby.
… At Halifax West High School, about 1,000 of the school’s nearly 1,600 students were decked out Friday in pink.
… Students and staff at more than 30 schools in the Halifax regional school board area are believed to have pulled on pink for Friday.”
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/9004213.html

 

25.09.2007, Tuesday, 14:39, Meike

I love ships...

Did I ever mentioned here that I love ships? Anyway this was the topic of my traditional birthday excursion yesterday.
Planned was among others a visit of the duties-museum-ship (always good to remember that museums are open every day - except Mondays) and unfortunately the battery of our camera gave up on this picture-worthy day... Caused of our uncelebratory camera (or better our uncelebratory recharge planning) you have to use your imagination now - probably more worthy than a picture.
Anyway make a picture (for that matter you can make a video as well, add some great music and whatsoever) of Meike & Andreas visiting the planetary nature trail, some pretty cool marinas (yes, I love ships), a slide which made a loop (really! Remember to add the water on the bottom of the loop!), climbing a lighthouse, and watching huge containerships (y, Ils...) so enthusiastically that we missed our ferry. Well, at least that gave us the chance to run pretty fast with turbans on our heads made from our fleece jackets because it got stormy (and dark) and we had to pass dozens of chestnut trees which decided to present all of their chestnuts at once to us (nice gesture and nice picture, isn’t it...?).
And after a huge, really huge Super Guppy (‘large, wide-bodied cargo aircraft’) tried to land just on our turbans (ok, a few meters behind us) I remembered somehow that I love ships.

P.S.: Thanks so much for all birthday wishes! And a special cordial greeting to Namibia!
P.P.S.: Oh and yes, I love aircrafts as well...!

 

23.09.2007, Sunday, 14:48, Meike


World’s Greatest Smile Games:

After recovering from a little injury (who needs two arms if you have tentacles...?) I put a nice-and-very-challenging-Sunday-afternoon-game on our playground today...

Super mind:
Click here to find more games!

 

11.09.2007, Tuesday, 15:19, Meike

First Aid for a long weekend...

Thanks to Vanessa and Anne we know how to use a heart defibrillator - which is easy and a lot of fun not just for technology enthusiasts like me, that it is possible to remove a motorcycle helmet (even if you are alone...!) to do a rescue breathing, and much more now.

(Oh and, yes, one of them finally found an other pair of electrodes with two cables.)

 

07.09.2007, Friday, 13:30, Meike


Tomorrow is UNESCO’s International Literacy Day

“On International Literacy Day each year, UNESCO reminds the international community of the status of literacy and adult learning globally.
Despite many and varied efforts, literacy remains an elusive target: some 774 million adults lack minimum literacy skills; one in five adults is still not literate and two-thirds of them are women; 72.1 million children are out of school and many more attend irregularly or drop out.” (UNESCO)

“"Literacy, key to good health and well-being" is the theme of International Literacy Day 2007 which is celebrated globally on 8 September.
UNESCO International Literacy Day

 

27.08.2007, Monday, 13:24, Meike

Great days
We were invited to work a few days on beautiful Fanø / Denmark, close to the beach. Tak for dat!

 

10.08.2007, Friday, 15:34, Meike


On Sunday is International Youth Day 2007

Background of International Youth Day
The General Assembly on 17 December 1999 in its resolution 54/120, endorsed the recommendation made by the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth(Lisbon, 8-12 August 1998) that 12 August be declared International Youth Day.
The Assembly recommended that public information activities be organized to support the Day as a way to promote better awareness of the World Programme of Action for Youth to the Year 2000 and Beyond, adopted by the General Assembly in 1995 (resolution 50/81).”
www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/iyouthday.htm

 

24.07.2007, Tuesday, 16:25, Meike


Happy end...

Hurray, since today forms are back! Welcome home.

 

23.07.2007, Monday, 15:34, Meike


Technicalities

Somehow all our forms decided to go on a summer vacation. We already asked some technicians to convince them of coming back. You can reach us still via e-mail: mail (at ) worlds-greatest-smile.com!


And a Hasi-Day picture of the weekend
Or should I say Bambi-Day?

17.07.2007, Tuesday, 14:46, Meike


World’s Greatest Smile Games:
Summer Game
At least on one hemisphere is summer right now! And after having had a really, really hot day in Hamburg yesterday, here is a nice little summer game for a cooling-down.

Siggi in the big sea horse race

Play the Game! Spiel starten!

You are Siggi the blue sea horse and you missed the start of the race.
Try to make up for lost time and get over the finish line first. Use the arrow Keys to move. Try to swim through the air bubbles. You will receive the number of points in them. Stay away from the jellyfish! If you touch one, you’ll get an electric shock and you will loose points. Watch out for the clams. If one bites you, you’ll loose points and go slower. The race lasts 100 seconds. There is a time bonus for finishing the race faster.

 

09.07.2007, Monday, 15:25, Meike

Link tips:
And here is another great link for
our link tip collection:

Earth Calendar
A very useful daybook of holidays and celebrations around the world. You can search holidays by date, by country, and by religion.
www.earthcalendar.net

P.S.: Happy NAIDOC Week, Australia - Constitution Day, Palau - Independence Day, Argentina - and have fun at the Senior Race Day, Isle of Man!

 

26.06.2007, Tuesday, 16:50, Meike

 

Play the game! Spiel starten!

World’s Greatest Smile Games:
Another game to practice listening:

Audio-Remember
Each symbol has a tone. Click on the symbol to hear its tone and match up pairs of tones.

 

18.06.2007, Tuesday, 14:06, Meike


World’s Greatest Smile Games:
And another new game for our library:
Gravity Wand Game

The Gravity Wand Game is a great way to find out how good your capacity of teamwork really is - if you have to enhance your teamwork, and consciously and unconsciously find ways together to do so.

The aim of the game:
The main knowledge players of the Gravity Wand Game can learn in a very impressing way is: If your teamwork doesn’t work, you can’t even trust in gravity!
And on the other hand - or finger: If your teamwork is fine – you can achieve a common purpose together, win and have fun!
In the process you will find methods to improve your teamwork, so that you can succeed together and stand to the rules at the same time.

How to play the “Gravity Wand Game” and more games!

 

15.06.2007, Friday, 14:03, Meike

Language resources:
Another language on our Language resources list: Sign Language!

The easiest was to learn some sign language words online, is to watch dictionary videos! So I present here a link to one of the best video collections: the American Sign Language Browser.
International there are several other Sign Languages. Fortunately the signs are sometimes pretty much similar in some languages.
The American Sign Language Browser provides the most comprehensive video collection, just remember that it is ‘American’ Sign Language and you may have to adjust signs to your own language.

Sign Language (American) / English

 

12.06.2007, Tuesday, 14:31, Meike


Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) report

SIPRI’s annual compendium of data and analysis of developments in security and conflicts, military spending and armaments and non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament is launched.
SIPRI reports that world military expenditure in 2006 was $1204 billion in current dollars, a 3.5 percent increase since 2005. In the period 1997–2006 world military expenditure rose by 37 per cent.

Military expenditure in 2006:

1. USA, $528,7 billion
2. Great Britain, $59,2 billion
3. France, $53,1 billion
4. China, $49,5 billion
5. Japan, $43,7 billion
6. Germany, $37 billion
7. Russia, $34,7 billion
8. Italy, $29,9 billion
9. Saudi-Arabia, $29,0 billion
10. India, $23,9 billion

The USA spent $528.7 billion and Russia an estimated $34.7 billion on their military sectors in 2006.
The continued surge in China’s military spending—which reached an estimated $49.5 billion —saw it overtake Japan ($43.7 billion) to become the biggest military spender in Asia and the fourth biggest in the world in 2006.
India was the third biggest spender in Asia, with $23.9 billion.

‘Good intelligence has always been vital to security and to be good today, it needs more than ever to be impartial and professional’, says SIPRI Director Alyson Bailes.

www.sipri.org

Some countries have additional military expenditure which are not released to the public. Sometimes these could be even higher than the announced expenditures.

 

08.06.2007, Friday, 12:55, Meike


World’s Greatest Smile Games:
And here is one of my favorite online games for you:

 

Play the game! Spiel starten!

Blocker
Get the highest score!
Remove the stones from the field by putting together 3 or more of the same color.
The more stones in you put together in a group, the more points you’ll get. In higher levels, you can use special stones and “bombes” to help you out. The game’s speed increases each level.
Have fun!

More games...

 

05.06.2007, Tuesday, 14:07, Meike


World’s Greatest Smile Games:
Here is another great game for our game collection:

Bunny, sit!

The aims of the game:
The positions of aggressor and defender can be chosen voluntarily and may be consciously changed within a second.
And everybody can be a liberator as well! After you caught or freed a bunny it is not your property! It is just free bunny - or a unfree bunny waiting for your help!

free, captured, and (de-)liberating bunnies

How to play “Bunny, sit!” and more games!

 

31.05.2007, Thursday, 12:21, Meike


A new study was released yesterday:
The Global Peace Index

“The Economist Intelligence Unit, in conjunction with an international team of academics and peace experts, has compiled an innovative new Global Peace Index (GPI), which ranks 120 nations according to their relative peacefulness. The Global Peace Index is composed of 24 indicators, ranging from a nation’s level of military expenditure to its relations with neighbouring countries and the level of respect for human rights. The index has been tested against a range of potential “drivers” or determinants of peace—including levels of democracy and transparency, education and material wellbeing. The team has used the latest available figures (mainly 2004-06) from a wide range of respected sources, including the International Institute of Strategic Studies, The World Bank, various UN offices and Peace Institutes and the Economist Intelligence Unit. The Global Peace Index is intended to contribute significantly to the public debate on peace.”
Global Peace Index

The top three on the index are: Norway, New Zealand and Denmark.

More information: www.visionofhumanity.com

 

25.05.2007, Friday, 14:48, Meike


World’s Greatest Smile Games:

 

Start!

And here is another new online game for you! Have fun!

Remember 4 Colours

The computer will show you a random colour sequence. Click on the colours in the same sequence. After each correct round, another colour is added. How many colours can you remember?

More games...

 

23.05.2007, Wednesday, 11:54, Meike

In praise of technics

Thanks to a great hint, a beautiful new little blue shining technical marvel, and our Just-try-it-again-attitude we are in the wonderful position to download pictures from our camera again...!

Lana and me

 

21.05.2007, Monday, 13:31, Meike

Language resources:
Kiswahili

Now we added Kiswahili (Swahili) to our Language resources-list!
And, yes, you may even know a few Kiswahili words! For example ‘rafiki’ meaning ‘friend’ for more people than all Disney’s ‘rafiki’s.
So to learn some more words will be ‘hakuna matata’ (‘no problem’) for you. A little ‘nala’ (‘gift’) from a ‘simba’ (‘lion’)...

Kiswahili / Englisch / Deutsch

 

14.05.2007, Monday, 09:54, Meike

Link tips:
What are the latest news in French Polynesia?’ or
‘Besides some news channels Canada really does have an Ice Hockey Channel...’

And here is another nice link tip for you:

Worlds Wide Internet TeleVision
You can watch more than 2000 TV channels form Afghanistan to Zimbabwe (and several locations between!)... with a variety of topics. Lots and lots of news from all over the world!
www.wwitv.com

The site is available in English, French, Spanish, German, and Dutch.

 

09.05.2007, Wednesday, 10:23, Meike

Language resources:
Italian

And thanks to Martina V. and Kim Z. people can understand you in Italy now, too!
Italian / English / German
 

07.05.2007, Monday, 11:40, Meike

Link tips:
Where can I get a pizza in Mountain View?

And, of course, the Google Maps belong to our link tips! With the help of Google Maps you can find locations, businesses near your location (shops, sport clubs, schools and whatever you like to - with links to their web sites), and get directions from one location to another. Very, very useful!
Get street maps, satellite imageries, and more at:
Google Maps

 

04.05.2007, Friday, 10:57, Meike

Link tips:
World Weather

Here is another great link when you search information about weather around the world. Additional to the ‘Climatological Information’ and the ‘Weather Forecast’ you find links to local meteorological services, tourism services, and a map for some regions regions.
This service is available in English, Arab, Chinese, Portuguese, Spain and French!
www.worldweather.org
 

01.05.2007, Tuesday, 10:33, Meike

Language resources:
Spanish

Corresponding to the actual temperatures of Germany... Here is the translation of the most important vocabularies into another useful language: Spanish!
Spanish / English / German

 

27.04.2007, Friday, 13:04, Meike

Language resources:
Japanese

After greeting the probably friendly inhabitants of Gliese 581 c yesterday, we could finish the translation of the most important vocabularies into Japanese now!

Thanks a lot for your great help, Shutaro!

Have a look at:
Japanese / English / German


 

Shutaro

26.04.2007, Thursday, 10:10, Meike

Hello...!

25.04.2007, Wednesday, 10:59, Meike

Language resources:
Dutch

And here are the most important vocabularies in Dutch for our language list:
Dutch / English / German

 

23.04.2007, Monday, 12:40, Meike

Outdoor Hasis

We spent a beautiful Hasi-Day weekend at a great outdoor exhibition!
This picture was taken when we were still dry...
Anyway we had a lot of fun!

 

20.04.2007, Friday, 14:55, Meike


World’s Greatest Smile Games:
Some minutes ago I published another of our communication and teamwork - games :

Chasing Mammoths...!
Chasing Mammoths is another very merrily game which Andreas and I developed.

The aim of the game:
Actually the aim of Chasing Mammoths is not to wipe them out, that would be kind of unfriendly…
The first aim of Chasing Mammoths is to learn that you can join and leave a group of people voluntarily.
Second aim is to watch the players in your team and find a conjoined strategy which regards the mental and physical conditions of each member of the team, and to treat all Mammoths with kindness, respect and responsibility.

How to play Chasing Mammoths...!
 

18.04.2007, Wednesday, 10:40, Meike

New language:
Turkish

Many thanks to Fatma Ö. und Jürgen G. for the translation of the most important vocabularies into Turkish!!! :)
Turkish / English / German
 

16.04.2007, Monday, 12:43, Meike

Language resources

Here is another useful category of resources:
For a better international understanding we started to provide a list of the most important vocabularies in different languages here:

So far we have:
*
German / English
*
French / English / German
*
More are coming!

And you can help
by adding another language:
Add your language now!
Thank you in advance!

 

11.04.2007, Wednesday, 11:44, Meike

Link tips:
Currency Converter

Here is another new useful link-tip for you in our link-tip collection:
www.finance.yahoo.com/currency

You can calculate exchange rates for lots of currencies, have a look at the Major Currency Cross Rates and some neat diagrams, read the financial News and more.

 

06.04.2007, Friday, 13:14, Meike

Scrollpuzzle

Play the game! Spiel starten!

Just for Fun: A  Online-Game

Here is some more nice-little-fun-stuff for you:

The World’s Greatest Smile Scrollpuzzle!

Put the puzzle back in the correct order. You can select the number of shuffle moves.
If you need help, view each puzzle piece’s number. The number will show for a brief time.
(If you need any translation, click
here.)

 

04.04.2007, Wednesday, 12:09, Meike

New communication tip:

The secrete of how to give a successful lecture - a beginner’s course
Here you get the five most important tips for giving a successful lecture - and a very friendly and interested audience for your practice!
Read full tip!

 

02.04.2007, Monday, 14:10, Meike


World’s Greatest Smile Games:

In addition to the communication tips and the for kids area today I start to publish a collection of our fun games to enhance friendly and effective communication skills and teamwork - and have a lot of fun as well!
You can play the games with children, youths, adults, and groups with participants of mixed ages, too.

Tug of Peace” or “Rope Pushing
„You meant pulling, right?“ „Well actually I really wanted to say pushing – it is another fun game Andreas and I invented!“ Everybody knows the game rope pulling (“Tug of war”), two teams yank at the two ends of a rope to pull the other team across the middle line. Our Tug of Peace starts like that - and ends completely different!

The aim of the game:
The aim is to enhance the communication and teamwork within the two teams. Everybody has the free choice of the team he/she wants to play for. You can win even if you are in the smaller team with the physically weaker players if your teamwork, your communication and your ideas are better.
Another aim is to appreciate the ideas and success of the other team and win and lose in a grand way!
How to play Tug of Peace

 

News
Archive:

30.3.2007, Friday, 14:03, Meike

Link tips:
It is time for time

I found two more useful links for you: Find out the current world time!

  • www.timeanddate.com
    With weather information, sunrise and sunset times, dialing codes, coordinates, the possibility to calculate the distance from one city to another, and much more!
  • www.qlock.com/time
    With maps, very nice, too!

 

27.3.2007, Tuesday, 13:59, Meike

New communication exercise:

Knowledge is power!

Most crises are followed by a bunch of people proclaiming that they didn’t know about it. Of course they would have saved the situation if they just had known. Well, in some cases this might be true. In some it might not. So here is a new exercise for you which will protect you from this!
Read full tip!

 

22.3.2007, Thursday, 10:45, Meike


Daylight - Nightlife:
at least another worldwide least common denominator

Yesterday was Spring Equinox! That means your day is more or less as long as the night - wherever you are on this planet.

Sunrise, sunset, dawn and dusk times around the world:
www.gaisma.com/en

 

21.3.2007, Wednesday, 19:02, Meike

Book tip from a birthday child!

Today is the 80th birthday of Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the former Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany. He was  Germany's longest serving Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor - from 1974-1992.

When Andreas and I met him I took the chance to ask him from which book he learned most so far.
He thought a bit about my question and then answered:
Hans Jonas: The Imperative of Responsibility. In Search of Ethics for the Technological Age (1979).
(In German: Hans Jonas: Das Prinzip Verantwortung. Versuch einer Ethik für die technologische Zivilisation (1979))
So this is probably not the best present for him today - but maybe for yourself.

 

20.3.2007, Tuesday, 20:34, Meike


The European Union gets it’s Second Life - maybe

As the first country in the world Sweden has announced that it is going to open an embassy named House of Sweden in Second Life. Second Life is a virtual internet world where people can travel around, meet other people from all over the world, socialize, learn, participate in group activities, and much more.
And now Brussels is thinking about a presence in the virtual world, too, to enhance communication with the citizenry. "We're looking at communicating through untraditional channels such as the internet and it is a very serious consideration in the reflection of our future internet strategy," Mr. Dowgielewicz, spokesman for EU communication commissioner Margot Wallstrom, said.

So Politics goes Second Life - or should we say Second Life already went political?
Today I shared a discussion about “Web 3D - New chances for political communication”.
Among others federal-secretary of the Green Party Steffi Lemke, Hans-Joachim Otto (president of the board for culture and media in German Parliament), and Spiegel Online’s Second Life reporter Sponto talked about possibilities of policy in Second Life. Well, I would summarize it: Policy in Second Life is pretty much the same as in Real Life...

Link tip:
www.secondlife.com

 

16.3.2007, Friday, 12:43, Meike


Harmony in 4 generations...!

We just finished a four day workshop about friendly communication (and much more) with participants from four generations! That was so much fun again! So many happy faces and handshakes. We traveled home on pink clouds...

a few of the youngest participants with me (red trousers) at the beginning of the course
learning a couple of words in English, German, French, Japanese, Finnish, and Maori...

 

14.3.2007, Wednesday, 10:59, Meike

3/14 - Today is Pi Day...!

Find the Pi-nuts...!

Even if it is not clear how many people know about this holiday or celebrate it, Pi Day is the unofficial holiday held to celebrate the mathematical constant π (Pi). And really accurate reveler celebrate at 1:59 p.m...

Pi Day is commemorated in a variety of ways. Mathematics departments in educational institutions may held parties and Harvard's Math department, for instance, has a pi recitation contest as well as a pie eating contest. And the Massachusetts Institute of Technology often mails out its acceptance letters to be delivered to prospective students on Pi Day. Oh, and Pi Day is also Albert Einstein's birthday!

And I couldn’t resist to link on this :)


Give πs a chance...!

 

12.03.2007, Monday, 17:43, Meike

Weather report...

Ok, usually I don’t talk about the weather here - but it is just too good to keep is secrete: Sun, flowers everywhere, mating birds - we weathered through another wet winter. And now - hear an internal flourish - we have spring in Hamburg!
For weeks I planed to make an excursion on my Hasi-Day this weekend - and then it was supposed to rain - but yes we had the most wonderful conditions you could imagine. (As almost always - if it’s somehow important to me:)

And anyway we have another Link tip:
Find weather around the world:
CNN weather

 

09.03.2007, Friday, 16:58, Meike

New communication exercise:

Criticism of others or Draw in your stings!

This exercise will make a huge difference in your communication because you can learn to change destructive unjustified criticism in productive helpful feedback.
So it is worth some effort at the beginning. Just try it and find out which benefits you will gain from it!
Read full tip!

06.03.2007, Tuesday, 19:40, Meike

New communication tip:

Both of us love pizza... or Find the least common denominator

If you are in a dispute with someone and try to find a way out, search for the least common denominator. There is always one! Use the similarities as starting point for finding a satisfyingly solution for both of you.
Read full tip!

 

02.03.2007, Friday, 14:49, Meike

New communication tip:

A Smile is the least common denominator of communication!
All over the world is the facial expression of smiling nearly the same.  It belongs to the universal human vocabulary! Therefore Smiling is an intelligent start of international communication - irrespective of nationality, colour of skin, wealth, gender, age, and even religion.
And you even get an extra bonus again...!
Read full tip!

 

01.03.2007, Thursday, 13:54, Meike

Link tip:
And another great new link in our
link tip collection...!

From ‘Buthan Women’ and ‘New York Times’ to ‘Micronesia’s Global Connection’ and the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’, everything between and around... To read the news from another point of view!
World newspapers, magazines, and news sites in English, sorted by country and region:
www.world-newspapers.com

 

27.02.2007, Tuesday, 14:37, Meike

New communication exercise:

Self-criticism or The secret of how to be your own best friend
Isn’t it amazing that most people are much friendlier to their friends than to themselves?
And  most of them even believe themselves - and then start to feel and act correspondingly...
So here I have a very valuable exercise for you:
Read full tip!

23.02.2007, Friday, 15:14, Meike

New communication tip:

An easy way to settle down most disputes
We found out that sometimes there is a very easy way to settle down a dispute: Find out if the disagreement is caused by a difference opinion about the topic of your conversation – or if it is just caused by a difference in the presentation. Do you really have contrary points of view about the content – or do you just don’t like the way your conversational partner presents his aims?
Read full tip!

21.02.2007, Wednesday, 12:07, Meike

Link tip:
Where is Ouagadougou...?!

I added two new link tips for you to our link tip collection. Both are very useful world maps including road maps and satellite maps.

  • Wikimapia
    I like the Wikimap very much because you get a lot of information on cities, areas or even single buildings! And - it is Wiki - you can add your own information as well...
     
  • Yahoo Maps
     

20.02.2007, Tuesday, 15:17, Meike

New communication tip:

Look Who's Talking

Sometimes it can be very useful if you think about who said something.
Is it someone with a huge knowledge about what he is talking? Does he have any proofs of competence? Can he give reasons for his opinion? Or is it just someone with too much time and self-confidence?

Read full tip!

16.02.2007, Friday, 14:18, Meike

New communication tip:

To ease is a lot easier

Have you ever said something because you were too much discomposed? You were in an argument and somehow started blaming each other, getting unreasonable, saying something you rued later, and making each other steadily angrier?
In hindsight it seemed to be unproductive and not friendly? And to add insult to injury it was no fun at all, right…?!

The good news: You can change that behaviour. And the even better news: There are several ways to react more relaxed in exciting situations. And almost the best news: They are more or less easy!
Read full tip!

 

15.02.2007, Thursday, 14:25, Meike


World’s Greatest Smile VIPs
First VIP for 2008!

Successful singer, actor and TV-presenter Oli Petszokat (Oli.P) already announced his participation in the World’s Greatest Smile 2008!

He was awarded the ECHO (German Record Award) for the Single of the Year (National) in 1999.

And besides being musical he is sportive as well. 1995 he won the German competition in competition ballroom dancing and 2006 he was the winner of the TV show ‘Stars auf Eis’ where he even had to dance on ice.

 

14.02.2007, Wednesday, 11:22, Meike


Happy Valentine’s Day!


13.02.2007, Tuesday, 14:07, Meike


Art and peace of the weekend

The Cinema for Peace gala took place
Cinema for Peace is an international charity-gala and a platform for peace and tolerance, taking place annually at the Berlin International Film Festival, to the benefit of
UNICEF and others. Cinema for Peace aims to engage the international film community and stress the special responsibility film-creative can have in the development of a more socially aware and global population. “The Oscar with brain" said Bob Geldof.
www.cinemaforpeace.com

And the Dixie Chicks won five Grammy Awards this year!
Beside their music they became well-known for their public criticism of President George W. Bush on the eve of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This political comment cost them half of their concert audience attendance in the United States. Some fans discontinued their support of the Dixie Chicks' albums and concerts as well as their sponsor. In one famous anti-Dixie Chicks display, former fans were encouraged to bring their CDs to a demonstration at which they would be crushed by a bulldozer.
Now they were awarded for their album “Taking the Long Way” and their song “Not Ready to Make Nice”.
www.dixiechicks.com
 

12.02.2007, Monday, 13:21, Meike


World’s Greatest Smile 2008 - the first participants...!

Yes, you may enroll for the World’s Greatest Smile 2008 now!
It is easy and free.
And the first individuals and groups already did!

Click here:

P.S.:
And -like last year- C. was the very first participant again. Just a few moments after I published the new form we received her smile announcement! How did you manage to be the first one again?! (Greetings to the other end of the world! :))
 

09.02.2007, Friday, 12:11, Meike

World’s
Greatest
Smile

Start with a Smile!

Now everywhere on the world is Friday and so we can publish the final participants-results:

163.196 registered people
from 121 countries
took part in the
World’s Greatest Smile Day 2007

This year the countries with the most participants were China, Namibia, and Saudi Arabia. Many schools, families, businesses, a landmine clearance group from Angola, and eight Nobel Laureates participated!

We thank all of you, who sent us friendly e-mails, or called us on the phone, giving us helpful suggestions, questions, encouragement and so much fun!

And we are still working on improving and enlarging this peace project. And to look ahead we will intensify our work on providing helpful communication
skills for people to make it easier for them to communicate in a friendly and peaceful way. For example we are going make available more resources for friendly communication at schools. It is amazing how motivated people can be to enhance the humankind’s development - and how well they understand that a peaceful future is possible if they work on it in an intelligent and amicable way together.
And we deeply want to learn more and do some further research about peaceful communication and how to teach settling a dispute and form a friendship easier and more effective.

One of the biggest challenges right now seems to cover the costs of the World’s Greatest Smile. And we hope to find a fast and long-term solution for that because our expertise is more the content of the project. As we say in the project’s motto “World’s Greatest Smile - Start with a Smile” it is a start – and we do our best to go ahead.

And last but not least we want to thank all
of our Very Important Participants for their support, their encouragement and great e-mails. We highly appreciate their participation at the World’s Greatest Smile and their engagement for a more peaceful world, and know that many people model themselves on them.

 

08.02.2007, Thursday, 11:52, Meike

Link tip:
CIA World Factbook

The World Factbook is a publication of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States. It  provides a summary of information of 268 U.S.-recognized countries, dependencies, and other areas in the world. The online version of The World Factbook is currently updated every two weeks.
So if you search information on life expectancy at birth and infant mortality rate, languages, literacy and religions, internet users and television broadcast stations or the military expenditures of countries for example, this is a good start of your research.
These are the major topics: government, people, geography, economy, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues.

CIA World Factbook:
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html
 

07.02.2007, Wednesday, 11:36, Meike


New survey, looking at citizens' perceptions of national crime rates

The European Crime and Safety Survey (EU ICS) compared levels of victimisation across the EU and measured how citizens feel about their security and safety, independent of actual police records.

Read the full report:
http://www.gallup-europe.be/euics/Xz38/euics_press.htm
(best with Windows Internet Explorer)
 

06.02.2007, Tuesday, 13:45, Meike

New communication tip:

Exercise:
Take a stand –
and then stay flexible

One of the biggest problems in communication is indifference. It causes a loss of time, energy and a huge loss of sympathy.
So here is my easy exercise to overcome this problem.
You can do it for a day, a week or for the rest of your life.
Read tip!

05.02.2007, Monday, 13:51, Meike


5 more days...

The official start of the World’s Greatest Smile 2008 will be in 5 days! And we already have a lot of ideas to improve and enlarge this project - so we are looking pretty much forward to the this new year of work and fun!

And yes, we are still looking for sponsors and help to cover the costs of the World’s Greatest Smile project!
Please contact us to become a sponsor of the World’s Greatest Smile! Then we can tell you what we need and which advantages you have as a Sponsor of the World’s Greatest Smile.

And when you wish to donate or help in another way to be part of the World’s Greatest Smile Helpers Team, here are some suggestions!

 

02.02.2007, Friday, 13:44, Meike


Global climate change:
The Fourth Assessment Report war published today.

The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the IPCC is the next in line of a series of authoritative reports on climate change by the IPCC. The report was produced by some 600 authors from 40 countries.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (
www.ipcc.ch) was established in 1988 by two United Nations organizations, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to assess the "risk of human-induced climate change".
After six years of research Hundreds of climate scientists, gathered in Paris to review the work of more than 2,000 researchers, have predicted that predict the average world temperature will rise by about three degrees by the end of the century - with potentially devastating consequences for melting ice caps and rising sea levels. They also make the strongest causal link so far between human behavior and global warming
Institute Director Camilla Toulmin said: "The scientific and moral arguments for urgent action are now over. It is up to political and business leaders, as well as citizens around the world, to seize this challenge and work together to tackle the biggest challenge that humanity has ever faced."
 

01.02.2007, Thursday

11:47, Meike

And another VIP smile

We got another VIP-mail this morning: Biathlete Kati Wilhelm participated at the World’s Greatest Smile 2007 as well.
At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy she carried the German flag at the opening ceremony. After winning three Olympic gold and three silver medals she became the best female biathlete at the Olympics ever. In total she has 16 IBU Biathlon World Cup wins. She was elected "biathlete of the year 2006" as well as "German sportswoman of the year 2006".

31.01.2007, Wednesday

11:03, Meike

Countries of the World’s Greatest Smile 2007

We had a loooong look at the entries of the participants-forms and there are a some more new countries:

  • Iraq
  • Uzbekistan
  • Suriname
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Nicaragua
  • Guinea
  • Cuba
  • Republic of Ireland
  • Kazakhstan
  • Tajikistan

30.01.2007, Tuesday

18:52, Meike

New communication tip:

Self-perception:
Do you really do what you wanted to do?
Probably you know the phrase “to put yourself into someone else’s shoes”.
 Nice metaphor – in the usual use completely inoperative. And in my case it would probably very uncomfortable for you to wear my shoes, because one of my feet is much smaller than the other. So it would be a tough thing to try to put yourself into my shoes. And here are the good news: To try this communication tip is much easier!
Read tip!
 


13:04, Meike

While I was brushing my teeth...

The telephone rang, nothing out of the ordinary, Andreas went to answer the phone and I went to brush my teeth, nothing out of the ordinary, too. Then at the best chosen time there was a knocking at the door “Bwwait bwa bwminute bwplease!” The knocking got louder, I opened the door, still with my toothbrush in my mouth, “BBwwhat, bw...dear?” I got told that there was a very friendly reporter at the phone from Tajikistan who wanted to interview me about the World’s Greatest Smile.
So I gave my first radio interview for the Tajikistan radio - barefoot, in a sweatshirt, with a rest of toothpaste in my mouth (a good apology for my Germanamericanindian accent). I’m glad they had no visual telephone...
 

29.01.2007, Monday

12:25, Meike

World’s Greatest Smile News

  1. We are still answering all the e-mails which we got during the last days and weeks. If we didn’t answer yours so far please be patient - we do it as soon as we can!
    And if you wish to
    send us an e-mail, too - just do so! We are always happy to hear from you!
     
  2. At the weekend we found a lot more articles in the online versions of several newspapers about the World’s Greatest Smile. I listed them on the press page. We know that there are much more in the print versions - so if you see some, please let us know about them or even better send them along!
     
  3. Politicians and the World’s Greatest Smile:
    The vice president of the Germany Bundestag (Lower House of German Parliament) Petra Pau promoted the World’s Greatest Smile on her web site! And a very few of other politicians wrote us encouraging e-mails as well. More politicians start to understand what this is all about.
     
  4. Because we want to give people the chance to inform us about their smiles by snail mail as well we will count each enrollment which reaches us until 08. February 2007. Thereafter we will publish the final official participants-result of the World’s Greatest Smile Day 2007!
     

25.01.2007, Friday

19:09, Meike

A great way to start the new day - and ‘the new year ‘

Nobel prize laureate Prof. Dr. William D. Phillips wrote us another nice e-mail today that made me hear in Andreas’ voice that something pretty cool had happened again when he woke me up this morning. (He checked our e-mails while I tried to make up a bit of sleep which was missed during the last weeks.)
(Read the article about Professor Phillips: 24.01.2007)

Here is an abstract of Professor William D. Phillips’ e-mail:
“...I gave a talk today at the University of Arizona, and ended the talk with a slide about your smile project.  In the audience was Harvard University Professor Roy Glauber, a Nobel Laureate in 2005.  He wanted to be part of the smile project and went onto your website and registered. ...



The tenth Nobel smile!

Nobel prize laureate Prof. Dr. Roy Glauber smiled for the World’s Greatest Smile as well!
He has established the basis of Quantum Optics, in which quantum theory encompasses the field of optics. Professor Dr. Glauber got the Nobel Prize in Physics 2005 for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence.
For many years before winning his Nobel Prize, he was familiar to audiences of the “Ig Nobel Prize” ceremonies, where he was "Keeper of the Broom," sweeping the stage clean of the paper airplanes that have traditionally been thrown during the event.
He is currently the Mallinkrodt Professor of Physics at Harvard University, where students enthusiastically praise his teaching. Roy Glauber has received many honors for his research and his recent studies have dealt with problems in a number of areas of quantum optics.



VIP smiles

And a few more VIPs smiled for the World’s Greatest Smile 2007 and let us know their participation now.
Most of them participated 2006 as well and we are very happy about their support!

Robert Treutel
(Bodo Bach)
comedian and presenter

Tine Wittler
TV-presenter and author

Ralf Schmitz
comedian and actor

Maddin Schneider
comedian, cabaret artist and actor

Björn Harste
the shopblogger

Lou Richter
comedian, author, musician and presenter

Johann König
 comedian

25.01.2007, World’s Greatest Smile Day!

11:26, Meike

Today is World’s Greatest Smile 2007 Day!

We wish you all a wonderful day! Have fun!
And if you want to do even more here are some tips:



Registration for the World’s Greatest Smile 2007

Every year we get letters from people who wish to confirm their participation by post mail. The letter sometimes need a while to go across some continents, that’s why
we count each registration which receives us till 08.02.2007!
We hope each letter will reach us until then.
And if you want to send us a picture of your smile or a list of signatures of people who smile with you that way, we are happy, too!

24.01.2007, Wednesday

23:59, Meike

New nice participants

Nobel prize laureate Prof. Dr. Ferid Murad was one of the VIPs of the World’s Greatest Smile 2006. And today he wrote us he “...will be smiling on January 25th to promote peace around the world.”

Prof. Dr. Ferid Murad was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology / Medicine, 1998, for the discoveries concerning nitric oxide as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system. He was also Ciba Award Recipient in 1988 and got the “Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award” in 1996.


And one of the most interesting groups today:
MgM LandmineClearance NGO” from Angola will participate at the World’s Greatest Smile!
They care about clearing of land mines and the destruction of other dangerous relicts of war in the southern part of Africa.
They wrote us: “Nothing more important than peace in all universes.”


20:01, Meike

More World’s Greatest VIPs!

Extremely friendly e-mails reached us from Nobel prize laureate Prof. Dr. Dudley Herschbach!

“... A fine idea!   If all six billion people were to face the same direction at once, and smile at the same time, the happy photons emitted might exert a measurable momentum!   In any case, organizing such an event ought to get more people thinking about how wonderful it is to be able to smile and how much more mankind could do bring smiles to other people.   Thank you!”

Prof. Herschbach got the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1986 for the contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes.
He is a board member of the
Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation (their site doesn’t work right now, try later), a non-profit policy organization, established by the Council for a Livable World in 1980, that seeks the reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons as a significant tool of U.S. national security policy.
Additional he is a member of the board of advisors of Scientists and Engineers for America, an organization focused on promoting sound science in American government.
Prof. Herschbach is also a member of the Board of Sponsors of
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists which is a nontechnical magazine that covers global security and public policy issues, especially related to the dangers posed by nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.
Beside that Dudley Herschbach has lent his voice to The Simpsons for the episode Treehouse of Horror XIV where he is seen presenting the Nobel Prize in Physics to Professor Frink.


Rebecca Moesta wrote us an e-mail and “...will, indeed participate in the World’s Greatest Smile 2007.”
She is the author of several science fiction books. Together with her husband Kevin J. Anderson
(also a World’s Greatest Smile VIP, read article from 20.01.07) she wrote several science fiction novels and has written two Titan A.E. young adult novels, two high-tech pop-up books and fourteen Star Wars novels.

 

And we received a picture from Uwe Seeler for the VIP list now (read article from 20.01.07).


14:59, Meike

World’s Greatest Smile Blog Reader

Wow, you are fast! About hour ago I asked you for links to media reports. Now we got two telephone calls: One from a radio-station reporting about the World’s Greatest Smile and another caller told us that dpa (a major worldwide media service) bandy the World’s Greatest Smile News about.
Thanks a lot!
Tell us more! :)


14:48, Meike

Nobel Very Important Participant, again!

Nobel prize laureate Prof. Dr. William D. Phillips wrote us an e-mail and announced his participation in the World’s Greatest Smile 2007! He already took part in 2006 and we are happy to have him smiling with us again!
William Phillips got the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979 for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light and many additional awards.
Moreover he is a founding member of the International Society for Science & Religion. “The International Society for Science & Religion was established in 2002 for the purpose of the promotion of education through the support of inter-disciplinary learning and research in the fields of science and religion conducted where possible in an international and multi-faith context.” (
International Society for Science & Religion)


13:39, Meike
World’s Greatest Smile Participants
It is very interesting to watch the distribution of our new participants. Sometimes hundreds or even thousands of people enroll within a few days or hours from single countries. There were suddenly masses of people from Saudi Arabia,  the United Arab Emirates and Japan for example. And right now we get a spate of new smile-announcements and great and very friendly e-mails from Namibia!
(Please send us the links to media reports about the World’s Greatest Smile!)
Beside that several new groups announced their participation, such as:
  • “Goreangab Young Faces of Hope”, Namibia
  • “Ruth Moschner Fanclub”, Germany
  • and several groups from Japan (Please fill in the group name in English, then we can mention you here!)

23.01.2007, Tuesday

18:01, Meike

Media

Today, again, we had a gaggle of people from a German TV station in our very colourful office.
So once more we talked about the World’s Greatest Smile, it’s aims and needs, peace and how to settle a difference.
Beside that we gave away several communication secrets and friendliness tips - so I guess at the end everybody was happy...

 

22.01.2007, Monday

20:46, Meike

More VIPs

While we try to dry up our office (storm Kyrill blew the water through the closed (!) window...) we got once more two nice VIP-e-mails:

Two more of the VIPs of 2006 will participate again at the World’s Greatest Smile 2007:

Ingrid Peters
singer and presenter

Markus Maria Profitlich
comedian and actor

20.01.2007, Saturday

15:34, Meike

World’s Greatest Smile VIP list is getting longer and longer

Nobel prize laureate Prof. Dr. Kurt Wüthrich “...will spend January 25 smiling.”!
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2002 was awarded to Kurt Wüthrich for his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution.
Additional to his Nobel Prize the list of his awards is loooong! Among others he gained the “World ‘Future’ Award, The World Awards, Vienna, Austria”, the “Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology, Inamori Foundation, Kyoto, Japan” and the “Médaille d'Honneur en Argent, Société d'Encouragement au Progrès, Paris, France”.
Besides that Prof. Kurt Wüthrich got several international Honorary Degrees in China, India, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Argentina, Hungary, and Russia.

And Uns Uwe, Uwe Seeler, will smile with us as well! He was captain of the German national soccer team for many years, the first player ever to appear in 20 World Cup matches, the first ever to score in 4 world cups, and the only player ever to score at least 2 goals in each of 4 world cups. He was top scorer of the first Bundesliga season 1963-64 and German Footballer of the Year in 1960, 1964 and 1970.
Uwe Seeler was a tremendously popular player due to his fairness, modesty, and kindness and is still widely called “Uns Uwe” (northern German: “Our Uwe”) The DFB (German FA) made him the second honorary captain of the German national team in 1972. He achieved a lot of awards including the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Cross of Merit) and in 2003 he became honorary citizen of his hometown Hamburg, the first time the honor was bestowed on a sportsman.

And the American science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson is ... “happy to participate in your smile project. I have it marked on my calendar for next Thursday.”
He has written novels for Star Wars, StarCraft, and The X-Files, and is the co-author of the Dune prequels. His original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series and more.
He is appearing on "Best of the Year" lists from Locus, Science Fiction Chronicle, and SFX, and was nominated for the Nebula Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the American Physics Society's prestigious Forum Award. Moreover he holds the Guinness World Record for "Largest Single-Author Book Signing". And Anderson serves as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest.
 

19.01.2007, Friday

17:59, Meike

World’s Greatest Future

Even if we spent the last weeks organizing the World’s Greatest Smile Day on 25th January, answering tons of encouraging e-mails and telephone calls (what is a lot of fun, too) we took some time to think about the next months and the future of the World (d’s Greatest Smile).

The plans are to intensify our work on peace and peaceful communication - and to make it more effective.
What we have to do is to extend the time of the year we can spend for this project. And as soon as possible we like to involve more people who have complementary knowledge.
And we want to learn more and do some further research on peaceful communication and how to spread this knowledge.

Therefore we definitely need one or more sponsors to cover the expenses of the World’s Greatest Smile project! A lot of people already support the World’s Greatest Smile with their smiles - and we can reach it’s aims faster if we get some more help!

18.01.2007, Thursday

21:20, Meike

We just have to sing again...

And we got a great letter from another very bright brain: Nobel Laureate Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Ketterle is “...happy to support your project with a big smile.”
He got the Nobel Prize in Physics 2001 for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates.
Beside that Wolfgang Ketterle achieved a lot of awards including the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Cross of Merit) which is the only general state decoration of Germany.
And he was so kind to send a selection of great smiles of himself! Here is my favorite one.


Caroline Beil mailed us ‘stormy greetings’ and her smile from Berlin. She is presenter, singer and actress and beside that she supports several social organizations.


And a picture of Hape Kerkeling’s smile reached us.
(Read text: 16.01.07)

17.01.2007, Wednesday

19:39, Meike

World’s Greatest Smile VIPs!

Though our e-mail internet service provider has still some delays delivering mails two more VIP-Smiles reached us today:

 

Singer and presenter Jasmin Wagner will smile for the World’s Greatest Smile 2007 as she already did last year.

 

 

And satirist, songwriter, author and cabaret artist Hans Scheibner wrote us a very nice e-mail, too, and promised to smile on January 25th “come what may”.
 

16.01.2007, Tuesday

19:44, Meike

And more VIPs!

We proudly present the first VIP-group smiling for the World’s Greatest Smile 2007:
Ensemble Modern is an ensemble of New Music.
The ensemble has a rich cultural background with 19 soloists from 9 countries. The Ensemble Modern has its special working and organizational form which is unlike any other in the world. All the members are responsible for jointly selecting and dealing with artistic directors, projects, guest musicians, co-productions, and financial matters. They tour widely and have released many recordings. In 2003 the group received an Echo!

And the famous actor, presenter, comedian and author Hape Kerkeling participates, too!
These are some of his numerous (!) awards:
Adolf-Grimme-Preis in silver, Goldene Europa, Goldene Kamera, Goldener Gong, Bronze Rose of Montreux, Telestar, Deutscher Comedypreis "Best Comedian",

Lotto King Karl

Goldene Kamera "Best TV Entertainer", Peter-Frankenfeld-Preis, Deutscher Fernsehpreis (as a host), Bayerischer Fernsehpreis, Deutscher Comedypreis as best presenter!
And he has a great smile as well!

Furthermore musician, radio- and TV-presenter Lotto King Karl and TV-presenter Madeleine Wehle already announced their smiles!


18:24, Meike

E-mails?!?

It seems that our e-mail internet service provider has some technical challenges during the last days.

If you sent us an e-mail and we didn’t answer so far: Please try again!

Or use our contact form or call us at 49 / 40 / 5001 85 95.


15:05, Meike

Workshop logo

Finally I took the time to create a logo for the Workshop in the communication tips area.
 

15.01.2007, Monday

Kalle Pohl
 with a
special nice Smile

23:09, Meike

More VIPs 2007

Roberto Capitoni

Kalle Pohl (comedian, musician, author, cabaret artist and radio presenter) will smile for the World’s Greatest Smile 2007 again!

Besides him model Kader Loth and comedian Roberto Capitoni announced their smiles.


16:42, Meike

World’s Greatest Participants

After some media reports (among others a very intelligent and well deliberated two-sided article in the ‘Hamburger Morgenpost’ (German newspaper)) we can proudly announce:
Already
more than 112.000 people from all over the world will participate at the World’s Greatest Smile 2007 and show their willingness for a peaceful international communication!
 


12:40, Meike

World’s Greatest Groups

A few days ago I changed the participants form for groups. You can give us the possibility to publish your participation now!
So here is a short abstract of the smiling groups enrolling their smile last week:

  • gardenfootballkids
  • Mexico City, Mexico

  • Christina’s fantastic friends of EGGS
  • Auckland, New Zealand

  • The Flowermen of Abu Dhabi
  • Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

    So there is a lot of fun around the world!
     

    14.01.2007, Sunday

    Nobel Laureate Craig Mello sent us a photograph of his smile for the World’s Greatest Smile.
    Isn’t this one of the most beautiful smiles you have ever seen!

    15:05, Meike

    More VIPs 2007 News

    Annemarie Warnkross

    Author and musician Joey Goebel from the US smiles like last year for the World’s Greatest Smile.

    And also again smiles TV-presenter, actress and model Annemarie Warnkross. She sent us a smile from the US where she is reporting on the “Golden Globes” these days.

     

    And we like to thank Ruth Moschner for linking to the World’s Greatest Smile Web site from her home page!
     

    12.01.2007, Friday

    17:01, Meike

    VIPs 2007

    And yes, it is time to publish our constantly growing list of participating VIPs 2007! It is not complete so far because there will come some more during the next weeks. You get new information about new VIPs here in the Blog!


    16:49, Meike

    Ladies day on the World’s Greatest Smile VIPs list

    Katharina Saalfrank, known as the Super Nanny, likes to smile with for the World’s Greatst Smile as well. She is specialist counselling and TV-presenter of a show working on the improvement of the communication between children and their parents.

     


    And more of our VIPs sent us their pictures:

    Ruth Moschner
    (read text: 09.01.2007)

    Babette Einstmann
    (read text: 11.01.2007)


    15:25, Meike
    And the new countries of the week with participants of the World’s Greratest Smile 2007 are:

    • Romania
    • Armenia
    • Iran
    • Mali
    • Sudan
    • Belarus
    • Australia
    • Thailand
    • Myanmar
    • Kyrgyzstan
    • Gabon, The
    • Gambia, The
    • Malaysia
    • Papua New Guinea
    • Bangladesh
    • Côte d’Ivoire
    • Congo, Republic of
    • Congo, Democratic Republic of
    • Denmark
    • Latvia
    • Barbados
    • New Zealand
    • Cameroon
    • Benin
    • Namibia
    • Croatia
    So now we have already participants from 110 countries! Isn’t that great!

     

    11.01.2007, Thursday

    11:54, Meike
    We can not sing good but we can sing loud
    or
    Who needs sleep if you can dance all night long

    New World’s Greatest VIPs of the World’s Greatest Smile!

    Yyeeees!
    Frank is participating the third time at the World’s Greatest Smile!
    Very, very few people impressed me as much as
    Physics Nobel Laureate Prof. Dr. Frank Wilczek!
    So imagine my reaction when I got his answer yesterday evening saying: “Sign me up. :)”! Now add a little bouncing and singing and then you almost got the right impression.

    Frank Wilczek and me

    Professor Wilczek got the Nobel Prize in Physics 2004 for the discovery of asymptomic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction.
    And because he is much more than a great physician Frank Wilczek is actually one of the very few people who got a place on our
    Genius List!
    Read our article on the Genius list about him, his brain, his Nobel Prize and other awards, books, quotations and more!

     


    And Nobel Prize Laureate Prof. Dr. Craig C. Mello is a remarkable friendly person as well! He “will even dance if it will help”!
    He got the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2006 for the discovery of RNA interference - gene silencing by double-stranded RNA.
    We danced a lot last night and I’m sure it helped - at least it was a lot of fun!

    Here are his awards:

    • National Academy of Science Award in Molecular Biology in 2003
    • Wiley Prize in the Biomedical Sciences from Rockefeller University in 2003
    • Elected member National Academy of Science in 2005
    • Brandeis University’s Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Medical Research in 2005
    • Gairdner Foundation International Award in 2005
    • Massry Prize in 2005
    • Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter and Prize in 2006
    • Inaugural recipient of The Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research by Johnson & Johnson in 2006.
    • The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2006
       


    And the great TV-cook Ralf Zacherl sent us a smile, too!
    Whenever I ran across Ralf Zacherl I thought this guy was just too nice for this world. Now I changed my mind: The world definitely needs more people like him!


    Babette Einstmann will participate, as well. Besides being TV-presenter she is ambassadress of the Bärenherz foundation (link links to German page) which cares about ill or handicapped children and their families.
     

    10.01.2007, Wednesday

    19:05, Meike

    And another great VIP

    Some minutes ago another e-mail made us happy!
    The famous Belgium singer Helmut Lotti will smile on January 25th for the World’s Greatest Smile!
    He has sold over 13 million albums worldwide and received over 80 platinum and 70 gold albums.
    And besides that Helmut Lotti is an ambassador for
    UNICEF!


    18:17, Meike

    New World’s Greatest Smile VIP

    Entertainer, actress and author Sissi Perlinger is the new smiling VIP of the day!

    She got the “Adolf-Grimme-Preis Gold” for being the best actress of the year 1997, in 1992 the “Deutscher Kleinkunstpreis” (German cabaret award) and the “Sonderpreis in Montreux”, and many more awards!


    13:55, Meike

    New communication tip:

    8 easy steps how to console someone
    It’s always good to know how to console a hurt or shocked or just kind of sad person. Makes live easier – for you and the people around you. Somehow we find a lot of people on the streets who need first aid, sometimes children, sometimes adults. And they all have something in common: They are much more excited than they want to. And it is easy to console them.
    Read tip!

     

    09.01.2007, Tuesday

    19:32, Meike

    New World’s Greatest Smile VIPs

    Michael Holm relishes to participate in the World’s Greatest Smile again! He was one of the first participants of the last year and is mentioned on our acknowledgments page of 2006. He is a well-known German singer, musician, songwriter and producer.
    He also composed the music for the very popular international horror movie “Mark of the Devil”. And outside Germany, Michael Holm is best known for his works as member of the new age band Cusco which was nominated for the Grammy three times.

     

    And chansonnier, musician and author Peter Horton sent us a very nice E-mail today, too:
    After smiling for the World’s Greatest Smile 2006 he also likes to smile 2007 for us again.
    He made music with other stars like David Bowie and Placido Domingo and got in addition famous for being the host of the TV-series “Café in Takt”. Moreover he was lecturer at the University of Hamburg.
    Peter Horton wrote more than 600 pieces of art, songs,   instrumental music and chansons, published about 60 discs and CDs, and is author of 9 books.

     

    And the first new participating VIP this morning was Ruth Moschner. Besides being a TV-presenter and actor she was a candidate at the German TV-Show “Dancing on Ice” in autumn 2006. She had to learn ice-skating there and did it so successful that (together with the figure skater Carl Briggs) she placed first!
    And in 2006 she also established the association “Ruth tut gut e.V.” She developed the concept of the association and is chairwoman of management board. The association cares about the prevention of unemployment among young people.
    Here is the web site of “Ruth tut gut e.V.”:
    www.ruth-tut-gut.de (in German)


    16:31, Meike

    Media requests and a lot of hair in a lot of wind

    We sent out our first press release for the World’s Greatest Smile 2007 yesterday.
    The results were among others answers from the United States, New Zealand, Lebanon, Germany, Haiti, Iceland, Gambia, India, Swiss, and the United Kingdom.
    So now we just came back from an interview and photo shooting of a widely read German Newspaper.
    Nice chance to go on an excursion to Hamburg’s windy Alster (lots of water in the middle of Hamburg), passing several probably very friendly guys with huge guns in front of the United States Consulate and staying at Bodos Bootssteg (Bodo’s landing stage). Cool location, very nice.
    Main topics of the interview were the World’s Greatest Smile 2007, it’s aims, VIPs, future, advantages of smiling in general, communication and much more.

     


    11:14, Meike

    World’s Greatest Logo

    Hello, media and VIPs and everybody else!
    Yes, when you need the logo of the World’s Greatest Smile in a really huge version here it is:
    World’s Greatest Smile Logo
     

    08.01.2007, Monday

    18:48, Meike

    World’s Greatest Smile VIPs

    And we are happy to introduce another smiling newcomer in the VIPs list:
    TV-presenter, author, actor and radio presenter  Thomas Koschwitz!


    13:43, Meike

    Adrenaline days...!

    After new entries in the forms and new telephone calls we can proudly proclaim:
    Already more than
    96.000 (!) people from around the world will participate at the World’s Greatest Smile 2007!
    And some more are coming...
     


    11:31, Meike

    World’s Greatest Smile VIPs

    New participating VIP of the weekend is Bernhard Brink (singer, TV-presenter, and actor). He already smiled for the World’s Greatest Smile 2006 and we got an E-mail that he likes to participate 2007 again!
    In the year 2006 Bernhard Brink was the most successful interpret in the field of pop song / folk music of the radio hit parade in Germany. And he sang three of the five mostly played songs in this field!


    And Claudia Pechstein
    sent us a very nice picture
    of her smile as well.
    (She already announced her
    participation on Friday,
    I just didn’t manage to open
     the data of the photo so far
    - now here it is!)

     



    10:58, Meike
    Child development

    219 million “children under 5 years fail to reach their potential in cognitive development because of poverty, poor health and nutrition, and deficient care...” said the medical journal The Lancet.
    89 million of these children live in south Asia. And 145 million of the disadvantaged children live in ten countries: India, Nigeria, China, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and Tanzania.
     

    05.01.2007, Friday

    16:05, Meike
    World’s Greatest Smile VIPs

    Maxi Biewer

    Today two VIPs announced their participation in the World’s Greatest Smile 2007!

    Speed skater Claudia Pechstein wrote us a very friendly Email and promised smile for us!
    She is the most successful German Winter Olympian of all time - and won five Olympic gold medals, two silver and two bronze medals! Claudia Pechstein is the first Winter Olympian to win medals in five consecutive Olympics (1992-2006).

    And Maxi Biewer (actor and TV-presenter) will smile for the World’s Greatest Smile again.
    She was so nice to send us a picture for you from a transhumance in Wildschönau.
     


    11:54, Meike
    And the new countries with participants of the World’s Greratest Smile 2007 of the week are:

    • France
    • Venezuela
    • Sri Lanka
    • Rwanda
    • Peru
    • Bahrain
    • Syria
    • Guatemala
    • Israel
    • Republic of Macedonia
    • South Korea
    • Liberia
    • Azerbaijan
    • El Salvador
    • Mongolia
    • Paraguay
    • Botswana
    • Albania
    • Colombia
    • Zambia
    • Estonia
    • Madagascar
    • Netherlands
    • Moldova
    • and Vietnam
       

    04.01.2007, Thursday, 13:19, Meike


    World’s Greatest Participants

    Already more than 45.000 people enrolled their participation in the World’s Greatest Smile 2007 so far!
    We got lots of entries in the online forms, many nice telephone calls, and even hand written data sheets with signatures.
     

    03.01.2007, Wednesday, 09:18, Meike

     

    3rd January
    11 years of Meike & Andreas today!
    We won.

    02.01.2007, Tuesday

    17:40, Meike
    Communication tip:
    ‘A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.’ or
    ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’



    The look of two people at each other’s eyes at the same time can be wonderful – or a horrible disaster… Probably you know both from your own experience. Flirting or aggressive starring, both is possible. Tricky thing.
    So what can we do? Here are my suggestions.

    Read full tip: ‘A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.’ or
    ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’!

    (There you get a translation of the picture, too.)



    13:37, Meike

    January 2007, now...

    • Ban Ki-moon is the new Secretary-General of the United Nations.
    • the presidency of the G8 is held by Germany.
    • Bulgaria and Romania join the European Union - 27 countries altogether.
    • and the euro is the official currency of Slovenia, too.

    Now you are prepared for your next TV quiz show!
    Wait...! Something else: The Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer who was with Sir Edmund Hillary the first man to reach the summit of the Mount Everest on 29th May 1953 was Tenzing Norgay. ...Tenzing Norgay!
     

    01.01.2007, Monday, 15:22, Meike

    
China calling

    One of the very best highlights of the weekend was a telephone call from China where some very nice people wanted to wish us a happy new year - and they announced a group of participants for the World’s Greatest Smile 2007 as well! Very, very friendly people in China!

    31.12.2006, Sunday, 15:48, Meike


    We wish you all
    a very happy,
    successful,
    healthy,
    and peaceful new year
    - and that you can
    make your wishes come true!
     

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