Photo courtesy of SMITH Magazine

I’ve been reading a graphic novel called Shooting War.  It’s a very distopian view of the Iraq conflict and paints a very morbid picture of what is going to happen in Iraq in the next 10-15 years. 

There is plenty of blogger porn here: cool gadgets, overly left wing political diatribes, and demonisation of major corporations.   If your not into this stuff I would skip this one.  But if you are into these things then you’ll find that the writing is intelligent and the comic book like artwork is very well done.

Last night I had a couple of beers with Jim and Kelly from Volunteer Abroad.  VA is an organization that hooks up students with aid projects in six countries.  They train new volunteers so that they can get by in the language and not get robbed at every turn.  They do a direct connect of the resources (people) to the organizations in county.  Much of the travel industry (and more specifically volunteer aid orgs) are mired in mark ups and dubious ethics.  Not these guys, they are the real deal, doing good things for real people.

They have set up houses in all of the countries in which they operate, and they just moved into a great head office here in Kingston.  (A huge old limestone in the downtown that is just perfect for the 24/7 work that they do.)

I’ve been friends with Jim for years now, and have watched as he has nurtured VA into what it is today.  He’s the CEO of the company, and a very cool guy.

The reason we met up was to talk about social media and blogging for his company and how they should go about implementing things.  It really is a perfect company for a blogging initiative.  They are doing good/ ethical work, they have some PR issues that have more to do with the industry rather then their business, and they have well educated and passionate people working for them. 

I’m looking forward to continuing these conversations with them.  Good karma all around.