Avatar photoSteven Savage

Talking Cell Phones For Soldiers With Robbie Bergquist

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Robbie Bergquist with soldiers at Fort Lewis McChord
Robbie with some of the troops that Cell Phones for Soldiers helps out.

 

Back when I researched disposing of e-waste, I was fortunate enough to find out about Cell Phones For Soldiers, which of course went right into CivicGeek.com.  Erin McCloskey, who handles communication, introduced me to one of the founders, Robbie Bergquist.  Robbie was kind enough to answer some questions so we civic geeks can understand how his organization runs and how we can help.

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Interview Week

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This week is going to be interview week!  I had enormous response to my latest calls for interviews (and more are out there), so this week we’ll meet four new people to learn from, follow, and geek out with!

Additional note, I took a one-week break from Way With Worlds.  Work has piled up and I had to do some site maintenance.

Respectfully,

– Steven Savage
http://www.musehack.com/
http://www.informotron.com/
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/.

Way With Worlds: It Comes Apart – The Persecution Rests

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fence barbed wire

(Way With Worlds is a weekly column on the art of worldbuilding published at Seventh Sanctum, Muse Hack, and Ongoing Worlds)

Last column I covered bias and bigotry in the settings you’re developing. Not a pleasant subject, but one that’s important because believable characters have their biases and often their bigotries – just as we do.

To summarize my handy rules-to-remember on the subject:

  1. Everyone has Opinions.
  2. When opinions “solidify” they become Biases.
  3. When Biases become part of our identity they become Bigotries, sort of black holes of ideals that suck other things in.

Now when bigotries seize control of an individual, a group, a nation, or a galactic confederation, that can lead to outright campaigns against various people. Attempts to extermiate, subjugate, control, or drive out an entire identifiable group. In short, persecutions.

Which is the unpleasant subject of today’s column.

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