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Singing for
an Immigration Vigil, Richmond,
California
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PeaceHost.net was established in 1999
to host websites for organizations working
towards peace and social, environmental and
economic justice.
The PeaceHost
family consists of websites I have designed
&/or hosted &/or maintained. Not all
are still active, such as Gaiæcology.net,
which is a domain I never developed, then lost
when I failed to renew it. I love the use of
the Greek letter, ‘æ’ linking the two words.
Most I designed
from scratch; some I re-designed from the
original when I was engaged to take them over.
Some, in
turn, were re-designed when others
took over the maintenance, such as
Mulukuku.org, for which I renew the domain on
my own nickel, the least I can do for an
organization that does so much for others.
Most I did
voluntarily; only a very few are commercial
websites, but more and more are paying gigs.
Great fun, too!
Here, for your
convenience, is a list, as full as I can
recollect, of the PeaceHost family. All will
come up in new browsers, as many are with
frames, and are a tad to busy for a small
window such as screens like mine afford.
Enjoy!
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Daniel,
David Hartsough, Jean & Abe,
Naval Weapons Station, Concord,
California, February 17, 1992
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My
family:
Abuela Jean, a
memorial website for my mother.
Prophet Abraham,
for my father.
David Reuben was
my brother, my sole sibling. He passed two
days after 9-11. A beautiful soul who
contended with inner daemons, the cataclysmic
tragedy may have just broken his heart.
Karen Elizabeth is
my niece, and does medical transcribing. This
is probably the simplest website I’ve done.
Megan Ashley Brown
is my niece’s firstborn. I had composed three
short piano pieces, inspired by our cat, Cat’s
walking on the keys of the family piano.
Megan’s birth was imminent, so I dedicated it
to her.
Mathew Brown is
my niece, Karen Elizabeth’s third born, her
first son.
Uncle Frank
is actually my biological gandfather. His
sermon, “Good Men in Hell” has
become known worldwide, inspiring a religion
bolgger in Melbourne, Australia as recently as
2003. You may read this
still relevant sermon by clicking on the title
in this paragraph.
My
immediate Webfamily:
PeaceHost.net
started it all!
PacifistNation is
no place for wimps!
Hexadec is the
Playing Card for the New Millennium!
Truebadour.net is
the cobbler’s who gets ignored. I’m nowhere
near as active a professional musician as I
was for more than thirty-five years, beginning
the very night I turned 21 in San Diego, but I
still keep my hand in. The unorthodox spelling
was the result of being told by Earthlink.net
that I was the 132,438th person to request
the Troubadour domain (the original was
registered sometime in the 12th or 13th
century.) Undaunted, I remain not a false
badour, but a ....
“Metanoia –
a Universalist Mass” now resides at
JazzSacra.com,
where you may download not only mp3s, but PDFs
of charts and scores and even the Finale files
themselves. Experience the healing power of
sacred jazz.
ben Avrám WebDesign
(an example, by the way, of a ‘CamelCase’ word
(a customer of Abdul’s Used Camelot, offered a
promotional T-shirt, was asked, “How do you
like your T – one hump or two?”)) is my
first commercial domain to actually pay
for itself! And as I find myself doing more
and more sound gigs, I have created a new
site, benAvramSoundDesign,
featuring JBL, Mackie and Shure
industry-standard equipment. And the Bay Area
peace and justice community is welcome to use
the Hal
Carlstad Memorial PA System, a
high fidelity battery-powered self-contained
system featuring a music-quality speaker
system, built-in handheld wireless mic and CD
player.
“Legacy – I
am my parents’ son” is an
electronic homage to my parents. [Sorry, but
this website is under reconstruction. Stories
about my parents, however, may be found on www.DanielbenAvram.com.
I invite you
to read the remarkable story of the “Tree of Peace”, so
dedicated by no less a personage than
Commander Richard Owens of the Naval
Weapons Base, Concord. How might my dad, the
world's oldest hippie and dedicated, life-long
pacifist, have earned the respect of a Navy
Commander? Read on, McDuff!
White Star Press
is really family. It is my mother’s
book on Puerto Rican independence. As you will
read in “Legacy”, my mother, Jean, a case
could be made for her being, perhaps the most
prominent Anglo in the movement’s history.
(Her son would, of course, say that. But I
would submit, as evidence, her very strong
hand in the nonviolent liberation of the
island of Vieques from US Navy occupation. So
there!
BenefitHaiti.com
is a domain I’m just waiting to find a good
use for. Meanwhile, it is a good tutorial on
Haiti.
Gaiæcology.net
was a brilliant idea of a domain, but like an
idiot I let the registration lapse. It is
probably the cleverest domain name I’ve though
of. Undeveloped, it’s remains, alas, are
but a dream.
It’s the Water, Stupid is
a website I set up to let people know about
water. Check it out. Issues abound, many of
them absolutely critical, others, plainly
criminal.
The
PeaceHost Family:
Ecumenical Peace
Institute / Clergy & Laity Concerned is
my favorite child, I suppose. It is one of the
first websites I designed, maintain and host,
and a great organization.
¡Abrazos! is, too, really. I
set it up when Dorothy Granada, a nurse from
Santa Cruz was being persecuted by the
Nicaraguan government for helping the women of
Nicaragua with a clinic she started,
Mulukukú’s Maria Luisa Ortiz Cooperative
and Women’s Clinic.
While
in hiding, my website was very effective in
letting people know the news as it was
happening. Ultimately, her persecutor, former
president Arnoldo Alemàn was found guilty of
violating her civil rights in a dramatic case
that went all the way to the Nicaraguan
Supreme Court. I had the good fortune of being
in the hall where she was to speak (the EPI’s
annual Fall Dinner) when she came in,
excitedly announcing her victory, that very
day!
I
no longer maintain the website, which another
person designed (more business-like, I must
admit), but I continue to host it. The link at
the beginning of this paragraph is to the site
as I last worked it, the design I
created. It automatically forwards to their
current website.
The Crosses of Lafayette,
a hillside memorial to our solders killed
in Iraq, updated weekly, opens with on of
the most moving videos you will ever
encounter, featuring the stunning song,
Memorial Day, by Lafayette songwriter Laura Zucker. This is a
must-see website.
Continue
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Guatemala
News & Information Bureau,
(GNIB) in one for whom I designed and briefly
maintained a website, although they hosted it
on a different server. But, darn, I’ve
searched and searched, and I cannot find my
original website design. The link above is
current, though.
Two
great websites I am proud to host are PeaceChurch,
which challenges Christians who view Christ as
a warrior who will smite the infidels
(unbelievers) to examine their
beliefs, and Christian CO, an
invaluable resource which has he procedures
for a soldier to leave the military as a
conscientious objector. Daniel Shubin is a
formidable writer and scholar, much worth
checking out.
SoldierSayNo! is
a great site for solders considering
conscientious objection which became a sort of
stepping stone for the excellent blog Gerry Condon
now runs, one of the very best in the field.
War and
Law League (WALL) is a San
Francisco-based organization focusing on peace
and international law. I did not design this
website, but I do maintain it.
United
for Healthcare Justice is a local
(Concord, California) organization. Check out
the tunes: the theme to ER and a great tune by
a Northwest family band, Wickline.
Students for a Democratic
Society (SDS) is alive and well in
Northern California, at local (Pleasant Hill,
California) Community College Diablo
Valley College (DVC). Hail Bob Dylan!
benAvrám
WebDesign Clients:
National
Network to End the War Against Iraq
(NNEWAI) was my very first client, though I
ended up as a volunteer as I refused the
second half of my contract check (ouch!)
because that spawn-of-the-devil software
FrontPage was wasting so much of my time I had
little for content. Their website is no longer
operable, but here is a home page I have on my
PeaceHost server: NNEWAI
Diablo Dance Theater
is my friend, Lois Flood, a leading authority
on Isadora Duncan and a marvelous dancer.
FinnLabor.net
is my friend, Harry Siitonen. Dig the great
Finnish fiddle group, Frigg!
Central Core Restoration
Corporation (CCRCorp) is headed by
a friend of mine, Todd Williams.
Unfortunately, after extensive and dramatic
(and paid for, thankfully) revision of their
original website, the Board has not gotten
back to me for over a year. I dunno, I
like the site.
Initiatives for Democratic
Change keeps me busier than any
other client. We are now, after a
year-and-a-half of development, open for
business! David and John are brilliant
thinkers, researchers and writers with a
unique and practical plan for restoring
democracy. Visit us!
The New Mecca Café
is not a client, really, but I have been its
owner, Guillermo Muñiz’s guitarist and music
director since 1979. It was a joyous labor of
love for a Pittsburg institution.
Bay Point Chamber of
Commerce is one of my most ardent
and enthusiastic clients (only Lois gives them
competition in that department.) They liked
the demo website I showed them that they asked
me to be on their Board of Directors. At the
first meeting (truth, I swear) I said
something like, “In the interest of full
disclosure I must state that I am, and have
always been, a registered member of the
Democratic Party.” Only those who lived
through McCarthyism will fully appreciate that
bon mot.
The Bay Point Garden Club is a lovely place to
visit. The challenge was to create a virtually
maintenance-free webpage. All the active pages
are Yahoo group pages administered by the
indefatigable Mike Kerr, one of the finest
community activists I have had the pleasure of
knowing.
K&S
Towing and Transport is a member
of the Bay Point Chamber, my first spin-off
from them. Right now you see the old website,
before I worked it over. Check it out after
the middle of September, and as soon as
Ramadan is over (in a few days, as of this
writing) we’ll get down to business.
JCamille.net
is not really a client, either. I just set up
a résumé webpage for my friend, and I like the
look of it.
Cherubini
Coffee House is a modest one-pager
for a wonderful coffee shop in Alamo,
California. It features a slideshow using a
shareware program I found online.
Center
for Global Peace and Democracy and the Alameda Public Affairs
Forum are two brainchildren of one
of the great old-school minds of the Left,
journalist and writer and you’ll have to read
his bio to get all the rest.
Janet
Gibson for School Board fared
about as well as her candidacy. Too bad. She’s
a great, civic minded educator and former
Alameda School Board member. Ah, politics ....
Bill
Balderston was the Green Party
candidate for California State Insurance
Commissioner in 2010. Well fought, guy!
Cynthia
Johnson won one of the nine hotly
contested seats on the KPFA (Berkeley,
California) Pacifica Board, a devoted peace
worker whose focus is on cooperation in a oft
times brutal organizational environment.
Here
are a few ‘spec’ websites for prospective
clients:
Bay
Point Historical Society – I used
the Bay Point Chamber website as a template,
even using their GoDaddy domain to host it,
and giving it ‘Under Construction’, temporary
webpages, and a secondary menu linking to
three client websites. Not much, and will
certainly be drastically re-designed if I ever
get hired. But it shows how things get
started.
Barry
M. Schutz, Visiting Scholar in
African Studies, Stanford University. I just
love this one. I believe it is one of my
favorites, whether or not I get the gig. It is
really more about the school and the
department than about Professor Schutz, and
that will certainly be remedied. But, first
off, there’s the wonderful slide show which I
re-created which, in turn, suggested the Paul
Simon tune, performed by some great South
African musicians! Yo, Paul, World Music
incarnate!
Memorial Websites:
Janet
Foldvary
Tom
Dragavon
Diane
Thomas
Fr.
Bill O’Donnell
Jann
Rose Shaub
Hal
Carlstadt (& the Hal Carlstadt
Memorial Sound System and yes, I have him
twice, but it’s a great PA!)
JoanMcIntire
Pastor
Lee Williamson
Worth
Myers
Gail
Rodens
Esther
Ho
Andy Baltzo
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