Volunteer peacekeepers, including a Santa Rosa woman, are helping to hold down the violence in some key international hot spots, as part of the Nonviolent Peace Force.

Linda Sartor and Jan Passion (right) will talk about their experience with the Nonviolent Peaceforce  and the ways that people can joinat a private home gathering in Santa Rosa on Tuesday evening, March 10 at 7 pm in Santa Rosa.  If you want to attend, email Pat at patmas41@mac.com for directions and to RSVP.

Of course there are other ways to get involved, too. One is by buying Peace Bonds.

Beyond the pursuit of happiness lies the bigger question of how to sustain it.

Read the article here:  10 Things Science Says Will Make You Happy

Sarah van Gelder, executive editor of Yes!Magazine says that one of her favorite things about this issue was learning about Colin Beavan,  the New York resident who calls himself "No Impact Man."

Beavan's article describes how he and his family observed a gift-less Christmas. You can read his blog here.

Researchers say thankful people tend to be happy people. Click here to take a test to find out your gratitude score. 

 The staff of Yes! has also prepared this Resource Guide for Sustainable Happiness.

The simple glyph we know as "the Peace Symbol" has become so universally used and recognized that it may come as a surprise to learn that it was actually created specifically as an emblem for nuclear disarmament exactly 50 years ago this year.

That half-century history, including the debut of the peace symbol at a historic march against nuclear disarmament in England in 1958 (pictured below) is the subject of the recentbook, Peace, the biography of a symbol, co-written by Forestville author and activist Ken Kolsbrun. He talks about the book in this North Bay Report:

Ken Kolsbrun has collected more stories about the peace symbol here .

Not one but two Project Censored stories this past year came from the work of Matt Rothschild, editor of The Progressive magazine.

 Matthew Rothschild (below) the Editor of The Progressive magazine spoke last night at Sonoma State University, as part of Project Censored's Modern Media Censorship lecture series. Rothschild had two of his own stories selected by Project Censored for their Top 25 of th4e past year, including one about a shadowy partnership between the FBI and American businesses called InfraGard. You can read it here.

President Elect Barak Obama is on the cover of the current edition of The Progressive, but editor Matt Rothschild is openly skeptical about the cabinet picks and other early moves by the new chief executive.

Newspapers across the country are struggling to reinvent themselves and survive in the Internet age, but Rothschild suggests that the situation for niche magazines such as The Progressive is not so dire.

Much of Rothschild's other recent reporting has addressed the erosion of civil rights in this country over the past eight years, stories he has compiled in his most recent book, You Have No Rights:  Stories of America in an Age of Repression.