Armed conflict throughout the world has been declining over the past decade, according to the Canadian research group, Project Ploughshares.

Many of the current wars still underway around the globe get little, if any, coverage in America’s mainstream media. And that may actually be a good thing, as Project Ploughshares Executive Director John Seibert explains.

The most recent report on global wars shows none continuing anywhere in the western hemisphere, but there’s a less obvious downside to what at first blush looks like good news.

The research of Project Ploughshares forms the basis of the recent documentary film, Soldiers of Peace  which will be shown Sunday afternoon at the Glaser Center in Santa Rosa as part of a local observation of the International Day of Peace . Click on nthe icon below to see a graph of the number of armed conflicts tallied by Project Ploughshares each year over the past decade.

You can also read the Project Ploughshares annual report here, and watch the trailer for Soldiers of Peace here:

A little-known chapter of America’s wartime aviation history has been revisited by a Healdsburg writer, whose debut novel recounts the story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs.

There was an enormous pool of frustrated women pilots who rushed to join the WASP program when it was created, Jeane Sloan recounts, because the attack on Pearl Harbor had left them no other opportunities to fly.

The WASP pilots were not recognized as part of the armed forces, but were instead considered civil service employees, notes Sloan. That meant that the women were not eligible for military funeral benefits.

On July 1, 2009, President Obama signed SB 614, awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to all the WASP pilots, in most cases posthumously. Jeane Sloan says she was excited to think that her friend and mentor, Florence Wheeler, would be getting one of the medals. Wheeler, however, was not so impressed.

Healdsburg author Jeanie Sloan will bring together nine surviving WASPs from the greater Bay Area  in Santa Rosa this Saturday afternoon for a special free public event sponsored by the Sonoma County Arts Council. It's at the Santa Rosa Veteran's building from 1-4 pm.

The political differences that divide progressives and conservatives run deeper than policies and opinions, says linguist and analyst George Lakoff, they are embedded deep within the brain itself.

UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff is primarily a linguist, and here he explains how that background leads to the political applications that form the basis of his current book, The Political Mind: A Cognitive Scientist’s Guide to Your Brain and its Politics.

George Lakoff(right)  will read from The Political Mind  at Copperfields Books in Montgomery Village Sunday afternoon, September 13th at 2 pm.

President Obama has been praised for actively re-entering the debate over health care reform with his address to Congress this week, but Lakoff says the administration is still bound by a policy-driven approach that stints on making an essential emotional connection with the American electorate.

The most famous and successful boxer of the late 20th century, Muhammad Ali, was both a symbol and a product of the turbulent times he lived through.

This video clip offers a visual summary of Al's tumultous career: 

Michael Ezra (right) Chair of the American Multicultural Studies Department at Sonoma State University, is the author of Muhammad Ali:  The Making of an Icon. He says the fighter’s decision to change his name form Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali was a dramatic moment in his public history, but  it was even more significant in the behind-the-scenes internal politics within the Nation of Islam.

 The soon-to-be Muhammad Ali stands triumphantly over Sonny Liston as he claims the world heavyweight boxing title in 1964. Watch the rematch here:

From today's perspective, Ali's heyday is sometimes seen as a "golden age" of boxing in America, in no small part because of the quality of the competition that Ali was able to dominate.