cheap basketball shoes cheap basketball shoes cheap basktball shoesLast week Squarespace was privileged to serve as a host company for Bpeace, a non-profit network of business professionals who volunteer their skills to entrepreneurs in conflict-affected countries. In partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative, Bpeace's goal is to create one million jobs across 1000 communities, with the simple belief that more jobs mean less violence. Bpeace Fast Runners are remarkable entrepreneurs from countries like Afghanistan and Rwanda. They all share the vision that employment is the bridge to better education, less poverty, improved health, and ultimately, less violence. We had the pleasure of hosting two Fast Runners from Afghanistan, both young entrepreneurs, in our office for two days. Reza owns a web and software development company. Farangis is a civil engineer who recently founded her own web hosting and design services provider. MY COUNTRY 'TIS OF THEE - A couple of months ago, I was in Peru, covering a trade fair and doing a bit of travel writing for the paper that employs me. It was a great trip, and while I was there, I ended up hanging around a bright young man named Alejandro, the nephew of Juan Jose, the Peruvian consulate's economic attache, my guide for the trip. Alejandro told me about his girlfriend, a former TV host who was studying at the London School of Economics in order to move into harder political reporting. It sounded like an admirable move, especially since I knew of more than a few TV "experts" at home who didn't seem to think they needed any kind of degree or course of study to hold forth on political or economic subjects. Last week, I recieved an e-mail from Alejandro's girlfriend, asking for help with an essay she'd been assigned in a course called "Politics of Resistance". Ximena - her name - had decided to write about Canada's political and cultural relationship to the United States, and her boyfriend had mentioned me as a possible resource. I AM 45 TODAY. There's a loose statistical probability that this is the midpoint of my life, which is enhanced by a nagging personal sensation that it is. The number itself certainly looks right - living till 100 is some sort of feat that I'm not either arrogant or ambitious enough to imagine, but 90 seems reasonable, which puts me here, in the middle of middle age, anticipating a perceptible quickening of pace that comes with heading down, not up, the slope of my life. I have no way of marking the occasion except with this list - forty-five 45rpm records, a little e-mail meme that was started by my onetime boss, Nerve magazine editor Dave "Rave" Macintosh, when he hit 45 last year, and circulated among former writers for the magazine. Needless to say, the real challenge was whittling down my list to just 45 records, after a quick run through iTunes - I could have done 90 at 45 no problem, and still stuck to the rule that every entry had to have been released as a single, at least somewhere in the world. cheap basktball shoes