A word from Stefany Hylton and Address the Audience Productions:

Greetings and Happy New Year to all the billions of Lunar New Year celebrators!

A New Year is a very useful and potentially positive event, whenever it happens.  My personal favorite is the Winter
Solstice which I feel is Nature's New Year as the days get longer from that day forward and the earth regrows itself.  But
whenever they are celebrated they often contain that spirit of renewal, growth and fresh commitment.

Here in the US many people are feeling refreshed by the change in the White House.  I do not expect magic but I
appreciate our President's ability to speak with an unusual, in this day, lack of hype and sensationalism.  His words are
measured and meaningful.  This gives me hope.         
The world and its inhabitants are much too complex to be reduced to good and evil and Obama makes me think he
understands this.  Goodbye to simplistic thinking and welcome to intelligence!

I'd like to encourage us all, in the spirit of the New Year, to try to be better people.  To try to have greater understanding
and empathy for each other and for our Planet Earth.  Don't be seduced by false gods, empty phrases and stupid
television.  Think deeply, know yourself, and mean what you say.  And try to be kind to your fellow travellers.   

Here are a few websites that help our fellow humans in various ways:

click here for World Population Statistics  half of the world (three billion people) lives on less than $2:50 per day...

http://www.kiva.org
(micro loans) Kiva is a non-profit that allows you to lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur in the
developing world.  You choose who to lend to - - and as they repay their loan, you get your money back.  It’s a powerful
and sustainable way to empower someone right now to lift themselves out of poverty.

http://www.heifer.org
Heifer provides the "start-up capital" of a farm animal – a no-interest living loan – small cash loans to purchase
equipment or supplies and the training that helps farmers become entrepreneurs.

http://www.nyof.org/programs/indentured1.html
For $100 Marin County, California woman gives Nepalese families a piglet or a goat in exchange for their daughter,
saving her from a lifetime of domestic servitude.