Here’s an interesting perspective on mediation’s exposure on the web, Google Trend’s history of “mediation” (1) popularity as a search term and (2) occurrences in online news articles.

Unfortunately, it also seems like there’s a lot more interest in and coverage of war than peace…

In perhaps the mother of all “aim high and negotiate down” opening offers, a victim of hurricane Katrina has filed a claim against the U.S. Army Core of Engineers for $3 quadrillion. The story is reported here.

This actually comes from a brilliant bit of comedic marketing by Microsoft, a faux children’s book titled Mommy, Why is There a Server in the House? Helping your Child Understand the Stay-at-Home Server.

Have you been trying, with no luck, to reach folks at ACR (Association for Conflict Resolution)? It turns out that they’ve been without email access for three weeks. They’re back, and here’s the update they recently sent out:
Staff Communications Update
 
After a number of weeks without email communication, the ACR staff’s internet service has been restored. [...]

Creative problem solving, win-win solution, blah blah blah. It’s easy to lose the basic experience of tension, imagination, and transformation–the humanity of conflict–amidst all the jargon in the field. So, for a more concrete example of when thing’s go right, here’s a short video about a community conflict happily resolved here in Baltimore. Just… awww.