December 1, 2011
November 12, 2011
Have you Kissed a Teacher Today?
With all the discouraging news drifting about these days it’s a good idea to focus on some good news and applaud those in this world who are quietly making a difference.
Take a break tonight and sit down to watch the 99 minute documentary “Pressure Cooker” and you will be inspired by the difference teacher Wilma Stephenson has made in the lives of her inner-city students, at Frankford High School. Ms. Stephenson teaches Culinary Arts, in a North Philadephia all-black high school, and her passion and determination to provide choices for her students is nothing short of inspirational. This movie is well-paced and will reminder viewers that one person can make a difference.
November 8, 2011
7,000,000,000 Nine Zeros…
It was said that Halloween marked the day that the world population reached seven billion.
Many people I surveyed had no idea how to get their heads around that number and didn’t have any idea how many zeros that really was. We can comprehend ten, hundred, and thousand easily and routinely but then the numbers get to move into more zeros they are less familiar.
Population control is one of those taboo topics I have always been interested in, along with prison reform and end of life choice. There was an excellent New York Times opinion piece by NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF this week called the “Birth Control Solution” urging us to look more realistically at controlling family size vs. listening to religious people many of whom have taken a vow of chastity.
If you are interested in exploring various countries and their birth rates here’s a link that will ring your bell.
If you would like to see an estimate where you fall in the population of the world based on your birthday give this a whirl.
Take a moment this week to talk about population by posing the question to your friends and family if they know how many zeros there are in a billion and use it as a starting point to discuss the world’s resources and the growing strains population puts on Mother Earth.
November 2, 2011
Book: After the Fall, Thanks Studs!
Oral History from 9.11
In the precious tradition of Studs Terkel , within days of the September 11th tragedy the Columbia University Oral History Research Office deployed a team to interview people in New York City.
For the tenth anniversary The New Pressh has published a stunning selection of these interviews that took place initially and in the years following in the book After the Fall: New Yorkers Remember September 2001 and the Years After.This book deserves special attention amid a field of others. Although we have heard from many people who lost family members in this attack, here you will hear from the blind woman who ran a candy shop in a nearby building lobby, artists who lived in Tribeca, and other people whose perspectives you likely didn’t get to hear from before and if you did likely it wasn’t in their own words allowed to breath and come alive with emotion. Here selected interviews have been distilled and are presented in their own words and you will learn things you didn’t know previously even if you have read other books. It’s easy to visualize what the editors plowed through to come up with the brilliant selection that is presented here, they had over 900 hours of interviews to choose from.
If you aren’t familiar with Studs Terkel‘s work I’d recommend listening to Hearing Voices piece about him called Working With Studs it gives you a taste of this man who spent his life listening to those who are rarely featured and presenting them in their own words. He is perhaps the most famous for his book Working published back in 1974.
October 18, 2011
Hawaii: the Fourth State to Endorse End of Life Choice
Barbara Coombs Lee, an American hero
Hawaii has become the fourth state in the union to allow death with dignity joining Oregon, Washington, and Montana in allowing people to have a say in their end of life choices. Here’s a timeline detailing the end of life choice movement in case you want additional background. There are many who have come to realize that it’s not quantity of life that matters but the quality of life, who want more say in their lives final chapter.
The blog Seven Ponds has a worthwhile round up of this latest state to work toward more end of life choice. You can click to the many links including a statement from Barbara Coombs Lee , from Compassion and Choices. Here is a section of Seven Pond’s website that details “end of life rights” that has plenty of resources for study.
If you want to know how your state does on palliative care here’s an interactive map that will give you the run down If you don’t like what you see, work to raise this grade by joining up with others to provide better end of life care.
October 16, 2011
September 21, 2011
Three Women’s Talks You’ll Want to Listen to
Kavita Ramdas is a powerful speaker, and was at the time of the talk the President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women who appears on the KQED radio show Forum. Listen and you will be impressed by her intelligent comments about women globally. During her tenure at the Global Fund for Women the fund’s assets have increased from $6 million to $21 million and their grant making has risen to $8 million a year to over 160 countries. The fund was founded with the belief that “…women’s human rights and dignity were essential to the advancement of global agendas for social, economic, and political change.” They believed that by “putting resources into the hands of grassroots women leaders, women would change the world ” (from their website).
Another Forum program that is worth a listen features Dr. Nadine Burke, who runs The Bayview Child Health Center, a clinic in San Francisco. She talks about the correlation between traumatic situations—known as Adverse Childhood Experiences and chronic health problems ranging from depression and obesity, to cancer and heart disease, in later life. Her work was featured in the New Yorker’s March 21, 2011 issue and her passion about her work is to be deeply admired.
For something totally different tune into Bob Edwards segment with Robin Nagle talking about her work as an anthropologist for the New York City Department of Sanitation since 2006. She hopes to create a Museum of Sanitation to bring to the public more awareness of all we throw in the trash and try to keep “out of sight out of mind.” She has said “garbage is very scary to us culturally, and it is also… one of the single most fascinating things you could ever study.” Her talk about trash will give you a new perspective on what you pitch and what can be seen from space. If this short interview makes you want to know more read Alex Carp‘s interview with her here.
August 27, 2011
Two Must Reads: Hurricane Katrina
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers is an amazing look at one man’s experience during Hurricane Katrina.
Hard working successful Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Syrian American contractor, living in the Uptown district of New Orleans, decides to wait out the storm as his as his wife and children leave town to escape the storm. He stay to look after their property, business, and rentals and ends up surprised by how brutal the storm is when it hits. As the water rises he uses a canoe to help others. He keeps in touch with his wife by phone when the story takes a huge twist that reveals the underbelly of some of the happenings few of us have read about. This book was my first introduction to McSweeney’s, but it led me to another book about Katrina an oral history they also published entitled Voices from the Storm.
Part of the “Voices of Witness” series, this book is an oral history in Studs Terkel’s finest tradition. From their website, “Voice of Witness is a nonprofit book series that empowers those most closely affected by contemporary social injustice. Using oral history as a foundation, the series depicts human rights crises around the world through the stories of the men and women who experience them. Voice of Witness was founded by author Dave Eggers and physician/human rights scholar Lola Vollen, and is the nonprofit division of McSweeney’s Books.”
Voices from the Storm: The People of New Orleans on Hurricane Katrina and Its Aftermath is a collection of words from thirteen residents of New Orleans about Hurricane Katrina. One of the most powerful books about the storm it gives great insights into the culture and belief of the city’s residents like nothing else i have read. It’s in their own words and that is what makes it so moving. The book includes some salient facts that few people know about the city and leaves each reader to decide where the truth lies among the various perspectives presented.
Flooded I-10/I-610/West End Blvd interchange and surrounding area of northwest New Orleans
August 20, 2011
An American Heroine Dramatic Activist: Anna Deavere Smith
Ms Smith, photo by Joan Marcus
Anna Deavere Smith, actress, activist, and playwright appears on KQED to talk about her newest production “Let Them Down Easy” about the broken American health care system. She is a brilliant actress and a creative wonder, her activism around American controversies with such a race riots, Katrina, and other important worth dramatic reflection.
She interviews diverse people and brings these captivating characters into the theater to appreciative audiences. The interviewer refers to her as a “student of expression” quite an understatement. Smith mentions, in this interview that she had always deeply admired the work of Studs Terkel, my hero too. She brings the human side of the health care debate to the stage and creates much food for thought after interviewing hundreds of people about their experience around medicine and health care. Intelligent and thoughtful she is a woman whose work you don’t want to miss.
August 15, 2011
Commonwealth Club of California Talks
If you are scoping out some good podcasts to listen to and have spun through the TED Talks and want something else to sink your teeth into check out the many lively talks that take place at the Commonwealth Club of California.You can listen to Les Hinton, the CEO of Dow Jones & Co (May 2011)and hear his take on the changing landscape of journalism or hear author and activist Alice Walker (December 2010). These are great hour-long talks some of which include a lively question and answer period.
