I made a Top Ten Shows of 2010 list as a response to Jerry Saltz's Top Ten list he posted in New York Magazine and reposted on his Facebook page. Why not?
The poet Gertrude Stein said that she wrote “for myself and strangers.” The rapper Jay Z inserted the line in his song “What More Can I Say,” tweaking the words slightly to, “I’m a writer...
A study done at Carnegie Mellon University revealed that the vast majority of Greenhouse Gas emissions in the American food system occur during the production of food, and that final transportation of the food only accounts for...
I voted this morning, and as I delivered my ballot to the little machine, I thought – this works. This is one of the triangles of how you (I) shape society by our daily personal and collective actions. How I treat myself and others,...
"There will come a day when a carrot, freshly observed, will spark a revolution."
--Paul Cezanne
Where's that from? A buddhist blog? An arts blog? No: an unexpected ally in the move toward awareness of interdependence in food...
I saw Jackass 3D this weekend and laughed for 87 minutes straight, pausing once to breathe when a skit got a little too weird for me. I'd seen The Town a few weeks back and came out of the movie thinking Art just doesn't have what it takes...
I was quite moved by Tim Jackon's recent Ted talk, called Tim Jackson's Economic Reality Check. Jackson is a prominent economist and the author of Prosperity Without Growth.
Are you going to the Rally to Restore Sanity? I don't think Jon Stewart is reading Chogyam Trungpa, but it does seem to be a big event. Relatedly, have you read Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker article on the illusion that social media can...
Happy Tuesday. Below is one of my favorite quotes on interdependence from Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh (published in several places including The Heart of Understanding). Then, as many of us are working to support mindful politicians this November...
As the new IDP blog is still in its infancy phase, and as some days we have a quote and others we have images or videos, I thought it best to rename this post the Daily connection. Let's talk about food politics shall we? Michael Pollan is the...
This week we'll look at James Case-Leal's "Radical Spirit," a big sculptural environment, video projection(s), performance(s), among other things at a Lutheran Church in Greenpoint.
Many people look to Siddhartha Gautama as an example of someone who attained nirvana, a buddha. Each week in this column we look at what it might be like if Siddhartha was on his spiritual journey today. How would he combine Buddhism and dating?...
Even Lady Gaga couldn't get the two supposedly moderate Senators from Maine to vote to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell in the US military. Talk about a bad romance.
Personally speaking, my view of the politics of those of us who profess...
We walked silently, taking in the atmosphere, which was a mixture of discord and solemnity. Some people were yelling in anger, some people were crying in grief, and some people, like the police officers and sanitation workers, were just there...
The overwhelming opinion at Saturday's 9/11 rallies is that putting a mosque so near the former World Trade Center footprint is too close, too soon. Though I believe deeply that our freedom of religion exists for exactly these sort of...
Joshua Adler and Patrick Groneman took time at the Symposium for Socially Engaged Western Buddhism to speak with some of the participants and panelists about the socially engaged work that they are practicing, what drives them to do this work, and...
