don’t mean love, when I say patriotism,” writes Ursula K. Le Guin in her classic 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness. “I mean fear. The fear of the other. And its expressions are political, not poetical: hate, rivalry, aggression.” In some corners, patriotism has a bad name. “Patriot” is mildly defined in my desktop dictionary as a “supporter of one’s own country”—and yet my thesaurus suggests the word “patriotism” can be synonymous with jingoism, chauvinism, nativism, and xenophobia. Particularly during times of war, patriotism does indeed seem to go hand-in-hand with dehumanization of outsid... posted on Jul 4 2013 (20,132 reads)

writing the movie Soul Surfer (a true story about a teenage surfer, Bethany Hamilton, whose arm was bitten off during a shark attack), I discovered that Bethany went back into the water to try surfing again less than one month after the horrific attack. When I asked her how she could have possibly gotten the courage to go back into the water, especially so soon after the terrifying event, she told me quite simply that she knew if she waited even another day longer, she may never have gone back in again. She told me how some surfers can “psych themselves out” after a gnarly accident thinking about all of the “what ifs” and replaying the terror of the mo... posted on Jul 20 2013 (42,406 reads)

received a letter in the mail the other day. It was the kind of letter that is painful to read because it stirred up old feelings and made me believe, for a mere moment or two, that I was right back in the muds of my yesterday. That, at any moment, I could be vulnerable to pulling the thread that would lead to my unraveling once again. I stood still; I put the phone in my pocket; I breathed in to read: “I’m tired of feeling like this but cannot seem to break the cycle of blah. Part of me does not want to get better because I don’t want to get better just to fall apart again. How can I even begin to find something else to define me, when I feel so empty ri... posted on Sep 15 2013 (30,418 reads)

I was awakened by the sound of shuffling feet. It was my early-bird riser in her big sister’s pajamas that drug across the floor. I wanted to pull the covers over my head and feign sleep. But instead I got up and made toaster waffles that she said tasted “divine.” She kissed me with syrupy sweet lips. Getting up wasn’t my first response. But I did it. Today I lived. Today she lost her shoes for the 37th time in two weeks. It was right before we needed to head out the door. I wanted to scream, to scold, to throw my hands in the air. But instead I held her. I held her. My shoeless girl. Together we found them wet with dew in the backyard and she w... posted on Nov 14 2013 (98,030 reads)

September 26, 2013, a mass movement succeeded in persuading Governor Jerry Brown to sign the California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. How did they do it? By inventing a new way of combating injustice. Credit: Maureen Purtill. All rights reserved. Elizabeth Flores leaned forward to the microphone and fixed the crowd with a smile. “Why is it acceptable that dogs are treated with more dignity and respect than I am”, she said, “as an undocumented immigrant domestic worker in America?” Half-laughing, she pulled away to watch the audience react. Her words might suggest a disempowered victim, but her smile and laughter said something more prof... posted on Jan 9 2014 (15,266 reads)

you like to join me in Monterey to interview Bryant Austin?” Anne Veh asked me . “Are you serious?” I answered. A couple of years earlier, I’d met Austin at an exhibit of his remarkable photographs at Electric Works Gallery in San Francisco and I’d wanted to interview him then. What would it be like swimming right next to whales? How did that come about? There had to be so many things worth hearing about. But circumstances prevented an interview at that time, so I jumped at Anne’s invitation. A few weeks later we met at the Museum of Monterey where an exhibit of Austin’s photos were on display. Before the interview began, Austin walked a group ... posted on Feb 16 2014 (22,086 reads)

Orunamamu The best teacher my children ever had growing up was in Kindergarten. Mary Beth Washington did almost everything contrary to the rules: she took the kids out walking in the rain; she slept with them during naptime; she came to school dressed like a circus performer. She was in love with birds, dancing, poetry and people. The School Board, more than once, voted to fire her, but the parents came to her defense again and again and won the day. She was about 30 years ahead of her time, a Flower Child before the era of flower children, with a genius for teaching kids. Once my own were in high school, the School Board finally had its way and kicked her out. I ran into her this ... posted on May 5 2014 (25,611 reads)

Garfield draws on decades of experience to explore how to create the conditions for a good death. Some years ago, I helped tend to a friend of mine who was dying of cancer. Near the end of his life, he had reached a place of equanimity around dying. But instead of honoring his wishes for a peaceful death, his doctors ordered aggressive chemotherapy treatment, which did nothing to halt his cancer. The treatments caused him immense suffering, rendering him unable to sleep, eat, or converse with family and friends as he was dying. Unfortunately, deaths like my friend’s are not that rare. Though more than 70 percent of Americans surveyed say they want to die in their o... posted on Jun 24 2014 (84,693 reads)

I was a teen growing up outside New York City, my mom was a big country and western fan. I remember the collective groans from my brother, Bret, and me as she ferried us and our friends to after-school activities to the honky-tonk sounds of what I heard as hillbilly twang. One of my mom’s favorite songs was about what to do when you face challenges in life. The lyrics were simple: “There ain’t no easy horses but you gotta learn to ride.” Mom reminded us of that often. Many years later, Bret and I were living in New York City on 9/11. Afterward, our parents begged us to move to the suburbs, where they hoped we’d be out of danger. For Bret and me, leav... posted on Aug 9 2014 (15,381 reads)

tried not to give much thought to the fact that it was Friday the 13th as I sat down with a cup of coffee a little over a week ago and began reading through my emails. My eyes fell on a note from a friend, Melissa. I clicked and read and learned that she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. We are unsure which bay holds my dad until I see a pair of brown woolen socks peeking out from one. The toes are wiggling: a good sign. Melissa is the second of my friends to be diagnosed with breast cancer in the last six weeks and the fourth this year. I am beginning to fear it may be contagious. My fingers hovered over the keys as I tried to think of appropriate words to send Melissa... posted on Sep 7 2014 (17,793 reads)

years ago I was living in a small, second-floor walk-up apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One day my refrigerator stopped working. It still managed to store my food, but kept it warm rather than cold. When I called a repair shop they said it would cost fifty dollars just to send someone to look at it. As an impoverished graduate student with little disposable income, I resolved to fix the refrigerator myself. First I went back to the used furniture guy who sold me the refrigerator. Based on my description of what happened, he said it probably needed an electrical part that cost only a few dollars, and told me where to buy it. I went to the electrical supply store, and the ... posted on Sep 4 2014 (19,687 reads)

humans are born selfish? Think again. Dacher Keltner reveals the compassionate side to human nature. Humans are selfish. It’s so easy to say. The same goes for so many assertions that follow. Greed is good. Altruism is an illusion. Cooperation is for suckers. Competition is natural, war inevitable. The bad in human nature is stronger than the good. These kinds of claims reflect age-old assumptions about emotion. For millennia, we have regarded the emotions as the fount of irrationality, baseness, and sin. The idea of the seven deadly sins takes our destructive passions for granted. Plato compared the human soul to a chariot: the intellect is the driver and the ... posted on Nov 5 2014 (22,457 reads)

can be disarming. That’s what Carolyn North discovered. It started with an impulse to save the leftover Thanksgiving turkey her neighbor had discarded as trash. Thirty years later, she and a rotating team of friends-turned-volunteers have been quietly recovering surplus food and delivering it to free food shelters and pantries across the San Francisco Bay Area. At the surface, it’s a simple labor-of-love initiative called Daily Bread. Last year, its 90 local volunteers delivered 32 tons of food with little overhead and virtually no budget. For volunteers, it’s a straightforward weekly routine that takes less than an hour to complete. For food donors, it&... posted on Oct 30 2014 (16,351 reads)

years have passed since I was eighteen. Pausing to reflect on this milestone, I wondered what I would say to the younger me if given the opportunity. I share these thoughts with the hope that they will resonate with current freshmen and the eighteen year old freshmen inside many of us. I would, of course, remind the 18-year-old me to actually go to class (even the 9:00 a.m. ones), to spend less time staying up late playing cards (Spades) with friends and more time doing my homework, to call home more often, to actually do laundry more than once a month, and to stay away from the punch at parties. But the one, less obvious, piece of advice I would offer to the younger, less bald a... posted on Nov 6 2014 (22,441 reads)

best way to win the drug war might not be police or prisons, argues Johann Hari. Instead, we should strive to reduce feelings of isolation. It is now one hundred years since drugs were first banned - and all through this long century of waging war on drugs, we have been told a story about addiction by our teachers and by our governments. This story is so deeply ingrained in our minds that we take it for granted: There are strong chemical hooks in these drugs, so if we stopped on day twenty-one, our bodies would need the chemical. We would have a ferocious craving. We would be addicted. That’s what addiction means. This theory was first established, in part, ... posted on Mar 24 2015 (27,858 reads)

is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions. —Hafiz Human history is filled with stories of countless people who have been fearless. If we look at our own families, perhaps going back several generations, we’ll find among our own ancestors those who also have been fearless. They may have been immigrants who bravely left the safety of home, veterans who courageously fought in wars, families who endured economic hardships, war, persecution, slavery, oppression, dislocation. We all carry within us this lineage of fearlessness. But what is fearlessness? It’s not being free of fear, for fear is part of our human journey. Park... posted on Apr 25 2015 (18,853 reads)

Kay’s words… Who/what inspires me: I have always been inspired by people who can leave their home country and show love, kindness and mercy to the people who live in desperate poverty and hardship. In Cambodia, that would be someone like Marie Ens from Canada who leads ‘Rescue’ – a home for hundreds of orphan children, AIDS families and grannies. And in Mozambique, Heidi Baker from ‘Iris Global’ children’s homes is a pure example of transforming love into something concrete. Best advice: Love in the midst of pain. Forgive in the midst of evil. Comfort in the mist of agony. Kay Eva was travelling through rural Cambodia o... posted on May 17 2015 (15,705 reads)

a lot of people, I used to be afraid of approaching strangers, even in settings that made this easier—like at art openings. It still takes a little resolve, but I’ve found it so much more interesting than just being limited to the circle of my own thoughts. It was thanks to approaching a stranger during an opening at Green Chalk Contemporary in Monterey, that I heard a compelling story about a photographer who had been taking photos of homeless men. But it was more than that. There was something about the way he was doing this that was having an important effect on the men themselves. Many of them were finding homes. I’d never heard a story like that be... posted on Jun 13 2015 (15,712 reads)

Beings. Animals. Family. Fun. Friendship. Love. Laughter….What more could you need? 1. These are Men who know how to live a little… 2. An Image That Perfectly Captures True Sisterhood… “3-years ago my aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer and she had to lose her hair but my mom wasn’t gonna let her little sister go through this alone.” 3. Something Sweet Was Seen Hanging From the Steering Column of a Taxi Cab… 4. Look at This Mother Listening to her Deceased Son’s Heartbeat Inside the Donor Recipient… 5. ‘My Blind Cousin Find... posted on Jul 13 2015 (139,632 reads)

is my 11-year-old daughter Saoirse’s first visit to Washington, D.C. She doesn’t know where she wants to go. Museum of Natural History? Air and Space? Then she sees the greenhouse. “Here,” she says with certainty. She drags me by the arm through the glass doors and into the tropical paradise. Her body transforms. Her smile grows wider, her eyes brighter. She woke up at three in the morning to catch the flight with me. Tomorrow she will accompany me as I speak at a symposium about our family and farming life, so we make the most of this day. Thankfully, her exhausted body seems to draw nourishment from the foliage around us. All signs of fatigue melt away. I g... posted on Sep 3 2015 (17,281 reads)