Food. People. Power.
For many years, people living in West Oakland had accepted eating unhealthy food as a way of life. That is, until a small group of people decided to change their community through Mandela MarketPlace, a non-profit that partners with local residents and rural, minority farmers to bring fresh agricultural produce to their local corner stores. Mandela MarketPlace now represents the difference that yo... posted on Jun 28 2012, 2,391 reads

Worth Our Weight: The Taste of Compassion
"I glance down at my GPS to make sure this is where we want to be and in doing so I almost pass my destination. There it is tucked away to the left, sandwiched between two homes: Worth our Weight (W.O.W). The whimsical name brings to mind a weight-loss program or some sort of preemptive apologetic reassurance for long lines. This restaurant has neither. The front is clean, simple and inviting, wit... posted on Jun 27 2012, 11,861 reads

Behind the Beautiful Forevers
"My husband is an Indian citizen, and since we met in 2001, I've been watching the landscape of his country transform as its economy grows. Some of the change is staggeringly obvious, like the skyscraping luxury condominiums with stirring views of other skyscraping luxury condominiums. But I couldn't quite make out what had and hadn't changed in historically poor communities. I generally find issu... posted on Jun 26 2012, 5,672 reads

Rediscovering the Lost Art of Blessing
"In his writing the mystic poet John O'Donohue encourages all of us to rediscover our power to bless one another. I've become enchanted with this invitation, regardless of whether we define a blessing as being a wish or a prayer, whether we conceive it as coming from us or through us or whether we offer blessings through what we say, write, or think. In any of these forms, the act of blessing ano... posted on Jun 25 2012, 22,862 reads

Three Qualities of the New Politician
There are plenty of politicians who genuinely desire to serve their communities and nations with humility and integrity, dedicating their lives to the cultivation of a wisdom that will benefit society at large; sadly, they are a minority. Politics has become a degraded profession. In this thought provoking piece, James O'dea, who has spent decades of his life in cultivating peace through channel... posted on Jun 23 2012, 14,722 reads

Stranger Dinners
A few years ago, Ari Davalos started an art project called Stranger Dinner -- invite six strangers to dinner at her house. In a world separated by Internet connections, she aimed to reclaim the serendipity in her life. "Instead of going to the library and researching on the internet, I want to stroll through the stacks, smell the pages of old books, pick a random book off the shelf, and let some ... posted on Jun 22 2012, 12,937 reads

10 Ways to Love Where You Live
Community is not just for extroverts. For thousands of years, our ancestors lived in barrios, hamlets, neighborhoods, and villages. Yet in the time since our parents and grandparents were young, privacy has become so valued that many neighborhoods are not much more than houses in proximity...And when the links among neighbors are weak, security relies on locks, gates, and guns, rather than a close... posted on Jun 21 2012, 34,479 reads

The Opposite of Poverty is Justice
Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer who spends most of his time in jails, prisons, on death row and in low-income communities, shares some hard truths about America's criminal justice system, starting with a massive imbalance along racial lines: a third of young black men between the ages of 18 and 30 has been incarcerated at some point in their lives. In this video Bryan urges the TED audience to think abo... posted on Jun 20 2012, 3,298 reads

On Seeking Stillness in Business
Pico Iyer -- essayist, author, travel writer and thinker -- has a unique perspective on many things. His physical domain ranges from California (where he lived as a child) and England (where he studied) to Cuba, North Korea and Ethiopia (which he visited) and Japan (where he resides). His mental domain knows no limiting boundaries. In this interview with Knowledge@Wharton, Iyer spoke on an unusual... posted on Jun 19 2012, 19,770 reads

The Threshold Choir: Songs Bridging Life & Death
"In November of 1990 I was invited to spend a day with a friend of mine who was dying of HIV Aids. He was comatose, but very agitated...I sat down by his bedside and didn't know what to do. I waited and waited. All I knew to do, to calm myself, was to sing. So I sang one song and I sang it for two hours. I sang it over and over again. I watched his breathing slow, and he got much calmer. And I got... posted on Jun 18 2012, 4,716 reads