Buy Nothing Day
Can you last 24 hours without spending any money? How 'bout on the day after Thanksgiving? Organizers of "Buy Nothing Day" claim it's incredibly challenging but absolutely worthwhile: "You'll feel detoxed from shopping and realise how much it uses your time. For 24 hours, you'll get your life back." The idea is to consume less, so others have more. Today, 20% of the world population consumes ... posted on Nov 28 2003, 1,070 reads

Hunger For Love
Abundance, not scarcity, best describes the world's food supply. Enough wheat, rice and other grains are produced to provide every human being with 3,500 calories a day. That doesn't even count many other commonly eaten foods-vegetables, beans, nuts, root crops, fruits, grass-fed meats, and fish. Enough food is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person a day worldwide. Yet 800 m... posted on Nov 27 2003, 1,326 reads

Corporate Volunteers
CEO's of GE, Levi's Strauss, Pitney Bowes and Walt Disney all agree on one thing -- being a good corporate citizen influences business success. Donating a percentage of company profits to charity, giving employees four hours a month out of the office to do volunteer work, buying recycled products or setting up a recycling program are practical day-to-day business considerations that actually imp... posted on Nov 26 2003, 2,616 reads

Bridges I Crossed
To the litany of arguments against prejudice, scientists are now adding a new one: Racism can make you stupid. That is the message of an unusual and striking new series of experiments conducted at Dartmouth College; with the help of brain-imaging equipment, scientists found that the more biased people are, the more their brain power is taxed by contact with someone of another race, as they strugg... posted on Nov 25 2003, 1,346 reads

No Mistake
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Juggling Five Balls
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The Average Freshman
In Steve Leslie's dorm room at Miami University, there are bunk beds, posters of Led Zeppelin and the Simpsons, and an inflatable palm tree. There's also a plug for every outlet. They power the color TV, stereo, compact disc and DVD players, video game player, desktop computer and laptop, printer, scanner, refrigerator, microwave oven and two fans. Then there are rechargers for a cell phone, hand-... posted on Nov 22 2003, 1,291 reads

30 hour Marathon
It was a marathon of a marathon. She stopped every mile to stretch and tested her blood sugar every two hours. She took breaks, but didn't sleep. Twenty nine hours and 45 minutes after she started -- more than 27 hours after the first runner crossed the line -- Zoe Koplowitz walked, aided by crutches, across the finish line of the New York City Marathon on Monday. Diagnosed 30 years ago with mu... posted on Nov 21 2003, 862 reads

We're bowling alone, Harvard's political scientist Robert Putnam notes. More Americans are bowling than ever before, but they are not bowling in leagues. We spend about 35% less time visiting with friends than we did thirty years ago. Leisure activities that involve doing something with someone else, from playing volleyball to playing chamber music, are declining.... posted on Nov 20 2003, 1,028 reads

Born blind, mentally retarded, autistic and weighing one pound, doctors wondered if he would survive. Today, Tony DeBlois plays 20 instruments, sings in several languages, knows 8000 songs and is forging a career in the music industry. You may not have heard of him; in an era when popular images are often the result not of talent but of high-powered media campaigns, Tony's marketing strategies a... posted on Nov 19 2003, 1,042 reads