Luminous Comic Book Tells Mandela's Story
Keeping life lessons alive is important and telling our children and the young people of community about those that have walked before us is essential. Nelson Mandela, the prisoner of conscience turned president of South Africa, was a global inspiration even before he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. Now a wondrous graphic novel, released to coincide with his 91st birthday, is the latest and pos... posted on Sep 29, 3000 reads

Touched by Tragedy, and Paying It Forward
Last July, April DeSerre's world was turned upside down when she lost her father, her home, and all of her family's possessions in a fire. Immediately following that life-changing event, though, DeSerre also experienced something else: generosity. A year later, DeSerre and her family are on the road to recovery. And now, she wants to help others whose lives have been affected by fire do the same... posted on Oct 5, 2563 reads

Upwardly Global: Helping Immigrant Professionals
In Vietnam, Mai Le worked as a doctor, a low-paid but respected position requiring years of training. However since arriving in San Jose in 1999, she has worked as a census taker, one of the many immigrant professionals who find their experience and education do not count here. Although Le is determined to practice medicine again, she's less certain about how to sell herself in resumes and intervi... posted on Oct 11, 1491 reads

Death by Information Overload
Thanks to the Internet, a wealth of information is at our fingertips. We can access so much knowledge at speeds previously impossible. However, there is a downside to this information overload. Trying to keep up with the flurry of a constantly updated web world can leave us drained, and distract us from the important tasks of our jobs. Current research suggests that the surging volume of inform... posted on Nov 4, 5148 reads

No Vacation Nation
Last year, fewer than half of all Americans took a week off or less for vacation. Compared with the five weeks of paid vacation Europeans get, Americans seem woefully overworked and under-rested. Doctors have been researching the ill effects of too much work, and some claim that a lack of vacation can have real health consequences. Dr. Sarah Speck calls the stress from too much work the new tob... posted on Nov 15, 5835 reads

Lawyer Heads to a Classroom
Tom Dunn spent twenty years working hard to get convicts off death row. However, several decades of grueling work and compounding health problems forced Mr. Dunn to leave behind the high-stress world of litigation. Instead of spending the rest of his life relaxing on a beach, though, he immediately signed up for Teach for America. Mr. Dunn, in his years of working with criminal law, recognized a c... posted on Oct 26, 2305 reads

The Burden of Genius
Elizabeth Gilbert's book "Eat, Pray, Love" was so successful that everyone worried if she'd ever be able to repeat that creative performance. The concern led Gilbert to investigate how past cultures and societies handled creative strokes of genius, and she discovered a rather curious insight from ancient Greek and Roman cultures -- that people aren't geniuses, but rather they have a genius. Funny,... posted on Nov 2, 6350 reads

"Feed Me Bubbe": Not Your Usual Cooking Show
The Internet is full of some amazing and impressive technological feats. However, sometimes, very simple things have just as much, or more, impact. "Feed Me Bubbe" is a heartwarming collection of videos of an 83 year old Jewish grandmother and her loving grandson. "Bubbe" shares recipes in her cooking videos, but she also shares stories, life lessons, and advice. Watch this video interview of ... posted on Dec 4, 5020 reads

Food Bank Robbery Triggers Generosity
First the bad news: Burglars stole about $2,000 worth of food from the Rainier Valley Food Bank in Seattle on November 18. Now for the good news: In the succeeding two days, local residents, organizations and corporations donated at least $100,000 worth of food and money. Responses were immediate and meant the Food Bank could meet the demand for the Thanksgiving weekend. Sam Osborne, executive dir... posted on Dec 29, 2211 reads

A Professor's Lesson 30 Years Ago
"One winter semester during college in upstate New York., I took an 8 AM history class to fulfill a requirement. It was hard to get up for that class, but about 15 of us met 3 times a week to brave the cold winds and trudge to that lecture in a nondescript classroom. The professor for the class was an odd fellow. He had flaming red hair and wore galoshes with one pantleg in and one out. He woul... posted on Dec 19, 5808 reads

Sharing Nature's Design
Janine Benyus has spent her life learning about nature and the environment all over the world. However, she doesn't do it simply to share and experience the beauty and wonder of the natural world. She spends her time teaching about nature to help people design better products and improve existing technology. Listen to the amazing stories of how nature solves many of the problems we struggle with.... posted on Dec 6, 4169 reads

Flying On One Engine
Wheelchair bound, without a larynx, and diagnosed with a life-threatening aortic aneurysm, Dr. Sharadkumar Dicksheet now lives only (and barely) so he can travel to India to perform free operations in marathon-like surgery sessions where up to 700 children receive treatment for their cleft lips and other deformities. Although Dicksheet survives off of social security while living in his Brooklyn a... posted on Dec 14, 3415 reads

Against All Odds: MacLaren & Yeboah
Jim MacLaren and Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah have what seems like an improbable story. Jim MacLaren was an All-American athlete with a future that knew no bounds. At 22, his life was changed dramatically when he was hit by a bus and lost a leg. He overcame his physical limitations and become a top Ironman triathlete. Eight years later, Jim had another accident. Where was the meaning in all this sufferin... posted on Dec 17, 3379 reads

The Surprising Science of Motivation
Bidding adieu to his last "real job" as Al Gore's speechwriter, Dan Pink went freelance to spark a right-brain revolution in the career marketplace. Now a career analyst and author of several bestsellers, Dan Pink has changed the way companies view the modern workplace. In this Ted Talk, Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don'... posted on Jan 10, 4001 reads

Born To Help
What is the essence of human nature? Flawed, say many theologians. Vicious and addicted to warfare, wrote Hobbes. Selfish and in need of considerable improvement, think many parents. But biologists are beginning to form a generally sunnier view of humankind. The somewhat surprising answer at which some biologists have arrived is that babies are innately sociable and helpful to others. This New Yor... posted on Jan 15, 3670 reads

To Be A Better Leader: Give Up Authority
In chaotic times, an executive's instinct may be to strive for greater efficiency by tightening control. But the truth is that relinquishing authority and giving employees considerable autonomy can boost innovation and success at knowledge firms, even during crises. Our research provides hard evidence that leaders who give in to the urge to clamp down can end up doing their companies a serious dis... posted on Feb 3, 6274 reads

The Child Who Paints Like An Old Master
A street scene from the paintbrush of a child usually involves triangle-topped boxes for houses. And often an unnaturally large dog. But Kieron Williamson's attempts are so beautifully rendered that artists ten times his age will be filled with envy. Experts have said that the six-year-old's atmospheric paintings, which began with harbor scenes and expanded to include rural vistas, animal portrait... posted on Jan 24, 4953 reads

What Can You Live Without?
It all began with a stop at a red light. While Kevin Salwen and his 14-year-old daughter, Hannah, were waiting at a traffic light, they saw a black Mercedes coupe on one side and a homeless man begging for food on the other. "Dad, if that man had a less nice car, that man there could have a meal," Hannah protested. She pestered her parents about inequity, insisting that she wanted to do somethi... posted on Jan 27, 6052 reads

Designing Cities for Happiness?
What would happen if happiness was the main focus of city planning? Enrique Penalosa asked this very question as the mayor of Bogota, Colombia's capital city of 7 million. In his three years of service, the city built and improved 1200 parks and playgrounds, 300 kilometers of bikeways, and 202 schools, as well as planted 100,000 trees and reduced traffic by 40 percent. Penalosa now travels the wor... posted on Apr 4, 5506 reads

Championing Religious Tolerance
With a rising awareness of religious-based conflict and violence around the world, interfaith dialogue and education is more important than ever. As a college student committed to issues of social justice, Eboo Patel noticed that religion was often left out of diversity discussions. After discovering the ways Dorothy Day used her Catholicism to inspire her social justice work, Patel began explori... posted on Mar 29, 1868 reads

A Lift That Gave Me Joy
Last fall, before Thanksgiving, I was making my way in my car out of the shopping center parking lot. I was all alone in the car. I noticed a woman laden with bags and her two boys, one carrying a pumpkin and the other another bag. On a random impulse, I rolled down my window and asked "Would you like a ride?" "Oh yes!" was their excited reaction. This was special for me because, as a handicappe... posted on Apr 2, 2848 reads

Fairness: An Evolutionary Advantage?
The best place to see the Golden Rule in action is... at the grocery store? That's what science columnist John Tierney says. In a recent study, WalMart shoppers of Hamilton, Missouri scored higher in a test of fairness toward strangers than clan-based communities around the world. Researchers explain that developing "market norms" promotes general levels of "trust, fairness and cooperation" with s... posted on Apr 8, 2612 reads

Meet The Boss
Lily Kanter makes money so she can give it away. And she's good at it. After retiring as a multimillionaire at age 35, she and her husband started a family foundation to support amazing causes and social entrepreneurs. Yet when asked to pinpoint her proudest accomplishment, Kanter admits it's a work in progress: "Figuring out how to do the dance of running a successful company, but also running a ... posted on Apr 14, 3911 reads

Food for Thought... in a Jar?
When I worked in a busy office, most of my co-workers kept jars of candy on their desks to enjoy and share with others. Constantly battling the "bulge," I hated these temptations, but nevertheless often gave in to them. Finally, I decided to put out a jar of my own "feel good" stuff, with no calories. I bought a beautiful jar and spent one whole weekend at home cutting up colorful strips of paper ... posted on May 3, 3942 reads

An Artist's Life
"I walked into this little painting gallery and nobody was there, just a room full of paintings- not paintings that I found very interesting, but I was killing time." So begins an unlikely adventure in which Richard Whittaker learns about a 97-year-old painter still at work and giving watercolor workshops even though he was blind. Literally a few hours after setting foot in Claremont Fine Arts, W... posted on May 11, 3272 reads

The I of Marriage
We all know there's no "I" in team. But a new study suggests that having too much "I" in marriage might be a problem as well. In a study that examined over 150 middle-aged and older married couples as they discussed a recent conflict, UC Berkeley researchers found that couples who used words like "we," "our," and "us" displayed high levels of positive emotional behavior and low levels of physiolo... posted on May 19, 4291 reads

Pay What You Want
Dawn Frierdich stood at the counter. Surrounded by the rich aroma of freshly baked breads, pastries, and cookies, she finally settled on three loaves of bread and an iced tea. But when it came time to pay, her cashier, Mike Miller, redirected her to the donation jar on the counter. This week, Panera Bread Company, a national bakery and restaurant chain, launched its new nonprofit store in Clayton,... posted on May 21, 4216 reads

What Adults Can Learn from Kids
"I loved to write from the age of four, and when I was six my mom bought me my own laptop...I wrote over 300 short stories on that little laptop, and I wanted to get published. Instead of just scoffing at this heresy that a kid wanted to get published, or saying 'wait until you're older,' my parents were really supportive." Since publishing her first book at the age of 7, Adora Svitak, now 12, has... posted on May 24, 3989 reads

The Kindness Habit
"Last winter I was going through a rough patch in my life. I had a bunch of terrible things going on around me. I felt very distant and became quite selfish. I hated the way I was feeling and one day I woke up and told myself, 'You are above this, stop feeling sorry for yourself.' Then I tried out an experiment, and it has definitely changed me for the better. Every day, I would do at least one ac... posted on May 30, 2766 reads

Kindness Goes Around, and Comes Around
It is so often true that "what goes around, comes around," and that life lessons often walk in through the most unexpected doors. On one hot summer day, a single mother and her son find themselves on a broken down bus. When their fellow elderly passengers grow unbearable hot and uncomfortable, the mother-son duo hand out all their food without a second thought, even though they have no money to sp... posted on Jul 10, 8685 reads

Sixth-Grade Philanthropists
On a bike trip across Europe and Asia, Mike Church came across Ujjwall Bhat, a Nepali man whose dream was to start a school in his rural village. Inspired by his vision, Church returned to his hometown in Maryland and contacted friends and local charities to help fund Bhat's dream. Three years later, the Mikey Medium English School opened its doors in Bauniyan, Kailali Nepal. Though located in rur... posted on Jun 13, 1532 reads

Anything is Possible
Jessica Herrera's parents lost their jobs at the beginning of her senior year in high school. Evicted from the homes they rented, the family split up: her father left town to look for work, her mother and sister moved in with relatives, and Jessica took refuge in a homeless shelter. But that didn't stop the 18-year-old from graduating high school. "There were times I came home and there was no foo... posted on Jun 21, 4623 reads

The Art of the Mind
"After about an hour I got to a ridge top that I'd never been on before. It was hot. I headed down the ridge, looking for a shady spot to eat my sandwich. I saw a large tree, standing alone, about one hundred yards off the edge of the trail. It had a great view: a vast swath of the East Bay stretching away to San Francisco with the Golden Gate in the distance. Not a bad place to be homeless, I tho... posted on Jun 28, 5065 reads

The Health Benefits of Generosity
Ever notice a feeling of warm satisfaction from giving someone a gift? Or a sense of joy from treating someone else to a meal? This link between good vibes and good deeds may be more than coincidence, say researchers at the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School. In a recent study, participants were given $10 and asked to decide how much of it to share with someone else. Those ... posted on Jul 7, 3706 reads

A Small Act
Chris Mburu feels fortunate to have received an education at all. Growing up in a mud house in Kenya, it seemed unlikely that he or his neighbors would escape a cycle of poverty. Today, Mburu is a Harvard Law School graduate and works as a human rights advocate for the United Nations. How did this happen? A small and consistent act of hope from a teacher in Sweden. Years ago, Hilda Back decided to... posted on Jul 9, 3437 reads

Remembering Peace Pilgrim
From 1953 to 1981, a silver-haired woman walked over 25,000 miles on a personal pilgrimage for peace. Crossing the United States seven times with nothing more than a toothbrush, some pamphlets, and a navy sweatshirt, she vowed to "remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace, walking until given shelter and fasting until given food." Leading a fairly ordinary life up through young ... posted on Jul 16, 3539 reads

10 Pieces of Wisdom for Painters
Artist Leigh Hyams of San Miguel Allende, Mexico writes, "I found this script today in a forgotton portfolio. It was dictated to me by my four-year-old granddaughter Annalena, who could not write then, but she knew how to advise people to paint and draw. I like her advice enormously, not to mention her attitude..." Here's just one example of Annalena's painting wisdom: "When I don't have anything ... posted on Jul 23, 4405 reads

Thinking Outside the Human Mind
Dr. Temple Grandin is one of the most fascinating and respected figures in the world today. As a child whose parents almost sent her to a mental institution, Grandin became the first autistic individual to publish an autobiography. She has utterly transformed how we view people with autism and how we treat animals, specifically in the cattle industry. She explains to us what it is like for her to ... posted on Jul 28, 6391 reads

Food: The Solution for Conflict?
Tucked away in a humble corner of Pittsburgh, Penn., rests a colorful take-out stand that is connecting people from around the world through food and art. The idea is simple: start a restaurant that serves food from countries that the US is in conflict with. Run by three artists, Conflict Kitchen has become an incubator of cross-cultural conversation. One guest notes, "Food is a pathway to positiv... posted on Jul 31, 2487 reads

How to Live and Die
Death is rarely spoken about in our homes. "I wonder why," remarks Khushwant Singh. At 95, Singh thinks of death very often. But he does not lose sleep over it. A self-described agnostic, Singh states that ultimately, he does "not know what happens to us after we die but one should help a person go in peace--at peace with himself and with the world." From his 95 years of experience, Singh offers e... posted on Aug 15, 5431 reads

In Pursuit of Silence
When all is silent, what do you hear? The first widely observed national moment of silence occurred in Britain in 1919. For two minutes, switchboard operators declined to connect telephone calls, subway cars and factory wheels ground to a halt, and ordinary citizens held their tongues. Within 10 years, the somber annual tradition had grown so popular that the BBC began to air the sound of the sile... posted on Aug 21, 2999 reads

Faith, the Two-Legged Dog
There are some things you have to see to believe, and Faith is one of those. She's a labrador-chow mix born without one front leg and another that was severely deformed and then removed. What's truly amazing about Faith is that, despite having only her two hind legs, she can still walk! In fact, she's lived almost her entire life on those two legs. Something of a celebrity, Faith appeared on Oprah... posted on Sep 6, 7566 reads

Why Money Is Like Beer
When he was 21, heir to the Baskin-Robbins throne John Robbins left the ice cream company and his fathers money, determined to find happiness and fulfillment on his own. After becoming a successful author and establishing an independent fortune, he lost everything in the Bernie Madoff scandal. Through tumultuous relationships with money, Robbins discovered that: "Money, it seems, is a little like... posted on Nov 12, 8997 reads

The Miracle Birth
After giving birth to premature twins, Kate Ogg was informed that one of them didn't make it. Devastated, she held her limp 2-pound infant against her bare chest. For two hours, the mother and her husband said their goodbyes, cradling and hugging their son as if he were alive. Two hours later, the newborn began moving and gasping. Ogg instinctively fed her son a few drops of breast milk and soon ... posted on Aug 28, 14004 reads

Restorer of Slums
Santosh Thorat, a young father of five, was grateful to have picked up an extra day's work. That morning, he left his home, which he shared with 17 others in an East Mumbai slum, to help a bulldozing crew ward off protesters as they demolished a nearby slum. "That day when I went to work, I thought, 'I don't want to do this,'" Thorat recalls. Three days later, Thorat's bosses demolished his home. ... posted on Sep 4, 3400 reads

Three Sisters and a Miracle
You might've used Craigslist to sell that old bike, or to look for another job or housing opportunity. But how about using it to save your dad's life? That's just what three sisters from New York did. After Jennifer Flood's dad was diagnosed with kidney disease, she and her sisters posted an ad on Craigslist... for a living donor. One year, four months, and one hundred responses later, a woman fro... posted on Oct 12, 2503 reads

The Success of Failure
These days, it seems like new technologies are cropping up around every corner we turn. Hardly a month goes by without the announcement of some new and exciting media project or application. A new web tool or project may be exciting, but Christian Madera reminds us that for each new app or initiative that gets launched, there are probably dozens that failed, or never even fully began. And it is i... posted on Sep 10, 2578 reads

9/11 Day of Service
September 11 is a loaded day. It marks the ninth anniversary of the World Trade Center bombings in New York City, the 103rd birthday of Gandhi's concept of Satyagraha ("clinging to truth" in Sanskrit), as well as 117 years after Swami Vivekenanda's stunning speech on interfaith dialogue at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. This year, 9/11 also coincides with Eid al-Fitr, a Muslim holid... posted on Sep 11, 1790 reads

Trespassing Snowmen
There is an elderly man who lives up the street from us. He has no one to shovel his driveway. he is a bit of a miser so most people aren't so inclined to help. One day, I don't know who did it, but someone used the snow on his driveway to make a whole bunch of smiling and waving snowmen on his lawn. As my son and I were walking by, I could hear him grumbling. "What's the problem?" I asked. He com... posted on Sep 17, 4552 reads

Fueled by Landfills
In a dry, windy canyon not far from San Francisco, California one landfill is curbing greenhouse gases by transforming its waste into fuel. "We own this big pile of trash, and we need to look at it and think, 'what can we do to get something out of it?'" said Ken Lewis, Director of Altamont Landfill Operations. With special technology, natural gas produced by decaying organic waste gets captured a... posted on Sep 20, 1999 reads