Trek local. Trek light.

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Several years ago, my family and I traveled to the United Republic of Tanzania, that magnificent country in east Africa. The trip was proposed by my cousin and her husband while they were training nurses in Uganda. They planned to hike Mount Kilimanjaro and safari the Serengeti before traveling back to the States and invited […]

Not Your Mother’s Mediation

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 I enjoy mediation. I think the artist’s position is often to mend the things we feel are broken. Whether that’s between two cultures or two thoughts. We’re always trying to reach, trying to expand something. —Singer/Poet K’naan For decades, great minds have been exploring ways to use mediation techniques to heal ailing institutions, faltering companies and […]

Design your Mind

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Conscious Consumerism. Ethical Consumption. Fair Trade. All are powerful ideas. They are goals toward which many of us strive. We intend to make responsible consumer decisions, but we struggle to decipher irresponsible corporations from those we can trust. We work to reduce our carbon footprint but the jungle of global capitalism is difficult to navigate. We […]

Homefulness: A Landless People’s Movement

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“Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.” Jean-Paul Sartre Guest blogger Soheil Rezayazdi reminded us several weeks ago that there are more New Yorkers without a home today than at any other moment in recorded history. Soheil and his coalition, United to End Homelessness, are focused on making homelessness a prominent issue in New […]

Workers Unite! Film Festival

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This week, New York City rang in May Day through a series of demonstrations and events. Now you can continue the celebration of Global Labor Solidarity by attending the second annual Workers Unite! Film Festival, which runs May 10th through 17th at several locations in downtown Manhattan. The festival brings together worker voices from around […]

#not1more

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Tens of thousands of immigrants moved into Capitol Hill last week. With labor and civil rights organizations standing beside them, they called for humane reform of immigration laws and a path for citizenship for 11 million residents who are undocumented. New York activist Katherine Tabares urged the crowd: I want you to look around to […]

Equality Exhaustion

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Social media exploded this week with a brilliant display of support for marriage equality. Red and pink equal signs abound. But some express frustration toward this movement. They worry that the gesture’s simplicity undermines the serious work being done to dismantle an exclusionary institution. They want our virtual support for human rights to translate into […]

Whole Foods and Living Wage

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The Huffington Post has reported that Costco‘s profits jumped over $100 million dollars less than a week after its CEO Craig Jelinek pronounced publicly that he supported proposals to increase the minimum wage. This result brings into question most of what we have been taught about the ways in which bottom lines and worker salaries coexist. […]

Film Review: The House I Live In

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My best friend is a death penalty attorney in Colorado. That means that the federal government pays her to provide criminal defense services to human beings who are on death row. In turn, she works to prevent the federal government from killing her client. It doesn’t make very much sense, but that is what she […]