Inspiration: A cosmonaut of consciousness
From The Intelligent Optimist Summer 2016 Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of Transcendental Meditation (TM), was one of the best-known gurus from India. The Beatles famously visited him in the Himalayas. But what is not so well known is that Maharishi, who passed away in 2008, was also trained Read More...
Possibility: Don’t wrestle with pigs, and other lessons from the ideological battlefield
From The Intelligent Optimist Summer 2016 This U.S. election season is a perfect backdrop for discussing James Hoggan’s new book, I’m Right and You’re an Idiot: The Toxic State of Public Discourse and How to Clean It Up. Hoggan’s special interests—ethical PR and climate change—merge in Read More...
Possibility: A new nation—on three square miles?
From The Intelligent Optimist Summer 2016 Liberland may be the ultimate startup. On April 13 of last year, 31-year-old Czech politician Vit Jedlicka declared a three-square-mile plot on the marshy west bank of the Danube as a new sovereign state and installed himself as president. The vote was Read More...
Possibility: The European Union: Think of it as a club
From The Intelligent Optimist Summer 2016 Commentary: Mark Schalekamp is a journalist, writer and “social entrepreneur” whose home country is the Netherlands. “Right now there are already around one million Erasmus babies,” one of my “Youropean” interview subjects remarked. Erasmus Read More...
Possibility: Scalpel, sutures, herbes de Provence
From The Intelligent Optimist Summer 2016 Students at the Tulane University School of Medicine are being trained to look not only to Big Pharma for med-ical solutions, but also to the farmers’ market. The Goldring Center for Culinary Medicine at the New Orleans university is the first culinary Read More...
Possibility: From MAD to crazy delicious
From The Intelligent Optimist Summer 2016 Roy Choi created his unique culinary brand, exemplified by his Korean-Mexican taco establishment Kogi BBQ, by blending parts of Los Angeles that don’t typically intermingle: organic and liquor store ingredients, street food and West L.A. sleek, immigrant Read More...
Possibility: It’s their future
From The Intelligent Optimist Summer 2016 In what could be a growing movement, courts in the United States and the Netherlands are siding with environmental activists who argue that governments that promote fossil fuel use and development are violating environmental laws and constitutional rights, Read More...
Possibility: Iran goes green
From The Intelligent Optimist Summer 2016 On most mornings, the majestic snowcapped Alborz Mountains that envelope Tehran are obscured by a curtain of smog. Many of the bustling city’s 14 million residents have become accus-tomed to seeing the mulberry trees bloom and the winter’s first Read More...
Possibility: Drones for peace
From The Intelligent Optimist Summer 2016 Imagine for a moment that a child is critically ill in a small village weeks away from any hospital. With no quick means of transportation, the child’s worried doctor picks up the phone or sends a text and, in a matter of hours, the much-needed medical Read More...
Possibility: Mars is rising—in nutrition efforts
From The Intelligent Optimist Summer 2016 The Mars food company will begin telling its customers which of its foods are healthy enough to eat every day, and which should be eaten only occasionally. Healthy eating sounds simple, but it can be tough—and time-consuming—for the health-conscious Read More...