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Total number of posts: 23552
Simply being kind
Smile at a stranger, bring a treat to a co-worker or let someone else go in front of you in a line. As it turns out, these random acts of kindness could make you a happier person. A few years ago, Stanford University psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky asked students to carry out five weekly Read More...
Flamenco, paella and cooperatives
The Spanish have been hit hard by the economic crisis. Our newspapers and news networks remind us of the unemployment numbers and austerity measures on a daily basis. A dismal housing market, a huge budget deficit; the situation seems hopeless. But it’s not the whole story. People in Spain Read More...
The power of persistence
When Luchia Ghebreselasie arrived at the Literacy Council of Montgomery County in Rockville, Maryland, to enroll in an English program, the teachers knew it was going to be an uphill battle. It had only been a few years since Ghebreslasie and her family had been sponsored to immigrate to the Read More...
I know I’m conscious. But how? And why?
Recently at a remote beach in Mexico I was looking at the most beautiful stars filled night sky. The darkness was perfect and there were more stars than I had ever seen. Looking at the stars always overwhelms me. I know the theory of the Big Bang that tells me that the universe has been expanding Read More...
Innovation on the fringes
Kibera is the slum, the shantytown that—in the Western mind, at least—defines the grotesque poverty of the developing world. Rusting corrugated roofs sprawl to the horizon. More than 200,000 people live here on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. Residents walk alongside open sewers and Read More...
Indias Love Commandos
Once upon a time, a couple fell in love in the village of Bulundshahr, Uttar Pradesh, India. She was from a rich family, he from a poor one. Both shared the same religion, Islam, and they wanted to spend their lives together. She knew her family wouldn’t agree to let her marry a man from such a Read More...
Brief Encounter
Four years ago, in a restaurant in East Palo Alto, California, three people were eating soup. One of them was Karin Schlanger, who left Argentina in her 20s to come to the U.S. Another was Thomas Madson, principal of the East Palo Alto Phoenix Academy, an inner-city high school he cofounded in a Read More...
Letter from the Editor
Your attention, please We used to joke during our editorial meetings that each story always ended with God. That’s not because of any specific religious affiliation. We realized that if we want to contribute to solving problems—and that’s the core of our mission—we need to go to deeper Read More...
A theater for banned films
Thousands of artists live and work in the village of Songzhuang, just outside Beijing. In the middle of town, independent filmmakers show new features and documentaries at the Fanhall Center for the Arts. These productions are uncensored and unapproved by the government, so they can’t get into Read More...
Finding your voice
It’s early afternoon in Arkansas, and a high school gym full of kids in assembly listens raptly to a bespectacled man with a microphone. “We have two minds,” he tells them. “We have our logical, analytical mind, and we have this other part of us where our emotions and feelings live. And Read More...