The audio file for my platform on positive trends in the world is now available on our podcasts page.
Links to texts mentioned in this platform:
“The Banality of Heroism” by Zeno Franco and Philip Zimbardo, from Greater Good Magazine. (I also recommend looking around the rest of their site–they have lots of interesting articles [...]

I was just introduced to this poem; I thought some of you might like it. I’m not entirely clear on what I think it means, but I identify with the impulse to praise, though not necessarily to anyone/thing. I’d like to hear others’ reactions to the poem. (Also, I am reprinting it [...]

There’s an op-ed in the New York Times today about a vegan couple who neglected and malnourished their child, and it died. Which is very unfortunate and sad. The op-ed author, however, uses this sad story to make all sorts of scary statements about the dangers of veganism. She does this because [...]

So recently some traditionally religious folks were upset at Starbucks because the coffee company had the following quote on one of their disposable cups, attributed to customer Bill Schell of Canada: “Why in moments of crisis do we ask God for strength and help? As cognitive beings, why would we ask something that may well [...]

The Ploughshares Fund, a not-for-profit that works for peace and disarmament (see their rating on Charity Navigator), asks us to remember the original purpose of Mother’s Day, which was to promote peace, not just make pancakes.
You can go to their site, rediscovermothersday.org, to read about the history of Mother’s Day and to make [...]

Last Sunday’s audio recording of my address on democracy and war is now up on our podcasts page.
For those of you who have been considering listening to some of the online addresses but don’t know where to start, here are the most popular platforms of 2006-07. All are about a half-hour long and available [...]

Sorry for the clumsy post title; just wanted to get your attention quick. Tonight on PBS’sBill Moyers Journal, two of the three sections have links to Ethical Culture: Moyers is interviewing Jonathan Miller, creator of the History of Unbelief series that the American Ethical Union is co-sponsoring. I don’t know if our [...]

Harvard University hosted a wonderful conference of “new humanists” recently (as far as I can tell, the new humanists [Rushdie, E. O Wilson] are different from the new atheists [Dawkins, Harris], by being not quite so pissed off and more open to religious humanisms such as Ethical Culture, though there are exceptions to this rule [...]

I finally solved my commuting ecological dilemma–I bought a scooter. It gets me where I need to go in a timely manner (which walking and public transportation often can’t around here), when I get to my destination I’m not soaked with sweat (the problem with biking in this climate), and it gets great gas [...]