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It all started two years ago at Corner Perk, a small, locally owned coffee shop, when a customer paid her bill and left $100 extra, saying she wanted to pay for everyone who ordered after her until the money ran out. The staff fulfilled her request, and the woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, has returned to leave other large donations every two to three months. ...
It took a while, but word has started to spread around the tiny coastal town, home to about 12,000 people. Now, more and more customers have been leaving money to pay for others' food and drink.
Captain John D'Adamo carefully and with great respect, guided the healthcare protesters as we marched from Zuccotti Park up Broadway, through Washington Square Park, up Fifth Avenue, across 14th Street to the now shuttered St. Vincent's hospital.
Not one arrest, not one sharp word, not one bad moment--thanks to Captain D'Adamo's skillful leadership, and a committed group of peaceful protesters. ...
He told us at the outset, "I'm here to help you guys get to where you need to go. Just work with me, and I'll get you there". And he kept repeating this for four miles and four hours.
Shortly after 5am last Wednesday, Williams was driving along San Francisco's highway 101 on her way to work. She was traveling with her young daughter when she looked into her rearview mirror and saw that a big rig truck had suddenly burst into flames. ...
Williams had to act quickly. Without giving it a second thought, she left her 5-year-old daughter in the car and ran to help Finerty, who had by then collapsed just feet from the burning truck. ...
And as for all that hero talk, Williams humbly shrug it off. "I think I watch too much TV," she said...
There’s an old saying that scouts are there to do good! Clean up parks! Help old people cross the street! How about a Girl Scout helping you fix your computer? Or explain sunscreen?
...it is really awesome to see that young girls are being encouraged to learn about [tech] and even help others with it beyond just their own casual use. ...Ideally, this will spur the interest of girls enough for them to stick with computers throughout their teen years, and...consider working in the field when they grow up. Other business-oriented badges ... teach girls financial literacy and help them treat their cookie selling as a real business — Meet My Customers, Business Plan, and Customer Loyalty badges will be offered. Also: Geocaching. Geocaching!
...this morning, Philadelphia Police Department dispatchers are airing something you don't typically hear: The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
...We're betting the First Amendment broadcast has something to do with Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey's memo to his officers, reminding them that people have the right to record sounds, pictures and video of police actions in public spaces.
[Kudos to the Commish! -L.]
I was able to sit through an entire General Assembly in the afternoon and get a better feel for this process. Catching the beginning of the Assembly, I got the introduction where they explain how the meeting is structured and the use of hand signals. It sounds like the hand signal vocabulary is growing or refining based on experience.
The meeting is combination of report backs and need requests from working groups, agenda items which have been requested previously and affirmed by the community and then a sort of open mic, where anyone can ask to speak.
There is some sensitivity to having marginalized voices heard, so they use something called "progressive stack" when asserting who will speak in what order. The "stack" is the list of people who will speak. ...The stack managers have the discretion to call people to speak in a different order than the requests were made if they feel that a particular demographic group has had too much representation and other groups need to be heard from. At one point, for instance, 5 males in a row stood up to speak. Someone in the audience signaled a "point of process" and facilitators were reminded of the progressive stack. The next speaker was, therefore, female regardless of what order people had been put on the list.
I could go on and on about the details of the General Assembly. I highly recommend that you watch on on the live feed sometime. It is a powerful example of direct democracy. ...
One thing which feels foreign to our cultural norms is the reality that there really are no heirarchical leaders. There are working groups which take on tasks and anyone can join them. The community may defer to that working group, but their decision may also be subject to consensus at the General Assembly. Moreover, there is no Head of a working group.
...traditional heroism [is] fueled by the implacable absolutism of the Us vs. Them script...enforced by justified violence. Gandhi’s new heroism-subverting hero — whom he called a satyagrahi, a practitioner of Soulforce — bet her life on challenging and dissolving this ceaselessly reinvented and endlessly lethal dividing line.
“The Interrupters,” a new documentary from director Steve James and producer Alex Kotlowitz, vividly dramatizes this gamble in the midst of a culture of extreme youth violence on Chicago’s South and West Sides...
...it tracks over the course of a year a trio of “violence interrupters” ...nonviolent first responders intervening in numerous disputes on the streets...
From many angles the film makes the point that both violence and nonviolence hinge on a subtle dance between an individual’s journey, the abiding challenges of interpersonal relationships, and the larger narrative of the community’s story and history.
...the owner [of this bookstore] is the playwright Tom Stobart, who opened the shop thirty-five years ago. We like his benevolent approach to ensuring that the good people of Wheeling (and any lucky visitors) always have something to read.
...the world’s largest volunteer animal rescue, which saved more than 40,000 penguins after an oil spill off the coast of South Africa.
A group of 25 citizens presented a draft of the constitution to Iceland’s parliament. The group, which is made up of ordinary residents, compiled the document online with the help of hundreds of others. The constitution council posted the first draft in April on its website and then let citizens comment via a Facebook Page. The council members are also active on Twitter, post videos of themselves on YouTube and put pictures on Flickr.
Iceland’s original constitution was created in 1944 when the country gained independence from Denmark. The country’s economic collapse in 2008 prompted calls for a rewrite with checks and balances to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis. The draft was due before the end of July. It may be put to a referendum without the input of parliament.
Two dozen college teachers from around the country are studying at Harvard this month. The lesson they'll be learning: how to integrate more black history into their classrooms and research projects.
The National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute for College Teachers at the university's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute brought the group to Cambridge, Mass., for an intensive three-week program, including archival research, debates on history and lectures by some of the nation's leading scholars in black studies...
The program was founded in the mid-1990s by South Carolina history professor Patricia Sullivan, Du Bois institute Director (and The Root's editor-in-chief) Henry Louis Gates Jr. and University of California, Berkeley history professor Waldo Martin. Their mission is to introduce college teachers from different disciplines to new scholarship on black civil rights, from emancipation to the 1960s.
[This is great. Let's do more! -L]
News broke Tuesday that a lesbian couple who attended the exhibit Seeing Gertrude Stein...had been approached by a guard who...told them they should leave. ...
...the absurdity of telling a lesbian couple they shouldn’t hold hands at an exhibit celebrating the life of a famously out lesbian. ...
After the guard reprimanded them, an indignant crowd gathered to defend them.
...the guard was asked to leave the museum... The museum wrote a letter to [the security contractor], expressing their unhappiness over the incident.
[1 - in a better world, we would take it for granted that the incident should never have happened and that the public defended the couple. So if this story makes you angry, I support you.
2 - my own overall reaction is to celebrate the parts of this which are good, which is why the "awesome" tag. I like it when I get to use that tag. -L]
Last month some terrible villain stole a girl's 300-pound, 6-foot tall TARDIS off of her front lawn. But the internet rallied and built this young Doctor Who fan a brand new blue box! The video will warm your heart.
Former top CIA counterterrorism officer Glenn Carle has revealed the Bush administration sought damaging personal information on Juan Cole, an academic and prominent critic of the Iraq war, in an attempt to discredit him. Carle says the Bush White House made at least two requests for intelligence about Cole, whose blog "Informed Comment" rose to prominence after the Iraq invasion. Carle refused to carry out the request. In a joint interview, Carle and Cole join us to discuss the explosive revelation and why Cole is now calling for a congressional investigation.
[Video and transcript]
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certain key points are clear: the movement seeks an economy that is increasingly green and socially responsible, and one that is based on rethinking the nature of ownership and the growth paradigm that guides conventional policies.
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A different large-scale corporation, Seventh Generation—the nation’s leader in “green” detergents, dishwashing soap, baby wipes, tissues, paper towels and other household products—has internal policies requiring that no one be paid more than fourteen times the lowest base pay or five times higher than the average employee.
...Denver Bronco safety David Bruton has chosen to become a substitute teacher of social studies and math during the NFL lockout. At the urging of his high school teachers and coaches, Bruton will teach while the NFL works toward resolving issues with players and owners.
...speaks three languages (Arabic, Swahili and Spanish) in addition to English, is an accomplished performer at various of spoken-word venues around the country and scored 149 on an IQ test.
Her father, Ben Ashante, recognized Autum's talents early on and opted for homeschooling. Having retired early, he was able to dedicate himself to his daughter's education full time, enlisting the help of local retired teachers to supplement her curriculum.
Panera CEO Ronald Shaich opened up the first nonprofit branch of his 1,400-plus location restaurant chain in Clayton, Missouri, in 2010. At the time some thought his pay-what-you-want model, in which customers could simply take free food if they needed it, would be a disaster...
[Note the practical considerations. This can't work everywhere, but nevertheless I'm impressed. -L]
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