The America Blog recapped media reactions to Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention. Journalists from a number of media outlets—both left and right leaning—agreed that Obama delivered a speech that was both tactful and inspiring. The Democratic Party continues to gain momentum based on the notions of “unity” and “change,” but will this momentum carry Obama all the way to the White House?
Massachusetts Senator and staunch Obama supporter Ted Kennedy spoke to Big Think about what the U.S. needs in order to build a brighter future. It’s simple really: love. But we also “have to understand that we are a community. We have to understand we are a nation. We have to understand we are a world.” It will be interesting to watch how Obama will attempt to impart these lessons over the coming months.
As the Democratic National Conventiongets underway, America has begun to focus on the future. And in a recent Huffington Post piece, Robert Kuttner claims that “Barack Obama could be the first chief executive since Lyndon Johnson with the potential to be a transformative, progressive president.” Kuttner goes onto say that, if elected, Obama’s success or failure will be based on his ability to effect change, and his ability to effect change will be based on his ability to lead.
But what is the definition of an effective leader? Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a professor at Harvard Business School, spoke to Big Think about the potential for both learned and innate leadership. Oftentimes, someone’s ability to be an effective leader is determined by timing and circumstances, by “whether they’re given the opportunity; whether they’re given the chances to practice.” The question now is, does America want to give Obama the chance to prove he can lead?
The Boston Globe reports that the fearless lion of the Democratic party, Ted Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, is in Denver and plans to address the Democratic National Convention tonight. Doctors think Kennedy’s immune system is too weak, but the Kennedy clan disagrees, and now everyone is bracing for a powerful speech. Here’s a taste of a the mighty Kennedy in a very unguarded Big Think interview.
The Atlantic’s blogger extraordinaire Andrew Sullivan posts a poem today about the fighting in Georgia that he calls “Pushkin with an eternal lament.” Dark falls upon the hills of Georgia/I hear Aragva’s roar/I’m sad and light, my grief-transparent/My sorrow is suffused with you/With you, with you alone…My melancholy/Remains untouched and undisturbed/And once again my heart ignites and loves/Because it can’t do otherwise. War=Poetry, it’s true. And it reminds of when poet C.K. Williams read his poem about Iraq. See below:
Harvard Professor Pardis Sabeti is not only a Rhodes scholar, a Ph.D, and an MD, she is also lead singer of "Thousand Days," a critically acclaimed alternative rock band. She credits New Order with getting her into alternative music in the late '90s, and says that when she's working really hard--on, say, genomics research--she has an album that functions as the soundtrack for the project. Her Ph.D. thesis? That was Nine Inch Nails. College tests, Soul Coughing. And a band that's "about to explode," Frightened Rabbit helped her get Sebati through a grant application. See what other bands inspired Dr. Sabeti to work hard and be brilliant.
Harvard’s Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory Jorie Graham, who formerly taught at the prestigious University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, says the Internet is hardly the language killer some make it out to be. In fact, she says, email isn’t a far cry from the sixteenth century practice of sending your love a handwritten missive by horse drawn carriage. “I’m not sure that we’re losing anything by email. Perhaps we’re trying to keep ourselves more human by being in touch a great deal,” says Graham.
Our e-communication is also bursting with adjectives and adverbs. Hear what else Graham finds interesting about the transformation of language — and global politics — through the internet.
Meanwhile, firmly in the doomsday present, change means peril. The Dow crashed almost 360 points to the lowest ebb in two years as financial firms continue to hemorrhage employees.
Becoming comfortable in flux is an art, according to the How to Change the World blog. Ariane de Bonvoisin, author of The First 30 Days: Your Guide to Any Change and Loving Your Life More, you should focus on the good: “Begin to ask yourself better questions. Trade disempowering inquiries–Why am I so unlucky?, “Why did this happen?”, “Why is life so hard?”–for positive questions such as “What is positive about this situation?” or “In what way is this change a gift?” Begin to believe that from all change–even the most challenging or painful–something good will come. This is the change guarantee.”
Summer’s here, and with it comes a shocking realization: you’ve gotten really fat over the winter. Even if you haven’t, increased sunshine and warmer weather often inspires a desire to slim down and get healthy.
Jennifer Rubell, cookbook author and food writer, discusses what she perceives to be the core of America’s obesity epidemic: a lack of true home cooking. Call her old-fashioned, but she doesn’t consider throwing a plastic dish into a microwave a sufficient “home cooking” experience. And as people lose their sense of the importance of “real” food, the “fabric of American society” is further eroded.
Lifestyle blog Divine Caroline seconds Rubell’s notion that even “health conscious” Americans seek culinary and nutritional shortcuts. Their new list, the Top Ten Most Ridiculous Diets, affirms that people will go to great—and bizarre—lengths to lose weight, albeit temporarily. Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet? The Russian Air Force Diet?
Hasn’t anyone ever heard of a farmer’s market? Stop inhaling corn syrup, people, and the diet will take care of itself.
Summer is here, and for many recent graduates, college is quickly becoming a sweet, drunken memory. As they flock to their chosen metropolises—their hearts aflutter with dreams of landing the big job, curing cancer, ending poverty, meeting someone—the reality of adult life sinks in.
GradSpot.com, the Web’s premier site for demystifying life after college, recently commented on the New York Times’ guide to helping new professionals navigate the murky waters of health care, retirement plans, and taxes. The article begins by congratulating young professionals for managing to get jobs—no easy feat in today’s increasingly competitive job market and slow economy.
But mere employment isn’t enough for today’s restless youth. Minister and Harvard religion professor, Peter Gomes, who counsels many a young idealist, extols today’s youth for refusing to settle. He says young people are “looking for something that is ultimately true and good. They are not willing to buy the rather grim valueless, godless, spiritual-less universe which some of their elders are quite prepared to sell them.” Here’s what else Gomes has to say.
Love it or hate it, you can’t deny the power of Harry Potter, whose reach spans age, geography and culture. This week, an 800-word hand-written prequel to the series sold for $49,000 at a charity auction, according to Reuters.
J.K. Rowling, the series’ billionaire author and the subject of a rags-to-riches success story, knows a thing or two about the importance of determination in the face of adversity. In her commencement address to the Harvard’s 2008 graduating class, she spoke of the value of failure, the importance of empathy, and the rewards we can reap when we stick to our artistic and imaginative guns.
When Big Think spoke to former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins, he too spoke about the importance of nurturing a life-long creative spark. For him, the myriad forms of art are merely “extensions of natural childhood activities, childhood desires that are inactive… Artists are just people who somehow didn’t allow that natural ability in childhood to be killed off.”
The recent deluge of disasters abroad - Myanmar, China, Darfur - and troubles at home from tornadoes in Missouri and Arkansas to the recession beg the question: is it possible to be reality-based and happy? Yes, if you’re a Republican, according to Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam, who cites evidence from Syracuse professor Arthur Brooks’s new tome, “Gross National Happiness” that conservatives are happier than liberals because they’re more likely to be married, religious and relish the status quo, apparently a trifecta for positivity. He quotes research stating that well-being begins to erode in mid-life and that the middle class are better off than both the poor and very rich, whose happiness plateaus after a certain dollar amount is achieved, according to “Stumbling on Happiness” author Daniel Gilbert (see below).
Will Wilkinson of the Cato Institute argues that the research itself is boggled by disagreement over how to define what happiness is, and how to measure an ephemeral emotion. He purports that a socialist-style income equality will not make Americans happier, but raising the median income while maintaining economic freedom will.
Akiko Busch takes the argument down to the micro level, advocating gratitude for mundane and often futile tasks, like making the bed, as anchors of stability in a world where people’s very foundation can shatter instantly.
Big Think asked happiness gurus to define this elusive benchmark and weigh in on the best way for individuals to attain it.
Author Sam Harris (”The End of Faith”) believes that escaping or quieting the motor mind through all-consuming activities that require focus on the present moment, such as meditation or skydiving, provides access to the elusive state of bliss:
In contrast, Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert, whose bestselling book describes what he calls “affective forecasting” ie. people’s ability to predict what will make them happy and why, believes that the mind’s ability to look into the future and determine what will fulfill it helps guide people to bliss. Those without the resources to attain the McMansion or Porsche need not despair as Gilbert believes that family and friends make people happiest. Looking into the future, he envisions the ultimate election when scientists invent a happy pill and Americans must decide if happiness an unalienable right or should be an earned state of being.
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