Buddhist Roshi Joan Halifax works with people at the last stage of life (in hospice and on death row). She shares what she’s learned about compassion in the face of death and dying, and a deep insight into the nature of empathy.

British MP Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan after 9/11, talking with citizens and warlords alike. Now, a decade later, he asks: Why are Western and coalition forces still fighting there? He shares lessons from past military interventions that worked — Bosnia, for instance — and shows that humility and local expertise are the keys to success.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the “Sixth Sense” wearable tech, and “Lost” producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate.

Well, thanks to the new chat group on skype… , we have been finding some interesting stuff… been reviewing it, and trying to keep this from diving into the nether world of psycho-philosophical-babbling-future-nonsense.  But ran we ran across a pretty nice list of links about the TOP DOCUMENTARIES – some of these I have seen, others, no… but planning on going thru them… and seeing what I see… anyway… In there, a new ZEITGEIST release… check this one out!

A spate of recent Fox News attacks on Media Matters tax-exempt status for partisanship included one last week with Steve Doocy interviewing Jordan Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice that not only relied on an argument that assumes Fox News is an arm of the Republican Party (which could have legal consequences for Fox), but also came from a guest whose own 501)c)(3) tax-exempt organization has problems with partisanship as I show in this video.

The clips used of Steve Doocy’s interview with the ACLJ’s Jordan Sekulow come from a longer segment of Fox News’ June 27, 2011, broadcast of “Fox and Friends” that’s currently available online at http://bit.ly/ktInmz

The clips used of Jordan Sekulow’s 2011 appearance and the 2011 Faith and Freedom Coalition summit come from the video edited and uploaded by by Right Wing Watch on the RWWBlog channel on YouTube at http://bit.ly/krgDRF

The clip used of Brian Kilmeade and Michele Bachmann come from an earlier segment on the June 27, 2011, broadcast of “fox and Friends” I haven’t found available online.

The image used of the federal law defining 501(c((3) non-profit tax exempt statues comes from the webpage at http://bit.ly/26USC501

The image used of the federal law defining the media exception to federal election expenditure regulations comes from the webpage at http://bit.ly/2USC431

The image used of Media Matters’ January 2011 study of the value of Fox News’ in-kind media expenditures on behalf of potential Republican presidential candidates serving as Fox News hosts and/or contributors comes from the webpage at http://bit.ly/MMStudy

By leading the Americans in his audience at TEDxPSU step by step through the thought process, sociologist Sam Richards sets an extraordinary challenge: can they understand — not approve of, but understand — the motivations of an Iraqi insurgent? And by extension, can anyone truly understand and empathize with another?

Sam Richards is a sociologist and award-winning teacher who has been inspiring undergraduate students at Penn State since 1990. Every semester, 725 students register for his Race and Ethnic Relations course, one of the most popular classes at Penn State and the largest of its kind in the country. Through his natural ability of seeing a subject from many angles, Richards encourages students to engage more fully with the world and to think for themselves — something he did not do until his third year in college. Because of his passion for challenging students to open their minds, an interviewer recently referred to him as “an alarm clock for eighteen-year-olds.”

His career began at the age of 24 when he was hired to teach a cybernetics course — just 15 minutes before the first class meeting. He remembers walking into the room without having had a moment to create a lesson plan and greeting his students, “Welcome to the course. I’m your instructor. And if you have no idea what cybernetics is, you’re not alone — because I don’t either.” This characteristic willingness to be playfully transparent in the classroom, along with a talent for making complex ideas understandable and relevant, is the foundation of his success as a teacher.

Richards is also the co-director of the World in Conversation Project at Penn State (www.worldinconversation.org), whose mission is to create a kind of dialogue about social and cultural issues that invites the unexamined, politically incorrect thoughts of participants to the surface so that those thoughts can be submitted to conscious exploration and inquiry. The conversation topics span a range of cultural issues — from U.S. race relations to gender to faith to international racism. This year, nearly 7,000 University Park students will participate in one of more than 1,300 of these unscripted conversations. Furthermore, the project also sponsors video dialogues between Penn State students and students at other universities around the world.

Many of the discussions occurring today deal with everything that is amiss in our local, national, and global lives.
A sustainable life that not only benefits one being but all beings on the planet; a life that can begin to bring balance back to our Mother Earth.

It begins with you and it can begin today.

OK, didn’t need to put up a link today, but couldn’t resist this one.

We all know the conventional wisdom of how products are made and how they are used, then disposed of.  When we saw this video that filled in the gaps, we had to share.  We wanted to share this one because we feel that it represents the current state of affairs we are in and what we are doing to ourselves.  My question is, will we wake up too late.  This is THE crisis of the 21^st Century.  What will it take for us to act?  I fear the answer, and hope you see the urgency like we do.

When I found this on YouTube it was recommended by the editors there, not a bad choice if you ask me.  It had the following description: “From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.”

Check out their website (http://StoryOfStuff.org). Time for us to re-think what we do, and make the world a better place as a result of use, not destroy the one thing we will always need to continue as a species, the Earth.

Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks — including death itself — at the university’s 114th Commencement on June 12, 2005.

Tapping into the findings of his latest book, NYTimes columnist David Brooks unpacks new insights into human nature from the cognitive sciences — insights with massive implications for economics and politics as well as our own self-knowledge. In a talk full of humor, he shows how you can’t hope to understand humans as separate individuals making choices based on their conscious awareness.