Climate Culture

Light for your rights

So last week, my roommates were out of town. And just before they left, one of their cars was broken into and slightly trashed. Alas, this simple act of vandalism has ushered in a new era of paranoia in the house -- and in the twisted funhouse that is my brain.

Needless to say, I did not sleep well while I was alone in the house. Lord knows, I could have used this stylish and oh-so-practical nightlight made from recycled cans. Its tiny beam of yellow brilliance would have shone a bit of happy reality into my nasty nighttime imaginings.

Next time, I suppose.

Lots o’ good stuff therein

This week’s TIME has a big package of stories on global warming. Upping the ante on the de rigueur “10 things you can do,” the magazine offers a whopping 51, an odd mix of large structural reforms and consumer tips like drying your clothes on a clothesline. Coming in at No. 1? Ethanol. Oy. Then […]

It’s

Oh, dear. This video is HIGH-larious. And at the same time utterly, utterly depressing.

Without further ado: "What We Call the News."

The latest on this earth-shattering story

This past Friday, I was once again invited to be on FOX’s Hannity & Colmes. Last time, you’ll recall, I was to discuss the grave and momentous subject of Al Gore’s hypocrisy. This time, the subject was even graver and momentouser: John Travolta‘s hypocrisy. (Last time I got bumped for Daryl Hannah. This time I […]

Good one, Google

I’ll admit it. Google’s Gmail Paper April Fools Day gag got me late last night when I was all tired and groggy and indignant: “Everyone loves Gmail. But not everyone loves email, or the digital era. What ever happened to stamps, filing cabinets, and the mailman? Well, you asked for it, and it’s here. We’re […]

An excellent new photo blog

My new favorite blog in the whole wide world is Shorpy, "the 100-year-old photo blog." It’s just what it says: it collects old pictures. That description doesn’t do it justice, though. It’s fascinating. For instance, check out this picture of Miss America contestants from 1927 — interesting to see how standards of beauty have and […]

Internet TV that doesn’t suck!

I confess I had never heard of VBS.tv before they wrote us. It’s an internet TV station that grew out of Vice magazine. Poking around their site, I must say it looks pretty damn cool. Raw, but cool. I’ve been wondering when a viable internet TV production outfit will pop up. Maybe this is it. […]

Read his cranky email to a consumer

A reader wrote in to share this email exchange. This is the email she sent to GM — as I understand, it’s a form letter you can sign and send from the Plugin America website. Dear Sir, I am tired of being held by the throat by oil companies and I want to buy a […]

It’s the society, stupid

Andrew Dobson posted a thoughtful and useful piece in yesterday's issue of OpenDemocracy.org:

A sampling of recipes for Passover

Over the next few weeks, I will be writing about meals that express our connection to and appreciation for the earth. In keeping with this theme, I'll start with Marge Piercy's new book, Pesach for the Rest of Us: Making the Passover Seder Your Own.

My interest in seders (the meal served at Passover) started when I was in high school and worked as a "hostess helper" for families who were hosting seders. Having been raised Catholic, I had never experienced a seder before, and was deeply moved by the beauty and ceremony of it. As someone who loves food and ritual, I was especially interested in the foods that were assigned special meaning on the Passover plate.

Recently, when I told my friend Rabbi Michael Feshbach that I was writing about this topic, he said, "The greens, which are the first item eaten, are seen as signs of spring. I think of the entire seder as the first multimedia teaching experience -- you tell the message, you smell the message, you eat the message."

For all of these reasons, when I heard that Piercy was going to be in Cambridge doing a reading from her new book, I cleared my schedule so that I could go.