Author: Daniela

  • Becoming Minimalist

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    Joshua Becker’s story begins on a fine spring day: Our story begins on a beautiful three-day weekend at our home in suburban Vermont. The sun was shining, the flowers were blooming, the grass was beginning to green, and the trees were budding. I was cleaning my garage, my wife was cleaning the bathrooms, and my…

  • Life Under the Ice

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    Science News‘ long piece on a study, conducted by Russian scientists at Lake Vostok, reveals evidence of a complex subglacial ecosystem: Lake Vostok is a behemoth, and not just by Antarctic standards. It is nearly as big as Lake Ontario and much deeper — estimated to be more than 900 meters in some places. By…

  • Poetry in Afghanistan: New York Times Profiles Matiullah Turab

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    The New York Times features the life and writing of Matiullah Turab. Mr. Turab is a popular poet who performs throughout Afghanistan and works during the day as a metalsmith. With his unflinching words, Mr. Turab, 44, offers a voice for Afghans grown cynical about the war and its perpetrators: the Americans, the Taliban, the Afghan government,…

  • Spirituality Enhances Health

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    In a study, posted on the Elevated Existence blog, research shows spirituality enhances a person’s health – particularly their mental health: “In many ways, the results of our study support the idea that spirituality functions as a personality trait,” said Dan Cohen, assistant teaching professor of religious studies at MU and one of the co-authors…

  • Peoples’ Top Regrets

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    This article by Sina Avari reminds us of what is important in life: For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. When questioned about any regrets they had or…

  • Where Do Unicorns Come From?

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    Originally posted on The Dish: Annalee Newitz looks to Chris Lavers’s book A Natural History of Unicorns for the answer: As Lavers explains, the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament mentions an animal called a “reem.” When scholars tried to translate this word into Greek, they were flummoxed. They had no idea what this…

  • The Reason Behind Religion

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    Originally posted on The Dish: Peter Gordon reviews Carlos Fraenkel’s Philosophical Religions, a tour of medieval and early modern thinkers’ attempt to square rational inquiry with divine revelation: The guiding thought of Fraenkel’s study is that what may strike us as an unforgivably elitist distinction, between philosophers and non-philosophers, actually went along with a universalistic…

  • Registration opens Monday for MOSES organic conference

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    Registration for the 25th MOSES Organic Farming Conference at the La Crosse Center opens Monday. The conference, sponsored by the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Services in Spring Valley, Wis., will take place from Feb. 27 through March 1. The event has grown from a meeting of about 90 people 25 years ago to the…

  • “How to Be Alone”

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    The first incarnation of “How to Be Alone” was a collaborative video by two Haligonian artists: musician and former poet laureate Tanya Davis, and filmmaker/illustrator Andrea Dorfman. After the video was first released in 2010, it went viral. (At the time of this printing, it had over six million views.) In 2011 Davis released her first book…

  • Mike Allen, Busted

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    Daniela
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    Originally posted on The Dish: Dish readers know what I think of “native advertizing” and “sponsored content.” If it’s an advertorial, just call it and clearly label it an advertorial! Full disclosure and transparency are essential. The rest is whoredom, not journalism. When a journalist becomes a copy-writer for big advertisers giving him or his…