Feb 1 - 5 Programs

Jean’s Pick of the Week: For sheer breadth of thought and intellectual challenge, my choice is Jeremy Rifkin’s The Empathic Civilization.

Monday: Punk Astronomy: Punk astronomer Doug Reilly thinks that you are not spending enough time looking up. He explains why looking up at the awe-inspiring night sky is punk and why it might be the best way for us humans to expand our horizon of possibilities, and our consciousness.

Tuesday: Equality vs. Inequality: British husband and wife Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett join forces to show that one common factor links the healthiest and happiest societies: not wealth, not resources, not culture, but the degree of equality among their members. So, by that measure, how does America stack up? They are co-authors of the new book, The Spirit Level.

Wednesday: In The Whale: Winner of the 2009 BBC Prize for Nonfiction, Philip Hoare investigates the dark, shadowy beasts who swim below the depths only to surface in a spray of spume to find out what it is about them that exerts such a powerful grip on our collective imagination?

Thursday: Committed to the World Project: Get Engaged!: Christina Ammon inherited a diamond ring worth $22,000 from her grandmother. She did some quick calculations: $22,000 could restore sight to 660 people in Bangladesh; send 133 Nepalese children to school, protect 220 acres of rainforest, or provide 220 micro-beans to women in the Congo. Her question: do I want a diamond ring, or a better world?

Friday: Teaching Kids to Cook: Reformed picky eater Jill Colella Bloomfield believes that teaching kids to cook is the way to avoid the pitfalls of picky eating. She’ll share her strategies for helping kids discover there’s more to life than peanut and butter and jelly.

Have a great weekend.

Jean