The information I’ve always wanted, but haven’t really been looking for!

Have you ever wondered just HOW socially responsible the companies you frequent are? Maybe you know the histories of a few, (we all know we shouldn’t shop at Wal-Mart) but wouldn’t it be great to have a database standing by to let you know what you SHOULD know about the companies you support? Do they [...]

Samizdat

Yesterday we spent some time at the Open Society Institute Archives, studying their Samizdat collection.
Samizdat, which means “self-published” in Russian, was the underground literature that was illegally printed and distributed in Soviet Russia and other Soviet controlled countries, including Hungary.
As you can imagine it was incredibly dangerous, so the printers continued to come up with [...]

The Power of Music

Since one of my main interests is the power of media (any media) to move people to action or make change, I thought this was an interesting story.
Have you heard of the Hungarian suicide song? In 1932, Rezso Seress wrote “Gloomy Sunday” - a song which would be implicated in over 100 cases of suicide.
THe [...]