GOOD

If I Were President

GOOD — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 01:55:32 +0000

The campaign promises of John McCain and Barack Obama have been widely publicized. But what would Mos Def do as commander in chief? What about Murs or Marjora Carter? Have a look at the trailer for our new video series, “If I Were President.” http://anvato-transcoder.s3.amazonaws.com/good/job/3943e86a7f6cc675a35574821e9798f3823a14944e20a99130.mp4 Look for the first episode on October 20. Produced with our friends at 24/7 Townhall.

Can Provocative Photos of TB Sufferers Open Washington’s Wallet?

marvel — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:30:00 +0000

As we mentioned in Friday’s “This Week in GOOD,” 50 cities across all seven continents debuted James Nachtwey’s photographs depicting the suffering brought on by extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis. We stopped by the New York event where a panel of TB experts and TED founder Richard Saul Wurman outlined the challenges presented by the epidemic, which, according to a recent Time article, affects half a million people, mostly in developing countries. Nachtwey (pictured, right, with Paul Simon) then explained his…

Who’s a Dilettante?

MichaelangeloMatos — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 23:07:25 +0000

Letting go of the impulse to be an expert Last year I decided I was going to teach myself about Duke Ellington. Great idea, right? We all know Duke Ellington is awesome even if we don’t know why. So I decided to find out why. I bought a bunch of CDs and downloaded others; for a while I played them when I wasn’t listening to things I needed to for work. I hatched a plot to try…

Paul Newman Inspired a Generation of Entrepreneurs

jonathongreenblatt — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:22:20 +0000

The accidental entrepreneur blazed the trail for Ben and Jerry’s, Stonyfield Farms, and other socially responsible businesses. I think most of the country knows him as Fast Eddie Felson or Cool Hand Luke. My kids think of him as an aging Hudson Hornet, pining away his days in the mythical Radiator Springs. But in my mind, I regard Paul Newman as perhaps the most successful social entrepreneur of our time and a role model who…

This Week in GOOD

patrickjames — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 01:00:10 +0000

As of today, James Natchwey’s TED prize photography project, on Extreme Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (or XDRTB), can be seen in New York. Very powerful. Much more grave than, say, the state of things on Wall Street. Of course, while life on Wall Street has probably felt like five o’clock somewhere since Monday at dawn, we must admit that the whole economic meltdown thing is a bit too convoluted for us to comprehend. Fortunately, there are concise,…

Of Men, Women, Essays, and Cannibals

AnneTrubek — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:37:22 +0000

The gender divide in contemporary non-fiction The New Press recently published Submersion Journalism: Reporting in the Radical First Person. It is a great anthology, chock full of fantastic articles originally published in Harper’s magazine. Scan the list of contributors and note the names. Fourteen of the fifteen are men. The Harper’s anthology follows in the wake of Ira Glass’ The New Kings of Non-Fiction (note the title…and all but two contributors are men), and Robert Boynton’s The New New Journalism (all…

Three Great Sites for Understanding the Economy, the Polls, and the Campaigns’ Claims

Price — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:07:38 +0000

We’ve got a presidential election coming up and we’re in the throes of an economic meltdown. The media isn’t providing much understanding. The debates don’t help all that much either. So here are three sites that do a great job of consolidating clear, useful information. Untwisting the Campaigns’ Claims: Most of the claims we’ve heard in the debates so far have been misleading. The candidates are expert at twisting facts and spinning. But we’ve been really impressed…

Instant Grant Program

patrickjames — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:28:47 +0000

Wooster has a great post on The Federation of Students and Nominally or Unemployed Artists and its Instant Grant Program, which, having raised $1000, set up shop in a park and gave the money away in increments of $10-60 to fund creative ideas that random park-goers thought up on the spot. Super sweet! And so much less maintenance than the NEA. Video after the jump. http://www.vimeo.com/1714496

The Morning After

patrickjames — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:41:38 +0000

Yesterday, we used internets to predict the near future—which, at that point, was last night’s vice presidential debate. And, lo!, how quickly the near future becomes the recent past. Today, we look at what a number of media outlets are saying about the battle between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin. BBC, which predicted gaffes, was let down by the “competent, if not exactly sparkling” performances, dismissing the event as “over-rehearsed.” More après la jump. Fox News (at…

The Space Elevator Gets a Lift

Claire L. Evans — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 03:53:49 +0000

The fabled elevator to space is a surprisingly pragmatic idea. In November, the Japanese give it a timeline. Imagine, if you will, a new kind of space travel—one with no launch pads or booster rockets. No risky ocean landings in charred, cramped Soyuz orbital modules; no money-sucking Space Shuttles. No explosions, no “Houston, we have a problem.” Instead of strapping themselves onto the noses of massive rockets and hoping for the best, astronauts would nimbly step into…