We Are Hard-Wired to Care and Connect – Part IV

By David Korten | Website

Reprinted from  "Purple America," the Fall 2008 YES! Magazine
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Read the first part of the article here.

=&0=&Getting out of our current mess begins with a conversation to change the shared cultural story about our essential nature. The women’s movement offers an instructive lesson.

In little more than a decade, a few
courageous women changed the cultural story that the key to a woman’s
happiness is to find the right man, marry him, and devote her life to
his service. As Cecile Andrews, author of Circles of Simplicity,

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Political Leanings

By Shae Hadden | Bio

Today is the day after the Canadian federal elections. It’s also Blog Action Day on Poverty. Admittedly, poverty is an important issue, and so are politics. Since Canadian Falun Gong activist Caylan Ford was forced to resign after lamenting there was a double standard for white supremacist terrorists, some may say that the Canadian federal elections have now become more

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Exercising Our Right

By Shae Hadden | Bio

With elections today in Canada and next month in the U.S., this is a good time to remind all the women we know to exercise their right to vote–a right which we’ve only had for less than a century.

In July 1917, a group of 33 women picketed outside the White House, asking for the right to vote. They were rounded up by 40 police wielding clubs, brought to Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia and imprisoned for "obstructing sidewalk traffic". One of the women, Lucy

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Caught Napping

By Shae Hadden | Bio

It’s Thanksgiving in Canada, and I’ve just enjoyed a full weekend of personal and work commitments. But the highlight of the weekend was a chance to reconnect with the power of the ‘nap’. 

Research in the past few years has found that the human body requires as much sleep as the brain will allow it and that the brain needs a rest every now and then. So taking that mid-afternoon 20-minute snooze really can give one a burst of ideas and energy. And,

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Living Arrangements of the Future

As Boomers grow older, they are changing the way our culture views old age and the possibilities for innovative living arrangements. Boomers will stay active in the community and be among the healthiest 70 and 80-year-olds in U.S. history. No wonder that new living arrangements are emerging like intergenerational housing communities, nursing homes that are more like neighbourhood houses than hospitals, and small homes on college campuses. Meanwhile, some senior centers are also evolving into progressive

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Recognizing Older People

This letter was submitted by Richard Blewitt, chief executive of HelpAge International, to the editor of the Herald Tribune.

Wednesday [October 1st] is the UN International Day of Older People–a time to celebrate and recognize the contribution of older people to global society.

In the developing world, this contribution could not be clearer. Older people are at the frontline of the battle against HIV, caring for the sick and for grandchildren orphaned by the pandemic. In disaster situations,

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Old Isn’t Elder

By Jim Selman | Bio

The word “Elder” is becoming the vogue term
for people over 60 or, in some cases, even younger. I think it is a
mistake as well as inaccurate to make “Elder” synonymous with having
reached a certain age. First of all, being an Elder is a role, not a
fact of biology. Moreover, it is a role that exists in the context of
community. The word itself distinguishes a relationship between the
Elder and members of their community. More than

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