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Posts Archived Under Society and Culture
Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai made her mark with a simple but effective idea: Plant trees to stop erosion and restore the ecology in Kenya. In 1977, she started the Green Belt Movement, which is credited with planting 30 million trees.
The movement brought poverty-stricken Kenyans together to replenish natural resources as a means to boost the local economy. But Professor Maathai, aka "The Tree Woman," hasn't stopped there. Now, she's tackling global warming. How? Yup, you guessed it: Plant more trees! Why? Carbon dioxide, the major culprit of global warming, is readily consumed by trees.
Because of rapid worldwide deforestation, we can no longer depend on natural forests to take care of our global surplus of CO2. Replacing dwindling forests not only helps to prevent climate change, but also beautifies our expanding cityscapes. So, join Maathai in her venture, the United Nation's Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign, and go plant your tree of choice -- for Earth's sake.
Suggested Sites...
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Directory categories:
Deforestation, Global Warming, Carbon Sequestration, Trees, Restoration Ecology |
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Archived under: Environment, Global Warming, Nobel Prize, Science, Society and Culture, Trees, United Nations |
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If your own game closet looks
like this, you're probably too
advanced for this Spark
(Photo by Luca Masters)
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You may not be shocked to hear that we're unabashed, self-described nerds. And one of our favorite forms of nerdery is playing board games.
For many people, board games conjure mental images of long childhood hours playing "Monopoly" (and probably either being bored senseless or cheating shamelessly) or even more juvenile fare like "Hungry Hungry Hippos" or "Candy Land." But if you haven't given board games a second thought since you were a kid, or if you're stuck in the same old "Scrabble"/"Clue"/"Trivial Pursuit" rut, you might be surprised at how clever, creative, and fun board games for grown-ups can be. From social party diversions to serious, competitive-strategy games, there are literally hundreds of games out there to challenge and entertain.
During the holidays, while we gather with family and friends for the typical Christmas and New Year's traditions, we'll also enjoy our own board game traditions. This year we hope to learn a couple of new games with competitive friends, while introducing some entry-level gamers in the family to some of our favorites.
If your holiday gatherings already include games, but "Battleship" is causing more fights than it's worth and everyone has memorized the "Pictionary" cards, maybe it's time to try some new options. Or if your family is game-resistant and you could use a break from political dinner conversations or updates on Great Aunt Mathilda's psoriasis, maybe it's time to start your own gaming tradition -- you never know, it might even make your family smarter.
We're not suggesting that you dive deep into the realm of hardcore wargames, immerse yourself in online worlds, or commit to full-on costume-wearing, character-creating role-playing games. (We may be nerds, but those are a bit too serious, even for us.) Instead, we suggest baby steps into the land of board game fanaticism. Let the board game obsessives pore over rulebooks for complicated (but highly-rated) German-style games (yes, that's a real thing) like "Agricola" and "Puerto Rico," and create spreadsheets and apps for score-keeping. Let the crafty nerds create elaborate projects dedicated to their favorite game pieces (yes, they really do that). Instead, start with something simple and non-threatening -- a game with a rulebook that doesn't look like a novella.
Ready to play? If you're not sure where to begin, here are some of our favorite gateway games:
Suggested Sites...
- Settlers of Catan - board game fanatics rave about the whole series of Catan games, but this is the classic. It's a simple strategy game that's reasonably easy to learn, but quickly becomes addictive.
- Bananagrams - if "Scrabble" is too slow and methodical for you, and it bugs you that you can't change the letters once they're on the board, this speedy anagram game might satisfy your word-nerd game needs.
- Fluxx - half the fun is keeping track of which rules are in effect at any given moment in this chaotic, fast-paced card game.
- Ticket to Ride - there's more strategy and back-stabbing than you might expect as you compete to build train routes across the map.
- Board Game Geek - the place to go for all your board game news, reviews, forums, opinions, and information.
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Directory categories:
Board Games, Board Game Reviews, Board Game Retailers, Online Board Games, Settlers of Catan |
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Archived under: Board Games, Entertainment, Gamers, Games, Holidays, Society and Culture, Wordplay |
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Shoppers following their own advice. (And
, no, we didn't have to pay to use this image.)
(Photo by Brave New Films)
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When getting or giving a gift, we often hear, "It's the thought that counts," implying that it doesn't matter what we buy, as long as we buy something. So, every year on the day after Thanksgiving, American shoppers hurl themselves into malls in a frenzy, desperately hunting for Black Friday bargains. After the shelves been picked clean and the registers closed out, economists anxiously await the day's totals, hoping to forecast a strong economy for the upcoming holiday season.
But there are some who believe that the only forecast this consumerism points to is damage to ourselves and our planet. And if folks like the Reverend Billy have anything to say about it, we won't be buying anything. The good Reverend is one of those critics of rampant consumerism who urge you to participate in the holiday madness by not participating in it.
"Reverend Billy" is the nom du theatre of performance artist Bill Talen, who founded the Church of Stop Shopping. His mock gospel of anti-consumerism became deadly serious when he attacked a certain mouse-headed corporation for its "Disneyfication" of New York's Times Square, and Starbucks for driving out small local businesses in the name of creating a "fake Bohemia." It's not that Billy is anti-capitalist; rather, he stands for a "real human experience" and against corporations that seek to homogenize or erase the uniqueness of small mom 'n' pop stores in the name of efficiency and profit.
But it's not just Reverend Billy. On this day of all days, there's a whole movement that asks you to buy nothing at all -- not even gas, bread, or coffee! Proponents of "Buy Nothing Day" claim that it serves as a brake on the rampant consumerism that has spoiled society. If you do decide you must shop this weekend, remember that wise spending -- such as understanding where purchases come from and what kind of an impact they'll have on our environment -- may make all the difference between wasteful overconsumption and practical resource conservation on our planet.
So before you make that rush to the mall over the next few weeks, ask yourself if you're doing all that shopping just for shopping's sake. And pause to think if your purchase will be the one that brings on the Shopocalypse.
Suggested Sites...
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Directory categories:
Buy Nothing Day, Reverend Billy, Black Friday Sales, Anti-Consumerism, Consumer Advocacy |
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Archived under: Business, Consumer Advocacy, Counterculture, Culture Jamming, Economics, Environment, Events, Issues and Causes, Shopping, Society and Culture |
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Thanksgiving: Time to give thanks for and celebrate our bounty... but have you seen our bounty lately? It's ... well, it's bountiful. Bountylicious. America is having something of an epidemic of, er, bounty. And what was once a celebration of oh-thank-heavens-we-have-enough-food-to-survive-the-winter has become more of a gluttonous culinary dare to see who can eat a winter's worth of calories in a single day.
But wait -- we're not saying that's necessarily a bad thing. Those of us with plenty on our plates should be thankful (and we should also remember -- and help -- those in need), and honestly, most of us could probably be a little more mindful of just how bountiful our everyday meals are, for the sake of our hearts and waistlines. But it's awfully hard to resist the urge to celebrate a harvest festival by eating everything in sight.
We think the occasional celebration of gluttony is a wonderful thing, and Thanksgiving seems like an appropriate day for it. If there's ever a time for deep-fried turkeys, fowl stuffed inside one another, obscene quantities of carbs, and several dessert courses in one meal, this is it. But why stop with the traditional Thanksgiving fixings? Why not get all of the indecent cravings for food obscenities you want to try but know you shouldn't out of the way at once? Load that Thanksgiving table with bacon-crusted bacon with bacon dipping sauce, deep-fried pancakes, sandwiches with fried chicken breasts instead of buns, and deep-fried butter. And don't forget to save room for the deep-fried Twinkies, supersized creme eggs, and Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding.
We can have salads Friday -- and not the kind served in bowls made of bacon.
Suggested Sites...
- This Is Why You're Fat - mostly meaty food obscenities that will either make you hungry or make you never want to eat again.
- The Bacon Show - one bacon recipe posted per day. Don't worry -- you can cook as many as you want.
- Super Sized Meals - the bigger, the better, according to these folks. Their doctors may disagree.
- Fancy Fast Food - turning fast food items into gourmet (looking) meals.
- Pimp That Snack - junk food writ large.
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Directory categories:
Thanksgiving Recipes, Holiday Side Dishes, Deep Frying Recipes, Turducken, Thanksgiving Desserts |
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Archived under: Cooking, Eating, Fanatics, Food and Drink, Holidays, Recipes, Society and Culture, Thanksgiving |
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Seriously, does this kitty look
like bad luck?
(Photo by Adhi Rachdian) |
Today is Friday the 13th, which is supposed to be an unlucky day. Why this is, no one is exactly sure. There are plenty of theories, ranging from the numerological to the religious to the historical, but nothing concrete. For some folks, it's just another day, but for others, it's something to be taken seriously while being reminded of our phobias.
With that in mind, we polled some of our fellow Yahoo!s to find out what they were afraid of, and what they do to ward off bad luck. In fact, there turned out to be so many fears and cures that we had to break it all up into three parts.
Not surprisingly, some of our colleagues suffer from coulrophobia, or an unnatural fear of clowns:
Sarah: I'm afraid of clowns and roller coasters, which is interesting, considering I worked at an amusement park for two years in college.
Mike: People with a lot of makeup on make me ill -- literally. Like, I can't eat around clowns and stuff. I'll totally hurl. (Editor's note: That might inspire emetophobia in some other folks.)
Mahlon suffers from xyrophobia: Razor blades, especially straight razors or double-sided razors, creep me out! Whenever I see them, I feel especially vulnerable around the throat and inner arms. Eek! And gum chewing -- not a phobia exactly, but I will cross the street or leave the room to avoid seeing or hearing it.
Adam has acrophobia: Heights. Even driving over on-ramps or off-ramps that are way off the ground freaks me out. Majorly high bridges, zip lines, and other activities that put your body more than a dozen feet off the ground freak me out, too.
Robert: I'm afraid of mirrors in dark rooms and doors that are open to dark hallways. I don’t know what might come through them.
Helene: I can't stand alignments, like military parades. ("Don’t put that one in," she says. "People will think I’m crazy.")
Personally, I have a fear of things that are too big. Not big objects, but things that are larger than they're supposed to be. The first (and only) time I saw Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose" airplane, I nearly had a panic attack, because the thing was just too damn big.
Coming up Monday: Media-inspired phobias. Watch out for those black cats this weekend!
Suggested Sites...
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Directory categories:
Friday the 13th, Superstitions, Phobias, Friday the 13th Movie Series |
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Archived under: Curses, Friday the 13th, Holidays, Numbers, Phobias, Psychology, Society and Culture, Superstition |
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