Website copy for social innovation conferences can get a little wordy, so I’d like to take a stab at explaining this thing called "The Feast" in simple language.

We once reported on a company that prevents junk mail called GreenDimes, but equally annoying, if not as environmentally harmful, are telemarketing calls. For those of you who don’t already know about this, you can register your number on the National Do Not Call Registry to prevent these calls. And the registration never expires.

Photo: alincolnt, Creative Commons, Flickr In a recent article, Scientific American asks the question: “If people come to believe that they don’t have free will, what will the consequences be for moral responsibility?”

“In a game of give and get,” the PhysOrg.com reporter emphasizes: “The brains of people with borderline personality disorder often don’t get it.”

“What, exactly, is the Internet? Basically it is a global network exchanging digitized data in such a way that any computer, anywhere, that is equipped with a device called a ‘modem’, can make a noise like a duck choking on a kazoo” – Dave Barry, American writer.

I went to the Apple (AAPL – $175.92) store today to get a new laptop charger (the old charger’s wires are frayed near the power port and it doesn’t work anymore).

Photo: pink_fish13, Creative Commons, Flickr American Public Media has come up with an equally fun and guilt inducing game called Consumer Consequences. It’s part of their "Consumed" series, which explores whether the modern American lifestyle is sustainable in the long run:

Statistics are often used to demonstrate the severity of a given situation and a call to action, but when particularly massive numbers are cited on a regular basis they become difficult to comprehend.

Last weekend, an uncle asked me "How many hours a day do you go online?" I looked up from my iPhone and repeated the question out loud several times, stressing the different words to understand what he meant, like Jude Law as Brad Stand in "I Heart Huckabees" pondering "How Am I Not Myself?" Go…

Photo:refractionless, Creative Commons, Flickr We have been raised in the culture of “more money equals more happy.” But this old axiom doesn’t seem true anymore, if it ever was.

As the Hollywood writers themselves predicted, the strike has been going on for months and months. The New York Times has an entire section devoted to the action initiated by the Writers Guild of America. The big boys are back on air and we are ecstatic to see Colbert and Letterman kicking it again. What…

Bideawee is a no-kill animal shelter that has a special program designed to help individuals save animals. For $24/month members can help give a shelter animal a second chance. With funds from this program, Bideawee rescues animals who are scheduled to be euthanized at kill shelters and cares for them at their own shelters (three…

According to GreenDimes, a company that prevents paper junk mail and unwanted catalogs, over 100 million trees and 28 billion gallons of water are wasted annually on US junk mail alone. What GreenDimes aims to do is cut 90% of this unnecessary mail and plant 5 trees per member. For those of us that look…

Socially conscious gifts for everyone on your list:

The Times' Style section yesterday discussed the newest addition to the Christmas holidays: the green Grinch. This is the environmentally obsessed family member who is "bent on eradicating the wasteful materialism of the holidays." Focusing on the usual Grinch-like grievances of excessive consumption, this person puts an environmental spin on the most negative aspects of the Christmas…

What do M&M’s, Snickers and Twix have in common besides chocolate? Deadly animal tests!

This is a follow up to my piece on the feature film Evan Almighty, starring Steve Carrell. In investment terms, this movie was a complete loss, a bomb, a stinker. Universal ponied up $175 million for the feature, not to mention an additional $50 million or so in marketing. To date, this movie has grossed…

As a symbol of our cultural moment, the MTV Video Music Awards program Sunday September 10 was unexpectedly complex. I tuned in mid-Sarah Silverman, who was already deconstructing Britney 2.0, who had just gotten offstage. MTV (VIA), where the target demographic has drifted down to tween girls (largely because of the influence of Britney 1.0)…

If a single entertainment item could defibrillate our socially ambivalent culture into taking action against the corrupt state of the corporate world, The Corporation (2004) might be it. In this fast-paced and thorough documentary, filmmakers Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott cross-examine the management of corporate America, as well as its victims and critics, and leave…

Photo:scottlowe, Creative Commons, Flickr By now you likely have heard of Silverjet, the world’s first completely carbon neutral airline.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was honored at a benefit for The Drum Major Institute (DMI) on Thursday evening. DMI, a progressive organization that backed Fernando Ferrer for mayor in 2005, recently issued a detailed analysis of congestion pricing in support of Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC program. Bloomberg is currently pushing the state to allow an early test…