I keep my working spaces clean, including clearing my desktop every evening before going to sleep. I try to keep files off my computer desktop too. Working on my next book has me referring to and learning from the Declaration of Independence and Constitution so often, I decided to put them on my computer desktop. Many sites online carry their full texts, but I couldn’t find any with a file[…] Keep reading →

I was walking home from the food coop past NYU and saw this truck. They’re all over Manhattan, basically limousines. Rich people travel by giant truck, I guess as some luxury. It was sitting there not moving. The passengers weren’t in it but it wasn’t empty. A guy in a suit—the driver—was sitting in it, engine idling, I presume with the air conditioning on because it was around 90 F[…] Keep reading →

Yesterday was the annual Pride March, which means a wrecked Washington Square Park. I make it an annual habit to take pictures of the state of the park after. As usual, to clarify, I’m selecting the event not to say anything about the march itself, its causes, or its people, but for the garbage. My mission is to change American and global culture and the pictures illustrate our culture. I[…] Keep reading →

I wrote the other day in Why I love the heat, even when it’s 95F (35C) on the way to 102F (39C) about how the heat, while uncomfortable, gave me reason to grow, learn, and connect. Among other things, it connected me to the countless people around the world and back in time who live and lived in such conditions. I can learn from our grandparents and people in other[…] Keep reading →

I walked past what was once likely a planter bed filled with lovely flowers or maybe a tree. I presume it was something nice because someone installed a plaque that began “In loving memory of.” Instead of flowers, a tree, or anything lovely or nice, the bed was filled with garbage. I’ve passed it before and seen it filled with garbage. It’s nice to think that environmental problems haven’t hit[…] Keep reading →

Want to know what living more sustainably feels like? Our culture is so dependent and addicted to things like takeout, cars, and flying that pollution and depletion enable, we forget that using them destroys life, liberty, and property. We don’t notice that our government benefits and grows in money and power from licensing and promoting one of its few core responsibilities nearly everyone agrees on. We don’t notice that they[…] Keep reading →

After picking up litter today, I had to look up octopus intelligence. The first link on my search was titled Octopuses may be so terrifyingly smart because they share humans’ genes for intelligence. Why did I have to look up their intelligence? Because of how disgusted I felt, but didn’t feel I felt disgusted enough. Below are three increasingly horrifying pictures of a garbage can in the northwest corner of[…] Keep reading →

I’ve thought of a simple way to illustrate what the Spodek Method workshop delivers. The mission is to change American and global culture to embrace sustainability by evoking our powerful, basic human emotions relevant to nature. The Spodek Method unearths joy, wonder, oneness, connection, spirituality, divinity, and related passions in people you do it with. They return gratitude. Evoking joy and returning gratitude leads to growing community acting together, achieving[…] Keep reading →

Every year, I take pictures of how people trash their trees. I find the waste and death tragic and the images of something that was supposed to celebrate life become garbage. This season, I started seeing trees trashed before Christmas: Ten days before Christmas people are already throwing away their Christmas pagan trees. I call them “Christmas pagan trees” because, as I’ve written before, people in the U.S. celebrate Jesus’s[…] Keep reading →