• 14 things that are obsolete in 21st century schools: http://ingvihrannar.com/14-things-that-are-obsolete-in-21st-century-schools/

• The Toxins that Threaten our Brains - The Atlantic Magazine: http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/03/the-toxins-that-threaten-our-brains/284466/

• Are We Close to Reading Minds? Big Think Magazine: http://bigthink.com/big-think-tv/are-we-close-to-reading-minds

• Almost half of new electricity is now clean and green:  New Scientist Magazine - http://bit.ly/1oJfF5E

• Does traveling make you more optimistic? Kirk Boyd explains why it does. The Intelligent Optimist Magazine: http://theoptimist.com/traveling-perspective/

• Markings, the Journal of Dag Hammarskjold, former Secretary General of the United Nations.  Hammarskjold asked that his journal be released after his death and it was published in 1964.  The book describes the inner mind of a peace loving man, who grappled intensely with his spirituality and the global conflicts he was forced to reckon with during the mid 20th century. "To listen" - in faith - to find one's way and have the feeling that, under God, one is really finding it again.  This is like playing blindman's bluff: deprived of sight, I have, in compensation, to sharpen all my other senses, to grope my way and recognize myself as I pass my fingers over the faces of my friends, and thus find what was mine already, had been there all the time.  What I would have known all the time was there, had I not blindfolded myself.   

• Sleep Loss May Cause Brain Damage and Accelerate Onset of Alzheimer's, Two New Studies Show - Dr. Mercola Website.  Watch the excellent video on the Science of Sleep with Dan Pardi, sleep researcher at Stanford University, that is half way down within the article. http://bit.ly/1q5Tfcb

• Mavis Staples - One True Vine  - Wilco's Jeff Tweedy produced this album for leading Gospel and R&B singer, Mavis Staples.  It's a winning combination.
• Lost recording of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here with Jazz Violinist Stephane Grapelli - Art Rock, most definitely.  http://bit.ly/1lNqeCw
• Antonio Vivaldi - The 4 Seasons: Violin Concerto in F Minor, Op. 8, No. 4, RV 297, "L'inverno" (Winter): I. Allegro non molto  - A very unique recording of the 4 Seasons - the Winter I track in particular is played in quite a different way than usual - very slow, deliberate, and with great emphasis.  
• Stevie Wonder - Songs In The Key Of Life - 38 years later, the lyrics are as relevant today as they were then.
• Oliver Nelson - The Blues And The Abstract Truth - a classic jazz album from 1961 with an all star cast.

• "Optimism is a form of prayer.  Prayer does, in my personal view, have genuine spiritual power.  But I also believe, in the words of the old African saying, 'when you pray, move your feet'.  Prayer without action, like optimism without engagement, is passive aggression toward the future." - Al Gore, in The Future

• "The idea the invisible universe is more real than the visible one indeed has never been so widely accepted by practical scientists as now in this climactic century.  But it is far from a new notion to seers and philosophers, for don't forget, Aristotle called life "spirit pervading matter", a concept all great religions would heartily endorse...the philosophy of mysticism emerges as eminently reasonable...the newly realized reality of the nonmaterial world, of fields that influence, of waves that convey, of minds that pervade." - Guy Murchie, author and Chicago Tribune journalist (mid 1960's).  

• "It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world.  It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless."  L.R. Knost, children's author and child development specialist.

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