Lisa Napoli's Blog, page 67
March 13, 2011
The Happynomics of Life
Been blissfully offline the last few days, and am just catching up and seeing this by Roger Cohen on the op-ed pages of the NY Times, about Britain's foray into happiness economics, borrowed in part from the Bhutanese slogan-that's-becoming-a-movement, "gross national happiness."
Excerpt:
"….the case for trying to measure the happiness of a society, rather than its growth and productivity alone, has become compelling. When Western industrialized societies started measuring gross domestic product, the issue for many was survival. Now most people have enough — or far more than enough by the standards of human history — but the question remains: "What's going on inside their heads?"
Little that's good, it seems. Stress has become the byword for a spreading anxiety. This anxiety's personal, about jobs and money and health, but also general: that we can't go on like this, running only to stand still, making things faster and faster, consuming more and more food (with consequent pressures on prices); that somehow a world of more than seven billion people is going to have to "downshift" to make it, revise its criteria of what constitutes well-being.
Just what goes into well-being is confounding. Many of the variables — like love and friendship and family relations — are hard to pin down. But British research has suggested that money itself does not confer happiness, although wealthier people tend to be happier; that employment is critical to self-esteem; that women tend to be happier than men; and that people need something beyond the material for fulfillment."
10 Steps to Happiness/China mimics Bhutan
Nice piece in The Guardian listing all the things the happiness experts say: downsize, be flexible, help others. Balance your life.
The story cites a "happiness index" that's been deployed in a township in China that's very similar to the factors considered by Bhutan.
Excerpt:
"To bring happiness into the evaluation system is in line with the social development and is a symbol that China is seeking to explore scientific and sustainable methods of management, especially in its vast rural areas," said Li Junwei, a professor with the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC, the highest institution to train government officials.
Li, however, noted that the inclusion of the "Happiness Index" does not mean the replacement or disposal of traditional economic indicators, which play a fundamental role in people's happiness.
Globe and Mail story on R/S/L
This writer, Sarah Hampton, very carefully read Radio Shangri-La—and very thoughtfully distilled our interview, which felt like a therapy session (in the best possible way!)
A thousand butter lamps lit for Japan
Lit by his majesty the king.
The story in Kuensel:
March 11, 2011
The good people of Tucson..
…850 of them…tonight at the U of Arizona bookstore, for a literacy benefit party to kick off the book festival. Which starts tomorrow.
What an awesome, beautiful place and kind people.
March 10, 2011
First solar-powered bookstore:
Antigone Books in Tucson, Arizona! Read about it on Shelf Awareness yesterday, and here I get to see it in person today, and meet Trudy, the owner (and friend of my dear hostess, Diane Luber.)
Tucson Festival of Books
From the mountains to the mountains–in Tucson, speaking at a private Women's Foundation of Southern Arizona event tonight, and tomorrow evening the fun begins at the Tucson Festival of Books. My first book festival! Come by if you can or send your Arizona peeps.
New book by Jamie Zeppa
Fans of Jamie Zeppa's beautiful book about her time as a teacher in Bhutan, Beyond the Sky and the Earth, will be interested to know about her first novel, Every Time We Say Goodbye, just out from Knopf. Here's a video interview with her about it.
This book is not, however, set in the Himalayas:
Excerpt from a blog review:
"Much of the story surrounds the small Ontario city of Sault Ste Marie, a town just outside of Toronto, otherwise known as "the Soo". The Turner family resides in this small community dating back to the 1930′s when Frank and Grace's parents died young and the two were left to raise themselves. Frank took the lead role and tried his best to raise his younger sister Grace, who is an idealist and doesn't really see the point in following the "rules". The dynamic of the story changes (and really starts), when Vera enters their home after marrying Frank. She's a stick to the plan kind of woman who runs a tight ship. It's fair to say that we all have a Vera in our family in one form or another. Vera and Grace bump heads on numerous occasions, but their relationship takes its biggest hit when Grace unexpectantly gets pregnant by a boy in town who she refuses to name. From this point we are taken on a journey from the 1930′s to the 1980′s, where we're introduced to the many people who make up the Turner family."
March 9, 2011
Strange coincidences in Denver
How fabulous is it that dear Hope, whom I know from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival because she came to visit her brother there, knew Patty's friend she dragged along to the reading, and that I knew Patty because at a cafe on Borany's birthday in Santa Monica we chatted her up, which lead to an invitation to her daughter-in-law's bookstore in Manhattan Beach, and Patty's friend Mo had been to Bhutan, and Alison from Brooklyn's friend Jane lives here and came out to Tattered Cover and knew Michael our friend from high school.
