I think that at events like this it’s good for us to remember how lucky we are to have had this opportunity to work together with so many wonderful people over the years: to engage with each other both as colleagues and even as friends.* I know Howard Zinn used to talk about this, and as usual, he was right. What a privilege to have been fellow travelers with people from different generations who long for worldwide human community and an end to socially created human suffering. Of course we have to deal with each others craziness. But who else would you want to hang out with? I know it’s something that has enriched my life in a way I never expected and I feel very fortunate about the whole thing.

How fast things can change!

In this impromptu talk, veteran organizer and movement thinker Mel King, outlines his thoughts about the significance of the #Occupy movement, its potential for radical social change and its methods. Although an enthusiastic supporter of the movement, Mel suggests that in time the movement will have to choose targets (once it is ready) and also consider moments where the consensus process may be less effective. He goes on to applaud the movement for engaging in the battle of ideas, "You are occupying minds!"

Audio recording of a panel discussion on Digital Media and Popular Uprisings featuring Ethan Zuckerman of Global Voices and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Jillian York of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and Suren Moodliar of Massachusetts Global Action and the Majority Agenda Project on March 31, 2011 at the University Hall Amphitheater at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA, USA. The event was sponsored by Open Media Boston and Lesley University. 40 people were in attendance.

BOSTON/Jamaica Plain - Annie Leonard says she's obsessed with stuff.

"A fascinating neurosis" she calls it; constantly thinking about the life cycle of anything she picks up, from pens to cell phones to bottled water. Where it came from, how it's made, and what happens when it's thrown away. The result of all this analyzing forms the backbone of the "Story of Stuff," an internet based series of animated films.

BOSTON/Beacon Hill - A talk by US Marine veteran Ross Caputi, journalist Dahr Jamail (on live video via the internet), and MIT Prof. Noam Chomsky drew over 150 attendees to the Paulist Center on Thursday. The event was a benefit to help the Justice for Fallujah Project bring two Iraqi doctors to the US to present their research on the health crisis in Fallujah since the US military invasion in 2003. Alisa LaSotnik was Master of Ceremonies and music was provided by Simon Rios. According to organizers, the benefit was a success - raising the $4,300 necessary to bring the Fallujah doctors to America in the near future.

Cambridge, MA - Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post spoke with host Christopher Lydon of Radio Open Source about her new book Third World America to a sold-out house at the Brattle Theater on Monday. The event was sponsored by the Harvard Book Store. Following the discussion, Huffington took questions from the audience then signed copies of her book.

BOSTON/Jamaica Plain - The Jamaica Plain Forum, a series of local and national speakers and public discussions sponsored by the Institute of Policy Studies and the First Unitarian Universalist Church in JP, hosted local journalist and author Michael Blanding on Thursday.

Blanding, a Contributing Editor at Boston Magazine has written for The Nation, The New Republic, and the Boston Globe among other publications.

A small but enthusiastic group gathered on the fifth floor of the Chinatown community center, encuentro 5, last night to hear historian and author Paul Street talk about his new book, The Empire's New Clothes: Barack Obama and the Real World of Power. This stop on Street's book tour was hosted by Charngchi Way of the online anarchist radio show, The Authority Smashing Hour.

Eminent public health scientist and activist Richard Levins considered some of the most pressing issues facing humanity--food and water shortages, drug-resistant micro-organisms, global warming and social inequality--in light of the intellectual triumphalism that seems to accompany every claim of problem resolution. His Saturday morning talk, "Failures, Errors & the Boundaries of Our Minds" at encuentro 5 found an engaged audience in Boston and New York. It was simulcast to the Brecht Forum in Manhattan (as part of that organization's 35th anniversary celebration).

Somerville, MA - Prof. Charles Derber of the Boston College Sociology department gave a talk on his new book "Greed to Green: Solving Climate Change and Remaking the Economy" on Thursday to a crowd of 35 people at the Somerville Public Library - Central Library. The event was sponsored by the Majority Agenda Project, Somerville-Medford United for Justice with Peace, and Transition Somerville, and was chaired by Jason Pramas, Editor/Publisher of Open Media Boston.