My final piece for Utne.com, a feature for the environment blog on the aquarium trade.

In honor of Earth Day.

Oh, the joys of cursing.

If you dig poetry, read this blog.

Urban farming has taken off in Oakland, CA.

This blog is about a cool YouTube site that puts poetry to animation.

The National Institutes of Health produced a website that chronicles the history and cultural significance of the home pregnancy test.

Jesus wishes he could roll his tongue.

A 1991 civil war between Somalia and Somaliland is still taking its toll.

An innovative housing program in NYC allows the homeless to choose their own apartment.

I remember childhood books that were turned into movies and TV shows. But apparently now the trend is to go the other way around: TV into books.

Organ donation, everyone's heard of. But intellectual property donation was a new idea to me, but not all that surprising.

a blog on good fashion writing.

solar plexus watch!

If you wish you could put more time aside to read for pleasure, DailyLit might be able to help you. Check it out!

Gandhi's autobigraphy, The Story of My Experiments With Truth, was translated poorly into English. Unfortunately, many of the other translations of this best-selling book are based off the crappy English version, so much of the original prose was lost. But author Suketu Mehta is trying to make it right.

Recognizing the weight of the last line of a novel, the American Book Review judged what they deem the best 100 last lines ever written. What about best last lines of blogs? Kidding...

If you're looking to purchase renewable energy, this blog will help you find it in your state.

The art (?) of slam poetry.

making cash off emissions

Capitalism could be a great strategy for encouraging companies to lower their emissions output.

Two bishops have initiated a carbon fast for Lent.

We have a lot of different words to describe fat people, and they convey societal stereotypes about race and gender.

oh man, remember that episode of The Office where Jim tricks Dwight into believing that Gaydar is real and can be ordered from The Sharper Image? That episode is hilarious!

Anyway, here's a blog that reports on why gaydar could supposedly be more than an intuition (Although I don't buy it).

There's been some recent debate over a study by the National Endowment for the Arts that reports Americans are reading less than in past decades. I weigh in.

The worst places to be Black in the U.S. Brought to you by Black Agenda Report. Sadly, my beloved Wisconsin is number 1 again.

Spat between Ms. Magazine and the American Jewish Congress. Read it.

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
Dig Michael Pollan? Check out this blog.

Check out ELDR mag

I don't think I've posted a "From the Stacks" blog yet. Since Utne's mission is to republish "the best of the alternative press," we have a huge library of independent magazines, journals, newspapers and books. Since they are independent, many of our readers may not have heard about these publications before our reprinting. So we sometimes post "from the stacks" blogs that highlight certain publications we believe our readers may be interested in.

Here's my "From the Stacks" blog on Eldr, the magazine that "celebrates aging."

Does anyone actually read this thing?

If so, make your voice known.

Anyway, here's a blog on the U.S. Patent system.

A Full Length Feature!

For my first feature for utne.com, I interviewed Darra Goldstein, the editor-in-chief of Gastronomica, the journal of food and culture. It's a fantastic journal, and I really enjoyed interviewing her.

A blog for the Great Writing section of utne.com, about Bush's speech from Earth Day. I hope our next president cares about climate change and the environment.

The White House attempted to blog. I blogged on their blog.

Green business forecast. Check it out.

This blog is about a very moving photo essay documenting the post-election crisis in Kenya. Definitely check out the blog and photo essay itself if you are interested in learning more about what's been going on there.

Fish for dinner?

This blog is about a cool text messaging service that allows you to find out what types of seafood are caught in an environmentally sustainable manner. Great for when you're shopping or eating out.

Plastic bottles transformed into beautiful jellyfish sculptures. A fun arts blog.

the debate over sex ads

We've all seen ads promising services of this kind: “Asian fun,” “Latin pleasures,” or “relaxing body work”. I've seen them most often in weekly alternative newspapers. Turns out many of these ads are actually fronts for illegal sex trafficking. But should it be the newspaper's job to police the problem? Check out my blog for details.

Reducing paper waste is as easy as clicking a few buttons...

More reasons why bikes are great

Serious bicyclists are undoubtedly familiar with the concept of a paceline, a group of cyclists riding in a tight, single-file line in order to reduce wind resistance and increase efficiency. Writing for the literary journal Matter, Mark Hinterburg elegantly argues that the humble paceline demonstrates keys concepts for a more conscientious society...
Click here to read more.

Apparently the Chinese have a strange appreciation for Jews. I thought this was interesting, especially the part about the Chinese admiring Jews for moral reasons. Read my blog to find out more.

Gawker started paying their writers based on how many times posts are viewed, raising some interesting questions from an ethical journalism standpoint. My longest and most researched post to date.

Mmmmm, plague-water

I found a fun column, "Ort of the Week", on the history of food-related words, including the spork on Gastronomica's website. I blogged about it.

Check out this blog if you've ever wanted to pull your hair out while trying to reach a customer service rep on the phone.

Cool magazines to check out

This magazine gift giving guide was a collaborative effort by all of the interns.

As "the best of the alternative press," Utne has a huge library of magazines, books, and journals that we look through to find articles to republish in the magazine, many of which cater to very specific groups of people. I wrote on Eliza, a "modest" fashion magazine, and Crow Toes Quarterly, a sweet children's literature journal that reminded of Roald Dahl stories.

Never do this!!

In my second blog, I messed up big time. I found this awesome New Scientist article that seemed to be saying there could be a hidden galaxy in the center of our own, concealed by interstellar dust. Holy crap! That's big news! So I wrote about it, hastily, to meet a deadline. Soon after it was posted, a reader pointed out that I reported the story totally wrong. The dust was in the center of our galaxy, not the actual galaxy itself. Pretty big difference. I felt totally humiliated, as I should have.

Christian Goth Kids

My very first blog, on the Christian Goth culture online.

this is so meta

Main Entry: meta
Part of Speech: n
Definition: something that refers to itself, esp. in a self-parodying manner
Example: A movie-within-a-movie is an example of meta

"Meta" was new to me until I started at Utne a month ago. This blog is meta because I'm going to use it to compile all the blogs I've had published on the Utne Reader web site (www.utne.com). So I'm posting blogs within a blog.

Whatever.