A HAPPINESS CENTENNIAL

The slogan “Bread and Roses” is commonplace in progressive rhetoric.  And for those with a little background in labor history, it’s a reminder of a famous strike whose centennial arrives on January 11.  On that day in 1912, a group of women walked out of a textile mill to march in the streets of Lawrence, Massachusetts.  During the following days and weeks, thousands of workers, most of them immigrant women, joined them in the streets.

Led by the radical Industrial Workers of the World, the strike lasted for two months. The workers faced clubs, bayonets, and frequent arrests.  Many were hauled off to jail, children in tow.  But national sympathy for the impoverished strikers grew. American newspapers were moved to support the workers’ cause.  Finally, in March, the …

Spreading Wellbeing, Community by Community

On August 31^st, I’ll be giving a talk at a Wellbeing conference at Bellevue University in Omaha.  When Jerry Wagner, who organized the conference, asked me to speak I thought about declining.  After all, a few days earlier, I turn 65, the year I’ve been told I’d retire to the golf course (I don’t play golf, but you get the idea).  Most of my friends from high school days have already retired.  My own father retired when he was 57.  And besides, I’m the executive director of Take Back Your Time, an organization “fighting overwork and time-poverty in America.”

So why, despite my advanced age, am I working more now than I ever have in my life for hardly any money, and trying …

The Seattle Area Happiness Initiative

First of all, let me say how honored I was when Jerry Wagner asked me to be part of this group.  I trust that I will learn a great deal from all of you.  What I intend to provide in my comments is a kind of running update on the progress of an exciting campaign with which I am involved.  It is called the Seattle Area Happiness Initiative and you can find out much more about it from our Web site:  www.sustainableseattle.org/sahi.  

In November, 2009, I was a speaker at the 5^th International Gross National Happiness Conference at Iguassu Falls, Brazil.  At that time, I met Michael Pennock, a population epidemiologist from Victoria, Canada, who has worked to develop well-being surveys with …