Nueva guia para facilitar un Socrates Cafe en espanol
Thanks to my amazing wife we now have a new and much improved guide in Spanish on how to start and facilitate ongoing Socrates Cafes. Gracias a mi esposa maravillosa Ceci ya tenemos una nueva guia sobre como establecer y facilitar un Socrates Cafe
Innocence Lost and Found: The Second Annual Alexander Phillips Arete Award
INNOCENCE LOST AND FOUND The Annual Alexander Phillips Arête Award Presented by Democracy Cafe and Dr. Christopher Phillips Welcome to the Democracy Cafe’s second annual Alexander Phillips Arête Award. This yearly event, launched on the first day of spring, the birthday of Alexander Phillips, who would have been 85 today, gives participants the opportunity to […]
Tidings from Democracy Cafe / Socrates Cafe — going full spiral
Quiz question: What’s the connecting thread between such far-flung places as Krakow, Poland, Berlin, Germany, Gujarat, India, Queens, New York, Charlottesville, VA, Qatif, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Bend, Oregon, Rockville, Maryland, Parkland, Florida, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, Cape Elizabeth, Maine. At middle and high schools, public libraries, including one where we have a thriving bilingual (Spanish/English Democracy Cafe/Cafe Democracia, university […]
Democracy Cafe — a magnet for people across the political and philosophical spectrum to discover and forge uncommon common ground
I’ll write more about this soon, but one of the ways I can point to Democracy Cafe’s ‘success’ is that it draws enthusiastic support from everyday folks, and from luminaries, across the political and philosophical spectrum. This is evidenced in part by those who readily accepted my invitation to be on our advisory board — […]
Democracy Cafe, bilingual edition
Exciting that Democracy Cafe is advancing ever more in its quest to bridge chasms between one human and another — and one meaningful way to do this is to bridge the language gap as participants explore timely and timely questions that have to do with maintaining and evolving open societies (and yes, we inquire and […]
Essential Lessons from Socrates Cafe
One of our longest-running Socrates Cafes is organized and facilitated by Richard Bernstein, MD, It is held monthly at the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, New Jersey. One of the things I’ve long enjoyed about Socrates Cafe — now in its 22nd year — is that I learn so much from other participants and […]
California here we come — Democracy Cafe on the way
At these Democracy Cafes starting next Tuesday in California before the upcoming elections, the focus, is ‘voting literacy,’ and hence looking at what sources of media and other information participants use to determine which candidates to vote for and which ballot propositions to vote for or against, and further explore what folks consider ‘reliable’ and […]
“How Examining Circumstances Serves to Protect Us Against Evil”
Earlier this year, on the eve of the birthday of my beloved late father Alexander Phillips, I asked for submissions for an award contest in his honor — the first annual Alexander Phillips Arete Award. The submissions were to treat with the theme “Deliver Us From Evil.” Here is the insightful essay by Michael Dea. Michael […]
Podcast: A Librarian for All Seasons
EPISODE DESCRIPTION Rivkah Sass is to me the ideal librarian — imbued with creativity, curiosity, openness, social conscience, as well as an abiding, passionate sense of mission. Rivkah is determined to make the libraries in the Sacramento, CA, library system (the fourth largest in that vast state) the go-to place for reading, for inquiry, for […]
Why Socrates Cafe and Democracy Cafe — now more than ever? A video
In this 40 minute video board member Danielle Olson and I cover a lot of ground, from the big picture to the smaller and how they are entwined. If you haven’t taken part in one of our signature initiatives, hopefully this inspire you to. And if you have, hopefully this’ll inspire you more than ever […]