WELCOME. The Avocado Jungle is a source for current events, politics, arts and culture on the web. Editor In Chief David P. Kronmiller, along with a talented staff and guests, bring you news, commentary, analysis, interviews, humor, music, art and more.
Our deeper mission is to seek truth in understanding, offering current events, arts and culture as paths to that understanding. We value and promote creative thought, intelligent dialogue, elevated debate, and informed action.
If you see something that interests you on the site, please take the time to leave a thoughtful comment. Thanks for visiting.
Jungle Writers David P. Kronmiller, Editor-In-Chief
Notes from the Jungle
Matthew Tullman, Current Events Editor
On current events.
Joyce Chen
Blogging from New York.
Tharuna Devchand
Blogging from South Africa.
J Lampinen
Our resident comic strip, Congo & Steve
Joanna Lord
Blogging on life, art and spirituality.
Jeremy Olsen
Director of Development emeritus and occasional commentator.
Dan Rickabus
On things musical.
Nicky Schildkraut
On poetry.
Plus guest writers and past staff, including Zach Fehst, Amy Reynolds, Aaron Vaccaro, Jae Day, Sarah Jawaid, Scott Martin, and Bronson Picket.
|
Writing with lines. Art within a structure. Jobs that follow a preset path. And while I know it would be naive of me to lambast these standards and call them foolish – that would be ignorant, for that kind of structure and system lets society function properly – while I realize this, I also know that the reason why fantasy and rebels and criminals and celebrities fascinate us so much is because they have so much abandon.
April 27, 2010, at 5:18 am — Blogs — new york / patience / THEME: tolerance
Being tolerant suggests that the person who is tolerating is somehow superior to the person or situation that needs to be tolerated, the way a teacher might tolerate rude behavior from a young student who doesn’t know any better. Tolerance is saying that one person is less than the other, or that one culture is better than another. So in that sense, being tolerant doesn’t necessarily have a whole lot to do with being PC, just with having patience.
The truth I stumbled upon is that the things that make life better are almost always fleeting, everyday occurrences, snapshots that make you remember all the important little blocks that make up the big city (though good scents do come in at a close second!).
Part of the reason why discovering a new restaurant or a unique dish is so satisfying is because food is a universal language. It expands beyond the boundaries of culture, generation and political affiliation. When you break bread with someone, you also simultaneously break down whatever preconceptions you might have had about each other. You’re both human, you both eat to survive. These are the basic facts.
With advancements in social networking, I’ve learned that even in a new physical environment, I’m never alone. Starting life anew is easier said than done — the only way to do so would be to remove myself from technology entirely. Delete my Facebook account, cease the endless influx of email and hurl my BlackBerry into the Hudson. And tempting though that sounds sometimes, I know that in this century, it is impossible to do so without dire consequences.
In the public eye, divorce has become a speed bump. It’s a tedious process that is more of a hassle than an emotional ordeal. Time used to be that divorces were a rarity, deemed a sort of failure on both persons’ parts; now it is an ugly sometimes-necessity for people who know better than to try to work it out. What this teaches children, and subconsciously ingrains into the minds of young adults everywhere, is that there is an easy alternative to the strife of marriage: get out.
In a time when ADHD diagnoses are as frequent as the release of new iPhone apps, it’s hard to determine whether technology is causing shorter attention spans or whether heightened senses are demanding more and more distractions. The chicken-and-egg dilemma is something that is, however, perhaps secondary to the mere fact that it exists.
February 17, 2010, at 7:01 am — Avocado Jungle Blogcast | Podcasts —
Read by Jae Day. Our government in the form of law enforcement and committees is often vilified as the cultural stick in the mud, the overbearing control that people must rise up against. This is where definition is often misconstrued and perception misaligned. By Joyce Chen. Read by Jae Day. Podcast.
Our government in the form of law enforcement and committees is often vilified. It’s “The Man,” the cultural stick in the mud, the overbearing control that people must rise up against. Call it what you will, but the government as it is often viewed today has a foreboding quality to it, a “Big Brother” kind of blank-face authority that heartlessly implements rules in order to put a damper on free will. This is, however, where definition is often misconstrued and perception misaligned. Podcast available.
|
This week in the Jungle we are searching for the truth about wealthy—what it means to be wealthy, how that differs around the world, and if and when wealthy people deserve to be treated differently than everyone else. Last week: poverty. Next week: big government.
|
Recent comments.