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.
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I need connection now. I need “friends”. I need “people”. I need to know what people are doing because I need to know that people are doing things. I need to “like” what other people “like”. I need to be heard, to “comment” to agree that yes, Prince is amazing and Michael will be missed. The only problem now is that my womb is empty, and my pregnancy has been prematurely terminated.
If you think of the news as a cup of coffee, the untouched, robust mug of French Roast would be the real news, and the cream and sugar the celebrity drivel. Well, I think it’s time to go back to drinking black coffee. After all, who doesn’t want a little more hair on their chest?
How many hours spent “watching the news”—in any of the various mediums and regardless of any political slant— would be necessary to understand the current events of the world? Perhaps with a supercomputer parsing the Internet and with the ability to simultaneously watch a set of international television stations could an individual come close to gaining an idea of all the notable events around the world during a single moment. But the answer cannot be quantified in this way—in fact there isn’t an answer. Even with this scenario, the individual may eventually succeed in becoming aware of the significant events globally, but the question is how much does the individual understand?
Mainstream media, to an extent, succeeds in the above endeavor each day—supercomputers scan the Internet and reporters search around the world. But in the up-to-the-minute onslaught of breaking news, the viewer is aware of every event while remaining very much oblivious to the surrounding circumstances of each. The data is devoid of context—the facts are often without historic or analytical details—and the individual is deprived of understanding.
Roni Segoly, of the unique and inspiring Middle East peace group Combatants For Peace, shares his observations and feelings about the media, success, and the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
As much as I’d like to blame the studios for catering to the lowest common denominator, it’s ultimately our fault that Hollywood keeps churning out the same recycled product year after year.
Society has transformed the simple ‘eat to live’ into a concoction of problems, solutions, disorders, cultural norms and prejudices. There is so much emphasis on food and eating in contemporary society that it has bred a new type of human; a self-loathing one.
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.
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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.
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