I had no idea what kind of an impact clean, renewable lighting could have on rural impoverished villages.  With one-third of families' income going towards harmful kerosene lighting it's not hard to imagine the monetary impact solar lighting can have.  In giving children the ability to study after dark and helping adults continue work once sunlight is lost, the 'One Million Lights' cause is easy to get behind.

  With a blog that includes first hand video and stories of the charity in action, we see how other culturesreact to the luxeries we take for granted everyday. In the Andes we meet a village that was grounded to a halt at sunset now able to see at night – Wery moving to watch.

 From providing information on bringing them to your school, to introducing them to your company, One-Million Lights makes it easy to get involved.  They even go as far as saying a simple Facebook 'like' is construed as helping the cause.

 With well over 900,000 to go to, 'One Million Lights' may be short of their goal but are nowhere near short on hope and resilience.

 I had no idea what kind of an impact clean, renewable lighting could have on rural impoverished villages.  With one-third of families' income going towards harmful kerosene lighting it's not hard to imagine the monetary impact solar lighting can have.  In giving children the ability to study after dark and helping adults continue work once sunlight is lost, the 'One Million Lights' cause is easy to get behind.

 With a blog that includes first hand video and stories of the charity in action, we see how other culturesreact to the luxeries we take for granted everyday. In the Andes we meet a village that was grounded to a halt at sunset now able to see at night – Wery moving to watch.

 From providing information on bringing them to your school, to introducing them to your company, One-Million Lights makes it easy to get involved.  They even go as far as saying a simple Facebook 'like' is construed as helping the cause.

 With well over 900,000 to go to, 'One Million Lights' may be short of their goal but are nowhere near short on hope and resilience.

 

"Can people really change? That's the question Laura Dern and Mike White ask in their new HBO series, Enlightened, which premieres Monday night. The show features Dern as Amy Jellicoe, an ambitious executive who has a nervous breakdown at her workplace. She goes to a rehabilitation center in Hawaii, where she experiences an awakening.

When Amy returns home, she wants to put her new philosophy into practice — meditating, communicating better with her mother (Diane Ladd), and fostering a healthier relationship with her ex-husband (Luke Wilson). But she finds her lessons of enlightenment being put to the test."

 Show creator, Mike White (School of Rock, Chuck) funnels his personal experience with meditation in creating the show.  White himself had suffered an on-the-job meltdown which was a catalyst for the show's script.

"From my experience, meditating can bring up the most stressful thoughts ... To actually try to stop that constant chatter of, 'I need to do this, I need to do that ... this is what's wrong with me.' I think that's the hardest thing for many people to do, especially in our modern, achievement-oriented [environment].

 

 I find it interesting that arguably the hardest part of meditation (for me at least) is also what made HBO the most nervous about green-lighting the show.

"Everyone is running so manic, and what's interesting, too, is when we turned in the show, the more quiet, meditative aspects of the show made HBO the most nervous. Because people, especially in TV, first they want their comedies funny, and they want their dramas juicy and kind of operative, and this is very internal.

"Especially these moments Amy has when she's going inside and where it slows down a little bit, I think that that's just something in general that makes a network executive worry that you're going to lose your audience, and people are going to click off or change the channel. That's not what people are looking for when they're zoning out in front of the TV."

The show has been well received so far, averaging a 7.6 out of 10 from user reviews on IMDB and some are even calling it "the best series HBO has."  Check out 'Enlightened' on HBO, Monday nights at 9:30.

(Via NPR)