Video of Programs (search and sort)

China: What It's Actually Like
08/10/2025
Ralph Jennings

 

A beyond-the-media presentation by a media guy, about the world's (second?) most important country. What's it like to live there, as native or not? Are you oppressed? Free to move about? What inspires the average person to get out of bed? Ralph Jennings was born and raised in Portland, graduated from Cal, and later pursued an MA in Taipei. A lifelong journalist, he now works for the South China Morning Post (scmp.com) covering the Chinese economy: prices, consumption, talent, labor, aviation, shipping, trade – and once in a while the king of fruits, durians.

 

Further reading:

    "50 Useful Tips on China" by Ralf Jennings

     https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CXJDLDPX.

 

Why do Chinese people do so much voluntary overtime at work? Who is the key mastermind behind traditional marriages, and how come their jokes are funny but yours are not? 50 Useful Tips on China helps to unravel the many mysteries of the Middle Kingdom. The author, Ralph Jennings, isn’t Chinese and while that gives him a certain objectivity, it also inevitably leaves him partly in the dark. He put in his time, but how far did he really get in figuring things out? A lot further than most.

 

When Good Intentions Meet Hard Realities
08/03/2025
Anand Atre

 

From Wall Street to rural Malawi, HGP member Anand Atre reveals why changing the world can be surprisingly messy, hard, and complex. Case studies from special needs education projects across three continents illustrate the dilemmas when good intentions meet organizational politics, cultural differences, and unintended consequences—and why the work's still worth pursuing. Atre grew up in British colonial Hong Kong, came to the US for undergraduate studies, then spent 16 years working in investment banking, private equity, and co-founding a hedge fund, subsequently transitioning to hands-on altruistic volunteer projects supporting young people with special needs

 

The Neurobiology of Morality
07/27/2025
Dr. Sarah Strand

 

Dr. Sarah Strand returns for part 3 of her series. Religion has traditionally guided our moral judgements, but contemporary psychologists find that humans of all types and (non)beliefs make remarkably similar moral judgements. Dr. Strand shows from human and non-human studies that regions in the frontal and temporal lobes are active when making moral judgements, and morality (like physical and behavioral traits) is subject to evolutionary mechanisms. Strand is an associate lecturer in Psychology at California State University, Sacramento, lecturing about religion and neuroscience since 2010.

 

On line Test:   https://www.moralsensetest.com

Liane Young:  https://youtu.be/D6XcjuN0sjY

Interrupting Violent Extremism: Mindfulness and Mediation
07/20/2025
Randall Blazak

 

From Friendly House. The increase in political violence and incivility is rooted concepts of us vs. them that help amplify conspiracy theories and apocalyptic thinking. This presentation, rooted in the CurePNW project, utilizes mindfulness to heal political polarization. Randall Blazak has been the chair of Oregon’s Coalition Against Hate Crimes since 2002 and is a globally recognized expert on bias crimes and extremism, has been tenured professor at PSU, teaches sociology at U of O and PCC, and is vice-chair of Oregon’s Department of Justice Steering Committee on Bias Crimes and Incidents.

 

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