Miscellaneous
The sun is rising in the west
An American company is revolutionising solar power one dollar at a time.Luke Disney | January 2004 issue Know anyone with a solar-powered car? How many solar-powered appliances – besides your calculator – do you use? How many neighbours heat their houses with solar power? Compared to other Read More...
Creating coincidence
You can create coincidence. This is Paul Liekens' intriguing message. Anyone can make any wish come true. You just need to understand the laws of the universe. Jurriaan Kamp talked with him about allergies, phobias, rain and ... happiness. Jurriaan Kamp | December 2003 issue Paul Liekens’ life Read More...
Growing appeal
The resurgence of timber in European buildingLuke Disney | December 2003 issue Who wood have thought it? Centuries after Europeans largely abandoned it in favour of more fire-resistant, stronger and more ‘modern’ alternatives, timber is showing signs of staging a comeback on the continent’s Read More...
Alternatives to war
Peace is possible, but is must be constantly won anew. Anita Roddick's last column for Ode. Anita Roddick | December 2003 issue The way things stand now war is just too easy. It’s too easy to send someone else’s children to fight and die. It is too easy to dehumanise the enemy, making people Read More...
The joy of what's fleeting
Truth and authenticity are relative terms in Japan. Imitation and reality intermingle. Are they in danger of losing sight of 'the truth'? Not as far as Pico Iyer is concerned. In fact, you appreciate your surroundings more once you grasp their transitory nature. Everything changes, except the Read More...
Becoming We
'We'-thinkers maintain their hard-won intellectual and emotional freedoms while connecting with the greater whole. Tijn Touber's column. Tijn Touber | December 2003 issue My friend Jaap has written a book about the transition that we, world citizens, are now facing: the transition to thinking in Read More...
Dare to love
From an evolutionary perspective sex is a relatively new phenomenon, which may be why we haven't quite yet mastered it. But the so loudly applauded advent of free sex appears to be undermining Western society. It is possible to bring together spirituality and love. Ode went in search of the love Read More...
Desire and love
Desire is the wish to consume. To imbibe, devour, ingest and digest -- annihilate. Desire needs no other prompt but the presence of alterity.Zygmunt Bauman | December 2003 issue Desire and love. Siblings. Sometimes born as twins; never, though, as identical (single egg) twins. Desire is the wish to Read More...
A tidy mind
Is your house full of junk? Never enough time to clean it all up? Don't kid yourself any longer. A tidy house is a tidy mind. Elbrich Fennema | December 2003 issue Messy people are brilliant at glossing over the untidy state in which they live. ‘It’s genetic. One day I might need that! It’s Read More...
Bending it unlike Beckham
Devinder Sharma asks how can a 'protein-rich' potato really stop malnourishment in India.Devinder Sharma | December 2003 issue I was taken by surprise. The BBC Radio presenter, who had been busy talking about football star David Beckham, suddenly shifted to genetically modified potatoes, and told Read More...