Daniel Lubetzky

I am taking the unusual step of sharing an internal note I shared with my team because it affords me to share and reflect on how grateful I feel every day for working with such a special team at KIND every day.  I am also sharing pictures of the incredible dishes we had at Mugaritz.

KIND Team, this is a note I meant to write and send a few weeks back!

This summer while on vacation in Spain, my wife and I visited a restaurant called Mugaritz.  Founded by Chef Andoni Luis Aduriz, it is highly decorated.  Many publications rank it among the top restaurants in the world.  Every dish we tried was like a piece of art, with a fun sense of humor (see a couple pictures attached). But what struck me about the restaurant was the unending passion of every single person that I came across.   Everyone in the team seemed to have unbounded creativity, a desire to learn, a desire to please their patrons, and a commitment to excellence. 

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In an effort to combat the American anti-Muslim sentiment that grows in the minds of Americans who believe the acts of the ISIS are reflective of Islam and its followers beliefs, a controversial billboard has been erected just west of Chicago.

A billboard with the message, ‘Hey Isis, You suck!!!’ was hoisted on Thursday by a a non-profit organization called ‘Sound Vision’, which is dedicated to changing the way Muslims are portrayed in the media.

The message condemning ISIS is accompanied by a verse from the Quran that says, “Life is sacred.”

According to a statement on their website, the billboard campaign was envisioned by a group of young American Muslim fathers on a WhatsApp group in Chicago.

My son asked me how many languages there are in the world and, in trying to come up with a cogent answer to him, I came across this fascinating article about languages around the world.  I love how much I learn thanks to my kids’ curiosity.

How many languages are there in the world?

Stephen R. Anderson

The object of inquiry in linguistics is human language, in particular the extent and limits of diversity in the world’s languages. One might suppose, therefore, that linguists would have a clear and reasonably precise notion of how many languages there are in the world. It turns out, however, that there is no such definite count—or at least, no such count that has any status as a scientific finding of modern linguistics.

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“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

In a hair salon in Israel, Arab and Jewish women find common ground… in a sink.

“There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of humans, are created, strengthened and maintained.”

– Winston Churchill

Allan Murray of Fortune Magazine quoted Jeremy Grantham as saying that environmentalists “all underestimate, either by a little or a lot, how fast technology is moving” to solve key energy issues, while the tech crowd “underestimates the speed at which weather, population, climate are moving against us.”  A snipet of the interview with Grantham is quite sobering and worrying.

Click image for link to video. 

Back in 2011, when I gave a commencement talk at Trinity University, I spoke about the importance of “talking to yourself” and understanding yourself, of pausing to truly reflect about what gives you meaning.  Of course this is not a revolutionary thought, and many Western thinkers have shared similar concerns in much deeper and more eloquent ways, though I feel the concern has gained critical importance as the internet and electronic devices increasingly inundate our lives and steal away any remaining time for us to connect with ourselves and “do nothing.” Then  a while back (about 2  years ago, but I hadn’t gotten to blog about it, because I have no time to myself!) I came across this very interesting article in The Atlantic, sharing how Eastern/Chinese philosophies had shared similar concerns millennia ago.  It goes to show me/us that all our revelations and lessons have precedent and all interesting thoughts have been had by someone smarter than us in the past.  Part of what I want to adjust in my life is carving out time to be able to read more historical books, to soak up some of that wisdom.

Full article below:

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I found this blog post that my sister shared as very human. I didn’t agree with every word shared, but it certainly brought to life the very real way that Israeli human beings feel amidst a barrage of senseless terrorism. I continue to hope and work for a resolution to the Arab Israeli conflict and feel there are many ways in which the present Israeli government is harming Israel’s future as it turns a beautiful country into a garrison state where alienation, division and fear rule, let alone burn bridges with potential and existing partners. But there is no doubt that when Palestinians attack Israeli civilians randomly, they destroy hope even more and set back their cause as well as the cause of moderates by forcing the most rational human beings to feel the need to fear and reject the “other.”  Time for moderates to seize back the agenda for the sake of all the people that are suffering so much.

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This is a great piece about Thread, a wonderful program we are proud to have been introduced to by the Weinberg Foundation.

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