Isabel Allende, one awesome person :)

My new favorite website is TED.com.  It’s described as a place to see “inspired talks by the worlds greatest thinkers and doers.”  Basically, it’s youtube for intellectuals, and I love it.  The talks featured are all around 15-20 minutes–longer than your typical youtube vid, but definitely more worth your time.  I stumbled upon the site while searching for stuff on author Chris Abani, my new favorite person.  I urge you to watch him speak if you have time!  But I digress.  What I wanted to share with you all is a talk given by author and feminist, Isabel Allende.  Confession: I’ve yet to read one of her books, but I swear I have checked one out from the library!– just didn’t get around to reading it  But now I’m even more pumped to read her stuff because she is one kickass lady, as witnessed by this video.  It’s long, but if you want to get to the heart of it, start around 7:20.  

My favorite quote from this is:

I think that the time is right to make fundamental changes in our civilization.  But for real change, we need feminine energy in the management of the world.  We need a critical number of women in positions of power and we need to nurture the feminine energy in men.  Im talking about men with young minds of course; old guys are hopeless, we need to wait for them to die off.  *laughter*

Watch the entire video if you have time.  I learn so much just from listening sometimes.