There's a natural tendency amongst organizers and activists to rank order the issues they care about. What you're working on often becomes the Most Important Issue in the World and when other activists suggest their issue is more important, fights break out. At its worst, this sort of territorial attitudes...

This is the fourth post in a four part series on GORUCK and the GORUCK Challenge. Read my first post on the GORUCK brand, GORUCK: The Most Passionate Brand Following in the World, my second post on the GORUCK Challenge, The GORUCK Challenge: Bringing People Together Under Really...

This is the third and final post in a series on GORUCK and the GORUCK Challenge. Read my first post on the GORUCK brand, GORUCK: The Most Passionate Brand Following in the World and my second post on the GORUCK Challenge, The GORUCK Challenge: Bringing People Together Under...

Outside Magazine recently ran a feature story on the explosion of obstacle racing in recent years. According to Nick Heil, in the last year, "roughly a million people signed up for events in the four most popular series: Spartan Race, Tough Mudder, Warrior Dash, and Muddy Buddy." These extreme...

Jason McCarthy, a former Green Beret and the founder of the rucksack company GORUCK, says a lot of things that command your attention. But when he speaks about his company's growth in the last year and says, "GORUCK has the most passionate brand following in the world," my ears...

Wine tourism in Chile is, as the concept suggests, about two things: wine and tourism. While there's no shortage of phenomenal Chilean wines waiting to be discovered, my recent tour of Chilean wineries was a success not because of the standout bottles of wine I sampled, but my holistic...

This is the sixth installment of my No Baggage Challenge for Charity. Read about why I am traveling to Japan for ten days with no bags here and see exactly what I have with me here. My first post on arriving in Japan can be read

This is the fifth installment of my No Baggage Challenge for Charity. Read about why I am traveling to Japan for ten days with no bags here and see exactly what I have with me here. My first post on arriving in Japan can be read

This is the third installment of my No Baggage Challenge for Charity. Read about why I am traveling to Japan for ten days with no bags here and see exactly what I have with me here. My first post on arriving in Japan can be read

This is the third installment of my No Baggage Challenge for Charity. Read about why I am traveling to Japan for ten days with no bags here and see exactly what I have with me here.

I spent the second night of my No Baggage Challenge for...

I leave for Japan on my No Baggage Challenge for Charity on Wednesday. In my first installment I told you about why I'm going to Japan for 10 days and what lead me to use Scottevest clothing to travel without any checked or carry-on baggage. The idea is...

In just a few days, I'll be embarking on a ten-day trip to Japan. I'll be traveling with my girlfriend Lori and we'll meet my parents Stephanie and Rick and my brother Jesse in Tokyo. One big, happy family. The only thing missing will be my luggage - I'm not...

Via WalletPop, Traveling clothing company Scottevest is engaged in a very public fight with Delta's Sky Magazine after Delta rejected an ad which sought to promote the usefulness of Scottevest as a means of avoiding checked baggage fees. Here's the ad in question:

Today, jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This is really an incredible statement by the Nobel Committee and a great push for democracy and human rights in China. Liu Xiaobo is one of China's most prominent democracy and rights advocates, currently serving an...

My friend Josh Schrei wrote what I think is a critically important and relevant open letter to President Obama in response to his trip to China. Josh is a full time marketing director and a part time writer, activist, critical thinker, and student of Indo-Tibetan history and philosophy. His work...

My friend Josh Schrei wrote a stinging response to a post by Christopher Hitchens writing on Huffington Post. Josh is a full time marketing director and a part time writer, activist, critical thinker, and student of Indo-Tibetan history and philosophy. His work focuses on the dissection of all-too-common memes in...

I never met Senator Ted Kennedy, though my political life has often run close to him and his work.

Last year, when I was working in Alaska for Mark Begich's Senate campaign, there was a lot of talk about the Kennedy family and the state's history in presidential elections....

For as long as I've been blogging about Tibet and China, I've had problems with Nick Kristof. Any reader of my writing knows that I think New York Times columnist Nick Kristof is one of the most intellectually dishonest and profoundly unserious members of the American press who write with...

My friend F.X. Leach asked me to post on the deportation of American videoblogger "noneck". Fortunately Leach has already put up a comprehensive post that I'm reprinting in full with permission below. The original post appeared on Tibet Will Be Free.

Many bloggers were very impressed with

Today the 2008 Summer Olympics start in Beijing. The debate in the lead up to the Games has focused on whether or not this sporting event, representing the pinnacle of thousands of athletes' careers, is also a time to discuss politics. The host nation of China has the ignominious distinction...