Since that Aug. 30 date, a total of 43 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have died in a war that is now the subject of much discussion–and apparently some confusion–in Washington. Forty-two of those casualties have been identified by name in U.S. Defense Department press releases (see below), while the 43rd casualty, which occurred today, has been confirmed in press reports, but not by name.
For full article: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/54807
Did you know ICMA has a YouTube site full of videos on local government? The run the gamut of topics and production quality, but all provide valuable information about ICMA and the profession. A personal favorite are films ICMA members submitted as part of our 2nd Annual Video Contest. This year’s challenge was to make a video that demonstrates the value of professional local government management and/or ICMA membership. The results are spectacular!
Some of my other favorite videos are the ones added most recently. Before and during the 2009 ICMA Annual Conference, staff coordinated the filming of several “PSA’s” to highlight various ICMA programs and services. There’s a mix of staff and members featured on camera talking about everything from credentialing to ELDP to the new design of PM Magazine to the benefits of 311 and CRM. Check them out to learn about the exciting opportunities that are out there. In the meantime, here’s a taste of what to expect:
Another great resource is ICMA TV, who produces high quality videos on local governments and various aspects of the conference. You can find their content at icmatv.com.
Gene Bloch
CNN New York Managing Editor
A weed sprung up among those “green shoots” this morning. Consumer confidence declined unexpectedly in September, raising concerns about how retailers will fare this holiday season. The Conference Board’s index fell to 53.1 from a revised 54.5 in August. Economists were looking for a reading of 57. “Consumers remain quite apprehensive about the short-term outlook and their incomes,” said Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board Consumer Research Center. “With the holiday season quickly approaching, this is not very encouraging news.”
The news on housing this morning is more encouraging. For a third straight month, home prices increased in July, according to the S&P Case-Shiller index. That measure of prices in 20 cities rose 1.6 percent in July from the previous month. Prices are down 13.3 percent year-over-year, but that was a smaller decline than expected.
Stock prices are slightly lower in the early going today – one year ago today the Dow Industrial Average suffered its worst point-decline in history, down nearly 778 points, as the financial crisis deepened.
How safe is your money in the bank? Bank accounts are insured up to $250,000 by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, but after nearly 100 bank failures this year alone, the FDIC needs to be replenished. What the best way to do that? Refilling those coffers is the subject of a FDIC board meeting today in Washington. The Wall Street Journal reports the FDIC will propose that banks pay their fees upfront for the next three years to restock the FDIC’s insurance fund.
But with the banking industry still reeling from the financial crisis—is this the right time to hit them up for that kind of cash? Poppy Harlow reports in today’s Breakdown.
Wall Street bonuses are poised to rebound. With the financial sector recovering, banks face a conundrum: Big bonuses could spark a backlash, but small bonuses could cause top talent to flee.
Good news on gas prices: AAA reports the average price of regular unleaded dropped 1.2 cents to $2.487 a gallon ($2.49 for graphics). That’s the 8th straight decline.
Gas is down 39 percent from the record price set in July 2008.
And finally, if you’re filling up with Starbucks – get ready for instant coffee. That’s right, starting today the chain will begin selling a “ready brew” called Via at all U.S. locations. Starbucks has struggled to compete with lower-priced rivals such as Dunkin Donuts and McDonald’s as consumers have become more price-conscious amid the weak economy. Via, which the company began rolling out earlier this year in Seattle and Chicago, is sold in packs of three cup-sized servings for a suggested retail price of $2.95 or $9.95 for a 12 pack.
On CNNMoney:
* 7 percent raises for nonprofit CEOs. Median salary for executives climbed 7% in 2008 — and one had his compensation jump 99%.
* Should you hire a career coach? Paying for a pro may make sense – but exhaust free options first.
* Even bad reviews boost sales. Think letting customers post cranky reviews of your products will scare away sales? Here’s the surprising truth.
With the recent news of GM europe being taken over by Magna, and the subsequent announcement regarding job losses in the UK, I would not be surprised if the Vauxhall brand disappears altogether. In fact I’m sure that in due course current Vauxhall operations will be rebranded as Opel.
Given the support that German operations are receiving from their Government and the apparent lack of support Vauxhall is getting from ours suggests that any moves that new owners make to cut costs across the company would have a positive bias towards Germany / Opel.
My understanding is that much of the company’s product development is done centrally, with Vauxhall (and presumably each of Opel’s regional operations) doing things such as handling adjustments and marketing. Therefore it could be argued that a Opel UK would in effect have a similar role, however I can’t help thinking that the new owners without, perhaps the sentimental attachment to the British brand will consider Vauxhall an unnecessary extra expense. And I can certainly see the argument from a marketing perspective, as a a change to Opel would fit with the new image they are clearly striving for with the Insignia and new Astra.
My suggestion to the company would be to market both brands simultaneously across europe, each with separate brand identity and values, for example as MGRover did. Although perhaps this is not the best example I believe this is a model that could be successful for GM europe.
Coming back to the reality of a belt tightening era, I hope that I am wrong in prediction. Maybe Vauxhall does not present any greater cost implications than an Opel operation, but I can’t help thinking that Vauxhall’s days maybe numbered.
Hour One: Is America no longer a country by and for all the people?
Plus…David Cobb on how corporate personhood in undermining Democracy.
Hour Two: “The politics of division…who is to blame?” Thom confronts conservative Craig Shirley www.sbpublicaffairs.com
Hour Three: “Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party” Thom talks with The Nation’s Max Blumenthal about his new book www.thenation.com
Posted by Audiegrl
President Barack Obama is seen at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc. dinner on Saturday Sept. 26, 2009 in Washington D.C. (AP Photo/Earl Gibson III)
“We have been waiting for health reform since the days of Teddy Roosevelt. We’ve been waiting since the days of Harry Truman,” he said in remarks at the caucus foundation’s annual dinner. “We’ve been waiting since Johnson and Nixon and Clinton.”
“We cannot wait any longer,” Obama said.
Obama spent the past week largely focused on global and economic issues in meetings with world leaders in New York and Pittsburgh.
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, wave as they arrive at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Annual Phoenix Awards dinner, in Washington, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
“He says, ‘We don’t understand it. You’re trying to make sure everybody has health care and they’re putting a Hitler mustache on you. That doesn’t make sense to me,’” Obama said, quoting the world leader he declined to identify.
The reference to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was to signs some people have waved outside of often testy town hall meetings around the country this summer where lawmakers discussed Obama’s health care plan.
In the speech, Obama described his plan as one that would not require people with coverage to change anything but would make health insurance affordable for the millions of people who don’t have any. Republicans dispute those claims.
More @
Athletic departments across the country have had to change their spending in order to meet their respective university’s budget cuts, and as Jeff Barker writes in The Baltimore Sun, the athletic department at the University of Maryland may resort to cutting teams in order to save money. This isn’t an unprecedented step as we’ve seen teams eliminated before. In recent months, the University of Cincinnati has axed men’s track, cross-country, and swimming, the University of Pennsylvania wiped out men’s soccer and swimming, and Barker mentions teams at the University of Washington and University of Vermont that have also felt the burden of cost cutting.
Of course, cutting teams is a last resort as Maryland’s AD Deborah Yow mentions, but it is a move not outside the realm of possibility. As I learned from working for Northwestern University’s basketball team, athletic departments operate on a deficit and very few teams actually make money. Maryland is lucky enough that their football and basketball teams create enough revenue to cover costs, but for every example of a team that is run in the black, there are a Shaquille O’Neal sized handful of teams that bleed money. We’re talking about major conference teams playing the most popular sports.
Barker shows a great example of the cost cutting measures that Maryland is implementing when he writes about the proposed bus trips that the football team will make. Remember, the football team is run on a surplus, but because that surplus is used to fund other teams, football still has to cut costs. Now, I don’t know the exact financial situation at Maryland, but I assume the athletic department is in a tougher spot because the school fields 27 teams. This is five teams more than the average at the ACC’s eight public universities.
The article is written based on information from the five year plan that Deborah Yow created for Maryland’s athletic department. I’m planning on giving it a read and commenting later this week.
Hope the weekend has been good, and enjoy your NFL fooball.
- Jason
One of the things missing in the debate on Afghanistan is how Afghanistan fits into the overall US National Security framework. There are are good arguments on both sides of the argument over the merits of Afghan strategies, but none that seem to tie it to our overall national security requirements. Regardless of the merits of individual national security issues, they must be racked and stacked as part of an overall portfolio of issues. The US simply doesn’t have an unlimited basket of resources to pursue every issue that bears on security. If we focus on each issue in isolation, we risk over-investing in one area at the expense of other key issues. We must approach these issues holistically, based upon our vital interests and center of gravity–what does it mean to be an American?
The United States is a noble experiment in liberty. The core of what it means to be an American is the survival of this experiment. Our key concepts are summed up in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.
The Declaration contains arguably one of the most powerful paragraphs ever written:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
The preamble to the US Constitution contains the second pillar of core American values:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Liberal, representative government that protects liberty and personal freedom is the cornerstone of the United States. Anything that undermines this concept, undermines our national security. Thus, our vital interests are the requirements to protect and to maintain this concept of American core values.
US Vital Interests
The figure at the right shows three key vital interests to protect the American core values:
Without an informed electorate, we simply cannot have a free society. The electorate must make informed decisions, based upon factual information. To do this, the electorate needs to be both educated and informed.
Likewise, the US will not remain a free society without a vibrant economy that can provide both jobs that sustain a high standard of living for our citizens and provide the resources required to finance the government.
Security from attack–what most people consider the key vital interest and cornerstone of security–is only one part of the overall security framework. If we are broke, but secure, what have gained? If we are secure, but no longer free, what have we gained. Thus, the three interests are not separate and mutually exclusive. Rather, they are part of a connected web that needs to be balanced. This web is shown in the figure at the right.
National Security Web
If we focus solely on one part of this web at the expense of the others, we risk unraveling the entire web, much like what happens to a piece of cloth when a loose thread is pulled. The weave falls apart. Thus, we must approach national security from a portfolio perspective and balance our investments. We cannot focus on one aspect of national security to the exclusion of the others.
Many might, however, think that investing in education or the economy is not an investment in national security. Investments in education, however, provide the capable soldiers the military requires, the research and development the military requires and more importantly, the informed electorate our Republic requires. Likewise, a vibrant economy provides the resources the military requires to sustain its ability to protect the United States from attack.
If we over-invest in one area at the expense of the other areas, the overall web is weakened, potentially to the breaking point. We must prudently approach all major national security investments not in isolation, but as part of an overall portfolio.
Therefore, the question becomes not simply should we invest in Afghanistan, but rather how does an investment in Afghanistan strengthen national security and how does it rank with other investments that we can make?
We live in an increasingly complex and competitive global environment. If the US cannot compete in this new environment, national security and our way of life is clearly at stake. Therefore, we must consider, with constrained resources and a complex, competitive environment, where do we want to invest our resources? It is an investment for our future. Will success in Afghanistan–which we still haven’t defined–make us more secure and protect our way of life 10-20 years from now? Is it the best use of our resources available for investment? That is the debate that we need to have, vice a simple debate on Afghanistan in isolation.
Could the resources be better invested in education, infrastructure and energy?
What are the consequences of a failed state in Afghanistan versus other national security issues?
Jeff Marshall
MEETING FEAR
I was born into a nightmare of fear well hidden from the outer world in the bosom of an abusive household headed by a tyrannical father; with a gentle, but powerless mother who learned how to manipulate in order to survive; and a favored sister. Growing up was a peculiar kind of hell in which I do not remember ever feeling safe at home. With this initiation into life, the first lesson I learned was the way of Fear, which imbued me with the notion that every uncertainty was a threat to my mortal being, a threat that was always lurking just beyond reach in the dark shadows of the unknown in a time beyond the present, where the enemy has no face.
So I gave my undivided attention to animals and Nature. As I did so, my life transformed to one in touch with Nature as the focal point and people and society as an emotionally distant backdrop. Animals and Nature, I learned, would accept me unconditionally. Whoever I was, whatever I was, I was always “okay,” and that was all I asked.
Thus, I entered, as a young man, into the realm of biological science because it was far easier for me to relate to Nature than it was to deal with people, in whom I had no trust. Besides, I was still laboring under my father’s failure-oriented tutelage, although he was dead by the time I turned twenty-seven. Despite his death, which physically silenced his constant reminder that in his eyes I would never amount to anything worthwhile, I sometimes felt so inadequate and depressed and my self-esteem was so minuscule that I would head into the mountains in search of solitude. And it was in a high mountain meadow, where I was watching a humming bird flit amongst the flowers of June, that I noticed an ominous dark spot floating about at will in my mind.
“What are you?” I asked.
“I am Fear,” it replied.
“Where did you come from?” I asked.
“Your father introduced me to you the first time he abused you when you where but a wee child because his abusive act caused you to doubt your safety in his presence—and with that doubt, I was born in your mind, where I have resided ever since. With each successive abuse, that seed of doubt was nurtured and I grew in stature until I became a permanent fixture in your imagination. At some point, all I had to do was cause your adrenal glands to fire blanks when there was really nothing for you to be concerned about, but you thought they were real bullets that you had to dodge, or you would die. Then you were mine! Clever, huh?”
“Fear,” I mused, ignoring its last comment, “what exactly do you mean when you say, ‘I am Fear?’”
“I am the doubt—the saboteur of your confidence—that enters your mind when things go other than you planned. From then on, the doubt you cling to becomes your personal saboteur, the one you unconsciously turn to for guidance. You remember Oliver, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course,” I answered. “He was the old rancher I worked with in northwestern Colorado.”
“And do you remember what he said when you asked him why he quit riding horses?”
“He said that he rode his last horse at 74 years of age, that it had thrown him, kicked him, and in so doing broke his leg. And . . ., oh yes, he told me that ‘the fear’ got him.”
“Precisely. I belong to no one, but everyone who has even a fleeting doubt about themselves, like Oliver when the horse kicked him, belongs to me. That’s the day I took possession of Oliver’s horsemanship, and he never again rode a horse.”
“Where do you live?” I queried.
“In the dark side of the future. I can dwell nowhere else,” Fear explained, “because I am the dark, negative side of the future, just as Love, who lives only in the present moment, is nevertheless reflected in the light, positive side of the future. I am the absence of Love.”
“What do you mean when you say: ‘I am the dark side of the future’? What, exactly is the ‘future’?”
“The future exists only in your mind as a figment of your imagination based on an illusion of time, which is also a figment of your imagination. ‘Time’ is not real; it does not exist. All that is real is this eternal moment. Think about it. Everything happening in the world is happening simultaneously—now, right now in this present moment, which is beyond time because it’s always the present.”
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
“Your obedience,” came the reply.
“Why should I obey you?” I snorted.
“Because I’ll blind your conscience, which will make the path you follow in life easy by absolving you of all personal responsibility for your behavior.”
“How can you do that?”
“Simple,” said Fear. “My kingdom is irrational and knows only the narrow focus of self-centeredness and victimhood. In my kingdom, your wants are your first and only concern. Love, on the other hand, demands personal accountability for the consequences of your actions. Love demands rational logic, which means you must place others before yourself and then have faith that your own desires will be met.”
“You sound so sure of yourself,” I said. “What makes you certain you’ll prevail?”
“I shall prevail because most children, like you as a child, are taught that Love is conditional and therefore neither real nor safe, whereas I’m both real and necessary to personal survival; I’m thought of as ‘The Great Motivator.’ You see, although each child is born with a sense of Love, when parents teach their children that Love is in any way conditional, they plant a doubt and thereby teach their children about me—the most popular subject of the 20th century and, I predict, of the 21st as well. Besides, once a child, raised with me as its guide in life, reaches adulthood, few—very few—have the courage to look within themselves and search me out. I therefore feel quite safe in the heart of humanity.
“I, like Love, am but a choice. The difference is that I’m the easy choice, the one in which a blind eye to the consequences of your thoughts and actions absolves you of all responsibility. I offer you the sop of pseudo-independence laced with caution and inertia, all free of charge. Love, on the other hand, offers interdependence, energy, and action, but with a price—responsibility.
“I’ll protect you with a cloak of unconsciousness, for that is what my darkness is. Where I offer you the spectacle of differences that allows you the illusion of superiority so you can take with impunity whatever you want, Love makes you look at the human monogram of commonalities, which makes you equal with everyone else. How then, can you, as a mere equal, take what you want when someone else owns it?
“As Love grows, I shrink. As I grow, Love shrinks. It cannot be otherwise because we are part of the same dynamic—your human emotions. Thus be not deceived. I shall not magically vanish now that you know me, because all schools in all nations teach about me and celebrate me on every holiday that is somehow devoted to violence, such as your Memorial Day, Canada’s National Day of Mourning, Mexico’s Day of the Dead, and Europe’s All Saint’s Day. I fill not only the annals of history but also the daily news, magazines, novels, television, motion pictures, and religions. Eternal vigilance is necessary to counteract my powers of persuasion. Eternal vigilance is exhausting, however; so it’s easy for me to slip through your lapses in vigilance.”
“What you’re telling me is that the ecclesiastical representation of Good versus Evil is not the consummate struggle it’s made out to be by organized religion. But rather, Good versus Evil is simply someone’s self-righteous judgment about someone else’s behavior. The real struggle, the one we witness and partake of, but without understanding it, is really your struggle with Love for world rule. Am I correct?”
“You are. To know Love is to know yourself in the true sense, in the present moment, to find yourself enveloped in trust as Love’s shadow, and only through self-knowledge can I be thwarted. So you see, there’s little danger of my disappearing because humanity is loath to look into its heart and thus acts mostly out of the blindness of distrust—the essential element of my power. Besides, I focus on draining people’s strength, leaving them little time to develop personal defenses against me, which means that people, particularly men, out of the weakness I breed in them, turn almost inevitably to violence in order to assert and protect what little power they feel they still possess.”
“Why,” I challenged, “do you think distrust will always rule the heart of humanity?”
“Because,” responded Fear, “people are perpetually rushing from the regrets of the past, to the imaginary disasters of the future, and back to the regrets of the past, which once again propels them to the dark side of the future in an attempt to move away from that which they do not want to acknowledge as part of themselves to that which they do not want to experience. In their frantic racing back and forth, they skip the present. I shall therefore prevail because both the past and the future are but virtual reality, whereas the present, the place people avoid, is reality and therefore the only place Love and God can be found—the only place I am forbidden to go.
“Nevertheless, the South Carolina state motto sums up what I consider a marvelous human weakness: Dum spiro spero, which means that ‘While I breathe, I hope.’ This motto is, in a sense, self-defeating for you people because it means that you are constantly pinning your hopes on a distant future, on something you want that is not of this moment. Therefore, you want what is in my kingdom while ignoring what you already have in Love’s kingdom. And if you don’t get what you want, you feel cheated, which immediately adds you to the roster as one of my subjects, a status you reinforce over and over and over.
“But to be in Love’s kingdom, you must accept the here and now, which means total immersion in this day, in this moment, with no escape clauses, for it is only here, in this moment, that you will find God.”
“What do you mean,” I asked, “when you refer to God? ‘God’ in what religion?”
“That’s your choice.”
“Well, Fear, I think of ‘God’ as the ‘Eternal Mystery,’ the ineffable Spirit that abides in and moves through all things. The Spirit you oppose, the one you think of as Love. But that aside, you mean to tell me that you have absolutely no influence in the present moment?”
“That,” said Fear, “is true enough. My only weakness, and, therefore, my best kept secret, is that I am barred by the Love of God from entering the present.
“But,” Fear continued, “the fact is that the future—my domain—is only one second from the present, and very, very few people have so disciplined their minds as to be eternally in the present moment with Love and, and . . . well, however you choose to think of ‘God.’ That’s to my advantage.”
“Can I ever get rid of you?” I asked.
“Yes,” replied Fear, “you can, but few have there been in all of time with the capacity to be so truly in the present that all they feel is Love. Let there be a single expectation in your love, a single blemish in your acceptance of what is, a single second of your time spent away from the present moment in either the past or the future, and there am I! Remember, every expectation you harbor attaches a condition to your thoughts, which projects you into the future, and there am I!—eternally, there am I!”
As the years passed, I came to see that Fear had spoken truly. It can dwell only in the doubt and uncertainty that cloaks the dark side of the future, a land always out of reach despite the length and breadth of life’s journey because tomorrow, wherein the future lies, keeps curiously apace to the fervor of one’s striving and is thus always on the horizon and forever receding. Unlike the past in which one may have participated, the future is a land beyond time and dimension, a land shrouded in possibilities and probabilities that lie beyond the grasp of even the transient certainty of knowledge.
The past, a country of remembrance, is seen more clearly in the imagination than through the lens of reality, where truth often becomes lies and wishful thinking is mythologized into fact. Being a country bounded by things that have already happened, the past is a land without Fear but not without peril for it is haunted by injustice and regret. After all, the past, which is largely an archive of human strife, is written by the winners and thus tainted by the color of their biases.
The future, on the other hand, is a country seen but dimly through the mist of imagined possibilities and nervously calculated probabilities. The future, like all countries of the mind, is divided into two competing kingdoms, one of light and one of darkness. The kingdom of light, ruled by the positive possibilities of Love, has a tiny population because almost everyone crossing the border into the future becomes entranced by the dark powers of negative possibilities in the kingdom ruled by Fear.
It is strange, given a choice, as people are, how they gravitate to the dark kingdom of in-between times when the perceived enemy has no face. There people strengthen Fear by giving credence to its demands of absolute surrender as though it was a concrete entity rather than a self-created monster of negative energy in one’s own mind. By accepting Fear’s irrational logic that the most probable outcome of any important circumstance will undoubtedly be an unmitigated disaster, people empower Fear with their obedience. Such unquestioning loyalty allows Fear to become an unrelenting power in one’s life, and “power,” said American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, “concedes nothing without demand. . . .”
Fear, on the other hand, demands without giving and thereby enslaves all who obey, and it is precisely one’s obedience to Fear’s demands that creates the institution of slavery. I have, for example, seen how childrens’ minds become enslaved by the fear of their parents. I once watched two children in an airport greet each other. They were both about two years old—one black, the other white. There was an instant recognition of the common human soul known only to children prior to intervention by the fears of their parents.
The children looked at each other, ran forward, and embraced with squeals of joy and wet, slobbery kisses. The parents, meanwhile, looked nervously around to see who might be watching. As soon as their eyes locked, each mother hastened to separate the children by physically, nervously, and rather roughly pulling them apart and leading them to different places in the airport, each child in tears. Thus began the lessons taught by Fear, Lessons captured well by President Clinton in part of a speech he gave to the United Nations General Assembly on September 21, 1999:
For all our intellectual and material advances, the 20thcentury has been deeply scarred by enduring human failures, by greed and lust for power, by hot-blooded hatreds and stone-cold hearts.
At century’s end, modern developments magnify greatly the dangers of these timeless flaws. Powerful forces still resist reasonable efforts to put a human face on the global economy, to lift the poor, to heal the earth’s environment. Primitive claims of racial, ethnic, or religious superiority, when married to advance weaponry and terrorism, threaten to destroy the greatest potential for human development in history, even as they make a wasteland of the soul.
There is a another kind of slavery, however, one not based on the color of one’s skin, or one’s nationality, gender, religion, or creed; it is the fear of material loss, which masquerades as the devil of financial insecurity that enslaves people to toil endlessly for the god-idol called money wherein Fear teaches them to think security lies. Security lies not in money or any other outer thing, however; it lies within the core of each person’s faith secreted deep in one’s own heart. To be free, therefore, one must withhold one’s obedience to Fear’s demands because an oppressor cannot enslave without the permission of the oppressed to do so. Consider, for example, that Mahatma Gandhi was a free man, even when imprisoned by the British, because he accepted his imprisonment as the cost of India’s freedom, and he was therefore always free in his mind.
How does one deny Fear permission to enslave? There are two ways. One is to live forever in the present moment, in the here and now, for by doing so one imprisons Fear in its own kingdom, the dark side of the future, a place it cannot leave and exist. With Fear thus imprisoned, there neither is nor can there be any fear in the present moment for that is where Love and God reside, however one defines God. After all, Fear is only a flight of fantasy into the dark side of the future.
The second way to foil the power of Fear is to simply accept life as it is given because Fear feeds on and is nourished by resistance to that which one does not want. Unconditional acceptance of circumstances is to deftly sidestep Fear and allow it to rush harmlessly past, like the clumsy brute it is.
Life becomes perfect, despite its pain, when one accepts its circumstances as lessons and opportunities for personal growth, which, in turn, brings increasing immunization against Fear. With this in mind, I think we humans can raise ourselves to a higher plane by so refining our own nature that it reflects what is behaviorally possible when we elevate our consciousness to its highest potential, where Fear cannot tread, even as a stranger. This said, however, I often wonder how it is that species we consider to be lesser than ourselves can approach us without fear while we shrink in fear from practically all species in one way or another, mostly our own kind.
Be that as it may, there is a bird in the mountains with which many a camper throughout the western United States and Canada is familiar—the gray jay, Canada jay, camp robber, or whiskey jack, as it is variously known. This soft gray, white, and black jay is a friendly bird. I have in years past had them eat out of my hand while camping in the high mountains during the deep snows of winter. And I once had a plucky little fellow sit on the lens of my camera, reach over it, and eat the huckleberries I was attempting to photograph.
I knew a female short-tailed weasel that, unlike all others of her kind, was gentle and loving. She never bit, but instead would lean her head into my hand wherever she wanted me to scratch it. I also met a deer mouse deep in a forest that came every night for weeks to sit on my chest as I lay in my sleeping bag and wash herself within mere inches of my face. And I knew a heather vole (a small, soft, gray, mouse-like creature) that I caught alive along the edge of a mountain meadow. The vole explored my arm, neck, and shoulders and finally sat quietly on the collar of my shirt from which vantage it sniffed my ear with no attempt to escape. Although I could cite other such examples, I think these suffice to point out that Fear does not exist everywhere in the world—only where we give it the power of life.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the world were powered by Love, such as found in these little animal stories, or found in the unconditional acceptance and loyalty of one’s dog. There are teachers in the world—some human, some not—from whom we can learn the meaning of love. We have only to listen, trust, practice, practice, practice, learn, and grow. It is, after all, our choice—to live with Love in the present moment or with Fear in the dark side of the future. If we do not make a conscious choice, Fear will choose for us. It always does, if we let it!
Now, as I approach my mid sixties, I challenged Fear to discuss some of the issues with which I have for so long struggled. Fear, with its usual conceit and arrogance, agreed. The following are transcriptions of our conversations, which took place over many months.
© chris maser 2000. All rights reserved.
I spent over 25 years as an active research scientist in natural history and ecology in forest, shrub steppe, subarctic, desert, coastal, and agricultural settings. Today I am an independent author as well as an international lecturer, facilitator in resolving environmental conflicts, vision statements, and sustainable community development. I am also an international consultant in forest ecology and sustainable forestry practices.
I Have Lived, Worked, Consulted, And/Or Lectured In: Austria • Canada • Chile • Egypt • France • Germany • Japan • Malaysia • Nepal • Slovakia • Switzerland • and various settings in the United States.
If you want to contact me, visit my website: http://chrismaser.com/index.htm
Not long ago, the nation of India decided it was mature enough to allow people to communicate with each other, even poor people (of which there are, as it happens, still a few). Not just talking, which is more or less a habit, but using high quality electronic telecommunications, of which the very cheapest is FM (frequency modulated radio broadcasting, using the medium wave band).
FM broadcasting, being roughly medium wave transmission, works in line-of-sight principally, which means that signal attenuation with a host of interfering material objects, such as trees and houses, is brutal on the one hand, and that the horizon is the effective limit, on the other. Stray signals will occasionally travel much further than that, but not very reliably.
More power will cause a better signal at longer distances, but not much. The marginal increase of cost with power is exponential, directly opposite to the marginal increase in reach. Given these constraints, it becomes obvious that the greatest efficiency for a poor community comes from very low powered transmitter stations. I have enthusiastically discussed this at great and wordy length in another blogpost here. Our own work, at Radiophony, indicates that such stations may be as small as a square kilometer in reach, for such a throwaway cost, that to actively prevent such stations flourishing is in itself a travesty of freedom. But I digress.
The announcement, at the dawn of 2003, brought about a great degree of excitement, as the numbers of radio stations possible were, according to the government, as high as 4,000. Subsequent announcements made it clear this number was being thought of as a preliminary target, something that might be achieved in a couple of years or so.
Nowadays, six years down the line, figures for the upper limits on Indian community radio stations are bandied about in public places, even by persons who have worked hard to gain international recognition in the world of community radio. Just recently, a senior officebearer of the Asia-Pacific focus group within AMARC, which is the French acronymed-name of the world association of community radio broadcasters, said he hoped the Indian government would find ways to put support in place, so that the potential target for 5,000 stations of 50 Watt capacity each, which he characterised as ‘the potential for the broadcast spectrum in the country’, could be met.
To some eyes, it may certainly look like an ambitious target, especially considering the number of stations licensed under the Community Radio Policy have barely topped 50 so far (54, in September of 2009).
But.
How meaningful is this figure, in terms of using a ‘limited’ spectrum capacity? The total bandwidth, by international agreement, is just about 20 MHz, while the technology permits broadcasting at neighboring frequencies with not less than 200 KHz separation. One of the most dense FM regions in the world in the city of New York in the US, which hosts around 72 working stations.
But we don’t need to go across the world, to find out what people are doing with the spectrum. Look at Thailand: a land area (discounting water bodies etc) of 511,771 sq km, and population of about 65 million. Well over 2,000 stations (wikipedia) broadcast currently, down from an estimated 3,000 a couple of years back, in the teeth of active restrictions, due to policy disputes at the highest levels of government. Put in simple terms, it amounts to one community station per 250 sq km, or 0ne station per 32,500 people (ie, considering all the people in the country, not just the ones within listening distance).
India, on the other hand, has a land area of 2,973,190 sq km, and a population of around 1,170 million, counting projections of around July of 2009. The target of 5,000 stations thus amounts to barely one station per 600 sq km, or one station per 234,000 people. Not quite reaching for the sky, is it?
Several years ago, on the email list popularly used between supporters of community radio, I worked out the estimated potential capacity of low power broadcast radio in India. The true FM capacity of the country worked out to over 900,000 stations of ~5W*, reaching a pragmatic zone of about 5 km in dia each, to adjust for 50W stations, which will reach a zone of about ~25 km in dia. This is 25 times the effective area of reach of 5W stations, hence we must cut down the total to 1/25th, or 4%.
That is still 36,000 stations, give or take a few hundreds.
My working out this calculation does not imply that I am in favour of 50W stations per se, and I will get back to this point below.
[*I had originally assumed about 100 channels per fixed area, resulting in 1.25 million stations for the country, but after discussions with practiced US broadcasters, reduced this number to 72. Accordingly the 1.25 million got cut down by 25%, about which I had subsequently posted to the list].
This willingness by the ‘haves’ of our country to accept lower targets of accomplishment devils just about every single reasonable attempt being made in the country to get the ordinary people, the disenfranchised and exploited, the most basic chance to pull themselves together to reach the very basement level of empowerment: a voice. Put this together with the divisiveness between commercial and non-commercial, and educational and ‘broader’ purpose objectives, and the situation in FM gets quite vitiated.
Plain vanilla economic arguments towards the division of use of spectrum give, in effect, more to the ‘haves’ in terms of super-powerful transmission capacities (for a price, but meeting the price is much easier for them). Unfortunately, this cruelly cuts down the options for those in more straitened circumstances, because powerful radio stations invariably drown out, or ‘interfere’, with signals from lower powered stations in the vicinity.
Much worse, it effectively reduces every need in the country to an economic need, and transforming the government’s main purpose from governance to revenue collection. What a travesty!
While I do not have anything against some stations being more powerful, for those few places in the country that have low population density in high-foliage (or other high-attenuation contributory factors) geographies, to take it as the norm is simply a waste of a fantastic resource, simply because it is there.
What is quite depressing, vis-a-vis the quality of discussion in many fora, including the one specifically set up to share concerns and support between community radio enthusiasts, is the sniping that keeps cropping up between supporters of ‘educational’ and ‘community’ broadcasting, as practices. This is a prime example of the confusion that hierarchical governmental systems tend to foster, in order to cling on to their implicit or de facto autarchy, which has no place in a democratic civilisation. Apparently, democratic civilisation is our national choice, as recent arrests (on the grounds of sedition, or espousing sedition) of intellectuals who favour other approaches show.
This situation was brought about by simply placing limits on technologies, by ascribing different price points to the radiated power. In other markets (the 3G auctions that keep getting postponed, even though vastly superior 4G telephony technology is now nearly ready to become commercially available, and the fact that GSM technology in and of itself does not need to be purveyed or deployed by national-sized megacompanies), the allocation of parcels of frequency is the market-shaping determinant, rather than sheer broadcast power.
On the list, the discussions haven’t even begun to question the government’s fiat accompli of allocating some FM frequencies to some organisations at the national level. Nobody seems interested in questioning why commercial stations are allowed 1. tsunami transmitters that drown out all less expensive options in the vicinity and 2. fixed frequencies across the country.
What does a fixed frequency deliver, in terms of value propositions? The ability to create a brand around a frequency? How many of these commercial chains still rely on frequency branding to promote their channels, and how is it in the nation’s interest to lower their costs of advertising in national newspapers and other media? Of course, it does not affect the cost of advertising in local media. I really don’t know why the private sector companies played along with the government, when the terms of frequency allocation became to shape up, earlier this decade. Anyway, they seem to be stuck with that foolishness.
What does opening up the spectrum to low power transmission do for the country, and its people?
A brief list:
At present, such commonsense, inexpensive and inoffensive usage of spectrum is either proscribed or discouraged, for reasons that remain undebated in public fora, for the simple reason that the agenda at such fora is often set by the current controllers of spectrum (ie, the government). While representations at such fora have been made several times, it does not seem to be recorded in any responsible form by the government itself.
The FM band remains tightly in the control of the government and the revenue generating private sector, with applications for the common good either poorly served, or not at all. It is truly unfortunate that this situation now finds endorsement from representatives of community media.
The Economist wonders about the return to profit of the auto industry. Reading the article, it s crystal the Economist concern about the difficulties the industry has been going through in the last year. One of the conclusions is that the return to profit some car companies will achieve this year (some other will probably make profit again only next year) is going to be modest. “Poor folks” is my reaction, they wont get big bonuses this year and their profit wont equal their testosterone.
Do you know what is the difference in terms of costs between a Fiat 500 and an Audi Q7? It is about 10k Euros. It means that all the rest is basically profit for the car companies. You see, 10.000 euros of difference in costs and I am afraid to check the different final price for the two cars.
Why am I saying that? Because the Economist predicts that consumers will turn towards smaller and more efficient cars where the profit for car companies is lower.
I honestly dont get it! Instead of promoting a different approach to mobility or investment in green technology, media are still here pushing for the car industry. “Less profit for the car industry, less cars sold” sounds soooo nice to me. The point is that we are all so tele-lobotomized by commercials and we do need to do all we can to buy a new SUV for the profit of the car industry.
By Matt Kelley, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The $787 billion economic recovery package also is stimulating growth in the federal government as agencies hire thousands of workers and spend millions of dollars to oversee and implement the package, according to government records and spokesmen.
Fourteen of the top federal agencies responsible for spending under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act say they’ve hired about 3,000 workers with stimulus money. That’s helped fuel the continued growth of the federal government, which increased by more than 25,000 employees, or 1.3%, since December 2008, according to the latest quarterly report. During that time, the ranks of the nation’s unemployed increased by nearly 4 million, Labor Department statistics show.
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“G” from “Rescue Ink” calls in at 6:30am to talk about his new National Geographic Channel show about tattooed bikers rescuing animals.
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, calls in at 7:30am to talk about health care reform.
Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) calls in at 8:30am to talk about health care reform.
At his first remarks to the U.N. General Assembly, President Obama yesterday called on world leaders to work together to effect needed change, and left no doubt that he believes the danger posed by global warming is a real one. Obama was followed by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who gave a rambling, 96-minute address.
Leaders representing 85% of the world’s economic output are gathering in Pittsburgh, PA today and tomorrow. The G-20 will meet for two days to focus on the worldwide financial crisis, and plot how to avoid a repeat in the future.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) will announce an interim replacement today at 11am Eastern for the U.S. Senate seat left open by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.
A vaccine to prevent HIV infection has shown modest results for the first time, leading researchers to believe for the first time that a vaccine for HIV is possible.
On Wednesday September 23, 2009, 12:45 pm EDT
By Burton Frierson
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. government will have issued $7 trillion in bonds by the time the current fiscal year ends next week, but it expects the debt deluge to stabilize by mid 2010, a Treasury official said on Wednesday.
Though markets and the economy are improving, efforts to provide a firm foundation for recovery will require increases to the U.S. Treasury’s conventional bonds going forward, as well as debt securities that are indexed to inflation.
However, this expansion may take place in an environment where investors consider leaving the safe-haven Treasury market for riskier assets, and debt issuance is likely to level off mid next year, said Treasury Acting Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets Karthik Ramanathan.
“In fiscal year 2009, which ends next week, Treasury will have issued $7 trillion in gross issuance — that’s in a 12-month period,” Ramanathan told a financial markets conference in New York.
“This issuance was necessary to meet nearly $1.7 trillion in net marketable borrowing needs, nearly $1 trillion more than what we raised last year,” he added.
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According to Michael J. Garcia, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Mr. Bernard B. Kerik, former New York City police commissioner and commissioner of the New York City Department of Corrections, allegedly borrowed part of his down-payment from a Manhattan Realtor, but falsely denied that he had done so to the bank that extended him the mortgage loan for his purchase of a apartment.
Kerik has been charged with making false statements on a loan application in connection with purchase of the apartment in Riverdale, N.Y.
In St Louis a man has been sentenced for filing for Chapter 13 bankruptcy using a false Social Security number. According to Michael W. Reap, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, between August and October 2005, Shawn Cannon, knowing he would be unable to qualify for a loan to purchase a home using his true identity, used fraudulent information, including a false Social Security number and false payroll information, to obtain a loan from Pulaski Bank to purchase a personal residence in Florissant, Missouri, for approximately $300,000.
Cannon failed to make required payments. In December 2008, Cannon filed a Chapter 13 bankruptcy petition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, again using the false Social Security number.
After pleading guilty in June to charges connected to a scheme to use a stolen identity to buy a home, Cannon was sentenced to 60 months in prison.
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It is not matter of the country, foreigners will complain always about the big number of holidays this country has. I listened such complain from foreigners in Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Thailand and Philippines. An Italian will say that Cambodians have many holidays, but it is exactly what foreigners in Italy said about Italy.
I feel that saying it, the foreigner puts himself in a certain economical superiority over the country he is in. In conclusion, he is meaning ‘look how lazy is this people.’ At the same time, it is logic that many foreigners will not understand the meaning of the holidays, because it is not his country. If he does not feel real attaché to the nation, its celebrations, traditions and history will mean little, then he will not get why the country has to stop for a particular tradition.
Checking the number of public holidays of Cambodia and comparing it with other nations, I find it nearly normal. Maybe Cambodia is among the countries with the longest list of free days in the year for civil or religious purposes. Let us see the comparison table of financialcalendar.com:
Highest
Lowest
CountryNo. of holidays
CountryNo. of holidays
1. Nepal23.0
1. Bosnia2.7
2. India21.8
2. Mongolia6.2
3. Iran20.9
3. Uzbekistan6.3
4. Myanmar19.2
4. Serbia6.6
5. Sri Lanka18.2
5. Cuba6.7
Cambodia has 22 holidays, according with the following table:
No
Date
Event
Notes
1 1rs Jan New Year The International New Year (Gregorian calendar) 2 7th Jan Victory from Genocide Day The fall of the Khmer Rouge Regime. 3 About February Meak Bochea Commemorates the spontaneous gathering of monks to listen to the Buddha’s preaching. 4 8th March International Women Day International day for women. 6 April 13 – 15 Cambodian New Year Chaul Chnam Thmey. 7 April or May Visaka Bochea Buddhist observance commemorating the birth, enlightenment and passing of the Buddha. 8 1rst May Labor Day 9 In May Royal Ploughing Ceremony Pithi Chrat Preah Neangkol, the start of the planting season. 12 May 13 – 15 HM the King’s Birthday Commemorates the birthday of King Norodom Sihamoni. 13 June 18 HM the Queen Mother’s Birthday Commemorates the birthday of The Queen Mother. 14 24th Sept Constitution Day Celebrates the signing of the Cambodian constitution by King Sihanouk. 15 September or October Pchum Beng A Cambodian religious holiday when many Cambodian Buddhists pay their respects to deceased relatives by cooking meals for monks and making offerings to the ancestors. It is also known as “Ancestor’s Day”. 16 29th October Coronation Day Commemorates the coronation of His Majesty King Norodom Sihamoni. 17 31srt Oct. HM the King Father’s Birthday Commemorates the birthday of King Father Norodom Sihanouk. 18 9th Nov. Independence Day Celebrates Cambodia’s independence from France in 1953. 21 About November Water Festival Bon Om Thook. Boat races on the Tonle Sap in Phnom Penh celebrate the time when the water in the river reverses course. 22 10th December Human Rights DayLet us see comparative tables from other nations:
Country
Holidays
Finland14
Brazil10
France10
Lithuania12
Argentina11
Estonia10
Malta14
Austria13
Greece12
Cyprus15
Slovenia16
Spain14
Sweden11
Denmark10
Slovakia15
Luxemburg10
Venezuela11
Germany10
Portugal12
Colombia18
Hungary10
Bulgaria12
Italy11
Leetonia11
Check Republic11
Belgium10
Chile15
Ireland9
The Netherlands8
United Kingdom8
Poland10
Rumania7
México8
The general average is 10 days; therefore, Cambodia is among the nations with more holidays. However, this last table has not account on regional holidays in those countries and other situations that would stop production in order to rest.
Paul Joseph Watson / Prison Planet – September 22, 2009
A daycare worker employed by Northeast Health in Albany New York was shocked to be told by her boss that she would be fired if she refused to take a seasonal swine flu shot on the spot. Similar stories have been pouring in to us from all over the country as fears that the upcoming H1N1 shot will also be mandatory continue to grow.
The case emphasizes why President Obama’s claim that the swine flu shot will be voluntary is completely deceptive and misleading. Americans across the country, even those not directly connected with health care work, are being ordered to take the mandated seasonal and swine flu shots or lose their jobs.
The story of what happened to the daycare worker, who would like to go by the pseudonym “Clare,” was sent to us by her sister who also provided Clare’s real name and the full name of the facility she is employed with.
Clare works in a daycare center which is affiliated with the local hospital but in a completely separate building. It was reported earlier this month that all hospital workers in the entire region would be forced to take the seasonal flu shot or lose their jobs and that the vaccine would become a condition of employment.
“On the Tuesday morning following the Labor Day weekend (Sept 8th), the director of the daycare of Northeast Health announced to employees on the spot (without a meeting, memo or discussion) that everyone had to go get a flu shot immediately and staff would be rotated so that everyone would be inoculated by the end of the day,” writes Clare’s sister.
“Clare said “I don’t get flu shots” and was told “well then you’ll be fired.”
The director told Clare that the H1N1 shot would also be mandated in the same way when it becomes available. When Clare warned the director that the swine flu shot contained mercury, squalene and other dangerous additives, the director told her that regardless of her objections, if she refused to be vaccinated she would be suspended from November 13th and then formally fired on November 30th.
Link to entire article below…
http://www.prisonplanet.com/daycare-worker-told-shell-be-fired-for-refusing-mandatory-flu-shot.html
Forrás: INDEX.hu
A németországi Rüsselsheimből Szentgotthárdra helyezik át az Opel motor- és sebességváltógyártását – értesült a Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
A német napilap ismertette az Opel új tulajdonosa, az osztrák-kanadai beszállítói konszern, a Magna által tervezett németországi, illetve európai leépítési terveket. Ezek részeként a legnagyobb németországi gyárból, a Hessen tartományban lévő rüsselsheimi üzemből a 14700 alkalmazott közül 1400-at bocsátanak el. A leépítés fő oka, hogy a motor- és sebességváltó gyártást külföldre, mégpedig Szentgotthárdra helyezik át.
A lap úgy tudja, hogy a Magna európai méretekben a korábban tervezettnél több, összesen 11 000 munkahely megszüntetését tervezi, ebből legkevesebb 4500 alkalmazottnak Németországban mondanak fel. A korábbi értesülések 10500 fő elbocsátásról szóltak.
Bár a németországi adatok ellentmondásosak, az a kiszivárgott tervek szerint bizonyosnak tűnik, hogy a leépítések leginkább az észak-rajna-vesztfáliai tartományban lévő bochumi üzemet érintik, ahol a tervek szerint több mint 2000 állás szűnik meg. Bochumból a motor- és sebességváltó-gyártást szintén külföldre helyezik át, mégpedig egy Bécs melletti üzembe.
A Rajna-Pfalz tartományban lévő Kaiserslautern Opel-üzemében 460 alkalmazott elbocsátását tervezik. A munkahelyek megszüntetése egyedül a türingiai Eisenachban lévő gyárat nem érinti, igaz azon az áron, hogy a Magna a spanyolországi Zaragoza üzeméből termelési kapacitásokat a türingiai gyárba helyez át. A spanyolországi gyárból több ezer alkalmazottat bocsátanak el.
Németország mellett a tervezett leépítések leginkább Belgiumot sújtják. A Magna a hírek szerint bezárja az Astra gyártásával foglalkozó antwerpeni üzemet, és az országban összesen 2500 munkahely szűnik meg. A sorban ezután Spanyolország, majd Anglia következik. A két országban a kiszivárgott értesülések szerint 2100, illetve 1400 munkahely szűnik meg.
In the comments to this recent post I somewhat defended my ideas around business and geopolitics as unconventional. I happen to think it’s necessary to challenge the ways of the 20th century and the groupthink of the rich old men in suits who run the world.
Take for example this US government mortgage calculator, it won’t accept a negative value for home value increase. Hmm…
idiot mortgage calculator
Chullo tip to the always excellent Rolfe Winkler.
BTW – I think home values in Peru are a bit safer than in the US, since banks in Peru have stuck to conservative loan values (typically requiring 20% down on mortgages) and the demographics in Peru bode well for economic growth in the long term. That said, in areas such as Cusco real estate prices have skyrocketed in recent years, and home prices are entirely out of line with personal incomes.
California and 26 other states and the District of Columbia saw unemployment rates in August according to the Labor Department. California saw its jobless rate jump from 11.9% in July to 12.2% in August. In neighboring Nevada it an astonishing 13.2%.
This comes the economy is (belived to be) in recovery. Markets are stabilized. Unemployment is expected to rise to 10% by end of the year. It’s a reminder. Employment is a lagging indicator of an improving economy.
“There’s still a fair amount of weakness in some of the larger states,” said Steven Cochrane, director of regional economics at Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “State finances are probably going to be among the last of all the various components of the broad economy to turn around.”
There are 14 states that have jobless rates below 10% Indiana is the latest. The hardest hit state is Michigan. The Unemployment rate there rose 2/10 of a percent to 15.2%.
Locally,Washington,DC is jobless rate is 11.3%. In New York City unemployment moved to 10.3%, Los Angeles County is 12.2%.
Bloomberg News has more.
During the Recession it is typical to think that concern about one’s career development is reserved for the unemployed and under-employed among us. Much of my blogging in recent months has been directed toward those cohorts. However, it’s important to also focus on the individual career development needs of the 90+% of Americans who are fully employed. Addressing career development in the context of employee inclusion in companies and organizations raises a set of different issues and benchmarks that need to be examined and rated. To look at the intersection of individual career development and the organizations within which most employees work is a task that is larger than can be adequately handled in a single blog. But it is my goal to begin such an exploration with this blog.
It is still a core belief of mine that each person is responsible for his or her own career development. So, what exactly is meant by career development, a term I’ve already used five times in this piece? A definition depends on perspective. From an organizational viewpoint career development is seen as the procedures necessary to advance employee value to meet organizational strategic demands. From the view of a worker, career development involves the integration of cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and contextual factors that determine employment decisions, work values, and life role such that a profound satisfaction with what one does is achieved. My primary and professional concern is with the worker who needs to cultivate the elements that comprise their professional growth. Let’s begin a look at how this done with your current employement.
There are some basics that you ought to expect from the place you work beside it being a safe place to derive an income. Perhaps the biggest is knowing that there is a built in meritocracy. If you as a dedicated employee have a clear and open opportunity to advance within the organization based on your talent, ability, and drive, then this place of work may have value. Of course, most companies do have some form of internal promotion. The thing to know, though is how much of it is based on true merit vs. political maneuvering or an inadequate performance review system. In the public sector, be especially careful. My primary career was with public school systems where internal promotion is almost non-existent. There, the overriding value is egalitarianism. As great as equality is it may not be consistent with individual progression. Therefore, study the core operating value of your employer. Ask yourself if you can work within that system. If the clash of purposes between yourself and the organization is too much, then go elsewhere.
Finding that it is acceptable, however means you should conduct an examination of how organizational strategy is expressed through the way they treat their employees. Acceptable contact points should be found between the organization’s definition of employee career development and your own definition. For example, does your company institute a performance management structure that encourages managers to promote behaviors and competencies that meet both the organizational needs and your professional growth? Other contact points that should be appraised, and which I will delve into in greater detail in future blogs, include company policies concerning onboarding, succession planning, innovation, being a learning organization, employee freedom in how production quotas are set, among others.
In closing, I recommend first talking to your Human Resources people. Have they tried to establish an employee career development program? If they have, then they have found a link between organizational strategy and necessary knowledge and skills for the present and future. See how your professional improvement plans fit their needs. If they match company perceived shortages, then Bingo!, you may have something there. More on this later.
By Michael D. Shear
President Obama on Saturday continued his administration’s careful efforts to take credit for the slowly improving economy, using his radio address to tout the economic turnaround since world leaders met in London in April.
At the time of the G-20 summit, the world’s economic situation was dire, Obama said in the radio address. The meeting in London marked “a crisis that required unprecedented international cooperation to jumpstart the world’s economies and help break the downward spiral that enveloped all our nations,” he said.
Next week, Obama and the same world leaders will gather in Pittsburgh for what Obama called “a five-month checkup” on the financial actions taken by their countries.
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Well there has not been much activity on this page for some time. Studies are under way, and there is other work to be done.
Nevertheless, I hope to offer an occasional update.
Having described my personal political path from left-liberalism (perhaps I should have bitten the bullet and called it socialism – as a comment on that post made clear, many liberals are entirely not of the hard leftist persuasion that I described simply as “liberalism” or left-liberalism) to what I have called libertarianism, rooted in Austrian economic analysis and classical liberal individualism, I have to now describe the next step in an always-moving-forward system of political beliefs.
Upon recognizing that socialism (as I will now refer to my first position) is not viable and that postmodern analysis can lead to ridiculous outcomes (by the way, check out elsewhere.org for a hilarious randomly generated essay using postmodern cliches strung together), I did what is natural, at least for me: I overcompensated, and moved quickly but not unthinkingly to the opposite extreme. Thus, whereas capitalism first seemed inherently destructive, it then seemed perfect if only it would be allowed to function maximally, with little or zero political interference.
So an economic analysis of capitalism apart from the classical oversimplifications of perfectly rational utility-maximizing agents was needed, because of course these are problematically false assumptions. Austrian economics offers such an analytical framework – but it too is wrought with oversimplifications. One problematic assumption of Austrianism, I think, is the belief that a market untouched by a government is one in which every agent is entirely free to ascend and descend the ladder of economic prosperity with willpower and talent the only limitations.
On the contrary, social frameworks do exist, and they exert pressure on human action and impose limitations, markets do not always adjust quickly or easily, and humans are indeed prone to irrational behavior – the Austrian definitional switch of the word “rational” to mean “choosing means to achieve subjectively desired ends,” furthermore, is not necessarily helpful. People confuse means and ends, they choose the wrong means to achieve their ends, and they do not choose their ends or means in an individualist vacuum.
Thus, capitalism and its corollary civil and economic freedom does not inherently produce the best outcomes for actors involved. Even trade, which the Austrians argue occurs only if it will benefit both actors, based on the idea of value as a subjective preference, does not necessarily occur to mutual benefit. The cornerstone of Mises’ value theory is that all values are entirely subjective – that is, a person always “benefits” from trade because he trades to obtain the next most preferred thing on his ordinal list of values, giving up what he prefers less for what he prefers more. Yet the physical constraints of income, as well as the plethora of economic activity entirely beyond the average economic actor’s control (but not beyond consequence for him), limit the range of things which a person can feasibly demand.
Furthermore, the a priori method of Austrian economics is suspect. While Mises’ case is intriguing, this is a point on which I have been convinced and then unconvinced. The idea of the a priori method of social science is that basic axioms (eg “human action exists”), can be used to derive, solely through the use of deductive logic, the laws of economic activity. Indeed, such a method is not useless as an ideal description of what should happen given the condition described – which, if it is truly axiomatic, should hold on all or nearly all occasions. Yet the reality of social life is that it does not always follow an expected causal chain – unless that chain is established using the combined methods of empirical induction and deductive theorizing.
Moreover, despite his rigid, pseudo-scientific failures, Marx correctly notes that economic structures have political ramifications. Even for those who recognize the overall benefit of capitalism, the facts of the political nature of economics and of the social inequalities that result, are unavoidable. Investors exert control over the structure of society, and for those people who do not have the capital to join in, that structure must be taken as it is given – even when it is structured foolishly, such as in the case of the recent financial collapse.
Lest I be misunderstood: I am not describing a movement from socialism to libertarianism to Marxism/leftism. Nor am I describing a back-and-forth movement, first affirming, then denying the same premises. Rather, I am describing a progressive development of political thought, picking up new facts and conceptual frameworks and attempting to articulate a logically consistent political outlook based on these ideas. In the process, I have and still do waver along a left-right gradation, occasionally rethinking points that become obscured by emotional ideology, but always, I hope, learning from the various frameworks I have explored (none of which I trust in its entirety), and moving forward in political thinking and not simply sideways.
Overall, then, capitalism is the worst socio-economic system there is, except for all the other ones that have been tried. The implication, as Jagdish Bhagwati has suggested in his book In Defense of Globalization, is to form optimally free markets, not maximally free markets – which, when the outcomes of maximal freedom are considered, paradoxically become less free. If a better outcome, through rigorously collected social scientific evidence, keeping in line with the humanistic (whether secular or religious) principle of human dignity, can be achieved by some government supervision and a well-designed safety net, then these regulations and redistributions should exist. Yet they should harness the best available scientific and social scientific knowledge, and, to the optimal degree, the market.
We should be careful about utilitarianism, but the basic idea of achieving the most good for the most people (with the caveat that the rights – including those to property, speech, etc – and dignity of people must be respected in the process) is a politically good one.
Thus, freedom should always exist to the greatest degree possible, because it is intrinsically beneficial and necessary for human wellbeing, but I argue that there is a point after which more anarchic conditions produce a net loss for a society. One important example that contributed to my discovery of this point:
The Supreme Court’s recent hearing of Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, in which the debate centered on the ability of corporations to spend as much money as they wish as an exercise of free speech to run advertisements in support or opposition to political candidates. If this unlimited corporate spending is allowed, the danger is immense for the health of an accountable government. I have written before about the problem of business running the government, just as the government running business is equally problematic, and I stand by that. Allowing corporations to advertise heavily for candidates is a quick way to allow corporations to shape the political debate and seek undue support for candidates who will offer more special privileges and insider dealings between the business and political elites. That is a ruinous outcome for the normal folks in smaller businesses as well as the whole of the political underclass: the general citizens of the United States.
Veteran TV/Radio Broadcaster turned Publicist Mc Quade To share secrets of PR business
LOS ANGELES, CA —Vice President George Mc Quade, MAYO Communications, an award-winning full service entertainment and public relations firm in Los Angeles is scheduled to appear live this Saturday, Sept. 19, 2009 on CSU Dominguez Hills campus HD TV station. Mc Quade will discuss the evolution of media, secrets to powerful media relations campaigns and public relations with TV host Chris Burnett, CSUDH.
“The media is changing faster than the media can even report on it,” said Mc Quade, who manages media relations and new business for MAYO Communications as V.P. “The most important message I drive home to students and budding PR Pros is to acquire as much digital media arts skills as possible from radio, TV to blogging and websites. Even TV stations like KNBC have what they call a “content center,” which used to be the called the newsroom. Surviving writers, producers and editors are being retrained as multi-media experts writing their stories, but now recording radio and TV interviews, too, for instantly posting Online.” Mc Quade will be available for call-in questions during the hour show segment that airs 2:30 – 3:30 pm, Saturday. The Public Relations Show begins at 1:50 p.m. He speaks regularly at publicity, broadcast news and film classes at USC, UCLA and Loyola Marymount University. Mc Quade is currently the West Coast bureau chief for O’Dwyer Publications (www.odwyerpr.com), Manhattan, NY, where he writes a monthly column on everything from new media to entertainment publicity and public relations. McQuade is the former president of Entertainment Publicists Professional Society (EPPS), Los Angeles and New York chapters, with nearly 500 publicist members nationwide.Editor’s Note: We found this article online recently and thought it was well-written and informative and provided many reasons why anybody considering engaging in a barter transaction should contact Merchants Barter Exchange to ensure smooth sailing in their deals. Enjoy!
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By Sharifah Hardie
WHAT IS BARTER?
For the purpose of this article we are referring to the barter system as an agreement between business owners to give something in EXCHANGE for receiving something else. For example: One business owner may provide financial services, and another may do web design. Now you may think these businesses are so vast and so different they have nothing in common. However, in taking a closer look we see they have a very important element in common; they are both potentially in need of each other’s services.
IS BARTERING RIGHT FOR YOU?
There are many business owners who are adamantly against bartering. They will tell you that it’s a waste of time. These are the business owners who already make enough money and aren’t willing to work together in order to get ahead. If these things apply to you stop reading now. However, if you want to build your team without spending any extra money — and wouldn’t mind HELPING someone else out in order to improve your own status — bartering is definitely the way to go.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF BARTERING?
Bartering carries with it a number of attractive benefits:
NAME RECOGNITION
What do we mean by increased name recognition by association? Once you barter with a high PROFILE business your name is going to be seen more, remembered more and as a result recognized more by your target audience. The key to effective bartering is bartering with a company that is COMPARABLE with yours. If you own a shoe store bartering or doing a joint venture with a sock store would be the ultimate barter. You would recommend the sock store’s services in return for them recommending yours. I mean after all if you need socks, you’re going to need shoes. You also have increased name recognition by association because as the sock store is recommending your services the customers realize that if the sock store is willing to associate with your company you must be a wonderful company. A win-win situation for everyone involved.
FINDING BUSINESS OWNERS WILLING TO BARTER
Contact business owners you are already in contact with, your current pool. Also think of business types that are comparable to yours and search for them on the web or in your local business directory. Then contact the business owner with an OFFER.
GIVE THEM A REASON
Keep in mind that every business owner is just like you in that they are looking to EXPAND their businesses as inexpensively as possible. If you can answer the all time, number one, most important question for a business owner, “What’s in it for ME?” the likelihood of the business owner agreeing to barter with you increases tremendously. What do you have to lose but a little time and effort? The yes’s you receive will be worth the no’s. Just keep it up and remember those yes’s are exposure you would not have had. So get out there and ask for it.
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Original URL: http://www.evancarmichael.com/Small-Business-Consulting/4164/The-Barter-System–Overlooked-and-Underrated.html
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While Steve Jobs was preparing to introduce the new Apple iPod nano last week, the company’s chief accountant, Betsy Rafael, was sending off a second letter to the Financial Accounting Standards Board related to revenue recognition. At issue: how FASB might rework the rules related to recognizing revenue for software that’s bundled into a product and never sold separately.
The rule is especially important to Apple because it affects the revenue related to two of the company’s most successful products — the iPod and the iPhone. If FASB’s time line holds to form, and the rules are recast in 2011 the way Apple hopes they will be, the company could be able to book revenue faster, yielding less time between product launches and associated revenue gains. In theory, a successful launch — and its attendant revenue — would drive up Apple’s earnings, and possibly stock price, in the same quarter the product is introduced, according to several news reports that came out earlier this week.
Apple and other tech companies have been lobbying for a rewrite of the so-called multiple deliverables, or bundling, rule for quite some time. They argue that current U.S. generally accepted accounting principles make it hard for product makers to reap the full reward of successful products quickly. That’s mainly because U.S. GAAP is stringent about when and how companies recognize revenue generated by software sales.
“The requirements are that when you sell more than one product or service at one time, you have to break down the total sale value in[to] individual pieces. Establishing the individual values under U.S. GAAP is solely a function of how the company prices those products and services over time,” PricewaterhouseCoopers’s Dean Petracca told CFO in an earlier interview. Contracts typically include such multiple “deliverables” as hardware, software, professional services, maintenance, and support — all of which are valued and accounted for differently.
Go to Article
It’s been a year since the demise of Lehman Brothers, a catastrophic event that deepened the credit crisis, sent the financial markets into a tailspin, froze credit and caused governments across the world to bail out big institutions that were hitherto deemed ‘too big to fail’. What is more, since then a debate has raged worldwide whether preventing Lehman Brothers from bankruptcy would have alleviated the crisis that ensued.
As reported in the Economist, while from a purely economic point of view the failure of Lehman hit global economies very badly, from a political point of view bailing out financial institutions then drew considerable criticism as it created moral hazard. Infact, the Economist further reported that at some point political pressures would have required a big firm to go bust. After all, it was only after the Lehman incident that global governments got into damage control mode.
Interestingly, investment guru Jim Rogers believes that the global financial system needs more failures like Lehman Brothers to restore a functioning free market. This is what he said, “Market fundamentals are that failures should collapse and be replaced by creative new forces rather than being propped up as zombies. Financial institutions have been failing for centuries and the world has survived.” We believe that bailing out the financial system was inevitable given the enormous pain that would have followed. Having said that, mechanisms will have to be built into the system that will ensure that such a financial blunder is not repeated in the future.
Good regulation is what saved the Indian banking sector from throwing up the likes of Citibank after the global subprime crisis. While the formal Fed chief Mr. Alan Greenspan has criticised the excessive regulation in countries like India, we also have credible voices supporting our cause. Mr. Raghuram Rajan, the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) who also chaired a committee on financial sector reforms in India, believes that all India needs is ‘clever’ regulations. The economist who was amongst the few to predict the financial bubble in the West, has in an interview to a business daily, said that the global economic damage was largely inevitable due to the underlying rot already present in the system.
According to Mr. Rajan while government intervention, particularly in Western economies has helped quell the panic, the same was not without having long term impact on fiscal balances. Further, Mr Rajan has advocated RBI’s focus on expanding access to financial services like savings and insurance rather than pushing credit down the throats of the poor. His views certainly hold significance in the light of financial sector reforms required for the evolution of Indian banking sector.
Also please refer to the article I wrote in October’08, how RBI, particularly the then RBI Governor Dr.Y.V.Reddy saved our banking system from collapse, when world over Financial institutions were crumbling. This article was appreciated by many and I’ve given the link below, if you are interested in reading the same.
http://wisewealthadvisors.wordpress.com/2008/11/29/thank-you-drreddy/
(with inputs from Equitymaster)
THE NORWAY POST
by Rolleiv Solholm
The contract covers engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of a complete subsea production system. Subsea hardware deliveries include eight overtrawlable four-slot subsea templates with manifolds, 24 subsea trees, subsea control systems, 20 kilometres of steel tube umbilicals, work-over equipment and a tie-in and connection system.
“We have a strategy of being the preferred partner for oil companies’ field developments in deep waters and harsh climates. The Goliat subsea contract confirms a confidence in our technology, solutions and capability to deliver,” says Simen Lieungh, President and CEO of Aker Solutions.
Aker Solutions will utilise large parts of its Norwegian manufacturing network to deliver the subsea equipment to Goliat. Subsea trees will be manufactured at Aker Solutions’ facility at Tranby, steel tube umbilicals in Moss, while templates and manifolds will come from the company’s Egersund yard. Subsea control systems will be manufactured in Aberdeen. The project will be managed from Aker Solutions’ head office at Fornebu, Norway.
“This is one of the major subsea projects that will be awarded in 2009, and it has been a key target for us. It will give us a higher degree of predictability for our manufacturing and support facilities in Norway, and also involve a significant contribution to boosting the offshore support related activity locally in the Hammerfest region,” says Mads Andersen, executive vice president of Aker Solutions’ subsea business area.
“Although Goliat in many ways will be a reference project for field developments in the Barents Sea, it is important to stress that the technologies we will be using have already been field proven elsewhere and are specifically selected for this environmentally sensitive area. We will execute this project fully in line with demanding environmental standards,” adds Andersen.
Deliveries of the subsea equipment will start in 2011 and run through 2013.
I have recently heard so much about Obama’s government spending plans that I started looking up some figures to try to put it into perspective for myself. To me the discussion is not always about how much tax we pay but how the money is spent. After all, the reason we pay taxes is for certain services to be spent on us, as tax payers, so where does the money go and do we get it back.
People seem to always start with Bush so lets do that. According to a Time article (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1868367,00.html) from late last year attributes the total spent on Bush’s War at over one trillion… and growing. That is only spending on the war – nothing else! That does not include the loss of life and the follow-up for solder’s care and getting out of the war later. It also does not include anything else, at all! To me, that money is not coming back to the tax payer but is leaving the country. It also means that any President elected after him needs to spend more to deal with the long term problems.
Obama’s plans are also costly according to a U.S.News report (http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/capital-commerce/2008/02/14/obamas-trillion-dollar-spending-plan) but when looking at the list there are significant differences. First, the most of the money seems to be going back into American’s needs within the country. That is, education, health, tax credits, ect.. That means the tax payer gets the money back in some way.
I’m no economist but I think governments should be forced to make balanced budgets just like everyone else. That would have prevented this mess in the first place, but that did not happen and it has all hit the fan (long before Obama). To me, no matter who got elected, they were going to be forced to make decisions no one liked and the press has always blamed whoever the current president was for problems that former administrations or situations created. I also find it strange that the press does not blame the banks anymore.
Hind sight is a great thing but even years ago we knew spending was out of control. Imagine what would have happened if Bush was held accountable for his spending and tax money was put back into the country. Imagine if that money was not spent or if it was only spent for domestic problems. A lot of spending now would be un-necessary. Imagine if banks were held accountable for their investments for the past 20 years. neither conservatives or liberals questioned that. Now they are bitching at each other instead of both taking responsibility for past actions. They should just say, ‘ok, we both made stupid mistakes and now lets put it behind us and work together.’ Realistically speaking, that’s not going to happen. History has shown us that people want an easy way out and no one wants to take responsibility for their own actions and inactions. But then I’m a martian, what do I know?!
I’m so tired all the time. I’m so tired of being sad and depressed. I’m so tired of crying. I’m so tired of thinking about money CONSTANTLY.
People tell you that money doesn’t buy happiness. I know that’s true. I’m not thinking of all the “stuff” I could buy if I had the money. I’m wondering how I’m going to pay my ELECTRIC bill…I’m wondering how the bankruptcy judge is going to believe that we have the chance of a snowball in hell of “covering” all or our expenses AND a payment on a Chapter 13 “plan”. I try to put aside the thoughts and just focus on what I *can* do, but then, the phone rings…it’s another creditor. No, I don’t answer it…I have not spoken to ONE creditor…I figure “what’s the point?” They want money…I have none. I can’t tell them anything they want to hear and they sure don’t have anything good to say to me. So, I let the answering machine catch the call…but I hear the ring…I know what it’s about. It’s sort of like having a cushioned chair with a nail sticking out…it doesn’t poke you *every* time you sit, but it pokes you a lot. I’m constantly being poked. :-(
I have such conflicted feelings about so many things. First is my housekeeping job…I’ve now been twice. I think the couple likes me. I certainly HOPE they do…when I’m there, I work CONSTANTLY, as quickly and efficiently and effectively as possible. I don’t stop…I work for 6 hours straight. When I leave, I feel as if I’m going to die. I’m SO tired. It takes me the rest of the day, and most of the next, to recover. Don’t get me wrong…it’s the only “job” I’ve managed to get, and I’m VERY VERY glad to have it…but I’m already dreading tomorrow, because I feel tired now, and I know how much MORE tired I’m going to feel, after I finish and collect my $60.
I’ve been trying to think of other ways (besides being an Ebay prostitute) to make money. I’ve considered a couple of things…selling Plasma and moving my daughter out of her room so we can rent it out to a student.
Neither of those ideas are “great” ones. They both have fairly large drawbacks.
Selling plasma…on the surface, doesn’t sound too bad. $20 for maybe 45 minutes and you can sell it up to three times a week…I’m guessing every other day. The problem is that every crack head in town goes to the place to sell THEIR plasma. Have I sunk low enough that I am ready to sit around with every crack head in town? I don’t know…I’ve driven by a couple of times, but haven’t been able to bring myself to park and go inside. I am continuing to keep that idea on the back burner.
Renting my daughter’s room…again, on the surface, it sounds like a viable option. But, I was talking to a friend who pointed out some of the problems, particularly because it would be a “shared” bathroom situation, as well as the fact that there’s no separate entrance to my daughter’s room. I’m thinking if we just did a short term thing, it might not be too bad…but I don’t know…back burner for that idea, too, I guess.
I laughingly told my husband I could sell a kidney. He thinks I’m kidding…but, honest to god…I WOULD sell it, if it would stop this constant sadness. I wish I was younger, and more attractive…I think I’d have a lot more “options”, if I were.
I’m still listing anything and everything I can put my hands on, on Ebay. But, it’s a lot of work for not-so-much money. Anyone who says the sellers on ebay have an easy job has NEVER sold much on ebay.
I’m still trying to figure out where the “extra” $1500 for the attorney is going to come from. And, then there’s Christmas…it’s ALWAYS been my FAVORITE holiday. Not for the gifts I *received*, but for the gifts I could *give*. For the first time in my entire life, I am dreading Christmas. Just typing that makes me cry.
I have to keep reminding myself how much my daughter loves and needs me. I tell myself that, over and over. If not for her, I *would* give up. I AM “beat”. Honestly, I just don’t see “the point”, beyond my baby girl. I don’t even REMEMBER the time when I didn’t feel this way. But, worse, I don’t have any *hope* that I won’t feel this way for the rest of my life. I think THAT is what makes me saddest.
