I found this quite interesting. The article states that most of us would see the dancer turning counter-clockwise, however I could initially only see her turning clockwise. After a bit of staring I was able to flip the rotation. Check it out and let me know which way she turns for you, and whether you can flip directions!
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What if I told you that you could change the world for the better and make a tidy profit doing it? Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, there is a big groundswell of interest these days in SRI (socially responsible investing). I realize this is counterculture to many progressives concerned about poverty, social justice, and the environment. We are far more comfortable boycotting Walmart and volunteering at soup kitchens then engaging the stock market!
However, the practical reality at the end of the day is that as long as unjust and environmentally unfriendly practices are profitable, they will be very difficult to defeat. We can use the power to withold our dollar from unethical businesses, but we can also award our investment dollars to those companies that are involved in sustainable, eco-friendly, socially ethical business. Indeed, with current trends in organic foods, fair trade, green energy, and the like, there is a great profit potential for investors who support this growing movement.
Now I realize that many activists do not have money in a private stock account. However, I would guess that most of us have money in either an IRA or a 401(k). Depending on your plan you may have the ability to purchase individual stocks or mutual funds that support green or SRI causes. If you are restricted in your investments (as many 401(k)'s are), you may want to consider rolling over your retirement funds to a private IRA account (no penalties incurred), so that you can have greater flexibility in your investments.
There are lots of resources out there to get you started. Here is a list that I have found useful.
http://sustainablebusiness.com/
http://www.calvert.com/
http://www.socialfunds.com/
http://www.domini.com/
http://www.paxworld.com/
http://www.socialinvest.org/
http://www.altenergystocks.com/
These sites offer information on SRI and Green investing, as well as reports on specific stocks and mutual funds of interest. You can order a free guide to SRI investments, I haven't received mine yet but it looks like it will be very useful. If you are someone who finds researching stocks as interesting as watching paint peel, a solid place to start is the Winslow Green Growth Fund (WGGFX).
I am really tired of the illegal immigration political discussions and have felt all along that this is a red herring. I mean, of all the critical issues in the United States and abroad, does illegal immigration even begin to merit the amount of attention and energy that it has drawn over the past few years. Granted, it does appear that illegal immigration puts a drain on state and federal resources, to the tune of 10 billion a year according to one study. I don't feel this shouldn't be a issue, but should it be one of the central issues? I mean, the Iraq war is now estimated to cost 2.4 trillion dollars, which is equivalent to over 200 years of illegal immigration based on today's costs!!!
The hurricane Katrina devastation in Louisiana is estimated to cost anywhere from 200 to 300 billion dollars, equivalent to 20-30 years of illegal immigration costs. Given the fact that much of the devastation from hurricane Katrina was preventable with foresight and better safeguards, doesn't it seem that a much better use of our politicians time is finding ways to prevent future events with similar disastrous results, as well as setting up infrastructure to respond quickly in the event that a natural disaster does happen. I mean, how much money would we save if we could react quickly and decisively to massive flooding or spreading wildfires? I would wager it would easily pass the 10 billion mark on an annual basis.
The problem is that illegal immigration is a flashpoint for conservatives and proves to be a strong rallying issue, as well as a distraction from other pertinent issues (Iraq war, failed recovery efforts in New Orleans, etc). Unfortunately the news media blithely comes along for the ride, breathlessly reporting each new development on the illegal immigration front. It drives me batty, as "solving" the illegal immigration issue (i.e. keeping Latin American's in their own damn country) will not provide substantial benefit to the United States, not to mention the moral failures of a country that becomes exceedingly selfish at hoarding their resources from those who have nothing. When will we learn...
The following article does an excellent job of discussion how the act of flip-flopping is often the result of conscientious and informed politics, not a feeble, spineless politician who is blowing in the wind of social polls. I was really bothered by how John Kerry was smeared in the 2004 campaign, and Bush's dogged commitment to failed ideas was exonerated. James Madison is supposed to have once quipped that the pillars of political process are compromise, compromise, and compromise. This ability to see both sides of an issue and honestly evaluate your position given the present needs of a society seems to lie at the heart of being a spokesperson for the people (politician in the positive sense).
So, lets not let the label "flip-flopper" deter us from casting a vote for the most conscientious and informed politician. Indeed, as the write points out, it is often the rigid and inflexible politicians that are the most dangerous!
At the Green Festival my wife and I attended a lecture by pediatrician and organic advocate Dr. Alan Greene (fortunate last name). The talk was centered around the top ten most important organic foods based on health benefits. Maranda and I both feel that trying to go organic can be a bit overwhelming, with so many choices and a bunch that put a good dent in the pocket book. This list helps to consolidate the most important foods for organic purchase, allowing us to focus on the items that will contribute the most to our health.
There were a couple surprises on his list, check it out:
Dr. Greene's Organic Top Ten
1. Milk - Recently Maranda and I have gone to organic milk, with our original motivation being taste! Organic milk is an entirely different liquid than the standard fare in the supermarket. It tastes far richer, fuller, and doesn't have the slight bitter taste that the commercial milks have. Click on the link for milk at the beginning to read about all the dangers present in standard milk, as well as the significant impact buying green milk can have on farming.
2. Potatoes - This one was very surprising and concerning! We have yet to find a good source for organic potatoes, so we may just grow our own this next year...
3. Peanut Butter - What surprised me about peanut butter was not just the negative elements in the conventional form, but the huge health difference between the two. Check out the link to Dr. Greene's description, it is pretty compelling.
4. Baby Foods - This one is perhaps a no-brainer. The big sticker for us is cost. Conventional baby food is already quite expensive, so it is hard to spend the extra for organic baby foods. This doesn't just include the canned baby foods, but any food that you feed an infant or toddler. Based on the importance of this developmental age, we will be making the switch to organic foods as often as we can find/afford them.
5. Ketchup - Okay, this one really surprised me. Only recently I tasted organic ketchup for the first time, and while surprised by the better flavor, I had no idea that the health benefits could be so significant. Check Dr. Greene's report out.
6. Cotton - More accurately this should be cotton seed oil. This is a difficult one to avoid, as it is not purchased outright but is a component in many conventional foods. The tremendous level of pesticides used on cotton is alarming, definitely one to avoid whenever possible.
7. Apples - Okay, I am happy to say that I was already aware of health concerns regarding apples. Unfortunately, I can't say I do a good job of buying organic apples. With a little research I hope to track down a good source of organic apples (and other fruits), in our area.
8. Beef - While no surprise, this one is particularly tough to accommodate, as organic beef is quite scarce (as Dr. Greene acknowledges). Unless you avoid beef altogether, it may be quite difficult to avoid conventional beef in the near term, although I am sure this will quickly change as more people become aware of the huge health benefits of natural, organic beef!
9. Soy - Similar to cotton seed oil, soy bean oil and meal is found in a huge array of foods and is difficult to avoid. Whole soy beans are healthy, but are rare to find in foods. Buy organic foods is the best way to avoid conventional soy beans in your diet.
10. Wine - A real shocker, as I have never even encountered organic wine to my knowledge? The exciting thing about wine is that buying organic not only avoids pesticides, but also increases your intake of resveratrol, an ingredient that has been shown to slow down the effects of aging.
The great thing about the top ten is that by just focusing on this list, you can make a huge improvement in your families diet, as well as make a significant environmental impact through your purchasing dollar, it's a win-win!
A friend of mine wrote an excellent post on the ways that we view the world around us, particularly in the ways we tend to create artificial constructs and then force all of our experiences to conform to those constructs. Kind-of like a neo-conservative interpreting every act of violence in the U.S. as a result of the video game and movie industry, or a progressive attributing all world conflict as a result of capitalism. The most interesting thing to me is if we really do get stuck in paradigms of our own creation, how do we learn to live/overcome this limitation? My friend ends the post with a suggested way forward, an openness to our peers and neighbors to hear their perspectives, their insights into where we fall short. Perhaps this is both a personal and a societal goal?
Patterns and Stories - Mike Croghan
Post Reprinted by Permission - Original Post is Here
"I used to be a dues-paying member of the Skeptics' Society, which (IMHO) is made up of a lot of people who have really good and smart and helpful things to say, but who perhaps spend an inordinate amount of time being cynical and bitter. This sounds familiar - I think I know another group like this. Oh yeah - emerging Christians.
Anyway, when I was officially a skeptic, I bought and read an excellent book by the society's director, Michael Shermer. It's called How We Believe, and it explores the physiological, psychological, and sociological mechanisms behind religious belief and belief in other things that haven't been independently verified by the scientific method. One of the main things I remember from the book is that Shermer characterized human beings as "pattern-seeking animals". As we observe and interact with the world around us, we talking monkeys have a very deep need to make sense of the world in which we live. When we observe events or behaviors, we unconsciously and naturally try to discern order in those events - we seek to form a mental structure or pattern within which those observations fit. Once we've formed such a mental pattern, we naturally seek to fit future, similar observations into that framework. The pattern has become part of our apparatus for understanding and making sense of the world, and so we naturally seek to reinforce that pattern. It becomes easier for us to fit observations into our existing patterns than to modify our patterns to fit new observations, so we tend to err on the side of the former behavior.
In other words, scientific empiricism isn't really our natural mode. We like to think that as we observe the world and the behavior of our fellow humans, every new data point we take in contributes to our ever-changing understanding of the ways the world works and the story of our lives thus far. But very often this is far from the case, especially if we've developed a well-established mental pattern for understanding a particular situation, or a particular person. Very often, the question we unconsciously ask when someone we know acts in a particular way is not, "What does this behavior mean for my understanding of this person", but "How can I interpret this behavior in such a way that it harmonizes with my existing understanding of this person?" All too often, we more or less cease getting to know someone (or something) once a coherent pattern of understand for that person (or thing) has formed in our minds. This is, no doubt, a survival adaptation. It's great to keep an open mind about Groog, but eventually you really need to decide whether it's more likely that Groog has got your back, or that instead he's going to stab you in it with his flint knife - and act accordingly.
Here's the thing, though - sometimes we can really get way too attached to our patterns. You're familiar with the expression "story of my life." As in, "You drowned your cell phone AGAIN?" "Yep, story of my life." Well, sometimes the patterns we form really can become the story of our lives. Sometimes they can get so big and well-entrenched in our minds that they become the lens through which we interpret everything that happens to us. They can become the leitmotif that underlies every single chapter in the ongoing story of our lives (as told by ourselves, to ourselves).
I think this is probably inevitable. It certainly happens with our religious beliefs - or the equivalent. Whether we're Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, skeptics, Marxists or atheists, if we're serious about those thought-patterns, they'll color every interaction we have. This is the nature of such beliefs, and the nature of us humans. Same thing with other deeply-held beliefs: conservative? progressive? family values champion? green? feminist? pacifist? free-market capitalist? social justice activist? If you're committed enough to a pattern of beliefs for it to make a practical difference in your life, then you're committed enough to it to let it shape the story you tell about your life - and therefore to let it handicap your capacity for empirical observation. To let it close your mind, at least a little.
So I feel like I just used a crapload of words to state the obvious, and as my lovely wife reminded me just today, I have a real problem with GETTING TO THE DAMN POINT. Do I have a point? Yes, yes I do.
My point is this: we all have these patterns, and the best we can do, I think, is to be aware of them. Take a critical look at each of them, and ask, "Is this pattern generally contributing to the health and happiness of myself and those around me, or not? Is it just making me, and those I share my life with, miserable? Is it contributing to my ability to be a gift to other people, or is it only contributing to its own reinforcement?" Even if we judge a pattern generally worthy, we would do well to remain skeptical of it, as much as we can. George Box said, "All models are wrong; some models are useful," and as much as we love and need our patterns, I think the same goes for them, too. Even the useful ones are wrong. If we completely lose sight of that, then we're the proud creator of a newly minted graven image.
Turning it around, we may ask ourselves, "If I am unhappy, and I think it's because of an external pattern in my life - could it instead be an internal pattern? Is it possible that I've developed a relentless habit of fitting the events of my life into a mental framework that is not generative of the things that make life worth living?"
I know folks who seem to have got themselves in that kind of trap. I'm sure I do it too. And though I think there's probably no silver bullet for this kind of thing, I think the best hope we have is in friends who are loving and brave enough to help us question our patterns, even when we really, really don't want to. Because even if I spend a ton of time in self-reflection, I might never really question my patterns - even my destructive ones. They're the hills and valleys of my mental landscape. They're just there. They hide in plain sight.
So if you're my friend, and you've actually slogged through all of those words I just spewed into your poor, unsuspecting feed reader (I mean, you'd have to be my friend to have done that, right?) - then please, please, please, I beg you - help me to see and be critical of my patterns. I don't want to be stuck seeing the world - and the people in it - in calcified, distorted ways. Your caring honesty is my only real hope to avoid that fate. So, both in retrospect and in advance, I thank you for that honesty."
Last weekend my wife and I had the priviledge to attend the Green Festival in Washington, D.C. It was our first visit to the Green Festival and we greatly enjoyed the experience. Co-sponsored by Global Exchange and CO-OP America, the Green Festival uniquely focuses on both environmental and social justice issues. It is refreshing to see these two critical concerns dealt with concurrently, as they are deeply related in so many ways. One has to only read of coal miners in South Africa or Cocoa harvesters in South America to understand how sustainable living and social justice interrelate. As we find ways to live in harmony with nature, we in turn find ways to live in harmony with each other. Competition and scarcity drive a wedge between human beings, only as we overcome this reality can we find true harmony with each other.
It was a pleasure to hear a number of notable speakers at this event. Bill McKibben, one of the first to warn us of global warming, and author of many books including The End of Nature, spoke about the green movement and its transition from its early days (labeled Greenhouse Effect) to its current state. He particularly focused on the importance of grass roots movements supported at the local level, as we join together in the most important movement "since Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Lincoln memorial." Indeed, I can only wonder how future generations will look back at our out-of-control consumption and consumerism and shake their heads in wonder that so many of us blithely participated in such a broken system.
Jim Hightower gave a rollicking speach about the importance of agitation and confronting the establishment. In his words, "the next time someone calls you an agitator, tell them that is what the center post in a washing machine is called, it gets the dirt out!" Injecting Texan colloquialisms with free abandon, Jim painted a grave picture facing "progressives" who fear for the future of the U.S. Holding our elected representatives accountable and forcing them to consider more than just their re-elction bids was the center of Jim's talk.
Hearing Ralph Nader was a real treat. Perhaps more than any other person in the United States, Ralph Nader has fashioned a career around championing the little guy, while deriding corporations as faceless, dehumanizing entities that have no regard for people. Nader was the driving factor behind the creation of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration), the Freedom of Information Act, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Ralph's tone was somber, less energized than prior speakers. He represented a man who has spent forty years fighting for the little guy, only to find ourselves fighting many of the same issues today. While there was still a fire in his words, especially when directed toward corporations, one could tell that the years of fighting big money and powerful interests have taken a toil, and his face and voice betray a cycnicism as he looks at the future of the United States. One can only hope that his legacy will find new champions, and that the sinister forces of greed and power will further succumb to such humanitarian voices.
Aside from the speakers, the main floor of the Washington Conference Center was covered by well over a hundred booths, giving away organic food samples, bumper stickers, and literature. The festival had brought in the premier representatives of the green and social justice movement in America, all carefully vetted to make sure they adhere to strict standards. It was an awesome opportunity to make connections, sign up for mailing lists, and just learn what creative things people are doing out there. One of my favorites was a small start-up company that was making glasses out of used wine bottles, cutting them in half and creating drinking glass out of the bottom portion, and a cocktail glass out of the neck and top. Really useable stuff and a fantastic idea, look for a future post on where to find this glassware on this site.
The Green Festival is now in four cities, I encourage you to check it out. If you can't make the festival due to distance or scheduling, the website is a wealth of information, especially in the exhibitors section where you can find a wide array of green companies across the U.S.
Joni Mitchell's new song says it all...
Strong and Wrong
by Joni Mitchell
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Strong and wrong you win--
Only because
That's the way its always been.
Men love war!
That's what history' s for.
History...
A mass--murder mystery...
His story
Strong and wrong
You lose everything
Without the heart
You need
To hear a robin sing
Where have all the songbirds gone?
Gone!
All I hear are crows in flight
Singing might is right
Might is right!
Oh the dawn of man comes slow
Thousands of years
And here we are...
Still worshiping
Our own ego
Strong and wrong
What is God's will?
Onward Christian soldiers...
Or thou shall not kill...
Men love war!
Is that what God is for?
Just a Rabbit's foot?
Just a lucky paw
For shock and awe?
Shock and awe!
The dawn of man comes slow
Thousands of years
Here we are
Still worshiping
Our own ego
Strong and Wrong!
Strong and Wrong!
