Beyond Words

Old Farts

2012-01-28T22:54:00.000-08:00

One either dedicates themself to lifelong learning or allows themself to become an old fart that dissipates into the air becoming irrelevant. The only exceptions are Senators and CEOs who maintain enough power to be able to enforce their errant outdated views. This class of old white fart is currently driving us over the edge in the effort to maintain their office. The only question is will it be different this time? Will there be profound consequences to growth as the cure to all ills, ignoring pollution and consuming non-renewable resources at ever faster rates? I feel a bit like Willy E. Coyote in the Road Runner Cartoons looking down at my feet and discovering no terra firma and seemingly being one of only a few to notice, while my fellow countrymen argue over which old political ideology is going to grow us out of the current financial wreck.

Institutions that Create Coincides of Interests

2012-01-25T22:52:00.000-08:00

Power is a failed human phenomenon. Those in power are rarely if ever pursuing the interest of the larger group. If the interests of the leaders and group do not coincidently coincide, the group’s interests will always be ignored. Institutions must be created to foster coincidence of interests across society. Without mutual interests those with the guns will starve those without.

Party on Dudes!

2012-01-21T22:51:00.000-08:00

In 1980 we made a choice in direction and philosophy that our country would follow for the next generation. We might not have realized at the time how significant the choice was but it is clear now. We had the option of re-electing a President who was warning us about a looming crisis in natural resources and limiting our life style or a happy-go-lucky Californian B actor who only saw a bright future for an exceptional Nation. The option was stark, cut back or spend our way to prosperity. Can’t fault us for following the optimist!

Now we are told that our life-style IS American, in our very blood. Anyone threatening to impinge on our life style is an enemy. That is an interesting outlook as it ultimately puts anyone and everyone who competes with us for natural resources in our sights. Today it is oil, the Middle East and Muslims. A newly discovered oil super field find creates a new hot spot, new conflicts and new enemies if they do not agree to our terms.

Oil as the center of the developed economy is likely to transition to a new fuel as it once did from coal. We cling to oil because we are the leader of the oil based economy. Other nations are seeking to change the game by investing in renewable energy. We seem to be the only nation on the planet that can’t see the decline of oil. It is not renewable and will one day decline in output. It is highly polluting when burned. The extraction, transportation and refining processes are environmentally damaging.

This is where being the leader is a disadvantage. We want to leverage our capital investment in the fossil fuel infrastructure we built. Change is not to our competitive advantage. If we continue to attempt to maintain the status quo, we’ll succeed in extending the oil economy but at the cost of a collapse when the world finally does transition to the next energy source. We’ll be in the unfamiliar and unenviable position of playing catch up. We need to pull the tentacles of vested interest out of our government so we can make the best competitive national decisions for our long term success, stability and longevity. Oil is not in the best interests of individual American’s, only the oilman gains by delay.

Living a Low Income, Low Impact Life

2012-01-18T22:48:00.000-08:00

Today I live on 10 dollars a day on Camiguin Island in the Philippines versus 350 dollars a day in Long Beach California. How has my life changed? Stress, I never realized the level of continuous underlying stress in my life until the last few years living in developing countries without all the stuff around my neck. When I gave up the house, the cars and boat, I became aware of how much worry goes into maintaining all that great stuff, all the worrying about maintenance, damage, theft and monthly payments. The stuff requires a full time job without interruption!

Futures

2012-01-14T22:46:00.000-08:00

Nature is fractal. Most things can be broken down into smaller parts that are similar to their larger origins. Small steps are always easier than larger steps. Things change, processes change, patterns change, systems change. Sometimes nature includes large jumps. They are infrequent but hugely impactful. Think asteroids. We cannot predict when they will happen. We can only know that they will happen. Don’t ignore the big one for lack of a finite prediction.

Life isn’t anything like what anyone says it is. Keep doubting the experts. They are being paid to guess at the future and will continue to do so for as long as people keep paying them. Great work if you can find it. People have always been willing to pay for lousy predictions. See the tarot card readers on Venice Beach and the financial advisors in the high rises behind them on Sunset Blvd? Everybody has got to eat, just don’t give them your dinner.

International Relations

2012-01-11T22:45:00.000-08:00

While I have no doubt that the US is playing the game as it has always been played, just as rough, cruel, violent, self-serving and duplicitous while unabashedly lying to its citizens, we must stop. The spot light is on the US as the world leader. We will take the blame for the failing world economy and unstable geopolitics that we have had our dirty hands in whether it is fair or not. When the post WWII US lead party ends every nation state with a grudge is going to happily point the figure at us. Somebody has to take the fall and our ability to manage and manipulate world opinion is waning while the up and coming nation states are rapidly growing. The change power will turn on momentum and preserved future. Just like any politician that has been in office too long, people simply get tired of the same old face and the same old rhetoric. It would be wise to start cleaning up our act before we get tarred with the worst of our actions as the international power base shifts away from a US centric world.

Sailing Free

2012-01-07T22:44:00.000-08:00

The day I learned to sail the ocean without the boat taking up space in my mind I was finally free upon the sea to experience all of life, a beginning and an end the only sure thing. All that happens in between is up to me, chance and luck. We've having wonder relationship, I owe them my life.

The Human Stack

2012-01-03T00:52:00.000-08:00

The Rose

2012-01-01T16:35:00.000-08:00

We Don’t Need More of the Same

2011-12-31T19:15:00.000-08:00

Get clear of your parents. The more space the better. Become your own person and see your parents for what they are, good and bad. We all make the best decisions based on the situation we find ourselves and our own abilities. We can take some control over our situation and abilities so our choices can be better, more effective and balanced. This requires education, foresight and effort.

Staying close to our parents turns us into our parents and repeats the cycle. This doesn’t mean turning our back on family, it means living our own life and responding to the circumstance we can clearly see without the biased eyes of our parent’s outlook. Facing our own challenges and fears, learning how to overcome them to create our own unique foundation of strength, confidence and outlook to prosper in life and contribute to the wellbeing of all humans.

We Cannot Continue to Defend Our Lifestyle

2011-12-28T19:12:00.000-08:00

Our way of life is going to kill us and destroy the planet’s ability to support human life. We need to retire those that have spent their life protecting our way of life. We need to change now. We need new leaders who understand and lead us through the required changes so we will survive.

It is not enough not start a family as a means of finding meaning and fulfillment in life. We cannot continue to raise children and a next generation that continues to plunder the planet in an ever increasing effort at wealth accumulation and consumption. The human population has doubled in my lifetime from three and half billion to seven billion people. There is no magic to raising children; any idiot can do it. The question to ask now is what values did you successfully instill in your off spring that will benefit the world? Did you create a mirror imagine of yourself as a capitalist plundering machine devouring the planet’s resources and dumping our waste killing eco system? Or did you instill a sense of meaning and fulfillment through acts of goodness and mutual benefit. Did you teach them that winning is the name of the game or that collaboration wins the long haul?

Don’t fool yourself, look at your kids, are they surrounded by material possessions and working to acquire more or are they working with people to improve the lives of others. This is no time to pretend and deny reality. The ship is sinking, we can get to work filling the holes or sink. We don’t know if we will be successful, we have no manifest destiny that is just another human creation to make us feel more secure about the uncertain future. It was useful and helpful at one time but now leads us to denial and complacency.

Fulfilling Psychological Needs with Material Goods

2011-12-24T19:11:00.000-08:00

Are you trying to fulfill psychological need with material consumption? You can’t create a meaningful life, passion for your work, love, companionship, self-worth and security from the material world. These are phenomenon of the mind and can only be fulfilled through actions that lead to social outcomes. A new car or clothing won’t get you there. Cleaning up a polluted stream might.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-20T01:05:00.000-08:00

Why Don’t We Have Some Answers?

2011-12-17T19:08:00.000-08:00

We have a significant period of modern history, especially the period since the end of WWII, which should provide us solid trial and error or success on policies and programs run by government in any number of areas. Yet we seem to know no more than we did before the initial program. There seems to be a real effort to undermine learning and knowledge acquisition by opposition to programs. Individuals and interest groups never admit failure, error in ideology or give up a vested interest that’s contrary to the larger public good. A hundred years later and we are still re-inventing the wheel every day with every program. We cannot progress if every ideology and vested interest is going to maintain their own set of facts.

Why I Volunteer Abroad

2011-12-14T17:52:00.000-08:00

Living abroad has been the most broadening experience of my life. The culture and society we grow up in defines the world as we know it. Living in other countries is an opportunity to differentiate between what is part of human experience and what part of social human interaction. Each new country I live in unravels another aspect of my life that I believed to be a basic component of life to discover it is nothing more than an American social or cultural norm.

Growing up in the United States means being a part of a consumer driven materialist society. Most of the interactions between individuals are of a level far above the basic human concerns of daily survival. Focusing on the less consequential matters of material comforts verses the essential needs of life creates a void. Life has less purpose when one’s daily concerns are of a primarily material nature. While this does not reduce the stresses of life, it does leave one living a relatively superficial existence. The experience of a loved one passing highlights the aspects of the superficial life. When one is faced with the loss of a loved one, the superficial aspects of life drop away, only the essential components of human existence remains. A central part of one’s life is suddenly lost and with it, for a time, the concerns of the material world.

I felt a separation between how I was living and what was meaningful and had purpose in life. Working and living in developing countries side by side with people focused on the essentials of life has taught and shown me that what is important in life is the experiences, not the things. Life is lived in the mind. Beyond basic sustenance, the material world does little to expand the human experience. The last peso that bought food is far more valuable than the next peso that affords a bottle of rum. Ensuring that all humans reach the maximum income utility in the most ecologically sustainable and psychologically fulfilling manner has become my focus.

In the process of volunteering in two countries I have realized that the most basic contribution one human can provide another. While engaged in all manner of projects to support development with unknown outcome, one fears that failure means waste and loss. After working a project for months or years, project failure or outcome failure seems a complete loss of effort and resources. But this is the nature of life. It is the journey not the outcome that is living. When faced with failure and the feeling of wasted effort I came to understand that how I behaved and carried on was my greatest contribution. Sometimes all we can succeed at doing is being a positive role model, whether we stimulate a young person to think to themselves “I want to be like him someday” or encouraging a colleague to keeping trying to succeed. Giving up is the end, failure is part of the process.

We can all set an example of perseverance, positive outlook and ethical character. We may never point to an object to say I built that but leaving behind a wake of people who persevere to achieve their life goals is the greatest contribution one can make. I am most impressed by the number of people I work alongside in foreign lands who tell stories of the volunteers and missionaries who came before. They tell of the impact these people had on their lives and I can see how they are different from the exchange. I am lucky to have the opportunity to volunteer in other countries but I am not the one giving, it is the people who accept me into their lives and share their experiences who vastly broaden my life. It drives me to focus on how I can act in such a way as to support the development of the next generation to fulfill their dreams.

Experiencing Truth

2011-12-10T19:00:00.000-08:00

After climbing through the smog and into the clouds to finally peak your head above into the crystal clear blue sky and brilliant white and grey granite mountain tops is a moment of realization that can never be undone. The desire and drive to push through the resistance of society and culture when you find it so riddled and rotten with false belief and untruth is a task few take interest in and even fewer actually attempt. But once you have seen that there is a truth, a vindication arises and the past falls away. It is not that you cannot live the old way but rather that you can never forget the brilliance of truth. It is cold, arduous and lonely but that is the real nature of life. It is a miracle but not the dream we have attempted to portray it as in our lessons and religions. The way is tough, dangerous and no assurance of success. When it ends, it’s over and it may not be a story book ending. We can hide from the facts but we cannot escape them.

We Only Have Our Health

2011-12-07T18:58:00.000-08:00

There is little pleasure without health. We cannot enjoy our world without health. Failing to focus first on health and well-being allows the ravages of stress, poor diet and limited exercise to grind our bodies up. The modern world has removed us from the daily effort to survive that demands a daily focu on providing food every day. Modern economics has provided specialization so we don’t need to produce each item of sustenance but with it the focus on quality has dropped. The focus on nutrition to taste been changed. Focusing on quantity rather the quality we consume empty calories, damaging calories unhealthy calories. Food and other substances becomes an antidote for stressful lives.

The series of books on statistics and probabilities is argues that the world in not the causal arrangement we suspect. How we take care of ourselves is to a large extent one of the few causal relationships yet we believe we can be saved, we can avoid the consequence through profound excuses but the quality of the excuse doesn’t mitigate the consequences. Once our health and well-being is lost, so is our quality of life and we are left in a depressed scramble of existence, a long and dark road with only a few bright spots to encourage us on.

We keep hoping for stability and security yet life offers none of this. Life is an adventure to be conquered each day. With the spirit of good health, a sense of well-being and a feeling of being at ease enable us to respond to life and the world. We can do no more. The bonds we create with others strengthens us and increases our likelihood of of survival and fulfillment. But we must start on the strong foundation of health with the valid vision of what is important in life and what is important to living. What will make this effort worthwhile? You must know the answer to put in the effort each day. Life without meaning or the hope of finding it is truly hopeless, empty and desolate.

Can an American Really Live on 5 Bucks a Day?

2011-12-06T17:05:00.000-08:00

New budget! Just so you all don’t think I'm living it up while you are suffering through the super recession, better known as a depression, but if you don’t say the word it isn’t so!! I am attempting to live on the volunteer stipend I’m being given from the college where I teach. I cut back from my lavish hundred dollars a month house to a private dorm/lodging house across the street from campus. This addresses two expenses, housing and the need for a motorbike. I save $3,000 PHP on the rent and $5,100 PHP on the bike rent and gas, a total $200 USD a month savings. The school is paying me $6,000 PHP a month, $150 USD. Divide by the 30 days of the month and you have five bucks a day. Now my expenses are $25 USD a month rent and $145USD for food and $15 USD for electricity. So I'm under five bucks a day. This is not sustainable living as it does not include medical, clothing and a few other little items. We’ll see how close I actually come to living within this budget and how much I subsidize for treats. The big hole in the budget is the fresh baked bread, fresh coconut water and ice cream. These little luxuries add up! The gaping hole in the budget is the e books from Amazon.com!! I don’t know why authors think they should get ten bucks a book!! In the age of digital and high volume at no incremental cost, low price drives massive sales. See Apple App store to understand the new paradigm on how to get rich selling digital for two bucks a pop and making a mint! You can sell one copy for a million or a million copies for a dollar.

Milestones vs. Goals

2011-12-03T18:57:00.000-08:00

You can’t rush milestones; they are achieved over time, not directly worked towards. It is a milestone to turn 50 with the wisdom of a life lived open to new experience. You can have a goal to live many places and learn nothing of culture or yourself. You can also go to court to legally change your age but don’t expect to reach the milestone. It is a challenge in America not to attempt to achieve everything by setting goals and grinding through tasks but some things cannot be had through controlled process, something’s must be serendipitously lived.

Gaps

2011-11-30T18:56:00.000-08:00

Having a gap between life’s interactions and our responses is an opportunity to choose a different response from the ones we have used in the past. Seeing our actions and behaviors in a new cultural demonstrates what is effective and what is defensively protectively counterproductive. It is not the place; it’s the environment that may allow you to feel a gap and space to react in a new way.

Crash Lessons, Anything Learned?

2011-11-28T16:55:00.000-08:00

We don’t need to pay executive a kings ransoms, they can’t avoid a crash any better than a moderately paid manager, so why the exorbitant salary? The current system is biased towards those who created it to amass wealth for themselves and protect their vested interests, their wealth. The current financial system is inherently unstable and unfair to most of the rest of the world’s people. We have been miss lead to believe that this is the best we can do and any changes will only make life worse for us. We are trapped by this false information and afraid to demand systemic changes to protect ourselves from the financial system and foster greater income equity. Listen to the bankers and politicians, they are all saying basically the same thing, with a few tweaks we’ll put this train wreck back on the tracks and life will return to normal. Who’s normal and who wants it?

Carefree or Careless Life

2011-11-26T18:55:00.000-08:00

That is us, sufficiently wealthy not to have to worry about our daily survival. We have all the water, food and shelter we require for the foreseeable future. This carefree careless state has led us to treat the world with the same attitude. The rest of the world does not have sufficient food, water and shelter. 40% of the world population lives on less than two dollars a day. As the leaders and wealth holders we owe the world a sound and wise stewardship of our only home in this vast hostile universe but here we are failing. We have treated the planet as ours to plunder and plunder we have done. Happy Thanksgiving.

What we Know we Know but are Wrong

2011-11-23T18:54:00.000-08:00

I can believe something, thus implying that it is not a known fact. I can believe something is a fact, thus implying that believing something to be a fact does not make it a fact. But can I really know something to be a fact? History suggests not, I tend to agree. The circular logic is indicative of the nature of our universe. Can you believe you don’t know something but in fact you do know it?

Tax Me More, Yeah Right

2011-11-21T17:00:00.000-08:00

This is the childhood game of I’ll it do if you do it. How about these rich folks setting an example by simply paying additional taxes every year then publishing their contribution? Let’s stop the grand standing and start acting. That is the problem in Washington: lots of talk, little doing. Send the check then tell us what a great thing you have done. Don’t publicly proclaim your willingness to help then let lobbyist make sure it never happens. We know this scam, get credit for something you have no intention what so ever of doing. Thanks for the help, but really, you’re just wasting our time and contributing to the problem of inaction.

Some Want to Know

2011-11-19T02:07:00.000-08:00

One of the elementary characteristics of humans is our interest in seeking and knowing truth. Some seem to seek it as if it is the Holy Grail. Others would rather leave well enough alone and subscribe to the widely held beliefs of our time. It is a moral question. As few would refuse to act if they unequivocally knew of the wrongful hanging of an innocent man, one who chooses ignorance allows many an innocent to perish by society’s current flawed beliefs. These are the lambs led to slaughter, the followers of false prophets, lead by those who use others to increase their wealth and power, proclaiming vested interests as moral truths.

Meaningful Life

2011-11-16T18:50:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it is the simple act of being an positive example. One cannot be assured that one’s efforts will ever come into being. The complexity of the mission only increases the likelihood of failure. It is how we carry ourselves through these efforts and overcome not just the failure but our own disappointment that may be our greatest contribution.

Germans Balk

2011-11-12T18:46:00.000-08:00

Germans led the cause for the formation of the European Union, have benefited the most from it and once felt remorse for the ravages of the great world war they started and the humanitarian atrocities they committed. The economic crisis has given Germany an opportunity to repay its transgressions and demonstrate the power and value of an economic union. It is a moment when Germans can demonstrate their remorse and accountability for the suffering they imposed on their neighbors. The Germans are only sacrificing money, far less then they destroyed with guns, bombs and occupations that led to the leveling of a continent. But it seems the Germans will turn their backs on their neighbors and grab tight their wallet, a selfish people self-serving their own interests.

How is Corporate America Serving Us?

2011-11-10T18:52:00.001-08:00

Tobacco companies manipulate the nicotine in cigarettes to make a poisonous product more addictive, advertise to teenagers the most easily addicted and obfuscate research on the dangers of smoking.

Processed Food manufactures manipulate the salt, sugar and fats in their products to cause us to grave more of their limited nutritional value and unhealthy products.

Financial service companies are the counter parties to individual sellers and buyers of securities for which on average individuals lose money. They make large high risk investments that put the entire industry, country and world economic system at risk and count on repeated government bail outs.

Oil companies extract a dirty resource in a manner that creates ecological damage for which they do not pay to clean up. They manipulate governments to allow dirty extraction processes, destabilize developing countries, lobby for subsidies in a very profitable industry, interfere with alternative fuel legislation and fund junk science to mislead citizens about the risks of fossil fuel pollution.

Big Pharma uses government paid University research to create new drugs, often in sectors with existing successful but off patent drugs, which will be protected by new patent to maintain monopoly profits but offers no new benefit to patients.

Insurance companies cut off high risk customers, don’t maintain sufficient reserves for hundred year events and rely on the government payer of last resort after major natural disasters.

The Military Industrial Complex is a Keynesian government spending stimulus program that represents a large percentage of the country’s total production that creates no value for individuals and has left us with weapons production based economy. We are the world’s largest exporter of military weapons. We spend as much on the military as the rest of the world combined, ten times more than the second largest national defense budget, China. The US maintains over 800 military bases in other countries creating terrible friction between locals and American soldiers fostering distrust and dislike for America.

Sports shoe industry uses slave labor in developing countries to make running shoes that injure runners in developing countries. They have known this since the inception of the running shoe industry over 30 years ago.

Our government is now run and controlled with the backing of these Corporate Citizens. Do you have any questions why we are in a depression, yet deny it’s a depression? Why our government can’t seem to find solutions to help individual citizens suffering from the consequences of the depression? Keeps coming up with new bail-outs for the financial industry, refuses to cut spending on military equipment expenditures while cutting social programs for the poorest individuals and supports “drill baby, drill” in the face of scientific consensus that human activity is changing the climate?

It is time to pull our heads from the sand and smell the smog, denial won’t work forever.

How do you feel about the Country you are leaving your Children?

2011-10-11T20:12:00.000-07:00

I don’t ask to make anyone feel bad, I ask in hopes that we all will start to take responsibility and step up to help right this crisis. Regardless of how responsible you feel for the financial crisis, multiple wars and the national indebtedness, it will not mitigate the consequences for our children. The crisis is here; it will impact the future standard of living for a generation or more and is jeopardizing American’s standing in the World. The only question is whether we’ll allow the Politicians and the Bankers to manipulate the mess to their advantage or if we will accept our obligation as citizens of a representative democratic government to take responsibility for our government's actions which have lead to these financial, economic and military failures. We need to return the Federal Government to serving the nation and citizens rather than the elite and corporations. Get started or goodnight.

Killing our Future Stars

2011-09-24T21:25:00.000-07:00

We send our rising starts to war. The boys and girls who have made a commitment to improve their lot in life are the very few who go to war. They seek a way to better themselves. They choose to make the extra effort to climb out of the ghetto, slum or rural migrant drifter life. They have been denied all of their lives. They dream and follow their dream. We take them. We take advantage of them. We cannot bare the burden, nor the sight of war. So we send our next generation of stars, the ones with the greatest courage and deepest conviction to better themselves by climbing from immigrant or poverty to American success story. The latest generation of immigrants destined to make America great, we throw their life away and ours with it. We cannot be pulled from our TV’s and malls to consider the bombs falling around the world in our name. We never consider the hundred to one causality rate, the children who are killed or worse, much worse. The minds that are lost to the shear depravity of war fighting and the false reasons we send them to war. They know, they know when they have served their time why they were sent. They know they were used yet again. Can they ever pay their dues to make it in America? Can they climb out of this next man made canyon of human suffer? Will we have a next generation of stars to live the American Dream?

A Separate Peace (Corps)-A Year Later

2011-07-21T22:10:00.000-07:00

A year later and I’m still volunteering, now under my own initiative and management. It is an inexpensive and fulfilling way to live one’s life. I rather like the adventure and endless experiences with new people and challenges of different cultures. Without the US Gov bureaucracy and regulations of the Peace Corps, life is much more pleasant. Two big wins are the use of a motorized vehicle, I have rented a small motorcycle and I can offer my service for compensation. I am currently volunteering as an IT instructor at the local state college. I learned in Guyana, volunteering can be a very long job interview. On the surface that may sound awful but as I have experienced repeatedly in US style wham bam thank you mama hiring cycles, candidates are not the only ones exaggerating the opportunity!! A leisurely six month get to know, avoids most of the pitfalls of going in blind.

I have landed on a tiny island off the north coast of southern most Philippine’s Island of Mindanao, Camiguin Island. It is what Hawaii was before the US imposed statehood and the tourism industry started terra forming with steel and concrete. The island is primarily populated by local Filipinos with a small indigenous population. The island was formed like much of the Philippines by volcanism. There are 7 or so volcano on the island of only 50 mile circumference, plus one sunken crater just off my community of Yumbing. The sunken crater is the anchor for a long coral reef. There is a strong current that sweeps the length of the reef and deposits sand into the crater forming a white sand island in the middle of the Bohol Sea. As you might guess, it is a shifting island depending on wind direction and strength. The current maintains an amazingly prolific reef and a perfect drift dive down its length.

Tourism is modest, mostly consisting of Filipinos and a few Asian visitors. Locals have created many cabin type resorts on family lands. There are only two real resorts on the island, both quite small. The Expat population on the island is very small from a very diverse national background, Europeans seeming to be the most numerous. Most have searched high and low to find the lifestyle, climate and environment that Camiguin Is. offers. It is safe to say, you can’t get here from there. It requires several planes, taxis, a bus, ferry and finally either a traditional jeepney or motorcycle turned tricycle taxi to reach your lodging on the Island. Many Expats meet their guests in Manila and guide them to Camiguin but where is the adventure in that, you will miss feeling like you fell off the end of the world and discovered paradise, assuming you do make it!

The island is a bit of a throw back as the local population is still small enough to be supported by basic agriculture and free range livestock. You can pay someone to collect your fruit and buy it at the market or pick it yourself on hikes in the mountains and along the streets with the children. Roast pig and true free range chicken are staple proteins with of course the all-important Asian staple of rice, also grown locally. We are in yellow fin tuna season now but of course there are plenty of fish year round. There is a wonderful fish dish I have learned to make called kinilaw. It is fish cooked by the acids in vinegar and lime with hot peepers, cucumbers and a bit of coconut milk. Its Caribbean cousin is ceviche. Camiguin is a good example of how small groups of people can live on a relatively isolated island self-sufficiently. If the rest of the world falls off the map, Camiguin would go on uninterrupted, just without electricity and Internet, at least until one or two of the spectacular water falls is convert to power production and the trade winds whistle across the mountain ridges is harnessed.

To give you some idea of the general cost of living on Camiguin and the Philippines in general, below are my basic monthly expense. These are in line with my Peace Crops expense in Guyana which was my target. I’m living in a typical Filipino community along the coast. I would describe it as middle class, single family houses with multi generations. The neighborhood has paved roads with water, power and telephone utilities. I am the only foreigner in the community, most Expats choose to build and live off on their own away from locals. Housing conditions plunge as you venture off the state road ringing the island. On my long hikes though the mountains I encounter all manner of living conditions from large high end walled estates to mud floor, palm and bamboo huts with no utilities.

Monthly costs USD: rent $100, utilities $10, food $150, motorcycle $115, fuel $25 and Internet $0.

There are NO franchises, stop lights or malls. The Island gets its electricity via a hundred mile undersea cable, a fairly new addition. The local airstrip has just again initiated small craft charter flights. There have been efforts before to maintain air service but they tend to collapse after tourist season.

Camiguin is in a region of abundant and at risk corals referred to as reef triangle in the Asian Pacific region. If you stand still long enough in the crystal clear water you may find a little spore of coral growing between your toes. Fortunately the population is small enough that polluted or silted runoff is not yet a significant threat. There is no commercial agriculture on the island using fertilizer that would raise the nutrient levels in the water causing algae. There is one underwater cemetery! Apparently during the last eruption of the volcano I live in the shadow of, Hibok Hibok, during the last period of activity from ‘49 to ‘51 , a lava chamber emptied and the cemetery built on top of it sunk below the sea. Does that constitute a burial as sea now?

Some of you may recall I was heading the One Laptop Per Family project in Guyana after my Peace Corps service. I learned a lot about South American banana republic governments. Being the project manager on a high visibility social program that was intended to be a presidential re-election gimmick has some risks associated with it. At the first sign of storm clouds I bolted. In some jobs, just getting out with your life is victory enough.

Dear Mrs. McCarthy:

2011-07-19T20:17:00.000-07:00

I understand you to be a bit of a history buff and given your proximity to your husband’s career, you are eminently qualified to appreciate the latest communist scare tactics lead by the Fox Screaming Heads (FiSHy) acting troupe. (Although the use of “heads” implies brains, perhaps with intelligence, certainly not my meaning here or something found on television by definition. Although I dread the thought of learning that FiSHy is a serious group of political commentators using outrageous sarcasm to demonstrate the absurdity of the Christian right wing conservative republican beleifs but worse things could happen, they could actually believe what they are saying! On a purely abstract religious note, I wonder if an angel with only one wing can fulfill its mission of granting mercy to some god fearing soul, it seems remote.) I’m sure you recall the “list” your husband produced of supposed communist infiltrators in the State Department. The “list” was a complete hoax. To put it very generously, a theatrical prop for the public and media to focus attention and give weight to the false premise of the existence of an actual list derived from an actual investigation of State Department personnel. There never was any such list, just a blank sheet of paper, but what a masterful performance and use of a prop to convince the citizens of the most power nation on earth of the infiltration of their government by communists, encore! Your husband’s acting skills have been so unfairly overlooked by history.

The witch hunt that your husband lead under the auspices of a Senate hearing proved nothing, uncovered nothing and ultimately dissolved into an embarrassment that was quietly dropped as a dubious effort that likely violated the target citizens’ rights as protected under Constitution. The damage done to the reputation of those targeted by the sham investigation and public hearings was never righted, perhaps the failure of a single winged angel. The hearings discredited your husband as a serious person deserving any respect as a dually elected representative of the people or the public attention of someone interested in the countries’ best interest. One can only find evidence of a self-serving man in the act of self-serving at the expense of his fellow citizens.

I would direct your attention to the research done in the Kremlin archives and interviews with former government and military officials after the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union. It is now known that most of the whipped up rhetoric about Soviet military, technological and economic superiority had little or no basis and fact. US government and politicians feed Americans a line to support their pet re-election and campaign fund raising projects. The primary purpose of such threat mongering was to create and drive support for military build-ups and military adventures in economically interesting innocent sovereign nation states.

Millions have died under the guise of the communist threat. While it is true that the Russians did actually have nuclear weapons, that is about the extent of the actual state of Russian military prowess. Bomber and missile gaps were fiction created by way of over or under counting of weapons on one side or the other to create a frightening imbalance in military power. In fact, the Soviet Union and communism was never the threat the US government made it out to be. The communist threat to our way of life was and seems once again, to be not much more than another metaphorical whipping horse of an imagined enemy to rally American’s support for positions that they would not otherwise support. Americans have generally been pacifist and non-interventionist people when left to their own devices. (A wise people, a shame they are never listened to!) Great effort and propaganda is required to motivate Americans to arms. It is the elite and wealth classes, military command and military arms manufactures that lead the rallying cry of military adventurism. The economic gains are great for those in a position to gain by way of military weapon production or new markets and natural resources to exploit in newly subdued foreign lands. Not to mention getting a promotion in the military during peace times is a rather hollow advancement. The scions of the elite seem to avoid serving their nations in these economic consolidations and government re-organizations. I suppose their preparation and ultimate service to the national economy and overall growth of nation is service enough to expect of America’s great families.

Only persons of your generation recoil at the mere mention of communism with such a knee jerk venomous diatribe, complete loss of sanity and reason that now, in the bright clear view of hindsight, seems foolish. Yet the reflex reaction appears irreversible regardless of reality. Pavlov’s dogs come to mind. What a PR coup to be able to plant an emotional response so deeply and securely! America knows how to work the propaganda machine. I would suggest the current round of commie bating by the right wing conservatives deserves even less attention than the propaganda campaign following WWII and during the Cold War. In the proceeding half century communism has been completely discredited. Nations following communist ideology have collapsed or are in dire straits.

Suggesting the current US President is attempting to breathe new life into communism is an accusation so beneath contempt I can only implore you to refrain from further embarrassing yourself and displaying your rigid world view by repeating FiSHy political satirical theater as genuine political debate. Troupe members are well paid to make an ass of themselves, you only receive a sad longing look given a person living out their sunset years a bit out of touch with reality. “Get mother another wine, she’s getting herself all worked up over communist again. She just can’t stay in the present moment any more.” Admitting to exposing yourself to such blatant lies is loathsome enough, actually believing it is virtually unimaginable. They are screaming for a reason and it isn’t because they have something important or relevant to say, they are simply being paid a lot of money to lie.

Your Faithful Contrarian Sons,

Sene That & Bomd Heer

American Exceptionalism Survivors

Hi, I’m Jud and I’m…

2011-07-18T23:29:00.000-07:00

…too small to matter. No one is coming to bail me out of my stupid, short-sight and greedy financial decisions. In fact, a lot of people are calling and writing to hound me into make reparations for my errant ways. Many of these callers let me know of their great distain for my immoral, weak, and deadbeat personal character flaws. I tell them I will reorganize my life through bankruptcy so I can again become a contributing member to society. They retort that I’m trying to escape my moral obligations and personal commitments. I beg for forgiveness for my vain and foolish short comings and ask for their help in redeeming myself. I am told payments are the only penance that will return me to the path of a worthy life. I submit to my tormentor, hoping one day, I’ll again be loved by the great and wise credit bureau man.

Amoral Materialist

2011-07-18T23:25:00.000-07:00

How do you know when a house is too large? When you have more rooms then people living in the house. Your garage is larger than the average family home. How many families can live in a one, two or three car garage? How do you know if you are consuming and polluting the planet at unsustainable levels? You heat and cool those extra rooms that no one uses, maybe even the garage, can’t let the Porsche get cold, because you can afford it. It never occurs to you that someone is dying for lack of basic human resources while you burn precious natural resources, polluting the air, water and soil. You’re doing a heck of a job America! Your time of atonement is nearing and you have earned it.

Dear Blog

2011-07-17T02:47:00.000-07:00

In response to arguments that blogging is yet another example of a narcissistic society gone wild, I offer my contrarian opinion. While I agree we live in a narcissistic society, thoughtful blogging is not one of the symptoms. While few eyes cross my blog, the effort I put into thinking, reconsidering, organizing and editing a post is of immeasurable value to me. Making the effort to prepare my ideas and thoughts for an imagined public viewing affords me the opportunity to increase and improve my understanding of the topic or issue. I am a better informed and more thoughtful individual for making the effort to prepare and organize my thoughts for no one but myself. Writing is a powerful tool for organizing, expanding and connecting ideas to gain greater appreciation and understanding of the complexity of the world we live. I suggest we write more and talk less. I find those who talk for a living have little of value to say and make even less sense. I, at least, am not clogging the public airwaves with noise.

Ideas to stave off US Decline

2011-07-15T23:24:00.000-07:00

The US needs to renounce all claims to world leadership, sole super power status and act as an equal among other nation states assuming no special status or extraordinary moral calling entitling us to unilateral aggressive actions through military, economic or social coercive means. Idea: The US and its citizens are one among many on a diverse planet. We are not special or endowed as by or maker as exceptional, justifying our belief that we are somehow granted special rights or consideration. We are the now current most powerful nation in a long history of former most powerful nations. History suggests modesty might be wise.
The US needs to renounce further violations of internationally recognized nation state sovereignty under the guise of protecting US strategic interest. The US needs to respect all national borders as recognized by the UN. The US needs to accept the right of other people to pursue their own destiny however they so choose as long as long as they also do so without interfering in another sovereign nation state. Idea: Duplicity leads to corruption of organizations and individuals. Those who wish to gain by violating international norms and national laws use our clear and obvious hypocritical behavior as support and legitimacy for their actions. We become the source and justification for criminal acts, human abuse and violence.
The US should participate, abide by and be bound by all recognized and accepted international organizations, including the UN, World Court, World Trade Organization, G20 and other future recognized international bodies as may be created and ratified by a plurality of nation states. The US should comport itself as an equal partner for the general welfare of the planet as our only home and all humans. The US should cooperate with all recognized and generally accepted international organizations, rules and regulations that such international organizations shall enact by a majority of their members as long as these international rules do not excessively burden or interfere with basic nation state prerogatives, human rights and are generally intended to maintain and protect the well-being of all humans and preserve the planet. Idea: We are all the stronger for inclusiveness and greater participation in the running of human affairs. In the short term, absolute authority is easier and faster, but in the long run it ultimately fails miserable at human expense.
The US should only intervene and be obligated to intervene as a recognized national government, in defense of basic human rights when such rights are being violated by another nation state. Any intervention should be made with the consensus of the UN Security Council and executed by a joint force of the members of the UN. Such efforts should be directed by the UN and lead under the auspices of a UN Peace Keeping. Idea: One nation cannot be entrusted to exercise ultimate power, the individual, be it nation or human, creates a singular target for influence and corruption. The spreading of power ensures the broadest defense against powerful special interests and tyrants from corrupting the processes and individuals charged with making and executing the laws.
The US should support the establishment, enacting and enforcement of international banking, finance and corporate reform regulations through the afore mentioned international organizations such that all economic activity and entities enjoy a fair, consistent and transparent worldwide framework of regulations that prevent market or country shopping for weaker or permissive nation states that do not have the legal, regulatory or judicial resources to maintain and contain the activities of local and foreign business interests and entities or choose not to maintain such bodies for national or other advantage. Idea: A level playing field benefits all participants except those seeking unfair advantage. Resources squandered chasing false manmade advantage is lost to real investments in productive economic development. Chasing tax breaks is to no one’s ultimate advantage.
The US should reduce military expenditure to levels commensurate with nations of similar size. The US should support and encourage regional security and defense cooperatives by local nation states to maintain peace, prosperity, defense and security. The US should support and participate in pan regional security regiments to support, strengthen, monitor and regulate regional efforts. This overall security initiative can created an interdependent multi-layered defense and security regime that ensures no single nation state has the ability to act unilaterally against another without the immediate response and support of regional partners to come to the aid and defense of an attacked nation state. Each nation state will generally only maintain sufficient military forces to defend its own internationally recognized national territory, citizens and fulfill its regional security commitments. Idea: Safety and security is a shared responsibility that must be distributed to avoid concentration of power and re-occurring abuses of power. There are many competing views and perspectives that must be honored and protected from the tyranny of the majority and powerful.
The US should eliminate all US military bases outside the US territory on the principle of maintaining a NON-OCCUPYING force structure. The first military base to be immediately returned to its rightful sovereign nation state is Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Idea: US foreign based military personnel and assets in sovereign nation states is a form of occupation, coercion and intimidation.
The US should reduce its military forces to levels below those needed to support large or multiply unilateral offensive ventures, ensuring reliance on multi-lateral arrangements and cooperation for proactive offensive intervention in other sovereign nation states. At a MINIMUM, the US should commit itself to reduce its military expenditure by 50% over the next ten years. Idea: It is time to stop being the world bully for our own economic and political gain. It won’t be forgotten on the way down. The US currently out spends the entirety of the rest of the world in defense. We have an aging population whom will stop contributing to tax receipts and start drawing on retirement benefits for income and health coverage. This is a double hit of lost tax receipts and increased expenditure. The national debt is rapidly nearing unsustainability because of grossly excessive defense spending and unilateral wars in two countries. The defense budget is the only segment of the national budget that is large enough and discretionary to have a real impact on lowering spending and affecting the deficient. We have been hood winked into believing the world is about over run our borders but for our oversized military. This is to convince us that the military budget isn’t discretionary, in fact, not only is it discretionary, it is actually a form of corporate welfare for the military defense complex.
The US should accept responsibility for regulating and controlling the arms industry within its borders. As part of the downsizing of the US military, the US should initiate a multi-year unwinding of the US arms industry with the intended goal of ceasing to be an arms provider to the world’s thugs and despots. Arms manufactures should remain responsible for the final disposition of the military weapons they manufactured. Sanctions should be created and applied to arms manufactures whose weapons are found in the possession of non-approved organizations. Continued failure to control the flow of military weapon to only internationally approved purchasers will lead to the revocation of the license to produce such military weapons. Idea: If selling recreational drugs is a bad idea then so is the indiscriminate selling of military weapons. If Columbia cannot export recreational drugs for profit, there is no logical reason the US should export military weapons for profit.
The US government should return its focus, primary role and responsibility to citizens. The government should ensure a social security net for unemployed workers and their families displaced by structural economic changes. Establish and maintain a minimum level of basic human support of food, water and medicine. Focus on expanding and improving the efficiencies of a single payer insurance provider over alternative individual self-insurance options. End all quasi secondary or tertiary distribution of benefits, “trickle down”, to individuals through wealthy individuals and corporations. This argument should be recognized for what it is, a misdirecting of government resources to the wealthy and non-human entities, or simply, stealing from the poor. Idea: Our democracy is of the people for the people, I’m not sure how corporations edged their way to the front of the line or how 1% of the population controls 90% of the wealth but it is time to return to our founding appreciation of the evils of wealth concentrations and corporate influence on the greater society.
The US government should phase out all corporate welfare, tax credits and special tax accounting rules that are not generally and widely accepted creating or meeting economic and social objectives. All forms of socializing corporate losses while privatizing corporate profits should be repealed. Legislation should be established that ensures no single organization, group of organizations or industry can pose a systemic risk through size or inter-connectivity that can lead to the nation’s security, stability or well-being of citizens being threatened by the failure of such organizations or industries. Idea: A corporate welfare state is the antithesis of the understood role and purpose of government to foster and support a just and fair society for all citizens. It is the ultimate in corporate decadence when those with all of the economic resources seek to garner all the social resources as well.
The US Government should initiate the process to remedy the misguided Supreme Court rulings establishing the precedent that the spending of money is a form of free speech and protected by the Constitution and the expansion of the definition of human in the Bill of Rights to include non-human entities. The ultimate combined effect of these rulings has freed corporations to use their vast economic resources to control elected government officials over the interests of individual citizens. The Supreme Court rulings are simply wrong. New legislation and changes to the Constitution need to be enacted to rebalance the power of citizen and non-human entity. Idea: All human make mistakes, the Supreme Court has gone one further and put the Nation at risk. It was the intent of the national framers to balance government against itself with three branches. The third branch, the judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court, is an enormouse concentration of power in the hands of five people, required majority of nine, to set the law of the land.
The US Government should embrace the philosophy of one citizen, one voice, one vote. New regulations should require all corporate and other non-human entities to act through the citizen electorate to access elected government officials. New laws should make it illegal for all corporate and other non-human entities to make campaign contributions or participate in the election process. This will ensure non-citizen actors are held one step back from direct contact with elected government officials ensuring citizen access is primary. Non-human entities should have to work through citizen surrogates. This speed bump will ensure greater influence of citizens on policy, slow and reduce corporate influence on policy and properly prioritize the rights of human over non-human interests. The use of vast corporate economic resources to influence government policy should be strictly prohibited. Idea: Democracy is a noble idea. We should think about embracing it more fully. Over the past two centuries the republic system we have has been greatly corrupted by wealth. One need not look much further than the fact that half the citizens do not bother to vote. That is a majority vote of no confidence. Politicians have no incentive to respond to such non-votes.

How Do Your Rights Rank?

2011-07-15T23:07:00.000-07:00

1. Government Rights – We are the police with the power to impound

2. Corporate Rights – We generate and control the economic wealth

3. Property Rights – We control the planet’s natural resource wealth

4. Investor Rights – We control the global investment wealth

5. Human Rights – We are the massive labor force that assembles it

As long as human right remains at the bottom of the list, we have no real rights or protections. Corporations need three basic inputs: capital, raw material and labor. Labor is the only input not represented by a powerful interest. It is the only expense that corporations enjoy a significant disparity in negotiating power. Any wonder why businesses compete on labor costs?

One has to wonder why the world is organized with human rights at the bottom. One would have thought human rights would have primacy. Why are we here after all, for the service of governments, corporations, landowners and the wealthy, or for the fulfillment of our own individual human destiny? As long as we lack the power to significantly influence the price we can offer our labor at, we will spend our lives as laborers. Our wages kept at the lowest level, ensuring survival, but never providing enough to be able to escape a life time of servitude to the corporation, never enough to enjoy the freedom to create and explore our own human destiny.

The Many Ways I’m Wrong

2011-07-14T23:11:00.000-07:00

See no evil, hear no evil. I won’t read or listen to this crap. It’s all lies and a waste of time.
Ungrateful fool. For all this great nation has done for you yet you believe yourself high and mighty to cast disparate judgment on the truest and best efforts of our national leaders, corporate leaders and soldiers. Only a far left liberal’s shortsightedness and failure to appreciate our nation’s great mission could compel you to make such unjust, foolish and untrue statements. Your words only strengthen our enemies, the enemies of human rights, by showing discord within our moral mission. You are a fool and an ass, at best, at worst, an immoral trader, destined to burn in hell.
Your history is wrong. It never happened the way you say. You are making it up; intentionally selecting events and views that create a radical contrary historical reality that simple isn’t support by American exceptionalism and mainstream history. We are a great people whose mission is to set an example of freedom, human rights and free the repressed around the world so they too can share our values and enjoy our living standard.
No man is perfect. By nature humans, even the best of us, make mistakes, become overzealous and are given to excesses. This excessive enthusiasm for our mission leads, at times, to violations of our own principles. This is an error of omission when faced with the horrors of human tragedy under the rule of cruel and treacherous leader. We go with a good clear heart to do our best to help the world’s poor and repressed realize their human potential. God shall be our only judge.
Pragmatic in a dirty world. Principles and execution are theory and practice. Within the safety and security of the cloistered walls of University you can study principle but the real men who have taken the calling of putting mind to matter, likely risking reputation, material possessions, family, friends and life itself, must live what you pontificate. It is the end result that matters, we do our best to mitigate the means but sometimes attacking evil is not pretty. The lives of the poor and repressed are often horrendous. If asked, most would only wish for a better life for their children. Human suffering is what drives our urgency, action our only real tool. We make amends as best we can after we have secured the future of those in need of our defense.
If not us, who? If no one will step forward, will the human condition ever improve? We are the poor’s savory, however we accomplish that lofty mission is legitimate while we put ourselves at risk for no other reason than help the weak, lead only by our principles.

I would retort that these are six means of denial of facts, refusal to debate and failure to evaluate our means and progress against our stated mission, goals and principles. A million sins can be covered over with cooperative denial and good public relations. We risk awaking one day to WWIII wondering how the hell this blew up in our face without us having any inkling of hostiles towards us prior. Will we burn enough friends, run the planet’s natural resources too low and or pollute the planet to a level that habitation at current human populations is impossible? I’m almost old enough for it not to matter. I have no children to spark a slight guilt. Why do I face this sheer cliff of denial, government and elites?

Lies and Deceptions of the US Corpocracy: Who’s Running the Asylum?

2011-07-14T02:48:00.000-07:00

Coincidence of Interests is collusion via Smith’s invisible hand in the interest of the wealthy elite to concentrate the limited economic where-with-all of the individual labor providers by siphoning off the vast wealth created by the large labor class, bleeding the wellbeing of the marginalized, powerless and unrepresented, to concentrate 90% of the nation’s wealth into the hands of 1% of the populace. Welcome to the United States of Corpocracy, the streets may be paved in gold but they are washed with your son’s blood to protect our vision of the shining city on the hill, a fantasy to distract the mind of the horrors of state and corporate sanctioned ethnic cleansing of the American Indians, enslavement of the black man to work the fields of the South, the bodies of the sons who dared exercise their sovereign rights that were deemed counter to American strategic economic interest, be it oil, mineral or policy declaration of regional hegemony and the thousands of American sons laid to rest in defense of lies about an immoral righteous economic expansionist nation willing to lie, steal and cheat to achieve worldwide hegemony.

America is the evil corporate empire, its mask slowly slipping as resources dwindle, pollution piles up, wealth becomes more concentrated and our actions and existence stands in stark conflict to our stated beliefs and values as numerated by the Bill of Rights and Constitution. The shining city is clearly corrupt, decrepit and failing. Without an enemy to scare us from our senses, the evil corporate military complex shows through. We will continue to incite war to justify our standing army, one that is twice the size of all the other armies on the planet combined. We the corrupt, the murders, the plunders have appointed ourselves the policeman, prison guard and executioner of the world’s people. Are you a lamb, a liar, or supporter of the greatest crime ever perpetrated against mankind? The time to stand and be counted is nearing; failure leads to destruction and infamy. Will we join Hitler and Stalin in the annals of history, though so over shadowing their genocide that their crimes will be seen as minor and time constrained?

If you doubt my views, challenge my logic, question my history, doubt my sincerity and pray for my lack of sanity, I challenge you to discover the dozen men who have served Republican Presidents since Nixon-a 40 period year with 24 years of government service. They all have held very senior government civilian military positions. Their multi decade government service has ensured they know where and how to exercise the levers of power. Their long term working relationship has provided them significant leverage and collaboration yielding significantly more power than any single individual could a mass. When they were not in government military service they held very senior positions in the private industrial military complex or conservative Think Tanks that enabled them to amass great wealth and further their influence without the usual corporate service and ladder. We have elected many Presidents in 40 years but we keep getting the same senior advisors following the same capitalist industrial military complex policies. Any wonder why we find ourselves at the precipice today of national economic collapse? Is the plan to starve the beast of social government or secure our role & position as unilateral world power?

The dirty dozen white men who have decided our future without our knowledge, consent or vote:

1) Dick Chaney, 2) Donald Rumsfeld, 3) Elliot Abrams, 4) Richard Pearl, 5) Paul Wolfowitz, 6) Frank Gaffney, 7) John Clarke, 8) David Frum, 9) John Boldon, 10) Paul Bremmer, 11) Dick Meyer, 12) James Woolsey.

America's Final Conflict: Religion & Reason

2011-07-09T21:45:00.000-07:00

The American retrenchment has begun. How will America emerge in the next decade after the inevitable conflict between religion and reason has its final battle over which world view will prevail in America? A nation so firmly founded and entrenched in religion will not find it easy to accept the inherent conflicts that exist between reason and religion. A conflict which will ultimately destroy the individual and America by way of the insidious decay caused by the existence of two diametrically opposed world views. One cannot hold religion in their heart and reason in their mind without becoming the dysfunctional species we are now. One cannot hold both views in their mind simultaneously, they are mirror opposites. A 100 year détente is ending, the inevitable conflict rising.

We have for a century hidden from our moral responsibilities to our own people by believing that God set a man’s path on this Earth. It is not the failing of economics or globalization, government or society, luck or chance of birth. God has set this challenge before the poor non-white man in Watts surrounded by drugs and decay, lack of education and nutrition and failed families and violent communities. It is God’s chosen destiny for the non-white man to lift himself up to join his wealthy white Christian neighbors. A false belief based argument to release the white man from our moral obligation to help our fellow traveler, citizen and brother. Such is the basis for the Christian Conservative anti-socialist rhetoric, nothing more than greedy rich white men, not much more evolved then the greedy rich white men of the slave based economic south. Then the black man was not a full human being, today’s religious belief based justification is that it is God’s set path and intention to set the non-white man upon the ghetto and undeveloped country to find his way home. The falsehoods are too thick. The untruths a morass of many layers of religious denial and subterfuge to release the wealthy white man from a reasoned morality and justice for all men, to one of fantasy that allows the great injustices set upon the non-white man to be accepted as God’s way not our business to interfere.

God, our secret friend who grants us favor, able to reverse the absolute and unassailable laws of nature, all just for a few God fearing humans on one rather unremarkable planet, revolving around an average star, one of millions in the Milky Way Galaxy of untold number, in a Universe we cannot see across. Never have we witnessed such divine intervention and reversal of natural laws, yet we stand firm to let our brothers and sisters die for lack of food, water, shelter and basic medical care because we believe as good God fearing souls that it is God’s design.

I fear my fellow man, not his Gods. It is you who will kill me with your guns, poisons, denial of the sustenance of life and abject oblivious indifference to human suffering. We are an abomination, a scourge on the face of the planet. If the Earth could feel, it would wish to shrug us off as we have our fellow beings. The great ingrates, who care so little for their own, ravage the land, sea and sky as if it is our personal dump, just for one more giant SUV barreling down the freeway at 80mph.

Many fools have led us. One told us to shop in time of sacrifice, led us into a two religious wars in the 21^st Century with lies. Assured us it is our inalienable American right to drive big cars. The children of the elite lead us into damnation. What fools are we that we worship our secret friend and the American wealthy elite. It seems they both grant us the wisdom we want to hear. So we stand together, watching our children die by the wisdom of God and Bush.

Gone Adventuring

2011-06-03T23:02:00.000-07:00

I don’t know who I am, not because I’m lost, but because I’m not imitating anyone. The intentional act of not following is in itself the definition of unknown, in creation. You are lost if you are following the well-worn path. Who are you if on someone else’s journey? If you have chosen experience as the foundation of your existence, you are free to explore, the destination is irrelevant. I live to go adventuring. When I’m not adventuring I prefer sleep. In my dreams I can live what I am not doing. Rest is the energy, boredom the fuse, frustration the ignition. Where the hell am I now? How did I get here? Is this a dream? I’m getting hungry, it’s time to scavenge a new adventure.

Camiguin Island

2011-05-16T23:46:00.000-07:00

The sky is deep blue, the clouds are pure white. The sea is perfectly clear, the rain forest deep green. The people are kind and trusting. The homes are filled with three or four generations. Communities are long lived, life is slow. There are no traffic lights or franchises to be found. The roads go in circles and loops, never ending just starting over again. Nothing is urgent, nothing is lost. Life slides along without any rush. Today is tomorrow, much like yesterday and next week. Its hot but the sea is cool. Its humid but the breeze is drying. The roster crows until you can't hear him. The children play until you don't notice them. The land is rugged and we live on the edge between sea and mountain. Each encroaches and recedes in its own way. We move and adjust to the rhythms of nature, all in good time at our own slow pace.

Scoundrel

2011-03-15T18:30:00.000-07:00

I have been called a scoundrel, an immoral scoundrel at that, by the president of the sovereign nation of the Republic of Guyana. Apparently he didn't appreciate my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I'm devastated. To have an authoritarian kingpin drug lord in a South American banana republic single me out for comment, I think that puts me in company with the Pope. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. God bless His Excellency President Jagdeo. I'm honored to top your black list. (Note to my friends in Guyana, banana republic refers to the government, not the lovely country of Guyana.)

Union Devils

2011-02-28T19:35:00.000-08:00

How come when a few public sector unions get blamed for State budget deficits, something that both the union and politicians participated in, the unions find themselves getting outlawed, while the banks who sent the entire US and World economy into the tank get bail outs?

There are three primary inputs in business: capital, material resources and labor. I would suggest that capital and resources are well represented by the wealthy that control them. If we continue to ignore Henry Ford's insight about paying labor enough to afford what they produces, we'll rapidly find our standard of living dropping and middle class disappearing. I dare say the haves, have turned the model upside down and no one seems to notice the new reality.

Human Failings

2010-12-05T13:35:00.000-08:00

Once we have too much to loose we are domesticated citizens. We no longer fight for human rights, we have too much to loose. When human rights is life and death, people fight and die. When human rights are an ideal and material goods reality, we stand aside waiting for another to fight, we have too much to loose. Materialism is more insipid then we ever imagined. It is us who has been bought and sold. We leave the fight for human rights to the poor who have nothing to loose. They are suffering. They are dieing. Their lives can not get any worse. Death is a release from their torment. A life that we don’t know. A suffering we can’t imagine. An existence we don’t believe.

WikiLeaks - An outlet for Whistle Blowers

2010-11-30T12:48:00.000-08:00

The disruptive potential is huge. WikiLeaks could become an intermediary for whistle blowers. A place to turn over evidence of corruption for review and combination with other sources. Citizens have been loosing control of their government. WikiLeaks can turn the tide and give the lone voice a network to blow open the citadels of power and corruption.

It's Magic!

2010-11-28T05:41:00.000-08:00

US Funded Elite Outward Bound

2010-10-11T11:22:00.000-07:00

The budget cutting ax is starting to swing around DC. One can only hope it actually hits a few programs and makes some serious dents in spending. I have my doubts, everyone's cow is sacred. One beloved program that could be dumped lock, stock and barrel is Peace Corps. I know, I'm a former Peace Corps Volunteer. The program is amazing and has done great things for my career but I'm not sure why my fellow American's have to pay for it. While all my friends are getting laid off, loosing health coverage and having their homes foreclosed, I am ensconced in Guyana with full health benefits, housing and stipend, watching an inept Federal bureaucracy bungle its ways through administering a Peace Corps National Post. Peace Corps is getting a jump on its 50th anniversary yet still can't figure out what its doing and continues to re-invent the wheel, over and over again. It seems Peace Corps is just an elite outward bound for college grads waiting to head off to graduate school. How many more benefits do we bestow on these kids? They already have a degree and now two free years of work experience paid for by Uncle Sam and YOU!!

My new career is going very well, thank you very much.

OLPF Pilot

2010-10-09T16:56:00.000-07:00

Probably the biggest milestones in a project is money flowing. OLPF is crossing that threshold as we start the pilot phase. We are ordering laptops and hiring staff. A lot of staff, 300 trainers and management to oversee training, service and support. I keep trying to explain that this is a Silicon Valley start up not a government project. The goal is 12,000 laptops in 12 months with support, service and training. The end result being ICT job ready participants. There is no government protocol for a start up. We are delivering on a project timeline equal to what it would take to follow the standard RFI/RFP, tender, contract and launch of a typical government project process. I'm oddly suited for for the challenge as one who has spend a career getting large organizations to do what they can't do in a time frame that they can't meet. Who knew?

Latest News about OLPF

Free

2010-10-02T07:49:00.000-07:00

It seems that a moment arrives in life when you are forced to make a choice on how you will live the rest of your life. You reach this junction in life only when you have enough experience to clearly see the choices. It is easy to slough off the decision but that is a choice. It is the harder choices that wake one up in the middle of the night and see the truly great risks and rewards for taking the more difficult path. Coming from a wealthy life in a wealthy country, we are directed toward a preferred path. The unexamined life allows others to manage the controls. We simply keep our nose to the grind stone. It’s not terribly fulfilling but then it’s not terribly risky either, at least until the economic underpinnings collapse and we are all left staring into the abyss of abject poverty.

The choice comes down to deciding if we can do more with our life then walk the well-worn path of our country and society. Can we step away from the norms and follow our own value and seek our own rewards. Will we risk seeking fulfillment in giving rather than taking? I have started my life over twice, once even going so low as to not even have a home. I find each effort far more fulfilling and learn more during these periods than the decades spent working at a job to make ever more money for newer car and bigger house. Perhaps this continual reinvention is just another treadmill but I think not. Without the overhead of assets, I am free to do what I believe. A mortgage, car payments and debt service ensnares the soul. We are never free to act our conscience as we trapped by our obligations. That is exactly what society and business had in mind.

This about how you want it spent?

2010-10-01T07:39:00.000-07:00

Link to Taxpayer Receipt Proposal PDF

Yes, why are you in the picture?

2010-09-15T11:10:00.000-07:00

Sovereign Thought

2010-09-14T04:27:00.000-07:00

Until we come to accept sex as a biological imperative like breathing and eating, we will continue to hand over power to control society to groups who prefer to use sex as a platform for their world view. There are valid reason to avoid sexual relationships but morality isn’t one of them. Morality is a trumped up excuse used to prop up a moral authority. Transmission of disease is one reason to avoid sexual intercourse but so is avoiding public places. We could be using hiv as an opening to discuss disease transmission, but instead, too many organizations are using the issue to further their cause by creating fear, uncertainty and doubt. The unknown is risky and frightening, scared people return to what they know and people they think they can trust.

Until we honestly discuss sexual issues we will continue to have high levels of disease transmission and unwanted teen pregnancy leading to dis-empowerment of women in society. Why can’t we simply explain to young men and boys that the biological drive for sex is little different then being hungry. We’ll all be a lot better off if we speak the unspeakable, teaching young men how to masturbate. Lust is not love. You didn’t die reading that last sentence, the world didn’t stop and god didn’t strike either one of us down. Too many people are dieing and or having children they don’t intend. While this might suit the church to grow the flock, it only creates more suffering, poverty and abuse.

I may not ever change your mind or even get you to listen to what I have to say, but please don’t inflict your world view on me with laws and discrimination. Show me how right you are by living your values, then I’ll be able to see and evaluate it for myself. I’ll give you the same respect of sovereignty over your life.

Last Word on the Matter

2010-09-10T15:37:00.000-07:00

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." - Ben Franklin

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been about 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage." - Alexander Fraser Tyler.

I mean, that's essentially what's going on, here. The *American people* do not want to hear that they have to pay for the services that they receive from government. They want something for nothing. All of these politicians wouldn't be following this path if it was going to get them thrown out of office.

The problem is not with the politicians; it's with the people who are voting for them.

The Debt And Denial - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan http://bit.ly/atvFSwly

Logical Fallacies

2010-09-04T12:40:00.000-07:00

Let's not let this logical science approach gain any more ground, it is time to turn back rational thought. It leads to terrible things like debates and worse, listening. It is much easier to just believe, believe our own facts about life. We can not let our traditional American religious values be undermined by rational thought. Religion is the foundation of our Universe centric view of our existence, its all here for us to exploit.

Who wants to give up a world of miracles for one of fact? We all hope our indiscretions will be missed, forgotten, forgiven and most importantly, have no consequence. A little prayer, begging forgiveness from the non-existent seems sufficient penance, god forbid we should actually have to consider the consequences of our material and biological pursuits. I for one will remain committed to our irrational fantasies and eternal salvation based fables. Long fear the good book.

Rant

2010-08-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

It is the end of the trickle down hoax...for 40 years real income for everyone below the top few percent of income earners has not increased.. we thought we had more because we were offered credit, credit supported by bubbles. we were just borrowing from the rich rather then being paid by the rich for our labor.. the ponzi scheme has collapsed and the government rushed in to bail out the rich.. there is a lot of talk that the real crash is still coming.. right now we are in a slow motion crash so the rich can pull out.. then we'll see the complete crash.. signorina highest living standard.. and the pols don't seen to notice or do they, all too well.. with unemployment near 10% and expected to rise through the end of the year and housing foreclosures rising, at some point Americans pull the emergency brake.. what can we do but run for the exits...

The Adventure Continues

2010-08-11T14:05:00.000-07:00

Unshackled from the Peace Corps, I'm free to pursue projects as I choose. I have been asked to join the Project Management Office in the Office of the President as Project Manager of the One Laptop Per Family initiative. OLPF is the project plan I have been covertly working on for the last eight months. It was deemed that the Office of the President was not an appropriate placement for a Peace Corps volunteer, it was too close to the action. Well some of of us grew up in the kitchen and like it hot. Now I'll try a little Caribbean/South American HEAT!!

President Jagdeo makes US$30M laptops pledge http://bit.ly/aVlgpE

The New Aging

2010-08-10T02:59:00.000-07:00

When we were young and our heart were an open book, we used to say live and let die. As the decades have flicked past, the care-free living with little concern for the body is proving no longer sustainable. It has been creeping up on me for some time. Getting back in shape is slower and more painful. Grunting to get into and out of the low slung sports car is anti-climatic. A two drink limit doesn't even begin to address the issue. I have spent a good chunk of my life reading all sorts of topics from self improvement to knowledge to support the latest adventure or project. It dawned on me recently that all this learning was meant to be applied at some point.

I have always felt that if you can quit in time, before permanent damage, you will escape the ravages of bad habits. We won't know the outcome of this life philosophy for some time but it is clear one needs to manage the aging process into a gentle glide path. Sudden deterioration is shocking and rough on the psyche, much like wrinkles and hair loss. I suppose the short of all this is that I am joining the longevity obsessed. Maintaining a balanced, low stress, high fulfillment and health conscious existence now required as retirement pensions and healthcare seem rather in doubt a couple of decades down the line. The quick heart attack seems the best option but this is one area where healthcare has been exceedingly successful. Much less successful is the slow death from cancer and chemo. I'm not sure what they are keeping alive, the patient or the health insurance revenue. I suspect as you near your benefits limits so will your treatments options.

So in this new era of non-existent old age safety net, how shall we approach aging. We certainly can't expect retirement from working. We need to think about minimizing the time from no longer able bodied to death. We are back to our settling the west philosophy that men die in the saddle or so the the myth goes. Work until you get a terminal illness, into the hospital, out the back door in a tidy box or are ashes more ecologically appropriate? Its all new and we are the first generation in the modern are to need to start planning the new old age and death stages. I'm glad birthdays only come around once a year.

Legitimate Government

2010-08-05T08:13:00.000-07:00

I believe recent history demonstrates that the US Federal government is no longer the legitimate representative of the citizens of the US. The system has been corrupted by corporate money, which is now unlimited per the US Supreme Court. The cost of elections, driven up by corporate money, allows only corporate sponsored candidates. The electoral college system and winner take all by state ends up making Presidential elections about a couple of weird states. The two party systems is really incumbents and want to be incumbents. Parties and politicians create wedge issues that corporations don't care about to get elected.

All that said, US citizens are no longer legitimately represented by the Federal Government. Our Constitution has been abrogated by the Supreme Court in rulings providing freedom of speech to corporations and equating money to freedom of speech. There is no better way to undermine individual human rights then expand those rights to cover non-human entities. We seem to have slid into a form of facist corpocracy. Our political system is funded by corporations which then control elected officials. If there was any doubt one need only review recent news on Congressional efforts to regulate the finance industry after the great recession, the oil industry after the largest oil spill in history, military industry when any attempt is made to reduce defense spending and the medical industry during the healthcare reform attempt. We are living in a simulated republic and democracy. An illusion maintained by the media. How's that working for ya?

Skin in the Game

2010-08-02T04:48:00.000-07:00

In the debate over global climate change we need the oldest generation to step aside to allow those who will suffer the consequences of climate change to make the choices on what actions to take now. If your only skin in the game is cow hide, it is very hard to focus on potential consequences that will occur after you are gone. Expecting a generation to spend their money today to avoid a problem they will never see, is asking a lot. One suddenly has great confidence that their offspring will be able solve any challenges that may arise in the future. While this confidence in future generations is awe inspiring, it is probably not helpful in making choices today that will impact the climate tomorrow. I would suggest that folks over 55-60 step down from this debate and allow those who will bear the consequences make the call. This would include most of the US House and Senate.

2010-08-01T05:28:00.000-07:00

Final Peace Corps Post

2010-07-14T12:19:00.000-07:00

I have completed my two year volunteer service with the Peace Corps. July 23 is the official end of my service. I achieved the goals I have set out for myself prior to joining the Peace Corps. I wanted to see the world up close and raw. The view fulfilled my expectations. My life in the US is not endemic of the true human struggle. My concerns are so far removed from daily survival that much of life is lost in the frivolous and superficial. The wealthier one becomes the further from a meaningful life we seem to exist. In the US we live a completely stressed out existence, over worked and over obligated on high level material concerns and superficial social issues. We have lost a deeper core existence. A life in touch with these deeper human emotions seems a means to living a more meaningful and fulfilling life.

I am leaving the Peace Corps but not Guyana. I have started a number of projects in IT and renewable energy. My time here has helped me better realize my goals, find meaning in the process and capitalize on a life of acquired bits of knowledge, experience and self-awareness. My personal goal for joining the Peace Corps is to change careers. I enjoy technology but want to work to implement projects that have real and significant impact on other people's lives and well being. To that end, I'll continue working in Guyana on IT & renewable energy projects. I'll continue working with Iwokrama Center for rain forest conservation and on the One Laptop Per Family project. Both projects offer the opportunity to learn and grow in the fields of conservation, education and development. Working and living in a developing country is like being at sea, resources are limited, you learn to live by your wits, live without or perish. It suits me well and I'm quite happy in Guyana.

Apple Deja vu

2010-07-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

Play it again Steve! There just aren't enough cliché to roast the smartest guy in the room as he repeats his past performance of running Apple into the juggernaut of an OS company and a huge hardware market. I suspect it takes an Apple Job to create a new market segment. How else could you bring a new product, hardware and software, to market? But after smashing into Microsoft and having to humiliate yourself by accepting a bailout to maintain the illusion of competition in the software market, one would think Apple Job might try a different approach this time. Creating a new market segment then carving off the high end technophiles and Apple clique didn't work with Mac. The market segment isn't big enough. In the tech sector you are number one or two in the segment or your not at all. A 10% market share isn't a player.

If its true that iPhone 4 purchases are 70% upgrades, their market share isn't growing, just filling kitchen drawers. I guess Jobs is right, Apple can't make a cheap piece of hardware because they won't sully themselves with market discipline and at this point the hardware manufactures have been playing this game for a very long time. A high margins boutique software company is never going to play in the hard knocks world of hardware. Google is already rapidly gaining in the smartphone OS segment with Android. Apple can once again look forward to the fall from number one market maker to two and then irrelevance. Jobs should take a recent page from Mr. Gates and retire next year before he gets canned in 2013 for driving Apple into Mount Google. Spending your retirement wondering how you made the same catastrophic mistake twice will make one wish you hadn't bought a replacement liver. I suspect Jobs is riding too high to make any changes. Its different this time!

Religion is What We Believe

2010-06-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

When we didn't know much about the world around us, we created a Sun and Earth God. Through the centuries we learned a lot about the workings of the solar system and its impact on earth. We lost our mystery and with it our gods. The human condition and society began to affect our lives and fill our minds. No longer were we at the mercy of our environment but under threat by our fellow man. Crime and disease emerged as the central threat. Rule books from heaven were passed to us to understand and control human behavior and structure society. Now we rather doubt miracles, heaven and hell and the hope of prayer. The sciences have explained much humanity once a complete mystery to us. Now we believe in science. A new frontier of the unknown with all its miracles. Science more readily accepts its limitations and includes error in its design but have no doubt, it is just a new believe that will evolve as we gain mastery and discover new mystery and means of understanding.

Take a Letter, Senator

2010-06-22T04:57:00.000-07:00

Last night as I came home about a half past ten
There was the Country I thought I knew
In the arms of an Oilman

I kept my cool, I ain't no fool
Let me tell you what happened then
I packed some things and I walked out
And I ain't going back again

You've been lots of things but most of all a good pork provider to me
And it's times like this I feel you've always been close to me
I've been working alone every night to try to make a good life
But all work and no play has just cost me a home

Chorus

So take a letter Senator, address it to the President
Say I won't be coming home, gonna start a new life
Take a letter Senator, address it to the President
Send a copy to the IRS, gotta start a new life

When a man loves a Country it's hard to understand
That she would find more pleasure in the arms of an Oilman
I never really noticed how sweet you are to me
It just so happens I have a life
Would you happen to have a job for me

Saving One Little Rich Girl

2010-06-17T05:52:00.000-07:00

People die on the street everyday for want of a few dollars for food or medicine yet we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to save one little rich girl from California for the sole reason that she is rich enough to afford a yacht to get herself into mortal danger and a radio beckon to call the world to her aid. The Maritime Agreement that requires all seafaring nations to come to the aid of a vessel in distress was intended to save hundreds of lives, not a single reckless single handed sailors in violation of Maritime Law requiring a proper lookout be kept at all times. There needs to be a threshold of life saving and cost before launching an all hands rescue effort.

Just as in mountain climbing, more people are going to head to sea for adventure and glory. The costs will become too burdensome or politically unpalatable in these times of economic austerity. We should not waste the fine tradition of responding to vessels in distress on the high sea on our narcissistic western culture of glory seeking individuals. Adventure includes risks, the greatest risk being loss of life. These rescues are not only expensive but put many other individuals at risk. Lives are often lost in rescue efforts. Let us save 100,000 poor, who are there by no fault of their own, and let one little rich girl learn the meaning of adventure and risk.

Give'm a Break!

2010-06-15T07:12:00.000-07:00

The wealthy have lost more money in this great recession then most of us will ever have in our entire life time. We can never appreciate the devastation that this type of trauma has on their families. Having to tell your sweet child that they can not have a Gulfstream on their 16th birthday, it wrecks a father's self worth. We need to trust our leaders in Washington to handle this crisis of confidence, as only they know the true devastation this economic disaster has wracked on America's great families. I for one am calling for the elimination of all taxes on people making over one million dollars. We must rebuild the confidence and strength of America's great business leaders. Their children need to know that we will continue the zero inheritance tax so they have one less concern in their lives. This is a time for the country to come together and rally around our wealthy families. These are the people from where the trickle originates. If they don't have a gusher, we won't see a drip.

Penalty Billing

2010-06-04T06:22:00.000-07:00

When did buying a monthly service plan turn into gambling? When you sign up for a cell phone service plan you play Russian Roulette with the provider. We all want the lowest month fixed cost but if we under estimate we'll get blown away with a huge bill. How come if you go over your monthly allowance you are required to pay a 10x higher rate? What is the business logic behind this approach? I think we all know the answer, it's very profitable, especially on a zero marginal cost service. The providers know that individuals will be tempted to go with a low monthly rate. They also know, especially in the first month, users will over use there new service. Providers have tens of thousands of customer histories to help them craft penalty billing. Banks and credit card companies have joined in the easy profiteering.

Let's return to fair prices for service and end the gaming of the system. The people who can least afford to gamble with their service provider are loosing big. This is an example of an unfair contract between two very unequal parties. When you loose to big business, they get the last laugh as they sell your over charge off to a credit collection agency and ding your credit. When you wonder what's wrong with America, this is one great example of how we lost the trust.

We Can Do Anything

2010-06-03T16:21:00.000-07:00

We have been told and have seen in war footage that America can do anything. We can bomb with pin point accuracy to avoid foreign civilian casualties. We can over run a rogue nation in days. Our satellites are so precise we can target drones controlled from Florida to kill suspected terrorist in the Middle East.

We can't control an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico from destroying the livelihoods of fishermen, the tourist industry or the ecosystem. We can't see a hurricane devastate the same region and leave a city in ruin and its people in desperation. We can't anticipate a financial bubble that has eviscerated American's investments and home savings.

This is the Government we put in office. We are responsible. We have failed. It is now time accept responsibility and change.

Cutting Government Spending

2010-05-21T07:38:00.000-07:00

Bureaucracies can never imagine cutting themselves, only the individual contributors at the bottom of their organizations. Once an organization has grown into a full fledged bureaucracy, its own self importance blinds it of how it was before the bureaucracy existed. The system would collapse without the bureaucracy to maintain it and that is exactly true. We are at a point where we need the system to fail, we need the unwieldy mega government agencies and vast multi national corporations to dissolve to end their crushing overhead. It is these overwhelming costs that requires the manipulation of governments and laws to circumvent the capitalist market system to prevent creative destruction.

We have a choice to make in American: who sits at the head of the table, Americans Citizens or American Corporations. Both have a central role but who has the lead impacts all the decisions a representative government makes. Corporations have bought the head of the table and won the right in the Supreme Court. We the people still have the power to vote. We need to start thinking about how to use our power to make genuine change or be prepared to accept the outcome of the current arrangement.

Gulfstream VI vs. Green Investment

2010-05-19T05:23:00.000-07:00

What is the difference between an investment in multi-million dollar corporate jets and an investment in green technology? Both are likely a huge loss and expense against corporate earnings. The Gulfstream whisks Executives around the world allowing them to put in more hours and ensure they feel the heights of their Corporate Royalty. A Green Investment in new or alternative power is probably a gamble with no return.

The costs of fossil fuel is painfully obvious. It is who bears the costs and risks of finding and developing new power sources that seems the core of the dispute. Corporations argue they can not bear the burden because they will become uncompetitive and unprofitable. The market will punish their un-capitalist investments in non-competitive making Green Initiatives.

If we evaluate the luxuries we shower on the wealthy, is there not enough largess there to fund the investment in Green Alternatives? Is not the potential for a clean and low cost alternative not justify the investment? Will we follow the historically norm of awaiting the rising power to invest in the new a power source that will revolutionize the economy?

We hear a lot about capitalist creative destruction. When it comes to employment and small business, its just part of the process, a burden bore by the outdated and outmoded worker, production facility or industry. Isn’t it the lack of creative destruction that locks us into the fossil fuel power regime, big auto, oil and military? All have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. On the horizon is a new world economic leader who isn’t burdened by these incumbents. It is in their interest to change the energy paradigm and in the process grow their own mega industries.

Where should we invest our dollars? Do we continue to support the Gulfstream vision of the world? Should we remind US Corporations that they have duties as well as Rights as American Corporations, just the same as every citizen. We can change or perish. We can also expect everyone to share the burden. It is in everyone’s and every corporation’s best interest to embrace the energy future. Or we can keep buying Gulfstreams and employing creative debate to wait until there is no doubt that we have made an unrecoverable miscalculation. We just finished bailing out the largest banks, financial companies and auto makers, do still believe it can’t happen to US?

Keeping Lenders Whole with More Lending

2010-05-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-throwers

2010-04-27T14:15:00.000-07:00

It’s easy to see why this happened. People who make it into the establishment work and play well with others. They are part of the same overlapping social networks, and inevitably begin to perceive the world in similar, conventional ways. They thrive in institutions where people are not rewarded for being cantankerous intellectual bomb-throwers.

David Brooks New York Times OpEd : http://nyti.ms/aLiHLu

One Laptop Per Family v2.0

2010-04-11T11:01:00.000-07:00

The OLPF planning plods forward. This is the third release. We are nearing the first major milestone of pilot program approval. Attempting to assemble something so large is unto it self an amazing learning experience.

As always feedback is sought and appreciated.

One Laptop Per Family v. 2.0

Trickle Down Hoax Conclusion

2010-03-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

I think we can now write the final chapter on economic trickle theory. It turns out what came trickling down from on top was credit not income. So while the highest income earners saw their salaries go up and their taxes decrease, middle income earner's salaries have been stagnant. Don't forget while income taxes dropped, FICA was increased under Reagan to save the collapsing Social Security system but FICA is capped well below a 100k so the hit was to lower income earners not the high fliers. So how did American have a 30 year party all thanks to conservative policies of lower taxes and reduced regulations? It turned out those drips from above have to be paid back, it wasn't income it was credit. Well that game can't go on forever, I would say it's now over and the US is in a big black deficit hole. I seem to recall this has been tried before with similar results.

Devaluing the US Constitution

2010-03-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

Offer all Constitutional Rights to every entity, citizen and corporation. If me and GE have equal free speech and money is speech, well, my constitutional protected free speech suddenly has very little value. Thank you wise and learned Supreme Court. You are proving the wisdom of maintaining a politically isolated and populace protected group of scholars to defend the average citizen against the ravages of the other branches of government. Who would have thought we would get sold out to the United Corporations of America and Wall Street dot com by the Supreme Court?

The Peace Corps is 50 Years Old

2010-03-21T12:37:00.000-07:00

And it shows, the Peace Corps is still approaching community development as it did in the '60's by sending college grads out to rural communities with a lot of hope and little experience. Rural communities aren't so isolated any more and a person with a college degree doesn't provide much development value. A Peace Corps Volunteer is sent out after a couple of months of development and community integration training with the dream to go make something happen. The expectation being that after a year of integration, magic will occur. The magic is gone, communities are left wondering why they are saddled with American kids with no real world professional experience. Rural and remote communities aren't any more and Peace Corps hasn't kept pace. Communities have specific development needs that a generalist college degree graduate is unequipped to provide.

Peace Corps is attempting to reach out to more experienced volunteers but it maintains a managing the college kids infrastructure that few professionals will tolerate. If the risk of failure becomes a greater concern then the hope of success, we are doing nothing but spending money on a college graduate outward bound experience that the country can ill afford at the moment. It is time for the Peace Corps to grow up, otherwise it just another government bureaucracy that never dies. While Peace Corps is separate from the State Department it does have to follow all Government safety and security protocols for foreign based agencies. This means Peace Corps maintains a mini embassy meeting US building codes with full security, including bomb check protocols for vehicles entering the compound. All American staff live at diplomatic level housing with full American amenities, back up generator, AC and 24/7 manned security post. Basically they are living in McMassions on tax payers dime, this is Peace Corps.

While I understand that we can't have staff living at volunteer level, I not sure I understand why staff shouldn't at least live in the communities they work so they have a realistic view of life in the host country. As it stands now, staff passes judgement on volunteer host country integration while they are living in the diplomatic enclave. This does not seem to fulfill the mission of the Peace Corps. If staff wants to live the life of a diplomat they should join the foreign service. The real question is can the US Government field a volunteer force cost effectively bases on the security and bureaucratic overhead imposed by being a US Government Agency. There are many NGO and other volunteer organizations that do outstanding work at a fraction of the cost. Would the world and country not be better served if Peace Corps separated from the US Government or its funding be directed to existing successful volunteer organizations?

Bureaucrats Aren't Born They're Made

2010-03-13T05:03:00.000-08:00

One is often reminded by Peace Corps Staff that they were once Volunteers and understand the issues volunteers face during service. I have some doubts about the accuracy of this belief. I have always held that once you have been out of a position for more then six months and are now managing or overseeing your former position, you promptly forget the daily grind and issues you faced. Your new position and responsibilities overwhelm your memory of your past life. Stating to others you know, only undermines your own credibility as others are judging your actions not your words. Now there is a big difference between simply stating you understand my pain and actually sitting down with me to feel my pain and sharing your experiences. At that point we can share a common understanding. This process allows the sufferer to vent and the former suffer to remember how it really was when they actually lived the experience not how they now romanticize their conquering it.

I believe all staff enters Peace Corps employment with bright eyes and bushy tails looking forward to making their mark on improving the Peace Corps based on their experiences as volunteers. Of course this is the naive vision of every future bureaucrat. No one expects to be consumed by the system. But alas, history demonstrates we are always assimilated into the bureaucracy or tossed out as a rebel. This tends to leave many staff members in the unenviable position of hypocrite. They set themselves as one of great wisdom and understanding because they have been there, then proceed to do exactly what they railed against when they were volunteers. Now they are in a worst position because they have no credibility with volunteers, respect declines and working relations suffer, all exasperating the problem.

I would recommend that ALL staff, upon joining the Peace Corps, write their goals and objectives for becoming a member of Peace Corps staff. This document should include a very detailed list of things I will never say and things I will never do. Having such a document can serve as a reminder of the higher aspirations one had when joining the Peace Corps as staff and a check against becoming what you want to change, the bureaucracy. Every six months staff could receive an automated e mail reminding them of their reasons for taking a position in the Peace Corps. The detailed list of what I will never say or do will make it easier to determine if you have crossed the line and consider changing your ways. Least we not forget this is something required of volunteers during training. Volunteers are asked to document what a successful service would look like on a number of different aspects of volunteer life. May I suggest staff drink a bit of its own cool-aid – I'm serving with Jim Jones in Guyana, cool-aid references are funny.

One Laptop Per Family - OLPF

2010-02-20T11:40:00.000-08:00

I have been pulled in to drafting a OLPF plan for the Office of Project Management. There is a real need for computers and computer skills in Guyana. I have spend some time reading up on the OLPChild program and implemenations around the world. While it is a laudable effort the return on investment is long and the target population is not optimal. The approach we are taking is focusing on teenagers who are the early adopters of technology in the family. Rather then a custom learning tool, we are looking to use commercial netbooks that can be used by every member of the family. All deployments will have Internet connectivity. A computer without Internet is not a computer, Sun Microsystems "The Network is the computer". Rather then a top down give away, our approach is to use a bottom up strategy. Distribution of laptops will be managed through current aid/donor/volunteer organization collaborating with local communities to create their own OLPF programs addressing local development and education needs. Laptops will not be given to families but require families to earn through community service. Below is a link to a draft of the current plan and a Twitter reading list on one laptop programs.

OLPF Plan

Twitter Reading List

New Assignment: Iwokrama Nature Reserve

2010-01-12T07:29:00.000-08:00

Some assignments are better then others. This looks like a good one. I'll keep you posted. Title is a web link to the Iwokrama web site for those interested in more details.

So You Think you Want to Volunteer?(Corrected)

2010-01-10T13:06:00.000-08:00

I'm getting more and more requests to share my thoughts about the Peace Corps and being a volunteer overseas in a developing country. As I regularly post stories about my experiences there is little more to add on that front. What I haven't talked much about is Peace Corps, PC, the pleasures and pains of interacting with a large understaffed Federal bureaucracy. I have worked closely with a number of other volunteers from Volunteer Service Organization, VSO, and have come to know the organization well. I would strongly recommend considering both PC and VSO.as a potential volunteer organization to enlist with for your tour.. I'll make my comments about volunteering comparing the two organizations on how they manage volunteers.

The first thing to understand about the differences between PC and VSO is the basic age group each organization primarily gets its volunteers. PC is still predominantly a post college population. Many of the volunteers are getting experience for foreign service or need two years down time before they can get accepted into grad school. So there are a number of PCVs running out the clock and counting down to going home. This will not diminish your experience as you will be on your own working within your own community but this will impact the peer group of volunteers you share the experience. PC is also very much about the PC "experience." This at times gets in the way of doing real development work. The organization is very tradition bound on the PC experience. The three primary objectives of the PC are ~~about cultural exchange, PCV to host country, host country to PCV and PCV to friends and family in the States.~~ 1) providing training in host country communities, 2) educating people of host countries about America, and 3) informing Americans about the host county. Notice that there really is nothing in there for the host country unless getting a dose of Americana has value to them. (This training is coming from just graduated college students.) I have heard it described as putting up with a bunch of American kids in order to get US Foreign Aid. ~~PC is part of the State Dept. I find this troubling.~~ (I stand corrected, PC is a direct report to the President. Now I'm not so troubled!)

VSO volunteers are typically older, 50's plus, nearing retirement or retired. They are senior professionals who come to work on specific project. There is no VSO "experience." You are here to work and exchange culture as it happens naturally.   VSO volunteers make far more pleasant and interesting colleagues to socialize and share challenges with for older PCVs. They have a mature view of the world and want to contribute to the country they serve. They have diverse professional backgrounds from around the world. You can't go wrong with this crowd for good conversation. You won't find many late night drinking games or lost weekends at the resort though.

The age difference plays out in other ways. PC treats volunteers like college kids. There are lots and lots of rules.   You'll spend many days reviewing rules and the consequences of violating said edicts. Running afoul of PC rules leads to the ultimate remedy of Admin Sep. This is classic Washington sounding misnomer. How bad could it be? Spelled out, Administrative Separation, you'll be hearing it in your sleep for months after initiation. It's government PC speak for expelled. Most of us have forgotten about the threat of expulsion since leaving school so many decades ago. Well, its going to rear its ugly little head in the PC.

It is a cradle to grave operation from health-care, to housing and travel. The rules and restrictions are stiffening for an adult. Basically no volunteer will go home in a body bag but you may not like how you live and the experiences you can not have for safety and security reasons. No driving, ~~including back in the States while on leave~~, no motorcycle including being a passenger, bike helmets required, life preservers mandatory, flu shots compulsory, exclusionary areas within host country that you may not pass or travel, prior authorization required for travel beyond your front door and complete travel itineraries submitted in advance including lists of travel companions, means of contact while in transit, all approved prior to departure for the market. Now for all that overhead you get excellent support. If things go wrong the US military will come get you. If you get hurt there is a Medi Evac plan ready to extract you to a major medical facility and fly you to a major US hospital. VSO can be a lot looser and you may have to figure out your own medical care. You are an adult, be prepared to take care of yourself in the VSO.

As to housing the philosophy continues to differ. PC will ensure you are safe and secure in your home, good door locks and grills on the windows. You will be given or provided money for a bed, table, two chairs and a stove. Knock yourself out! If knives and forks excite you and you still think plates are necessary, get them yourself. Pots are nice but this is the PC, you should be roughing it. You'll get a couple bucks for those luxuries. VSO provides a fully furnished house with kitchen utensils and table settings, where possible.   Living can range from a capital city in an apartment to mud hut on the savanna. So depending on where you live will greatly impact your amenities.

The PC application process is awful. It is an attempt to qualify individuals without actual ever having to meet them. Other then a single interview in the beginning of the process you will be evaluated solely on paper.   To increase that warm fuzzy PC family feeling, they treat you with little respect, don't keep you informed about the application process and behave as if you have interrupted a family funeral should you call them with a question about your application. You'll learn after a deadline that there was a deadline. I was selling cars and ending rental agreements only find out I was not really accepted, just provisionally accepted.   Then one morning I receive a PC e mail telling me of an issue with my legal clearance, I have no car and no apartment, this not the time I want to hear about PC having second thoughts. PC DC treats you as if you are in college or living on you parents couch ready to go at a moments notice or in 18 months. PC doesn't seem to understand or care that an adult needs to wind down affairs to go hang out in the jungle for a couple of years.

The other huge challenge for older volunteers is the medical clearance. Let's not sugar coat this one, it's a nightmare. You'll be asked to disclose every hang nail you have ever had in your life then get a doctor to sign off that you are now fit to engage in the rigorous life a PCV can expect to experience. Let me give an example or two, a women listed that she received counseling after her divorce 20 years earlier, PC required a psychologist to sign off that she was fit for the rigors of PC life. Bureaucrats are reviewing your application, they cannot make any decisions or reasonable judgments, just follow procedure. It is not always so easy to get doctors to sign off on things that they did not treated you for and the original treating doctor may not live near you or may not be alive. I had my primary care physician refuse to sign off on a prescription he gave me because he wasn't qualified to answer the PC questions. It is best to do selective disclosure. If you the issue won't come up during service and there is no chance of requiring further treatment, it didn't happen, use your judgment, no one at PC will.

After those remarks you might wonder how it is possible to have one of the most amazing experiences of your life. You will and the bumps along the way will fade, at least until you write a post like this and remember all the shit they put you through. Oh yeah and there are significant restrictions on Blog posting and required statements about not representing the PC or US Gov. There are plenty more bumps coming from living in a developing country, one wonders why PC makes it so damn hard. Once you arrive and settle into your community, life, by in large, is your own. Every volunteer, country and community make a unique mix that will become your experience. It is what you make of it. The opportunity for an amazing and mind blowing experience is great. You will not be the same person when you return to the States, if you ever do.

Limits of Free Speech Discovered

2010-01-04T15:06:00.000-08:00

RE: New York Times: Americans’ Role Seen in Uganda Anti-Gay Push

We forget as free speaking American's that our words can have far greater impact then the simple sharing of ideas. We know that all speech isn't good, useful or truthful. Missionaries have been mis-using the power of words for centuries to abuse people who don't understand the nature of debate and dissent. Ugandas aren't the first people to be incited to murder by a missionaries words.

New Year's Prayer

2009-12-31T14:10:00.000-08:00

We better rethink our religion before our demise. If you think this world was put here for humans and we will forever prosper, we're dead. We know better and we must act better. The unholy union of Republicans and religion is about big business using religion to stop environmental regulations. So god fearing souls, we are being used to lead us all into hell and damnation, please wake up and smell the science before its too late.

Books Arrived! A Volunteer's Best Friend

2009-12-31T11:57:00.000-08:00

Evolution and Creation on the Ground

2009-12-27T15:49:00.000-08:00

We are all poised in a war posture. We think our next enemy will be another human, another force, another country attacking our way of life. That's been our history. Now we face the enemy the philosophers have warned us about. We are the attacker and we are attacking ourselves. We are killing our selves in the name of profit and wealth. We are killing the individual with the cigarette, 50 years after knowing it is deadly. We pour pollution into rivers, oceans, pump it below ground and try to hide it in the sky but the poison is still there building up everyday. If we were hostages in a small room we would agree on how to manage our waste, but in the real world, we have time and profits are quarterly. We love our children and grandchildren but we have time and we'll figure this out in time, when we really need to, when our back are really against the wall, just like we always do.

Of course we are rolling a die we don't know. We think we know of ice ages but really what do we understand and feel about back then? We have read of hot dry planets but we are the beautiful blue ball, the exception, even now as the slightly tan blue ball. Our religions tell us it is here for our taking. We are what is important, we are the center of our world, it is all here for us. The argument is not about evolution or god, it is about how to live our lives today. If we are of the divine, we will prevail. If evolution is our destiny, we are loosing a battle we didn't even know we were fighting.

Merry Christmas Wall Street, it Must be Nice to Have a Rich Uncle

2009-12-24T12:54:00.001-08:00

New York Times Cartoon December 27, 2009

News Print on my Ass

2009-12-18T08:25:00.000-08:00

This is not a comment on the state of journalism, it is a statement of fact. One of the joys of my recent trip to the Rupununi was the use of outdoor plumbing. At one of our site visits we stayed in a volunteers mud hut with thatch roof in hammocks. The following morning I awoke a bit bent from both the hammock and the rum. After a lovely breakfast prepared by our kind host I prepared for my morning constitutional. Upon grabbing my roll of tissue, which one always travels with in these parts, my colleagues informed me of a few guests I might encounter. Now I am used to having to use a bit of bug stray to chase the mosquitoes from the indoor toilet to avoid bites on the bottom but all of these critters were far larger and more dangerous. The finally recommendation was not to sit on the wood.

This was starting to sound more like acrobatics then relief. I tossed my tissue back in the bag to wait until we returned to the hotel later that day. That was a fine strategy that I should have considered before the rum the night before. A six hour delay in a truck bouncing across what are referred to as roads probably wasn't a wise strategy. An hour later I grabbed the tissue and headed for the latrine. There is so little wall that odor is not a problem, nor is privacy. I peer into the abyss and wonder what is looking back. Remembering not to sit on the wood I strategize about what to sit on. A bunch of newspaper on floor leaves me wondering if that is what is used by those without a roll of tissue. Then an epiphany strikes. If I rip the center corner of a folded up newspaper off I will have a perfect hole in the middle! With a smile of satisfaction from overcoming another of life's little challenges, I sit down upon my throne consent in my place in the Universe.

The Rupununi

2009-12-16T15:40:00.000-08:00

I just returned from an amazing tour of the what is called the hinterland in Guyana. We drove from Georgetown, the capital, through the rain forest to the savanna. This is where most of the Amerindian communities are located. The area is called the Rupununi and is on the boarder of Brazil. The link below leads to a dozen pictures of the trip.

Picture Link

The Perfect Gift...

2009-12-15T05:32:00.000-08:00

Here we are...

2009-12-12T12:19:00.000-08:00

The Trust is Gone

2009-11-29T02:57:00.000-08:00

After years of tax cuts for the rich the Obama cabinet nominations showed us that the high fliers aren't paying their reduced taxes. Its unimaginable to have a Treasury Secretary that simply didn't pay taxes while working for an international organization that wasn't required to withhold personal income taxes. We are now learning of all the secret Swiss bank accounts. What do we do to these tax evaders, we offer them amnesty! The top echelon of American income earners don't seem to believe in paying their fair share. I suppose they believe they are being asked to pay more then their fare share and can afford the lawyers and accounts to befuddle the IRS should anyone start asking tough questions. But the real loss is the trust that our country and economy rely on to function.

As we learn of the billions in salary and bonuses paid to executives and Wall Street wheeler dealers while the rest of us loose our homes, savings and future, our belief in our Nation fades. The economy may prove the easier crisis to right. There is a deep seated doubt that middle America is getting a fair deal. It is the middle that funds the country but the top that controls it. How much longer do we stand for this arrangement as our jobs are sent overseas. While globalization is great for the developing countries of the world and the stockholders of multinationals, its not always great for the people hurt by the stampede of jobs offshore. We seem to have forgotten the balance between wealth creation and Nation. Capitalism isn't America, we are a people who need to be factored in to the economic equation.

The Learning Keeps Coming

2009-11-22T09:34:00.000-08:00

I have had an action packed learning week and it has nothing to do with the aquaculture course I'm attending sponsored in part by the US Government being held in the Russian Embassy for budding fish farmers in Guyana. That is the dull part of the week. The really interesting part of the week was having a new friend over for Pizza Hut Friday night. I met this person at the local market where he works. He goes about his tasks like all of the other young workers assisting customers and running transactions. The only difference is, he is deaf. I learned this when I noticed people writing down numbers on his hand. This piqued my interest.

I'm at the market often and have exchanged pleasantries with the young man regularly. I wanted to learn more about the him but was stymied by my inability to communicate in my usual way. We are both different in the world of Georgetown, I'm the white guy, so he was interested in finding out about me and between the two of us we exchanged names and a bit more with each meeting. This was not placating my curiosity in the speedy internet fashion I am accustomed. I wondered if he had a cell phone, it sounds dumb to ask a deaf person, but everyone under 30 uses their cell phone for texting. It seemed a little odd to ask if he had a phone so we could text chat and in Guyana, the two cell phone providers don't play nice and won't exchange text messages. So not only do we have to exchange phone numbers but we had to determine if we use the same provider. This seems a daunting task to communicate the exchange of phone numbers so we can text.

Weeks are passing as I am mulling the challenges of communicating something more significant than “hey how are you?” Fortunately Georgetown is on the Internet and I am exceeding easy to find on the Internet because of a relatively unique name and picture for confirmation along with e mail, Skype, e fax and instant message addresses for making contact. One Friday evening I receive an instant message from someone not on my instant message list. My new friend has found me and through instant messaging, a way we can both easily and comfortably communicate. Its been several weeks since we made contact and we continue to see each other at the market during the week. The next step was getting together in person to chat. We were now connected via cell text and instant messaging but always apart when we chat. How were we going to communicate once we meet in person. I'm not slow at texting but I'm no speed demon either, so the latest teen fade of texting back and forth while standing next to the person didn't seem a great solution, so I delay meeting as I attempt so solve this little challenge.

I role the problem around in my head and start wondering about deafness and a communication work-around. I wonder if he can understand me by feeling the vibrations in my throat. I already know he reads lips and signs but this only helps a little. I'm sign illiterate so that doesn't help at all. Finally I settle on using my computer word processor. At least we can keep a conversation going for an extended period of time. So Friday is the day I extend an invitation for pizza. I think attempting our first social meeting in a quiet setting will be best. Food, especially pizza, usually overcomes reluctance in Guyana.

Over pizza I start casually typing on my computer to talk and he replies with his cell phone. We take turns reading each other's screens. He is very fast on the nine key phone pad with predictive text and my decades of instant messaging with ten fingers keeps us conversing comfortably. As we chat each of our other friends enters into our conversation as they text or instant message us. There are some limits to how much you can type. I finally resort to sharing pictures on my computer going with notion a picture is worth a thousand words hoping it will save my wrists from carpal tunnel discomfort in the morning.

The things we'll do for cultural exchange and learning a new language. I was initially disappointed that I would not be forced to learn a second language serving in Guyana. I am wrong again, Creoles is a different language and my new friend teaches sign. I now know how to sign pizza and notebook computer. More to come!

The Beginning of the End

2009-11-21T17:27:00.000-08:00

Two years ago when I migrated my notebook to Ubuntu, an open source Linux operating system, I could not say I believed Microsoft's rein was starting to end. Today, happily, I do know the end is starting. Who would have guessed a simple low cost computer would finally do in the giant monopoly. Of course there are many factors, Microsoft continually releasing not ready for prime time software, Vista. Google reigniting techies imagination with all that was possible once the Sun trailer, “The Network is the Computer” finally became a reality. Users are gong on a computer diet and dumping bloated PCs, hardware, software and all. Now as the netbook drives down from the computer market running mixed operating systems and smartbooks work up from smart phones on non-Intel 86 chips, the Wintel choke hold is releasing.

I am under no delusions that our next master will be any more benevolent then our last. They all start out so grand promoting visions of a brave new world. But the business people will only be concerned with locking up markets and crushing competitors. The software business has tended to support only one or two players in each segment. Users wither and languish in this anti-competitive environment. We'll enjoy a few years of price and innovation competition but the gates will slowly close on the new kingdom. At the end of its rein Microsoft is still selling a spreadsheet for $250 bucks, a piece of software that was sold profitably for $49 15 years ago and is today available for free as open source software.

We paid for it any way and in every way with lectures to boot about free markets and capitalism. Without intellectual property rights the world as we know it would end. Everyone would quit working, pack up their bags and go home. Bill Gates seems to be the only one who packed up his bags and went home early. Maybe we can take a closer look at this business model before we get Googled. This isn't the first time we have been through the tech monopoly wringer, IBM was the first round and other smaller players got a nice piece of us before Microsoft gorged on the American economy for two decades. Any chance of claw backs on ill gotten excessive entrepreneurial gains?

Hear My Feet

2009-11-03T06:19:00.000-08:00

While the US suffers one of its most dramatic economic slides in history, our political leaders continue their self interested re-election fund raising focused political agendas. This was not the time to pour deficit spending into the organizations that lead the collapse of t he economy but the only voices heard in the Capital are those of the moneyed class. Deep pockets pay for elections. As long as our governance continues to have a horizon no further then their next re-election cycle we have little hope of making the structural and systemic changes required to avoid insolvency. We can pretend the Social Security Trust fund is real but it is full of T Bill not Dollar Bills. When your right hand borrows from your left hand you can't call the debt an asset, unless your Uncle Sam. The bill is coming due with the Baby Boomer's retirement.

Developing nations are coming on strong. This is their opportunity to surpass the US. American Corporations have grown lethargic and stifling. We have moved from constant innovation to top down authoritarianism. Now that the top guy is getting paid a 100 Million, we expect the master to bestow his wisdom upon us. But it is impossible for one person or small team to drive the innovation we need to be competitive in a world of very hungry entrepreneurs in developing countries. We have been lead to believe its the top guy that makes the difference not the individual contributors. We are lost until we right this upside down model. I have joined enough firms that shower me with compliments about my smarts and creativity during the hiring process, once on board I hear, sit down, shut up and we'll tell you how you are going to do your job. I wonder why they hired me?

Foreign students are still coming to America for the best college education in the world but they are leaving after graduation to return to there homeland. Opportunities abroad are far greater then in the US. The world has learned from our old model of innovation and investment, we have moved on to stagnation and political stalemate. The tide will turn as it has in the Golden State of California, once a state that could finance its high social spending with ever increasing population growth. When taxes are too high and opportunity low, people are forced to seek new lands. The worst of it is that the motivated best and brightest tend to lead the exodus. By the time we appreciate the vote of no confidence by American's voting with their feet to work in more prosperous lands. it will be far to late to stem the hemorrhaging. While we will likely survive this economic collapse, the best informed can see the next crisis, Social Security and Medicare for the Baby Boomers. Not all of are are gong to remain in a state of denial waiting for our government to come clean on the problem which only gets worse the longer we wait.

Me or My Mind?

2009-11-01T17:35:00.000-08:00

On of the fascinating facets of the Peace Corps experience is taking the person out of their life and dropping them into a unknown world. What becomes intriguing is the ability to watch and see one's self in action. This becomes possible for two reasons. First, because you are not living and striving in your own life, it is easier not to personalize and internalize events. With a little more distance, it is easier to watch ourselves and be a better observer and critic. The second useful change is that our life is now different but our actions and response are often not different: new stimulus, same response. Suddenly we are aware of the obvious patterns that in our home life we believe is an appropriate response to stimulus but now suddenly reappears to a different stimulus. Suddenly we don't seem so aware, our responses seem disconnected from actual experience. So while you thought you were joining the Peace Corps to exchange cultures, you find yourself immersed in self discovery. A rocky road on the best of days!

A Perfect Stranger

2009-10-21T08:55:00.000-07:00

Life as a Peace Corps Volunteer presents all kinds of challenges. The mental challenges of being a PCV creped up on me recently as a number of rough spots converged into a washed out road. What I am most proud of accomplishing in Guyana is setting up a life with local activities, friends and fulfilling work. This all vanished in a flash of disappointment and anger. Its replacement didn't materialize.

Social networks are essential for maintaining a balanced outlook and reasonable expectations. When you find ourself surrounded by a community with an entirely different outlook on life, you are deprived of a network of shared burdens. We are sharing a common existence, but we do not share common concerns. I am not wanting for food and medical support. My housing is assured. If there is an emergency, someone will come to my rescue. Given my superior living condition, it is impossible to share my set backs and emotional hurdles with friends. I'm feed, I'm healthy, I'm safe, what's to complain about?

If you have spent any time exploring your own mental states, you are well aware that logic doesn't rule. Suffering from depression most of my life, I am keenly aware of the illogic of the mental state. I am also aware of the spark that can change it so suddenly, for better or worse. I'm learning to manage the downward sparks, arresting them before they take hold and seeking upward sparks when caught in a down draft.

That all said, serendipity still plays a role in our existence. The other afternoon I was browsing one of the social networks on the internet. I ran across someone of interest and struck up a conversation. It was rather odd at first, stilted and elongated because it was an e mail chat. I suggested increasing the intimacy by migrating to instant messaging. I was promptly one upped and asked if I would like to chat on the phone. Well, not really, that is always odd and I'm not feeling up to my usual social self. Nevertheless I said yes, let's Skpye, its free.

Two hours later of mostly listening to this stranger from NYC, I felt as if a crack had opened in my down view. We talked about living and maturing in the developed world. All the interactions of life, love and work create the challenges that we sometimes navigate successfully and grow, while other times seek crutches to avoid facing directly. The conversation reminded me about the importance of continuing personal internal development. Looking inside, making an honest appraisal of the current state of being to create a thoughtful plan for change rather then floating along on a river of emotions. There was the spark. A stranger stateside, by sharing his challenges and dreams reminded me of my capabilities to manage my situation and state of mind.

Re-Integration

2009-10-01T14:41:00.000-07:00

I've started a second wave of integration after my unceremonious expulsion from the Palace at QC, Queens College. I was quite unaware of the rarefied life I enjoyed ensconced on the top college campus in Guyana. I have since learned that water and power are not a guarantee but more a crap shoot off campus. I am learning to take advantage of running water when it is running. I thought I had out witted the regular power outages with my head lamp only to discover that there are no trade winds blowing across the 40 acres of playing fields into my new modest abode in densely populated Kitty. One's fan is the sole bliss on which existence hinges, power is essential for this little necessity of equatorial life.

Ah the joys of neighbors. My nearest companions once were measured in fractions of a mile are now within spitting distance. What was once my weekend pleasure of listening to the bands play at National Park are now the 24x7 joys of guard dogs barking, babies crying and a parakeet imitating all of the above. The mild distraction of horns, construction and marital disputes seems hardly worth mentioning.

The streets are no longer paved with diplomatic, police and defense force entourages. While I have the luxury of the local constable around the corner giving me a slight sense of security in and around my new home, I am not the only one enjoying the protective umbrella. Those who have imbibed to excess and lack a domicile find the sidewalks outside the station safe to sleep off their excesses. One shopkeeper has posted a "No shit or pee here" bill. For the illiterate he added barbwire and broken bottles. To think I complained about having to set my derriere on raw porcelain before demanding a proper throne. So I adjust to year two in the Peace Corps!

Raw

2009-07-05T10:47:00.000-07:00

My feelings about gay issues in developing countries has under gone a complete metamorphosis since serving in the Peace Corps. I have several indigenous male friends now living in the capital city who have told me about being raped as children by their fathers. I now appreciate the urgency to address sexual repression. Child abuse, alcohol/drug abuse, domestic violence and the spread of hiv are all part of the fall out of antiquated social and religions norms.

I haven't cried in a decade until my friends told me about being raped by their fathers. I can't fathom the physical and mental devastation to a child.

What is Love?

2009-07-04T05:21:00.000-07:00

Lust is the spark that starts the long road to love. These first feelings that grow in intensity are the magnet that draws two people together. Makes them believe they are soul mates forever. The sheer joy of the infatuation. The dream of romantic love. It is at this time when the longer process of love must take root. The belief is not enough to sustain a couple through life. The belief much morph into action that turns rose colored glasses into reality. Each person must shape their partner by their own actions and reactions. Here is where love begets love. Here is where the best of each other must become the reality and the less, the aberration. We shape our lovers by how we respond and react. We make them stronger and kinder with support, love and carrying. We weaken them with doubt, anger and indifference. We are all great and terrible beings. We exist in between. It is our lover that moves us along the continuum. Our lover is more then our partner, they are our creator and we theirs. Momentum is the power that drives us beyond our limits to achieve what we thought impossible. If we want to live a life fill with love, covet the one, work our hardest to be our best, trust our lover to do the same and live the life that fills so many dreams.

Love is all emotion in its fickle majesty. While flowing with emotions it is the mind that need overlay an awareness of reason. Dreams fade all too fast. Without consistent work and clear focus, dreams vanish. The balance between mind of emotions and mind of logic is the seesaw every lover straddles. Leaning too much in either direction will throw a lover with a hard knock to the ground. Ride the emotions until the ground arrives or construct a plan with no feeling to never leave the ground. This is no trifle for the young or inexperienced. Mastery is in the doing, learning, failing and trying again. When balance is struck, the ease of mastery makes effort unnecessary. Only the fool looses attention, love exists in an ever dynamic environment of two people within two people, all influencing the others unpredictably. A vigilant watch must always be kept. Constant open honest exchange the means to maintaining a stable binary orbit. Oh the complexity, is it still love? But if it were easy, would it be interesting and enchanting? Such are the challenges of life itself, love being the pinnacle social bond.

Love isn't Amenable

2009-06-27T06:31:00.000-07:00

All the boys baying at the moon looking for love, the empty hearts club is full tonight. Love isn't for the meek, the weak or the planners. Love is the wreaking ball of all the best laid plans, life goals and managed affairs. Love doesn't plug-in to an existing life. It won't be the perfect overlay to a well managed career. It opposes all that is orderly, practical and logical. It is the the single greatest, most powerful human emotion. To let love take hold, drop all your defenses. Leave the logically behind. Love is the sharing and mixing of two emotional beings. Give in completely to trust, forgoing fear, freely falling without thinking of the floor. If you want to exist here, know the challenges that come with leaving the material to join the spiritual world of love.