My friend Dave, he left this existance about two years ago.  He was one of the most intelligent people I have ever met and the main motivation for what I do everyday.  He did not find true peace in this life and died with his music still inside.

He tried to find refuge in medication and other drugs, but never did.

I do miss talking to him, he was an very funny and unique person.  No one has filled that void in my life.

Someone please explain this to me!

We have the ability to profoundly affect the world around us, but we do not.

We look for leaders to show us a way out of the wilderness but they do not - we then become disillusional.

But here is the hard truth - they are just a reflection of us.  Yes - us - a reflection in the mirror.

Liberating isn't it.

Joy
www.life-optimized.com

Most of my friends are passionate about the world around them and making a difference but they will not vote!
Politics is a messy, slow, butt kissing big business pain in the _______ but it is the only system we have, and we progressive types who lay awake at night worrying about Burma, Dafur or the homeless lady I drove past last week that I have not been able to find since NEED to get involved.  The system will change (slowly no doubt) if we insist that it does and we participate in more than just one election.

We also vote every day with our money, how we choose to spend it and how we save it.

I need to put together a seminar about ethical investing because I find myself giving advice on this topic while shopping for pet food (I talk to everyone, my husband will not go into the bookstore for example with me anymore - we tend to stay too long)

But so many do not understand proxy voting and the power to influence a company's values or direction.

Or the products available to ethically invest.

The possibilty of change is real and within our grasp we have to stop cursing at the darkness.

(I am quoting someone else)

Not for Ourselves Alone


Those who seek liberation for themselves alone cannot become fully enlightened. Though it may be said that one who is not already liberated cannot liberate others, the very process of forgetting oneself to help others is itself liberating.

Therefore those who seek to benefit themselves alone actually harm themselves by doing so, while those who help others also help themselves by doing so.

- Muso Kokushi, in Dream Conversations


From Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

I never thought I would say this out loud, but Jesus is my ethical role model. 

Not the Jesus you find in the more fundamentalist interpretation but the human person -

- who swore at a fig tree because he was hungry.
- was racist at times.
- challenged the religious establishment to care more for the poor.
- spoke more about economic justice than sex.
- saw that true spiritual change could occur over a good meal.
- hung out with the wrong people.
-  taught that spiritual practice is an on going, ever evolving process.
- and trashed the temple to protest the over commercialization of spiritual practice.

this is not the Jesus you find in most main stream churches today.  Pity.

My husband (who is a fit 42) lost consciousness at a football game and had what his friends called a seizure.  He was taken to the ER and after a battery of tests that found nothing was released. However until he can get to a neurologist he is not to drive.  So we get to carpool :)

We see the doc on Thursday and hopefully he will get an all clear.

I suspect it was the heat and no liquids other than beer at the game since he has no history of seizures - but talk about a scare.

HA! where do I start -
OK if I had to pick one it would be - challenge all assumptions.  I never viewed myself as a follower and during my childhood challenging assumptions would be considered rebellion.  But I have only now really and truly begun to ask the big questions of "why the hell am I doing what I am doing?"
I feel like I am making up for lost time, since parts of my life (like my career) has been on autopilot and do not reflect my true self.

Joy

We still do not know why my husband had a seizure or even if it was a seizure.  He will need to have additional tests and was advised by the neurologist to start anti seziure medication (he has not) there is sufficient conflicting info regarding starting drug therapy after one "seziure"

I do think we will need to get a second opinion once all the tests are in.

Thank you for all your kind emails.

Joy

I have been following with some amusement the legal (now maritime) tussle between the Spanish government and Odyssey Marine Exploration from Tampa.  Basically Odessey found an sunken Spainish "treasure" ship with actual treasure - to the tune of about $75 M.  No one is actually sure since Odyssey is keeping the location of the sunken ship a secret, but it is supposed to be off the coast of Florida.

I loved playing pirate growing up and would  have loved to be on the team that found "sunken treasure" - but I digress.

Yesterday, when The Odyssey Explorer, a 250ft salvage vessel was trying to leave Gibraltar, where it had been effectively blockaded for three months after Spain claimed a share of millions of dollars of "treasure'  it was taken at gunpoint by the Spanish navy to a Spanish Port - where it still is.

Now what facinates me about all this is the fact that this "treasure" does not belong to the Spanish government either - I do not wish to offend anyone - but the fact is this treasure was stolen from the native people's of the "New World" ie the Caribbean where I am from.  Now I do not intend to file a claim in court, since the native peoples were all desimated by colonial wars and desease - none of them survive.

It does raise the interesting point, if European Jews can file court claims over property stolen during World War II , why can't the people of the Caribbean?

Now I am not seriously advocating this since at some point and eye for an eye makes the whole world blind - but genocide is something we human beings have been doing to each other for a long time - it is not the unique experience of just one racial or ethnic group.

The economic drive for cheap labor and access to resources tends to bring out the worse in us, and the effects of the colonial mindset is still with us - be it sunken treasure or Iraq.

Newsweek has an interesting article this week about money and happiness that included the following paragraphs :

In a typical survey people are asked to rank their sense of well-being or happiness on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 means "not at all satisfied with my life" and 7 means "completely satisfied." Of the American multimillionaires who responded, the average happiness score was 5.8. Homeless people in Calcutta came in at 2.9. But before you assume that money does buy happiness after all, consider who else rated themselves around 5.8: the Inuit of northern Greenland, who do not exactly lead a life of luxury, and the cattle-herding Masai of Kenya, whose dung huts have no electricity or running water. And proving Gilbert's point about money buying happiness only when it lifts you out of abject poverty, slum dwellers in Calcutta-one economic rung above the homeless-rate themselves at 4.6.

and

"If more money doesn't buy more happiness, then the behavior of most Americans looks downright insane, as we work harder and longer, decade after decade, to fatten our W-2s. But what is insane for an individual is crucial for a national economy-that is, ever more growth and consumption. Gilbert again: "Economies can blossom and grow only if people are deluded into believing that the production of wealth will make them happy ... Economies thrive when individuals strive, but because individuals will strive only for their own happiness, it is essential that they mistakenly believe that producing and consuming are routes to personal well-being."

Couldn't have said it better myself.

OK

I have been trying to get a new seminar written on ethical investing - and not having much luck.  I either end up with tooooo much scholarly material (interesting to me of course but I doubt a general audience) or too much fluff.

HELP.

So I am asking my fellow Zaadzsters to please email any questions you may have on this topic.

The aim is to create a program that educates on do it yourself ethical investing.

Thank you all in advance.

I found this one in my album - he was sound asleep when I took this.

Kermit the Frog

"Someday we'll find it, that rainbow connection,
the lovers the dreamers and me."

...you did ask.

OK, to more serious stuff.
I do try to lighten up a bit as my last few blog entries show.  I do think I confused a few of my fellow Zaadzsters with my reference to Kermit the Frog since it has generated email :)

Anyway, my formal training is as an economist (the dismal science I know) but I have been doing some work on figuring out some of the criticisms put forth on Kyoto, carbon trading and a carbon tax.  Now this is the stuff of textbooks, and I typically get a glazed over look from my husband and close friends when I start talking like this- so bear with me.

I will be blunt, Kyoto will not work in its current form, it has good intent and no one else has come up with a reasonable substitute.  But from an economic point of view enforcement will be impossible and without this - Kyoto falls apart.

Basically Kyoto will charge companies, and or countries to pollute, the sky belongs to all of us and if any entity wants to use it to emit green house gasses you will have to pay the owner - the human race.  This in theory will make carbon emission expensive and force companies to find alternatives. 

BUT

What will prevent a company from cheating, especially when a government is faced with an economy going into recession or some natural disaster.  For example, Georgia currently wants the Federal government to suspend some EPA regulations because of severe drought.  What will prevent a company faced with angry investors from asking the same thing? And who really knows how much pollution is released into the atmosphere - can you tell?  I can't.  so how can charge for something you cannot even quantify. 
the other issue is this, if a company or country wants to needs to pollute in excess of the emission credits it has it can purchase it from somewhere else -  like a developing country.  In many cases it is cheaper to buy emission credits from a developing country, while continuing to pollute - rather than look for energy alternatives.

so it seems to me that from an economic point of view a carbon tax at point of use (easier to track and not as easy to manipulate) that affect all of us is the only way to go, while R&D to find non carbon sources of power.  We all pay to pollute while gradually moving to non carbon based power sources.

Oh yeah - this is going to be fun.

Joy

Today the Christian Science Monitor has an article on the very topic of Kyoto and carbon emissions - and the writer agreed with me :)

Excerpts

A company with high emissions, say a coal-fired power plant, would buy permits to emit CO2 as it invests in cleaner technology in preparation for lower caps. A company that emits less carbon could sell some of its permits, rewarding clean operation. In theory, overall emissions are reduced, while leaving companies free to devise their own strategies for playing the cap-and-trade game.

In practice, however, the details are tricky for both government and business, as experienced by the European Union since 2005 with its cap-and-trade plan.

Industry lobbyists were able to punch loopholes in the EU's complex system. The EU ended up handing out far too many free permits: Their value plummeted from more than $30 a ton to about $1 last year, hurting the incentive. In industries that were hit by caps, many moved production outside the EU, taking their polluting ways with them.

The next round of EU permits, issued for 2008 to 2012, may close loopholes and better judge the trading marketplace. But it took the EU decades to agree to launch its euro currency and build trust in its value. The global-warming fight can't wait that long to work the kinks out of a cap-and-trade system.

Tomorrow, the Monitor's View will look at a simpler, better way to cut emissions: a carbon tax.

Looking forward to tomorrow's article.

I took this headline from the NY Times.  It was describing how, after presiding on one of the worse losses ever experienced on Wall, Street Meryl Lynch CEO E. Stanley O'Neal will have to be paid $159 M if he is fired by the Board of Directors.

Now as a believer in free market capitalism I do not seen anything inherently wrong in a buy out or salary so huge - except Meryl Lynch and many others in the sub prime mortgage mess, a mess of their own making (giving loans to individuals who cannot afford them is not sensible economically.) And thousands will loose their jobs as a result of decisions made by Mr O' Neil - and I doubt any one of them will get a severance buyout.

I read somewhere that what passes as free market economics these days is just socialism for the rich.

I am reminded of a common story, the goose that laid golden eggs.  Basically  a farmer had a goose that laid golden eggs, but he got greedy and wanted it faster so he killed the bird but when he opened her up there were no golden eggs to be found.

Ok as promised here is part two of the Christian Science Monitor's articles on Carbon Tax and Global Warming.

Conservative and liberal economists like it. James Connaughton, President Bush's top environmental adviser, backs it. Al Gore says he's always preached it. So why isn't a carbon tax on the table in Congress as it weighs measures to curb climate change? A three-letter reason: T-A-X.

Economists agree that the real cost of burning fossil fuels - damage to the environment and health, not to mention the cost of replacing them as they run out - isn't reflected in today's prices. A carbon tax would directly send a market signal to reduce carbon use. And it would provide an incentive for investment in renewable sources.

I disagree with the following:

But wait: What if the carbon-tax revenues were returned to most taxpayers, canceling out the effect on pocketbooks but retaining the market incentives?

Under one plan, every worker would receive a tax rebate of about $560, cutting the tax bill by 18 percent for those earning $20,000, or by 4 percent for those earning $90,000. The burden on consumers would shrink, but the US would achieve greater conservation and a shift to energy alternatives. And the tax could be fine-tuned to meet rising targets for reducing carbon dioxide.

Wonderful in theory but no government, especially ours has the ability to use a tax in a progressive manner.  Before long special interests and campaign money will corrupt this, besides consumers act in their own intrest, if they do not feel the pain there will be no changes in carbon consumption.

It is the only one I could find :)  I am ususally the photographer so I am rarely in front of the camera.

http://www.projectgood.com/community_promo_fwd.html

In the small city of Volladolid, Mexico few jobs exist for women outside of low-wage factory work.
Project good will donate one dollar to Dzitnup for every new member that signs up.


Joy