John Lennon: its Christmas, and what have you done?

For nearly 40 years  a very long time John Lennon has meant something really important to me.  First as a teenage rebel, and then as a pretty serious social and political critic.   Nowhere Boy is my one essential Christmas season film-going this year.

His main message - speak your own truth and hold them accountable - is still right bang on the nail.

And here we are at end of the noughties:  Christmas 2009.  Lennon would have had a LOT to say about everything that has been going down.  One of his catchy lyrics comes to mind:

"And so this is Christmas, and what have you done?"

Indeed Ms. Sarah Louise, what have you done, in 2009, to make a difference?

Including, given the sub-text of Lennon's Christmas Song, what have you done about the knotty problem of war?

With failing heart I set to work to list what I have done, and I find I've done better than I thought.  I set the list out below for those who care to read further.

Meanwhile, let's just say that its all messy, and we all have to do our bit.  The main thing is to stay clear, pay close attention, and hold our so-called leaders accountable.  And I still love John Lennon. to say the least.  Here's how he put it:

Still true, still fabulous and still important!

And from the genuinely influential to my little part - 

First of all, what's still to do, for next year.

1. Join an organisation that is working actively to charge Tony Blair as a war criminal.
2. Join some effective mechanism on energy reduction, or a composite of organisations.  This is such an important issue, and we are being held hostage mainly by the US congress of capitalists and their chinese equivalent.  Some very drastic kind of Greenpeace-type action is needed.  Copenhagen was such a farce:  how can we get these wankers to take it seriously?.
3. Grow my own veggies
4. Cut down on my airmiles
5. Get my finances sorted, by which I mean properly planned, organised and recorded (this is the main one.  If I get this done I'll be way pleased.  Why am I so finance phobic? see I'm Looking for a Financial Adviser).
6. Keep learning more on web 2.0, and come to grips with html
7. Keep working on my fitness.

Here is my list of eight good things in 2009.

1. Family:  I provided part of a framework for my daughter to climb out of the mapless pit of trauma, depression and chaos into which she had fallen.  Using this framework, a huge amount of effort and a strong network of friends that she has built up, she has turned her life around.  I am very proud of her and all she has done, and the threshold of a new life that she has carved out for herself, and I am proud of myself for my small part in this.  For me, this is the single most important thing that I have done this year
2. Family:  I was able to spend several weeks with my father while he was dying over the summer, an incredible privilege which we both loved, and also to share information and pictures with our somewhat fractured family, which helped us all get through this difficult time together. 
3. Work:  I have participated in facilitating a really innovative and effective leadership training programme for United Nations senior staff, which will continue next year.
4. Work: I have been able to help the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) clarify their strategic priorities on women's and girls' rights, and in the case of UNDP work quite a lot on ways to prevent and provide recourse for violence against women.  
5. War: As a great deal of UNDP's work on violence against women takes place in war-torn and post-conflict situations, in a sense I have made a small contribution to mitigating the effects of war. This also will continue next year.
6. War: I participated in several demonstrations against the Israeli invasion of Gaza earlier in the year, and threw a shoe at the Embassy here in London, specially carried thence for the purpose.  I tweeted madly about the war criminal status of Tzipi Livni, and the distinction of Palestinian and Israeli origin for consumer items.  A very important step in my view, and I will certainly be boycotting Israeli goods.
7. Carbon Footprint:  I have worked quite hard on my carbon footprint this year.  First off I have become a vegetarian, pretty much.  I never buy meat for myself now.  This is because of the extreme carbon costs of producing meat relative to veggies, and also, for me,  the difficulty of knowing whether it has been reared and killed humanely.   That's about 25% off by carbon footprint right there.  Secondly I have stopped using my dryer and hair dryer, and have changed all my light-bulbs and turn them off more diligently.  Small beer, but still, that's what I have done.  I have joined the 10/10 campaign (10 % reduction in energy use by 2010).  Third, I have cut back on my car use considerably.  I did an audit on my average mileage for the autumn.  It was 68 miles a week!  Don't laugh, I travel a lot (air miles, oh dear), and I live alone, and I was sick for part of the time.  So, I will do another audit in 2010, what ever, and I will make sure to reduce it by at least 10% less next year, and, much, much more importantly, cut down on my air miles.
8. Personal:  I changed my life with Web 2.0.  Still enjoying tweeting and blogging

So all in all, not bad Sarah Louise.  Room for improvement, but on the right track.  Keep up the struggle my dear.

And the hardest thing I had to do?  Find a new new home for my cats.  And I succeeded in that too,  painful as it was.

Oh, and another thing for 2010 - don't turn into one of those people who brings their cats into every damn conversation.

Bringing Berlusconi Low.

Milan Cathedral by matteobertelli

Downloaded from Flickr under Creative Commons Licence

Regular visitors to these musings will know that I have a very low opinion of Mr. Silvio Berlusconi, much in the news in recent days.  Indeed, to paraphrase Alexander Pope:

"I find it hard to know where lies the Fault / For BERLUSCONI's well-deserv'd ASSAULT..."

(A tweet by one of my favourite tweeps, @MrAlexanderPope)

My only comment is "wrong pecker, Sr. Tartaglia, but thanks anyway". 


In throwing the tourist trinket, Sr. Tartaglia has achieved something that no amount of demonstrations or arguments could do. He has humiliated Berlusconi. He has unmanned him in his own eyes.  

Berlusconi has taken to a highly successful extreme the applied sexism on which so much political power rests.  It seems that the language of male hierarchy is the only language that this bottom feeder understands, and I am deeply happy that one who trades in degradation has been brought so low by male-form humiliation.

The BBC reports today that his doctor says "his morale is still a matter of concern".  This is a promising snippet of information.

And fellow deep-chested male self-promotionist Vladimir Putin seems to have understood precisely what is affecting his Latin co-attitudinist.  "Berlusconi", he said on Tuesday "behaved in a manly way in an extreme situation".  A gross exaggeration, of course, but balm to the wounded soul, no doubt.

Only moments before the assault Berusconi had un-buttoned his shirt and asserted his masculine health and vigor to thousands of his delighted supporters.  Now he is depressed, and his departure from hospital twice postponed.   Let's hope he cowers from the press for many days to come.  I am not holding my breath, but I'm not entirely without hope either.

Berlusconi has successfully blurred the boundaries of entertainment and politics by including a former topless dancer in his cabinet and nominating starlets for the European Parliamentary elections. He's running Italy like a cheap bordello.

But if that were the only problem, we would be in a better position to do something about it. In fact the starlet effect is more pernicious and devastating than that. An interesting article in a recent edition of Time magazine How Silvio Berlusconi Uses Women on TV. showed how this reptile has “shaped” his electorate by using his media empire to numb their intellect through mindless TV game shows that are exceptionally demeaning of women.  I think "groomed"  his electorate comes closer to the mark, expressing the perverse and degrading sexuality that is involved.   These shows are nothing but pole-dancing in prime-time, for family viewing (e.g Sunday lunch-time, after church).  It's like total immersion in Zoo Magazine, if you can imagine such a thing.

If you speak Italian, check out Lorella Zanardo's award-winning video on YouTube "The Body of Women" (Il Corpo delle Donne).  It provides a powerful feminist critique of these shows.  Even if you don't have the language, the correlations with food and butchery make the argument visually clear.

This kind of perspective reaches me, and maybe a micro-percentage of those men and women who already understand that the man is a total shit.

But it just doesn't reach the man himself, or those who repeatedly vote for him.  What do they care about humiliating women?  It's what they deal in.

Only one thing has any weight.

I hate to say it, but violent humiliation by another man, especially a socially outcast and highly subordinated man (if the accounts of Sr. Tartaglia's isolation and mental illness are true), seems to be the only thing that has cut through Berlusconi's politico-virility, and if that's what it takes, I am very glad its happened.

Although his other pecker would have been even more appropriate, soft-tissue damage would not have been so comprehensively evident and demeaning as the crunch we are getting from his broken nose and teeth.  So that's OK too.

Or to paraphrase Pope again (but this time penned by me);

"The weighty TRINKET, seized from nearby shelf / expos'd th'Achilles' heal: a fragile (but inflated) sense of SELF".

And at least he won't be a distraction in Copenhagen.

Berlusconi in Copenhagen by matteobertelli

Downloaded from Flickr under Creative Commons Licence

You may also enjoy What Can We do About Berlusconi Think?

Leadership and Otto Scharmer

Thanksgiving weekend in north America, Eidh-al-Adha world-wide, but business as usual in Europe, and I have been in the incredibly beautiful baroque city of Turin, co-facilitating a workshop ethics and accountability in leadership.

The Po River at Turin by Funchye

Basilica of Our Lady Help of Christians, Turin by Flavio Cruvinel Brandao

We are based in one of the most exciting and imaginative learning spaces I have ever been in, the Leadership Centre for the Italian UniCredit Group -  Unimanagement.  So lovely, and such great staff.

Scuola Unimanagement Torino 2008

And I am totally pleased to report that we ran into an anti-Berlusconi rally in the Piazza della Castella on Sunday, and were able to participate enthusiastically.  The total antithesis of ethics and accountability.

Meanwhile at the workshop we have an amazing line-up of leadership gurus and practitioners - John Adair, the world's first ever professor of leadership studies, and still going strong, Otto Scharmer of MIT, Barbara Kellerman of Harvard, The Italian Army's Mountain Brigade, Maestro Kristjan Jarvi of the Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro Regio, the amazing Radikha Coomaraswamy and Thoraya Obaid of the United Nations, Hans Van Sponeck former Humanitarian Coordinator for the Oil for Food Programme in Iraq, Steve McCurry, Pullitzer Prize-winning photographer, Chef Federico Colvi, who is leading an evening of "gastro-leadership", or competitive team cooking, Payam Akhavan, international human rights lawyer and Klaus Leisinger of the Novartis Foundation, among others.

Excited is not the word. It's totally cosmic.

Here is a video of Otto Scharmer describing his theory of leadership, presencing, co-creating  and "igniting a field of inspired connections".   Learning from the future as it emerges.  If you can, go thousands of miles to to see Otto Scharmer speak: its worth it.

Also check out his website on moving to capitalism 3.0.  Interesting.

What can we do about Berlusconi-think?

This is about living in a decent society, which is the subtext of this little blog, and the whole point really.

Here is the deeply awful Berlusconi doing what he does best:-

And here is my first instinct about what should happen to his wretched little line and tackle

The Magnificent Eagle Owl Grab

Too good for him really

Just kidding ......

Or am I?  Seriously,  this jerk represents majority opinion about women and girls.

Most men have their Id under better control than Berlusconi, but millions don't.  We need absolute prevention of this nonsense, because the logical conclusion of tolerating harassment is rape and violence against women.

And for that we need accountability.  The social and political equivalent of the Eagle Owl Grab is progressive law, actively enforced.  And for that we need a well-informed public.

Some very wonderful and principled people are working to change the whole mind-set.

And here's one man's moving journey away from bystander-ness on the question of male violence, developing the courage to step towards what he really cares about, away from his socialisation.

And here is a good explanation of the social pressures behind the mind-set.  The extraordinary view of masculinity, male sexuality and male violence that we pretty-much all grow up with.

There are many organizations actively working on these themes;

In South Africa the Sonke Gender Justice Network have a "One Man Can" campaign, and have also taken Julius Malema, General Secretary of the ANC Youth League to the Equality Court for his sexist and homophobic language.

MenEngage, a global alliance of NGOs and UN agencies that seeks to engage boys and men to achieve gender equality.  It includes Sonke, Promundo, The White Ribbon Campaign and many others.

While Silence Speaks and The Center for Digital Storytelling are getting the word out digitally - the incredible importance of "listening deeply"to each other.

And there are loads of others.

But the main thing is to get rid of disgusting role models like the astonishingly teflon-coated Mr. Sylvio Berlusconi.  Sadly I'm not holding my breath on that one.


You may also enjoy Bringing Berlusconi Low

The Poem that Solved my Leadership Problem.

This is an anniversary of sorts.

I read a poem one Sunday morning in late 1999, and realised that I no longer needed my toxic commute to a toxic workplace, and third, no fourth, toxic boss in a row.

Several months of mulling, of back-burner pondering, resolved instantly to clear certainty.

In less than four short months I was outta there, with my own little biz and never a single regret.  I'm still in contact with the wonderful friends I made there and I'm still doing the same kind of work, but co-creating it now.  And no more brutal, stumbling, neanderthal "leadership".

Thousands love this poem: for me it was life-changing.

Here it is:

Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver 
from her collection Dream Work

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
The world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

The most totally liberating part for me?  The first line.

.

And here's my own little wildgoose.

From her I have learned and am learning almost every other thing I have ever needed to know about loving what I love.  The harshest and most exciting lessons of all, totally wild and wonderful.

Now flying strongly in the clean blue air herself, finding her own place in the family of things.

Wild Geese High in the Clean Blue Air by Under the Influence of Dub

Creative Commons License

And as every graduate of business school knows full well, Wild Geese almost never fly alone, unless they are really sick, and even then another goose accompanies as long as possible.  They fly in formation to benefit from each other's up-draft, and the leadership rotates, so that they all share responsibility.  And, almost best of all, they honk to support each other in flight.

Now, there's a life agenda. To co-create that kind of community.

The follower kind of leadership - that's what I like.  Not only in the sense that leaders pay attention to their  followers, but that leaders are also followers, and vice versa (and its so social networking).

"Real leadership always takes place through 
collective, systemic, and distributed action".  

Otto Scharmer.  MIT 

Florida Panther

Florida Panther : Only 80 to 100 panthers still remain in Florida, making this one of the most rare and endangered mammals in the world.

Originally uploaded by dpfunsun

How awsome is this?  How can we not get together and work out how to share our planet better?

According to Wikipedia, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the state conservation of this wonderful animal has been bungled, and there is no congressional oversight.

The integrity of this animal, and all it represents, is so much more important than the consumption-driven sprawl and road-building that has been running amok in Florida all these many years.

Food Group Dilemmas

Now, you all know the four main food groups, I'm sure: soul food, comfort food, nursery food and chocolate.

Chocolate-coffee Cupcake with Mascarpone and Cream  by Chotda 

Creative Commons License

I try to eat from at least one of these groups every day, usually in the evening, just to round things off nicely.

This is what I do.  I eat delicious wheat-free Pony Food with fruit for breakfast, as seasonal, organic, low carbon-footprint, free trade and local as I can get it:

Don't look at the Blueberries - at this time of year they're from S. Africa, but they are organic, 

and the clemantine now comes by rail not lorry from Spain, a HUGE green development

And for lunch I usually have some delicious wholesome Rabbit Food, ditto

So then, in the evening, I select from one or more of the four main food groups.

This is to reward myself for whatever victories I’ve had during the day, which are usually many and various, if individually small.

Being British, I mainly go for Nursery Food, e.g. shepherds pie (free-range, organic, local), or my special one-pot chicken-and-rice-and-veggies dish (and to keep it local, I use barley instead of rice).  And then I have a little piece of dark chocolate (fairtrade, organic, anti-oxidant), or a big piece.

Sometimes I just have pud, quite often my absolutely all-time favourite food: rice pudding with stewed apple, queen of the nursery food pantheon.  Yumety-yum.

Very delicious and full of comforting nostalgic associations - that's nursery food.

No doubt about the calories however.  Very calorific.  Loaded up with all those big round lipid molecules that roll around the tongue is such a wonderfully seductive way.  But don’t forget portion control.  I sometimes (that is, often) do, but at least I know in principle that portion control is the answer to the calorie challenge.

So higher calorie than ideal perhaps, but not always, and not junk, and as ethical as I can get it: that's my evening meal.

And it does end the day on a deeply enjoyable and comforting note. Which is not without merit as I build my nightly defenses against that bane of financial cruise control – those wee wakeful hours of the morning when life's little challenges can seem overwhelming, even to me, Ms Positive Thinking. (And the very best antidote?  BBC Worldservice)

So I am navigating as best I can the reefs and shoals of health, ethics, sveltitude and happiness, and coming up pretty good on the whole(some).

And after all we can’t take life too seriously, can we.  Its just a bowl of cherries (organic, local, seasonal, low calorie, delicious), isn't it?

Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries  by Slider72

Creative Commons License

Happiness: The "cruise" part of financial cruise control

Regular visitors to these pages will know that  "financial cruise control" is what I'm after, and its about way more than money.  I find, not surprisingly, that it has three parts:

Financial -  the money part;

Cruise -      the fun and happiness part, and:

Control -    the strategic, conceptual part, the dialectics of life.

And why am I doing this?  I want loads of boodle?  No, actually.  I'm a control freak?  Not at all.

I'm doing this because I want to be happy in this, the springtime of my senescence (Gore Vidal).  So the middle part is, naturally enough, central to the whole project. 

The best way to find out exactly what it is that makes you happy, so you can get more of it?  Journaling, without question, or as we say today, blogging.

(Actually I still like the old kind, the blank book and pencil kind, and you just have to search "journaling" on Amazon to see how popular it is.  And as for googling or twitter-searching "happiness", oh boy!  We are all getting desperate.  And its not surprising when you think how much shopping we are all doing.  But I'm coming to that).

It turns out that journaling can not only help us find out what makes us happy, the very process of journaling itself produces happiness.

Read on:

If there is one thing you should do, its refresh your memory (or in my case, find out for the first time, can you believe?) what  Epicurus had to say about happiness.  He's is my man, and he lived in a commune, dude.  Way back then in 350 BC, or thereabouts.

He was the first (as far as we know), and he said it all, set the framework.  Everything since has just been details.

Photo downloaded from Flickr under Creative Commons License.  Snastopoulos

Epicurus believed we could all be happy, but are looking in the wrong place.  Contrary to popular belief he did not advocate self-indulgence.  He was more interested in frugality and quality: knowing what we really need.  Simple pleasures that really satisfy.  Or, to put it another way, financial cruise control.

That's the whole thing wrapped up, right there.

Epicurus felt that there are three requirements for happiness:-

1.   Friends: good companions, constant communication and interaction among people who like and support each other.  Absolutely.

2.   Freedom.  Don't worry, not the eagle and gun kind: it means not keeping up with the Jones's, which gives you freedom from financial worries.  Doing your own thing.  Modest pleasures.  Simple pleasures, Affordable luxuries.  Self-sufficiency even.  This is actually the hardest one of the three to achieve, thanks to recreational shopping and the advertising that drives it.

And finally, get this ....

3.   An Analysed Life.  In other words, journaling, blogging, the lovely process of stepping back, taking stock, reflecting on what matters, thinking about "your place in the family of things" (Mary Oliver).   What a brilliant guy.

So the first thing you gotta do, as soon as you have about 10 minutes to spare, is click right here and watch this totally brilliant vid. about Epicurus and his ideas about financial cruise control.

And I'm going to keep right on trucking with this little blog of mine, which led me to Epicurus (better late than never), and I have to say is making me very  ..........   happy.

And I'm also working on all that other stuff.  Definitely.

So come back soon to see what I find out, but while your here, why not subscribe or share this blog, or become a follower (right there in the side-bar) ?

And meanwhile, here are some simple epicurean pleasures to enjoy, from Epicurus' birthplace in Samos, Greece:

A simple pleasure  

Downloaded from Flickr under Creative Commons License  Vtveen.

Another simple pleasure   

Downloaded from Flickr under Creative Commons License  Vtveen

And yet another simple pleasure. 

Downloaded from Flickr .  angelsgermain.

You see, its not so difficult.

And you don't have to go to Samos.  Here is simple pleasure right in my own back yard last Spring.

And don't forget this one (See Duality in the Archive)

Whatever Happened to the Teapots? or Turning a Bad Thing into a Good Thing

I was amazed at the collapse of Waterford Wedgewood in January of this year.  It was part of the wallpaper.  It went into receivership, and is now distinctly faded.  


A conglomerate company with some subsidiaries going back 250 years, Wedgewood Waterford included household names like Wedgewood pottery, Royal Doulton bone china, Rosenthal Porcelain, and, of course Waterford Crystal.  

Seasonal theme in the Waterford Factory.  Yvon from Ottawa

Stoke-on-Trent was pretty devastated.  Factories were demolished, workers sacked and secondary businesses closed. 

But the industry is dealing with some of the very things I'm mulling here, like how to turn that freefall feeling into a revenue stream. How to adjust and get through the difficult times with flair not fear. Using traditional skills and experience in new ways.

In its week-long radio show "Whatever Happened to the Teapots?" the Beeb (with the wonderful Roger Law) is getting the word out to the rest of us via its I-player, its totally amazing website and all the usual sharing widgets.  

Roger Law, of Spitting Image fame (together with Peter Fluck), now works entirely in drawing and especially ceramics, making really lovely porcelain. I mean seriously gorgeous.  Check it out.  Remember their Mrs Thatcher teapot (and dog chews)?  Roger's moved on from all that now. 


But to jog your memory here's a book cover from back then designed by Law and Fluck, using one of their kinder satirical puppets, on a topic close to my heart, as it happens

I don't want to presume, but Roger was probably cash poor once, but not any more, not for a long time actually.  He has done his own thing, reinvented himself several times and found, I imagine, financial cruise control.  Just the chap to talk to the good people of Stoke with understanding of the creativity, courage and risk-taking that will keep ceramics alive in the Six Towns.

Roger writes for the BBC that "despite the gloomy conditions for the big players, there are signs of hope to be found on the streets of Stoke. Look into the alleyways and lanes around the big factories and you'll come across small businesses finding a market for their specialised products, and it seems that some of them are doing very nicely."  

He is visiting Stoke to find out exactly what the industry is doing, and for 15 minutes each day this week the BBC is broadcasting his conversations with people at all branches and levels of the industry..  


I am listening at teatime (of course) every afternoon  (15.45 GMT) to see what I can learn about adjusting in really strategic ways to what life brings you, good and bad, to stay on the path to financial cruise control. I'll report back.

And anyone can listen to Whatever happened to the Teapots? on the fabulous but controversial BBC I-player whenever they want to over the next 10 days (until Saturday 21 October). Or read and share indefinitely in an article by Roger Law for the BBC here.   Enjoy.

The Largest Vase Ever Made by Wedgewood.  DodoPappa

And now for a Wedgewood Cupcake

Wedgewood Style Cup Cake
Originally uploaded by Patti-Kake's

Can't Wait to See what Jonny's Got

Well, I'm pleased to report that my new exercise programme is going rather well, or so I thought.

Health, you will remember, is part of my financial cruise control strategy (see archive).  So, taking my own advice, I walked into town, saving both my purse and the planet, and bought myself (yet) another pedometer, calibrated it, and have had two good long walks since, up hill and down dale.  Two miles yesterday, 2.3 today, setting up the trend.  I am now feeling rather well, and ready for lunch.

But somewhat daunted to see what Tom is getting up to over at The Longest Climb (and nice digs Tom).  Can't wait to see what Jonny's got, and a bit more of what Tom's got.

And here's their Facebook page too.  Good luck lads.

Homelessness

Did anyone roll their eyes when I mentioned my fear of baglady-hood?  Impossible - right? Reverse hubris - right?

I tell you its not impossible.  This world is great and beautiful, but its also really heartless and ruthless.

Check out this lovely young homeless couple who have made themselves an underground home.  Its really dark and depressing, and must have taken a huge amount of courage and energy.  But there is the feeling at least of a huge achievement together.  Imagine doing that kind of thing if you didn't have a partner.  Thousands, probably millions, do of course.  This is a CNN report from 23 October, and thanks to Shoutback for letting me know, and the financial blog Digerati Life  for writing it up.

It can happen to anyone, and yet even if you are not lovely or young, everyone is entitled to a decent home.  It's a globally agreed human right. Check the list here, and see how many other rights have been broken for this young couple, and what the  government is supposed to do about it haha. The right to housing is the very least we should expect in even a semi-decent society, not to mention the super-rich global north democracies.  

I'm lucky enough to be in the business of reminding governments of their obligations, so I do that as often as I can.  I also buy and support the Big Issue, which I think is a fabulous organisation and a really interesting little magazine, while I think Habitat for Humanity does good work, and the very lovely, probably young and certainly not homeless Digerati Life suggests programmes like Help USA. Thanks Digerati Life, (check out her home renovation pages too - they're great).

How pumped am I about 2.0

I am so totally loving Web 2.0.

On 1st October I wrote an e-mail to my dear friend Paula to ask her what she knows about Adsense  - I need to diversify, see, - and she's a bit of a techie.

I never sent it: I thought damn, why should I bother her? I should just do what I want to learn, like the gurus say.

What I found was this brilliant little course on Learning 2.0.  Perfect for beginners.  I havn't finished it yet, but five weeks later I'm blogging and tweeting like crazy and loving it.  And this is only the beginning!  I'm totally pumped.   Thanks to the Universe for lifelong learning.  :))

The Last Rose of Summer (should I read anything into that?), by spisaram-AWAY

Income Generation on Cruise Control

Zen Capitalist lives in San Franscisco.  He's an options trader, and he tweets and blogs on all things financial, but in a cosmic way.  He calls options trading "income generation on cruise control".

That's what I want, put my financial life on cruise control.  Should I become an options trader?  I checked it out.

I don't think so.  For starters Zen Capitalist is twenty-something, which is a distant memory to me, and so he has plenty of time to lose it and make it all back again, and he says he has done that three times already. Me, I don't have that option.

Secondly he probably has a huge pot of gold there somewhere, and thirdly it looks like he knows what he's talking about in the financial arena, and I don't think it gives him toe-curl (see below).  He has some pretty cool tips and stuff on his site.

But I do want that financial cruise control, on a shoestring. Any ideas?

I'm looking for a financial advisor

And it's scaring me to death. This is where I have to remember to think positive, which is actually my default mode.

Let's face it, I'm finance phobic.

I should never go near a balance sheet, and as for financial planning, it gives me toe-curl, along with tax preparation.  Here is a picture of my desk.

See how organised I am?  See how much coffee I drink?  See the spreadsheets scattered around?


Here's Sophie helping out.  She's way more excited about this than I am.

But this is serious folks.  It'll take a wizard to squeeze more value out of my tiny little nest-egglet, but there's not much time to make any more mistakes, so a wizard is what I need.

So where to start?  I've never done this.  It feels like I'm staring into an abyss of shame, and the powers that be are sitting in judgement.

Click image for a full sense of the faceless, nameless terror that I feel.

I have a serious case of inferiority.  These guys are real players, man, dealing in millions:  how can I interest them in my little problem?  How can I reveal that I have been so incredibly gauche as to have got this far and have so little boodle?

Well for starters, I think I'll pay by fee, not commission.  Frankly there is not much commission potential in my little pot, and there's something about a fee that get's attention, that levels out the playing field a bit.  A bit more expensive?  Yes, but if it helps to get me that wizard I am looking for, its an affordable luxury.

Second, maybe there is someone out there who actually likes dealing with small amounts, working real magic, I mean like pulling money out of thin air.

I got a personal recommendation to the Co-op Financial Services, which was really good, very reasonable and certainly not snooty or intimidating, and I set up a new pension plan, which was what I needed at the time.  Actually I love the Co-op, and it really is getting its act together in a 21st century kind of way, so I'll probably do a post on it later (really, check this out, and if you have time, this too).

But right now I need someone to hold my hand in an on-going way, to look into my eyes and and help me through this, fairly comprehensively.

I tried the yellow-pages and the web-listings, such as unbiased.com, which was on the Beeb, so it must be OK.  But even though I love the web, I'm not fully with it yet:  it just doesn't seem the right way to get going on the most important relationship of my life.  After all, this is the first time.

Anyway, I got the most useful and comprehensive UK information from the Financial Services Authority, which I suppose is as it should be, while there are tons of financial blogs out there, such as The Digerati Life and  Zen Capitalist.  These have loads to say and good places to start.  Not so well developed in the UK, but the media company Cision put together a list of the top 10.  Perhaps I should just go back to the Co-op and see if they will hold my hand.

But in the end I'll probably do my usual thing, which is to walk into a few offices around here, and see if I like the receptionist.

The graphic is by Winsor McCay, 1930, uploaded to Flickr under Creative Commons by Alan Light 

Kiss goodbye to Sky TV

This is mainly for the limeys, although others may appreciate the sentiment.

Don't give any more of your precious money to that jackanape Rupert Murdoch, who has plenty to be getting on with, and gives such shocking service for the monthly payments he takes off us (so easy to open an account, so hard to close it).

Plus, in my humble opinion, Sky News, along with bed-mate Fox TV, is exceptionally economical with the truth.

Now, I know I'm showing my age here (see "how not to act old" in my blog list), but I only watch the terrestrial channels, and these are not only better, they are free.  All the other channels are pretty much full of trivia, sit-coms and general mental rubbish and pollution, in my jaded view (except for the Simpsons, and the Dog Whisperer), so why pay for them?  You may well ask.

What would I miss?   The news channels of course, especially Al Jazeera, which is truly fabulous.  But there is plenty of news on the terrestrial channels, and on the internet now, so that's sorted.

The only thing I really will miss is recording, and speeding through the ads.  It feels like the dark ages now not to be able to record, and giving that up goes right up against my principle of forging ahead on all fronts technologically.  But I think its a reasonable compromise if it gets me out of the clutches of Skye TV.

Especially as I can check out freecycle to see if I can pick up a digital recorder.

Earlier today I googled  "television" with "I feel Lucky", and what did I get?   You guessed it, Sky TV home page.  Don't waste your time.  Its freaking everywhere.

s

What Leonard Cohen Means to Me.

I believe in total democracy (one of the reasons I love the internet, although the battle there is far from over), but we're not there yet (despite what they are telling us) and its really hard!

And Leonard Cohen totally describes what the story is, on every social and economic front, what it costs, and the ugly, ugly battles that are necessary: he is very clear that despite all this, its absolutely what we have to go for.

If you havn't already heard "Democracy", pretty much the greatest work in all Leonard Cohen's magnificent  oeuvre, click on over to to my YouTube channel, and catch up with it right NOW.

What is there not to love about Leonard Cohen? Quite apart from his strange voice and aged cuteness, he's brilliant, and he totally gets the simplicity and complexity of real connections among equal people, and the hideous squalor and corruption of authoritarian controls that we have to struggle through to get there.  He totally gets how little struggles can lead to huge change, but not always, and nothing is easy and nothing stays the same.

So what is to be done?

Well, as the great man says, I'm as "stubborn as those garbage bags that time cannot destroy, I'm junk (not really) but I'm still holding up my little wild bouquet" that  that Democracy is coming to the USA (and UK).  So perhaps together, with collaboration, solidarity and social media, we can help to limit the multiple, intersecting, overwhelming corruptions of power that are otherwise in our present and our future..

And perhaps, maybe, just possibly, "the lights in the Land of Plenty can shine on the truth some day".

And don't leave without watching/listening to this one last video.  I mean, really, what's not to love?

Duality

Isn't this lovely?

For a larger image click on the link below

It was created to portray the love between two people from different cultures, and what a respectful image it is, reflecting also the deep beauty of our wonderful world, north and south.

For me it also symbolises the inherent connections between cultures and peoples that I was striving to strengthen through my work in the UN, although of course the unresolved contradictions of corruption, over-consumption and warmongering are overwhelming all the good efforts, without as yet a sufficiently strong fight-back (see "What Leonard Cohen Means to Me").

But putting that aside, this was and is the dream, actually fantasy, that I tried/try to realise through my work, and it also symbolises the reconciliation of all the dualities in my life, including being cash poor but resource rich.  This is such a positive and balanced image to keep front and central as we reflect on what really matters.

Thanks for a brilliant piece of work Visulogik: Connected Version 2

Be healthy

Nothing is more important than good health, except perhaps good relationships. And good health is never more important, or more challenging, than when you are poor. But it need not be expensive (if you have access to that greatest of all national treasures, a public healthcare service).  Two things of course: exercise and nutrition.

Exercise. Note to self: get some. All it takes is minimum half an hour walking per day, for starters, and that is totally free, except for shoe leather.  Exercise is the best way to stay happy on the cheap, and have fun.

You know about endorphins, right? They have to be part of any strategy to stay positive and have fun on a limited budget. You need them.  Get the low-down here. (ignoring the gross, and I would say not strictly truthful, weight-loss ads). The way to get more of them?   Yup ...... Exercise.

Need a bit more info? lots on the NHS (National Health Service) website, and check out the Ramblers Association, or walking and hiking groups.

And beyond walking there is all over movement. For real peace, beauty and inner strength, consider Tai Chi.  Is this the physical equivalent of the picture above?  Can it be done in tandem?  Cosmic.

Find out more from the Tai Chi Union of GB, the Tai Chi Finder or the Taoist Tai Chi Society of GB

And if extremity is more your thing, check out The Longest Climb - two crazy guys who are going to climb the height of Everest, from sea level mind you, not some base camp halfway up already.  It's going to take them 15 hours straight, or about 600 times up a climbing wall, and all for charity and a brand-new world record. Good luck lads -  great job.  One of them's my nephew.  Chip off the old block

These guys are young (although probably poor too), so not all of us could do what they are doing, but here's a really great example that neither age nor poverty are barriers to exercise and the health and well being that it brings. No excuses.

BTW have you tried searching for "grannies" on YouTube?  Don't go there. It will totally destroy what remains of your tattered faith in humanity.  But do scroll down the comments on the Granny video for a really yucky one.  I signed on just to give it another little red thumbs down, and you could do the same (you can't miss it).  It never stops, does it?

And finally a quick word about nutrition.

I’m going to be writing a lot about this because its soooooo important. After all we’ve gotta have energy if we are going to move, and buying organic, local, seasonal, fare trade, free range, ethical, good carb, high nutrition, long-chain Omega 3, delicious food can be expensive, not to mention contradictory and you need a spread-sheet.

So I'll be looking at joining food co-ops and vegetable clubs and serious stuff like that in later posts, but before we get there, let’s just remember the four major food groups: soul food, nursery food, comfort food and chocolate. I make sure I get plenty of each during the week, and that keeps me happy and positive. Yum

And yes ma'am, a little bit of chocolate is good for you too, the darker the better. Got anti-oxidents and linked to endorphins too. Check here for shed-loads of really cool facts, factoids and pix of chocolate. Who does all this stuff on Wikipedia?

Here is a word cloud of the welcome note. Click to see full size.

and here's another one