admin November 28th, 2007
(Mark, Media Marketing Director) Bernie Sanders posted an interesting article on global heating on The Nation today. It’s worth a visit, but the gist is: we can fix our climate problems with new technology.
“[T]he situation is by no means hopeless.”
I resonate with the content of Sanders’ article, especially the need to keep a positive frame of mind and to strive after solutions that are substantive, not what Frances calls “random acts of sanity,” but which are genuine efforts made with every belief that we are, indeed, hope in action. Still, there is an even deeper need I fear Sanders doesn’t address.
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admin November 16th, 2007
(Mark, Media Marketing Director) John Zogby, of Zogby International, posted an interesting letter to the editor in his hometown Utica Observer-Dispatch (find the entire article here). Zogby reads government’s consistently poor performance in polls [congressional democrats fair worse now than OJ in ’95?!] to suggest that the next president will have to redefine federalism.
“Voters are angry and disillusioned. Their faith in governmental institutions is at a record low. Much of that has to do with failure in Iraq and our damaged image abroad, but even more it has to do with Katrina and a pervasive sense that government at all levels is disconnected from Americans’ needs and from the capability of handling a major catastrophe.”
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admin November 15th, 2007
(Mark, Media Marketing Director) Frances will be the featured speaker for the 14th Annual Berklee College of Music Liberal Arts Symposium next April. Both faculty and students are gearing up to consider where art and action meet, in the words of Camille Colatosti, Chair of the Liberal Arts Department, “to use our creative energy to build a world that promotes ‘living democracy,’ that empowers individuals and emphasizes community.” In the process, Berklee is reaching out to the entire Boston educational community.
University outreach has been on my mind for some time, and this is a sign of much more to come. You‘ve read Frances’ posts about Suffolk and Worcester. She has also visited the University of Connecticut, Portland State, Denver and Washington in St. Louis. Just after Thanksgiving, she is going to Calgary and to Santa Clara. Frances has tremendous rapport with students, creating tremendous synergy.
I, however, have a slightly clandestine interest in university outreach (cue the lightning flash and thunder clap).
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mark November 13th, 2007
(Mark, Media Marketing Director) This morning I was following up on some media. Two weeks ago, Frances submitted this great article to the Capital City Hues in Madison, WI. Since she was on the road, a few of us were shepherding the piece. In editing, we did a word count. What had begun as an almost 1,200 word essay had dropped to 700 words.
That was pretty amazing, but we had made some cuts, and if MSWord told us there were 700 words, there were 700 words. A few days later, we reflected on the drop, but didn’t question the count.
Today I went to the Capital City Hues website, but something seemed amiss. Seeing the text on one page, no way that was 700 words. Uh-oh, could we have sent the wrong file?
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mark November 7th, 2007
(Mark, Media Marketing Director) Thom Hartman posted a wonderful piece on The Nation. It begins as a story about a personal political revolution, a conscious migration from conservative to liberal. Yet, like every good story, there is more than meets the eye. Hartman uses the story as a call for more effective personal communication.
You really ought to read the article, but here is a pivotal point:
“To be an effective communicator, we learn how to tell a story, with whom to share that story and why.”
“Everyone is a communicator, and we all communicate constantly. Some of us … are born storytellers and natural communicators. The skill of communication and persuasion seems innate and effortless. Folks like that are unconsciously competent at communicating. Most of us, however, are not very competent at communicating; what’s more, we don’t know that. We are unconsciously incompetent.”
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admin November 2nd, 2007
(Mark - Media Marketing Director) I want to begin by sharing some thoughts John Nichols posted on The Nation website:
“Frances Moore Lappé has, for the better part of four decades, done her very best to guide the United States toward a more rational relationship with the planet and its inhabitants … to renew civic and democratic values, to restrain corporate excess and governmental abuse, to stop fearing fear itself and to start embracing the radical responses that will make America and the planet as peaceful, as healthy, as humane and as fulfilled as our knowledge and our technology makes possible.”
“That’s the “gospel” Frances Moore Lappé preaches in her terrific new book, Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad.”
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mark October 22nd, 2007
(Mark) A story came to my attention over the weekend that brings out every reason why Clean Elections as the only way forward. This Wired story spotlights two batches of questionably-motivated—and extremely-poorly-timed—political contributions. With a bid for immunity heating up the political wires, executives from Verizon and AT&T wrote some dubiously-intended checks to Senator Jay Rockefeller, the reported hand-on-the-wheel of the Senate Intelligence Committee & a key player in whether the telecoms’ collective head goes on the block for unwarranted wire-tapping
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mark October 17th, 2007
(Mark) I’ve had an article from a local paper sitting on my desk for a few weeks simmering. “Student loan costs stifle economy:” an AP story about the debt college grads are accruing. For many, it probably seems like just another ripple in the tsunami of fiscal concerns: sub-prime, predatory lending, housing worries, and fuel prices. “Oh, and students are taking their lumps, too,” the piece seems to say.
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mark September 25th, 2007
(Mark) The hoopla has faded in the weeks since the recent toy recalls. Yet, we’re still searching for a definitive cause.
It looked like Mattel would jump on the blame grenade, officially apologizing for “damaging China’s reputation” after finding that the majority of the recalls were caused by faulty process design. Mattel’s executive v.p. of worldwide operations said, “Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologizes personally” (sic?). The scene was clouded by Congressional committee. In this useful recap from The Nation, Lori Wallach of Public Citizen is quoted testifying that the “root cause is U.S. trade policy.” In the same post, Mary Teagarden of the Thunderbird School of Global Management states, “Chinese officials estimate that 50 percent of exported products do not even comply with Chinese laws …. Their system relies on self-regulation and we found that this does not work.”
So, it was the Chinese; no, Mattel; no, US trade policy; no, the Chinese.
Moments like these it’s hard not to cynically say our commercial system is less a market than a mad dash after finite – and ever dwindling – resources and capacities. Starting from the premise of lack, and placing the highest value on return-on-investment, it is difficult to expect corporations to behave differently. Such a frame not only allows, but demands a headlong rush to win a zero-sum game.
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