The Divinely Guided Boot of Upward Inspiration

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Losing the home court advantage

Osama bin Laden's standing has dropped significantly in some key Muslim countries, while support for suicide bombings and other acts of violence has "declined dramatically," according to a new survey released today.

Posted at 10:28 pm by sonipitts
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The bitter economic heartburn of colonial overindulgence

From Suketu Mehta's NYT op-ed, "A Passage From India" (Need a log-in code? Get one here) -

There is a perverse hypocrisy about the whole jobs debate, especially in Europe. The colonial powers invaded countries like India and China, pillaged them of their treasures and commodities and made sure their industries weren't allowed to develop, so they would stay impoverished and unable to compete. Then the imperialists complained when the destitute people of the former colonies came to their shores to clean their toilets and dig their sewers; they complained when later generations came to earn high wages as doctors and engineers; and now they're complaining when their jobs are being lost to children of the empire who are working harder than they are. My grandfather was once confronted by an elderly Englishman in a London park who asked, "Why are you here?" My grandfather responded, "We are the creditors." We are here because you were there.

The rich countries can't have it both ways. They can't provide huge subsidies for their agricultural conglomerates and complain when Indians who can't make a living on their farms then go to the cities and study computers and take away their jobs. Why are Indians willing to write code for a tenth of what Americans make for the same work? It's not by choice; it's because they're still struggling to stand on their feet after 200 years of colonial rule. The day will soon come when Indian companies will find that it's cheaper to hire computer programmers in Sri Lanka, and then it's there that the Indian jobs will go.

Ouchie.

Great piece, well worth the read both for it's road-rash inducing insight and it's powerful language that comes straight from the heart.

On a tangential note, if history plays true (and we refuse, once more, to learn from it's stories) look to the next generation's jobs to be going to the poor developing nations that America is currently vampirically snacking on as we suck out their natural resources, import mandatory Western ideals without the economy to support them and turn a blind eye to corruption in our hand-puppet regimes as long as our corporations are well supplied with cheap labor and a lax regulatory board.

Perhaps our children would do well to brush up on their Farsi.

Posted at 01:22 am by sonipitts
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The karmic value of success and posperity

Although he writes primarily about how to succeed in internet business, I noted a few spiritually resonant tidbits in internet business guru Pat O'Bryan's blog post, The Gold Zone:

You can make a good, even a GREAT, living by solving other people's problems. It pays well, and it's karmically good for you.

[snip]

It's good for me. I used [his book, "The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Internet Wealth"] to build a large and responsive list. I also get the psychic benefits of helping a lot of people- I like that.

So, I make money and I help others. Perfect niche.

You see, this ties into a long-standing belief I've had that the notion that you have to suffer, do without and otherwise make an abjectly piteous spectacle of yourself in order to remain pious, spiritually grounded and untainted - to seemingly do penence for the affrontry of having been born - is pure horse hockey.

Of course, I'm not advocating greed - addiction to anything, be it drugs, money or late night infomercials, is a poor substitute for life. But true and delightful prosperity, created in integrity and shared generously with others who aren't so lucky isn't a sin - it's a sacrament.

And I'll tell you why.

Tithing.

Now, I'm not talking about the value you return to the community by putting aside a portion of your income for those in need, although that is certainly a foundation of true prosperity and holiness, and one that grows in reach and impact as you prosper.

What I'm talking about is the concept that creating prosperity for yourself by way of providing genuinely valuable services and products for others is a tithe of your true divine potential - that by doing what you were designed to do and by so doing making the world around you a better place, you are reaping the rewards of your soul's true nature and at the same time passing on the results of that true nature to others in the form of stuff that makes their life better. In other words, offering others a tithe of the worth of your soul.

And of course, there's the ability to create an ever expanding tithe of your essential success and influence that's tied to that as well. As you become more and more successful, not only are you able to give back to others in the form of wealth (which is an amazing feeling, I can tell you) but you are also able to give back to others in the form of personal influence: your connections, mentorship, insider assistance, reputation, and so on. The right name in the right ear at the right time, your celebrity crowd-drawing ability for the charity events of your choice, the ability to help others leap over tall obstacles in a single bound - all of these are the tithe you give others from the account of your success.

In all spiritually enlightened societies and times, it has been the practice for those who could to joyously help those who couldn't - for those who were blessed with fertile fields to raise extra to provide for those whose crops were poor (and to leave the fallen grain from the harvest for the gleaners, who were poorer yet); for those who were strong of arm to revel in their ability to help the weak; and for those who were able-bodied to put aside time to aid the infirm.

Likewise, it's my opinion that God invests some of us with the ability to make up the shortfalls of those less well-gifted in the realm of success, prosperity and wealth, and as such we have a responsibility to use, develop and share that potential (and the fruits of it) with those less fortunate whenever we can.

Maybe you can do this through internet sales success, like Pat does. Or maybe by inventing the ultimate mousetrap for whatever problem people are having. Or maybe just by being the world's greatest CPA who works tax-time magic and pulls everyone's fat out of the fire for a fair and honest fee.

Whatever it is, do it with love and enthusiasm, and do it well. Make your first few million and refuse to feel guilty about it. Use that wealth and influence for your own and the greater good, and have a ball doing it. I haven't even made my first million (although I do tithe regularly and joyfully) and so far the ride's been a hoot. I can't wait to see what it's like when it picks up speed.

Posted at 12:44 am by sonipitts
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Wednesday, July 13, 2005

What a long, strange trip it's been

Wow.

That's all I can say right now.

Wow.

And what has stirred this spate of speechlessness, this state of awe? Is it an image of the Virgin Mary toasted into the side of my burrito? The announcement of a new electric toothbrush so technically advanced that it's sentient? Did I finally get to rub noses with Pierce Brosnan?

No, no and (sigh) no. And yet, wow.

It's simply this -

General Electric's Citizenship Report - 77 pages of fact-dense copy justifying their corporate existence based not on their profitability and fiscal soundness, nor on their ability to buy off the governing bodies of small, third-world countries in the name of productivity and cost-cutting, but on the fact that they have, essentially, done the right thing. In fact, not only have they done the right thing, but apparently they've got the right thing oozing out of their pores like a protective fog of righteous pheremones.

...Given GE's status as a management trendsetter, its tome will likely up the ante for others. The proof lies in the advance orders: GE says it...has requests for copies from rival companies looking to write their own big books of citizenship.

-- WAG newsletter

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not one to wax rhapsodic about corporate writing. And GE is far from the first to put one of these things out. But they're one of the biggest.

And 77 pages of "we're doing the right thing and our stock is kickin' it" is a hell of a heady brew for the for the rest of the corporate world to wake up and smell, especially when their stockholders begin hearing about it and reading it and sending emails to the main office with questions like "Why aren't we doing this?" in the subject line.

In other words, it's not the honking great paperweight of dead trees that's got me flabbergasted. It's the fact that I've lived to see the day when the big blue-chip corporations find such actions - and the egregious display of proof of such - absolutely vital to remain competitive, viable and functional in today's reality.

And they're right. It is. Glancing over their stuff, the first thought that bubbled up through my consciousness was "I gotta buy some of their stock." Cha-ching!

Doing what's right really, really works. And GE's proof that the big guys in the corner office are really, really beginning to get that.

Wow.

Posted at 10:18 pm by sonipitts
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Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Bleak beauty

Okay, call me old-fashioned, but this is just sickening.

Via Boing Boing, here is a beauty pagent site that holds a contest for "Photoshop enhanced" pagent shots.

Two things:
One - Is it just me or do these photos make your hair stand on end, too? At first, I thought it was some sort of parody site, that maybe the enhancements were supposed to mimic some jokey- kitchy figurine series that I hadn't heard of. Reading further, however, I was disabused of this notion by the guidelines for the Free Monthly Photo Contest rules. This is serious folks, not a joke (check out a professional photog that makes a living doing these). At this point, I am just ill. These people are so far gone into their own little world that they don't even recognize how creepy this all is - these photos really represent their ideal of beauty. God have mercy on the souls of their children.

Second - look at the little girls, the really young ones. Now, I'm not even going to offer a sliver of excuse for paedophiles doing what they do, so don't even go there on me. But can anyone say "live bait?" I'm sorry, but you dress grade-schoolers like this and you can almost forgive some poor souls with questionable or clouded sanity for not recognizing that they are not ripe for picking.

Now, I have nothing against natural beauty and the illustrative artistic representation of such. But my God, some of these children (both on this site and the photog linked above) look tastier than a $500 whore. And the $5.00 cousins of those expensive treats are about the only place I've seen eyes that blank and that empty. Excuse me while I try to avoid reprocessing my lunch.

Is this what we've come to in America - that the ideals of beauty have become so disturbingly twisted that the slightest hint of personality, life, individuality, asymetry, depth or spark are such a black spot on beauty that only digital manipulation can offer absolutions for the sin of individual expression?

Are we so hung up on sexual allure as the hallmark of youth and attractiveness that even in pagents where the competitors are too young to go to school, the difference between a national winner and second best is the ability to make a Madison Avenue call girl look positively low-rent?

And are we so lost in our own fear of age, 'ugliness' and death that we would force an entire generation to grow up thinking that this unspeakable parody of attractiveness is what they have to create, personify and maintain in order to be considered "winners" and to deserve the approval, attention and adoration of others?

I was wrong. This is a parody site. A parody of all that is good, beautiful and right about childhood, self-worth and love. Unfortunately, the joke is on us.

Posted at 01:39 am by sonipitts
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Friday, July 08, 2005

More on "you are who you hang with"

From Theresa Frasche's blog Me 'N' Jack (where she details her process of working through success phenome Jack Canfield's book, Success Principles) is this insightful post on how our "people environment" affects who we are, and who we can be:

Drop Out of the "Ain't It Awful" Club

I learned a long time ago that hanging around toxic people was damaging and that no matter how it seemed, I always had a choice.

Posted at 05:58 pm by sonipitts
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Nothing to hide, nothing to lose

From my inbox, some words of wisdom (and a prayer) on the value and strength of vulnerability and transparency.

"I believe much trouble and blood would be saved if we opened our hearts more." --Chief Joseph, NEZ PERCE

We are as sick as our secrets. Our ego takes over control of our lives and when that happens our minds get very sick. Then we hurt people and our minds will always justify our actions. Our minds will give us rationalization and excuses that we are justified in doing what we are doing.

My Creator, Let me live today with an open heart. Let me realize to be vulnerable is a strength, not a weakness. Let me realize the power of an open heart. Let me be available to truth. If I get into trouble, let me hear the whisper of your guidance. Let me make heart decisions and let my head catch up to that decision.

Posted at 12:22 pm by sonipitts
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Would you eat this?

So, here's a dilemma for us veggies -

Burgers from a Lab? US Study Says it's Possible

While NASA engineers have grown fish tissue in lab dishes, no one has seriously proposed a way to grow meat on commercial levels.

But a new study conducted by University of Maryland doctoral student Jason Matheny and his colleagues describe two possible ways to do it.

If you're a vegetarian, what do you think? And even if you're not a veggie, would you be interested? As for myself, I'm staying firmly on the fence on this one.

The objections I have to meat that this would solve are two-fold: firstly, there's that whole "why should something die for my dinner when I can eat myself into nutritionally well-rounded morbid obesity without getting blood on my hands" issue. I mean, to kill something not because you need to in order to survive but simply because you'd rather eat them than whatever else is at hand, strikes me as, among other things, supremely arrogant, cruel and hubristic beyond belief. To the extent that vat-grown meat obviates the need to either kill or to inhumanely care for sentient, feeling animals, I'm good with it.

Secondly, being personally quite senstive to antibiotics, hormones and other chemicals that are necessitated by the conditions of modern-day factory-farming, by not eating meat I avoid being sick all the time. Really - I used to get strep throat on a reliable and regular basis several times a year. Since I quit eating meat, which has been well over 10 years, I haven't had it once. And anyone who's ever suffered through a bout of strep knows that that by itself has paid the price of admission to the veggie clan. Since vat-raised meat obviates the need to keep whole animals upright and breathing in decidedly unhealthy conditions, that would seem to clear up that.

However, another reason I don't eat meat is because of it's effect on my body - raised homocysteine levels, overly-high protein levels, cholesterol, etc. And I'd have to see what the long-term nutritional impact of vat meat (sounds yummy, eh) on a real human population is before making that sort of decision.

I do miss some of the flavors and textures of real meat and wouldn't mind having a non-death version to turn to when veggie patties just aren't cutting it. But most of these latter health issues are intrinsic to the nature meat itself (although amplified by inhumane treatment and factory-farm procedures), so I'm not holding my breath for a safe and painless return to the land of barbeque riblets.

So what's your take on the issue? How do you feel about the prospect of meat that never walked the earth? Do you even think that they can come up with something that tastes like real meat, and not like something that was concocted with a Young Scientist kit? Is the whole question moot, given the slow process of public acceptance of test-tube comestibles? Is this just going to be just another a low-quality, low-value, under-researched and over-processed food handed out as commodities to the poor while the rich continue to chow down on rare Kobe steaks made from real slaughtered animals?

Only time will tell, but I can't wait to see what develops with this, er, meaty issue.

Posted at 12:15 pm by sonipitts
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Thursday, July 07, 2005

One use for those over-built Jaycee halls

"Just imagine how good it would feel if we all got together once in a while in large public gatherings and admitted that we don't know why we are alive, that nobody knows for sure if there's a higher being who created us, and that nobody really knows what the hell's going on here." -- Wes Nisker, meditation teacher, Inquiring Mind (Spring 2005)

Posted at 12:05 pm by sonipitts
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Parking lot...of DOOM!

Although this article on parking lot pollution of run-off water was written about tests in Austin, the fact is if your town has parking lots, this is happening in (and to) your back yard:

A new study by the city of Austin and the U.S. Geological Survey suggests that coal-tar sealant, the shiny black stuff that goes on parking lots to protect asphalt from the elements, may be a major source of water pollution in Austin.

Scientists from the city's Watershed Protection and Development Review Department had been studying PAH hot spots since the late 1990s, but it wasn't until 2001 that they started collaborating with the USGS. The partnership began, Van Metre recalled, when city scientists approached the USGS with sediment from local waterways showing levels of PAH contamination that Van Metre found literally unbelievable.

"Our first reaction was we thought their data were wrong," he said. "We thought there must be a lab problem, the numbers were so high."

Gee - that whole pave-the-world development for progress thing is looking less and less like a run for eternal prosperity and more and more like a set of "let's see how fast we can kill ourselves and everything around us" wind sprints.

Posted at 12:02 pm by sonipitts
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