Month: June 2008

By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Politics

Remember when Bush Ran in 2000, saying he’d be “a uniter, not a divider”? Hint: it was well before he started saying anyone who isn’t with us is against us.

Yet from Day One, this illegal administration has run the most partisan White House in my memory–and yes, I remember Johnson and Nixon. The latest partisan scandal (among too many to count, including the firing of US Attorneys, the persecution of Alabama’s Democratic governor, the packing of the supreme court and the entire federal judicial system with ideologues, the outing of Valerie Plame to get even with Joe Wilson, and about a hundred other examples) is the report that prospective hires at the Justice Department were screened for political conformity.

This made the mainstream news (I saw it in my local paper)–but I didn’t find a mainstream source quickly. Here’s the story as it appeared on Huffington Post.

Here’s a little excerpt:

As early as 2002, career Justice employees complained to department officials that Bush administration political appointees had largely taken over the hiring process for summer interns and so-called Honors Program jobs for newly graduated law students. For years, job applicants had been judged on their grades, the quality of their law schools, their legal clerkships and other experiences.

But in 2002, many applicants who identified themselves as Democrats or were members of liberal-leaning organizations were rejected while GOP loyalists with fewer legal skills were hired, the report found. Of 911 students who applied for full-time Honors jobs that year, 100 were identified as liberal–and 80 were rejected. By comparison, 46 were identified as conservative, and only four didn’t get a job offer.

The real mystery is why the Democrats haven’t been in open rebellion. Any Democrat who tried 1/10 of Bush’s shenanigans would have been impeached long ago.

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By Posted on Posted in media-general, People Helping People, Social and Economic Justice

Call for Action: Fight the “Orphaning” of
Writers’ Constitutional Right to Copyright Protection
By guest blogger Jerry Colby, President, National Writers Union

[Note from Shel: This was originally sent by Jerry as a letter to members of the NWU. I asked if I could post it here to share with non-NWU members.]

Librarians typically want to expand the public’s access to their
collections. It’s in their nature to help people grow in
knowledge. While getting a salary, they do not do this just for
money.

Online database companies and publishers, like librarians,
archive works in the arts and sciences. They, too, want to see
more people using the works they have stored in digital format.
Unlike librarians, however, they do this for profit by selling
digital copies of others’ works. For years they did this without
seeking permission from writers and artists who created these
works – until the Supreme Court in 2001 declared this illegal in
its Tasini v. New York Times et al. decision which affirmed that
usage of work must be paid for in electronic media.

The database companies and publishers have not given up their
efforts to seize control of the rights to copyrighted works they
want to sell through the Internet. Beside all-rights contracts,
they have also targeted a category of copyrighted works whose
authors are least likely to defend themselves because their
whereabouts are unknown. The media industry has taken to calling
these books, plays, articles, poems, photographs, illustrations,
and so on “orphan works.” Now the publishers want the legal right
to use these works without the rights-holders’ permission. All
they would have to do, as proposed in new legislation (S. 2913,
the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008), is make a “diligent
effort” to locate the rights-holder which is “reasonable and
appropriate” according to government standards for “best
practice” overseen by copyright experts hired by libraries. Such
searches would be beyond the budgets of all but the largest
publishers and database companies.

This would stand copyright law on its head. Since the 1976
Copyright Act went into effect in 1978, writers supposedly had to
do nothing to enjoy copyright protection of their works. Any work
not in the public domain cannot be used without permission of the
rights-holder. This “opt-in” requirement is in compliance with
the spirit of the copyright clause in Article 1, Section 8 of the
U.S. Constitution, which vested original and exclusive ownership
of works with their creators for a limited time (currently the
lifetime of the creator plus 70 years) in order to encourage
innovation in American society. Such a bill strikes at the very
heart of capitalism’s success and the source of innovation
crucial to any nation’s cultural and economic growth. What is
really being proposed is the orphaning of our constitutional
right to copyright protection.

Should this orphan works bill become law, infringement of
copyright of orphaned works, both domestic and foreign, would be
permitted after a vague “due diligence” search for the rights-
holder. The negative impact this could have is manifold. Our
foreign trade partners who take copyright very seriously would
fight American companies encouraged by this act to raid works
summarily declared orphan after computer and phone searches. It
takes little imagination to see where this might lead.
Retaliatory raids by competing foreign companies on American
orphan works could escalate into trade wars over orphaned
intellectual property. Given the enormous role intellectual
property plays in the global market, such trade wars could easily
expand and unravel carefully negotiated international trade
agreements. Ironically, this orphan works act could damage
international trade in such intellectual property as music and
movies where the U.S. still holds a favorable trade balance.

Congress should signal an end to the decades-long indulgence of
corporate greed and insist everyone play by same the rules. It
should table the onerous bill until a more thought-through
version that respects the property rights of creators can be
crafted.

Congresspeople are very sensitive to influence during national
election years. Writers would be wise to remind their
representatives to observe the constitutional covenant with
American writers and artists. I urge all NWU members to take the
lead here, look at the two letters on orphan works currently
posted on the nwu.org website for ideas, and write your own
letters to Congress. Be sure to also send a copy of your letters
to the National Office.

Gerard Colby, trade union activist, investigative journalist and author, is currently serving his second term as the President of the National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981. Colby is co-author (with Charlotte Dennett) of Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil (HarperCollins, 1995), author of Du Pont Dynasty: Behind the Nylon Curtain (Lyle Stuart, 1984), and lead contributor to Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press (Prometheus, 2003), winner of the 2003 National Press Club award for press criticism.

He can be reached at GColby@nwu.org.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Business Ethics, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life

One of my favorite marketers, the brilliant and unconventional Sean D’Souza in far-away Aukland, New Zealand, claims he built his entire Psychotactics business on strategic alliances.

And I believe him.

Strategic alliances are that powerful. Two world-class examples:

Apple, IBM and Motorola joined forces in the 1990s to design the PowerPC computer chip–which dominated at least Apple’s product line (and I think was used in various IBM models as well) for the next several years.

And a person in the audience of one of my speeches reminded me that until it formed a strategic alliance to supply operating systems, Microsoft was just another two-bit hole-in-the-wall computer business.

The comments on Sean’s blog page got into a discussion of the typical Internet-marketer JV, but Sean correctly responded,

The downsides to strategic alliances? I know of few. One is, that because they’re not motivated by money, there’s less momentum–that is they’re less likely to be motivated to help. But this hasn’t been true for me. Our alliances have literally built our business, and continue to do so. And the entire relationship is built on trust. And respect.

The downsides to Joint Ventures, I can list by the dozen. The essential problem with joint ventures is money. When the money dries up, so does the motivation. But it’s also an upside. I don’t know. Call me crazy. I prefer alliances over joint ventures.

I agree with Sean. In fact, I posted my own comment, “Most people can’t see beyond the typical JV arrangements to see the much greater power of strategic alliances (and the friendships that can come out of them)” to grow a business.

Strategic alliances have been an essential tool in building my business, and I haven’t yet structured one like the typical Internet-marketer JV (though I may, down the road). At the moment, thanks to a strategic alliance with Sean’s Aukland neighbor Mark Joyner of Simpleology (another fantastic marketer–what’s in the water down there?), I’m about to participate in what could be the most powerful strategic alliance of my career, a partnership that involves one of the most famous names in marketing as well as a large publishing corporation. I’ll tell you all about it once the papers are signed. 🙂

Meanwhile, if you want to know more about strategic alliances, I cover them in some detail in my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First. Incidentally, my alliance and friendship with Mark came about because he ordered this book, and I was brave enough to seize that opportunity to begin a correspondence with him.

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability

Talk about head-in-the-sand behavior! Apparently June 12 was Carbon Belch Day:

Proud of their antisocial behavior, these ninnies wanted to be as environmentally destructive as possible that day, asking people to

oppose U.S. participation in the Kyoto treaty or any such successor agreement, mandatory domestic limits on CO2, and any federal or state carbon “tax” or “cap-and-trade” system — including the current Lieberman-Warner bill.

One could make a good case for opposing Lieberman-Warner on the gorunds that its cap-and-trade system is essentially a giveaway to polluters–but that’snot the argument being made here.

What’s next: Celebrate Racism Day with the KKK?

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Publishing

Interview with Peter Bowerman, author of The Well-Fed Self-Publisher:
How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living (Fanove Publishing; 2007)

What’s the most important lesson in your book?
I’d have to say – and this is based on my own reflections as well as a LOT of feedback from readers – the biggest lesson of the book is the inherent viability of profitable self-publishing.

And the “profitable” part is key. Self-publishing itself, as a process, is obviously feasible. People do it all the time. And in most cases, they do it like clumsy, sloppy clueless amateurs. And as a result, they go nowhere, reach virtually no one, and make no money.

In my case, I started as an unknown author with one book, NO publisher (except the one looking at me from my bathroom mirror), NO publicist, NO big marketing budget and NO publishing experience whatsoever. I was in the black in 90 days, and subsequently turned that book into a full-time living for five-plus years (more like seven-plus now with two more books under my belt).

For those who say, “I just don’t have what it takes to be a successful book promoter,” I firmly assert that commercial success as a self-publishing author is far more about a process than an aptitude – far more about a lot of things you have to do than some way you have to be. I’ve done it and countless others have done it as well. It all starts with a plan, and that’s the whole point of TWFSP – a detailed blueprint authors can follow to write their own self-publishing success story.

What motivated you to write it?

Check out virtually any writer’s publication or web site, and chances are, you’ll come across one or more articles about the challenges of getting published – along with tips, strategies, tricks, etc. So many want it, but so few manage to get it.

Even those authors who are admitted to The Publishing Kingdom quickly discover that the emperor truly has no clothes: anemic royalties, 18-24 months to publication, loss of creative control, surrendered book rights and the unpleasant realization that even after giving up all that, authors are still expected to shoulder the lion’s share of the book promotion burden themselves! All to earn – in most cases – far less than a buck a book.

I felt that for most authors, self-publishing was truly viable, and given how much time and energy they’d have to invest even in a conventional publishing scenario if they wanted success – and all for a lousy return – didn’t it make more sense to do it yourself and keep control of the process, the timetable, the rights, and most of the money?

I felt my story was a good one, and one worth telling. Oh, and yes, I thought I could make money! Because my formula had worked twice, it could work again (and has). Yes, that success benefits me, but it also reaffirms the fundamental validity of the book’s premises.

How do you feel your books make a difference in people’s lives?

I have a 350-page file on my computer of letters I’ve received from people thanking me for writing my books, and sharing the difference they’ve made in their lives (especially my first one, The Well-Fed Writer, about lucrative “commercial freelancing”; www.wellfedwriter.com).

To be able to share my story, which then helps countless others take their inherent writing skills and turn them into a business that supports them and their families, while giving them a quality of life most would kill for, is monumentally gratifying.

Ditto with the ability to share how to take a book you believe in, and by your own wits, perseverance, and the sweat of your brow (and yes, a few bucks), make it the best it can be, bring it to market, and against all odds, turn it into a significant income stream.

I’m happy to say these things have happened countless times as a result of my books. Writing is often considered a career path of dubious financial prospects. I’ve earned a handsome living making a lie of that conventional wisdom.

What site should people visit if they want to know more?
The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: www.wellfedsp.com
The Well-Fed Writer: www.wellfedwriter.com

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability

Pretty cool! If it turns out to be true, anyhow.

The world’s first zero-net-energy city is being planned for (of all places) the United Arab Emirates, just outside Abu Dhabi.

Solar power, in the form of photovoltaic panels, concentrated solar collectors, and solar thermal tubes will provide 82% of the citys energy needs.

An additional 17% of the citys power will come from burning composted food waste in a highly efficient method that developers say will emit greenhouse gases at a rate 10 times lower than if the food were allowed to decompose in a landfill.

The remaining 1% of the citys energy will come from wind turbines.

This is the same UAE that is on a massive, insane-looking skyscraper binge in Dubai, creating a beautiful modern city but one that is anything but carbon/energy-neutral.

Hmmm!

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Politics

The U.S. Senate did two idiotic things regarding energy policy yesterday. In both cases, Democrats were unable to get the 60 votes needed to stop a Republican filibuster.

First, they voted against a windfall oil profit tax that would fund alternative energy. OK, I can understand the logic of rejecting a windfall profit tax on the big oil companies; the argument could be made that this would ultimately lead to higher gas prices and more foreign oil imports. But this time, the oil companies could avoid the profit tax by investing those runaway profits in much-needed renewable energy technology.

But for the life of me, I can’t see the argument against extending tax credits for homeowners installing renewable energy.

According to the New York Times, the Democrats’ energy package (not dead but on hold, currently)

…would require electric utilities to obtain 15 percent of their electricity from wind, solar or biomass energy by 2020.

But the energy bill would make profound changes in other areas as well. It would require car companies to increase the average fuel economy of cars and light trucks to 35 miles a gallon by 2020. It would also require a huge increase in the production of renewable fuels for cars and trucks and require the federal government to set tougher efficiency standards for electric appliances. The measure would also give the government more power to prosecute “price gouging” by oil companies.

This is incredibly shortsighted. It increases dependence on foreign oil, increases demand, and contributes to the myth that our current energy supplies are limitless. And then people wonder why it costs $70 to fill up their SUVs, and why they can’t even sell those SUVs.

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Peace and War, Politics

I’ve been calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for five or six years now. OK, so I’m not a Democratic Party bigwig, and they don’t have to listen to me. But Ramsey Clark was Attorney General under LBJ, and he’s been sounding the call at least as long as I have.

Why should these men be impeached?
A very abbreviated list:

  • A long litany of unconstitutional acts that have made us a “rogue state”: illegal wars, torture of prisoners, attacks on civil liberties, etc.
  • Massive corruption and favoritism, not to mention attacks on perceived “enemies” (shades of Richard Nixon)
  • Attacking the patriotism of those who disagree with them
  • Holding themselves, their private contractors,a nd their offshore prisons above the law
  • Interfering with elections
  • Firing US Attorneys who chose not to divert resources into their pet (and baseless) fight on non-existent voter fraud among Democrats and minorities
  • Either gross incompetence, gross malfeasance, or both in the response to Katrina

    • Again, this is only the tip of the iceberg. The current gang of ruffians gets my vote for the worst administration in U.S. history. Even Warren Harding did a better job.

    So therefore I take great pleasure in reading in today’s Cleveland Plain Dealer that Congressman Dennis Kucinich, perhaps Congress’ most honorable member, has finally introduced an impeachment resolution–35 counts of it! A reader comment notes it took 3 hours to read the whole thing.

    Of course, the Judiciary Committee has done nothing with his resolution last year to impeach Cheney, and will likely do nothing with this one unless Bush is foolish enough to actually try to start a war with Iran. I still don’t understand why the Dems have had no guts on this, even after they won a majority in Congress in 2006. What have they been waiting for?

    I am not going to defend in any way Bill Clinton’s lying under oath about his inability to keep his pants zipped
    –but if that was grounds for impeachment, the far larger crimes of Bush and Cheney should have been on the table a long time ago.

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    By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability

    Water is complicated. I recently wrote an article in my Monthly Frugal Fun Tips about why most people drinking bottled water should be switching away.

    Of course, there are situations when you need bottled water–such as if your water happens to be toxic.

    I found this AlterNet interview with Bottlemania author Elizabeth Royte on the water controversy to be thorough (considering its relative brevity), readable, and understanding of the depths of complexity.

    Here’s a brief excerpt, a “taste,” if you’ll pardon the pun.

    I just did a story for the New York Times Magazine about Orange County’s toilet-to-tap program, where wastewater is being reclaimed for drinking.

    At first I wondered — if people know that they are going to be drinking this water again, it would be nice to think that people would take better care of what they put down the toilet, like would we switch to biodegradable cleaning products, would industry use nontoxic materials, would farmers cut their use of pesticides? Then I realized that is a false hope, because everyone is relying on the technology to clean it up, and it might even have the effect of letting polluters off the hook while we are spending $29 billion a year to run this very high-tech plant, and it gets everything out, so why should we bother. That’s the “faith in technology” problem.

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    By Posted on Posted in Politics

    Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s speeches yesterday demonstrate exactly what went right with this campaign.

    The longer the seemingly endless quest for the nomination went on, the happier I was with my decision in March to endorse Obama. While I don’t expect that an Obama candidacy will really change much, he just has so much class, I find it impossible not to like him.

    Remember eight years ago, when GWB ran as “a uniter, not a divider”–and then proceeded to run the most divisive and partisan presidency in my memory, and perhaps in the history of the country? I don’t think that would happen in an Obama presidency. At every crucial moment in the campaign, every time another candidate (like Hillary or McCain, and certainly like GWB) might have lashed out, he delivered a beautiful, genuinely unifying speech. He was graceful in apparent defeat, and remains graceful in apparent victory.

    As Alternet put it, “as is his style, Obama appealed to Democrat’s better angels to unify behind a campaign for real change.”

    Listen to Obama’s language last night, starting with his remarks about Hillary:

    Our party and our country are better off because of her, and I am a better candidate for having had the honor to compete with Hillary Rodham Clinton.

    There are those who say that this primary has somehow left us weaker and more divided. Well I say that because of this primary, there are millions of Americans who have cast their ballot for the very first time. There are Independents and Republicans who understand that this election isn’t just about the party in charge of Washington, it’s about the need to change Washington. There are young people, and African-Americans, and Latinos, and women of all ages who have voted in numbers that have broken records and inspired a nation.

    All of you chose to support a candidate you believe in deeply. But at the end of the day, we aren’t the reason you came out and waited in lines that stretched block after block to make your voice heard. You didn’t do that because of me or Senator Clinton or anyone else. You did it because you know in your hearts that at this moment — a moment that will define a generation — we cannot afford to keep doing what we’ve been doing. We owe our children a better future. We owe our country a better future. And for all those who dream of that future tonight, I say – let us begin the work together. Let us unite in common effort to chart a new course for America.

    Clinton, on the other hand, gave out two conflicting messages. To the larger public, she’s still not letting go:

    In the coming days, I’ll be consulting with supporters and party leaders to determine how to move forward with the best interests of our party and our country guiding the way.

    That same Alternet article raised a disturbing specter of Clinton the pit bull, clenching her teeth around Obama’s metaphorical pant leg and refusing to let go:

    Clinton left open the possibility that she would contest Obama’s delegate totals within the party’s governing bodies. Just this past weekend, a top campaign lawyer accused the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee of “hijacking” delegates after that body accepted a compromise on seating the Florida and Michigan delegations. It remains to be seen whether Clinton will appeal that decision to the party’s Credentials Committee.

    “Now the question is, where do we go from here, and given how far we’ve come and where we need to go as a party, it’s a question I don’t take lightly,” she said.

    Yet, to her private e-mail list of supporters, she sent a much more conciliatory message:

    I want to congratulate Senator Obama and his supporters on the extraordinary race that they have run. Senator Obama has inspired so many Americans to care about politics and empowered so many more to get involved, and our party and our democracy are stronger and more vibrant as a result.

    Whatever path I travel next, I promise I will keep faith with you and everyone I have met across this good and great country. There is no possible way to thank you enough for everything you have done throughout this primary season, and you will always be in my heart.

    Sincerely,
    Hillary Rodham Clinton

    Let’s hope this is the real Hillary, and not the pit bull. It is long past time to get on with the business of showing McCain for the shallow, hypocritical Bush Lite he has become.

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