Category: Uncategorized

By Posted on Posted in Politics, poverty, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized

Talk about death panels! Physicians for a National Health Program is calling attention to a just releases–and very shocking–Harvard study that found…

Nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance. That figure is about two and a half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2002.

The new study, “Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults,” appears in today’s online edition of the American Journal of Public Health.

The Harvard-based researchers found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993.

In an e-mail blast, the doctors group calls for President Obama to “start from scratch”: to ditch the unpopular, badly thought out, solves-nothing proposals floating through Congress and bring the US into alignment with the rest of the developed world: a single-payer health care plan.

And the group’s leader, Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H. of Harvard University, gave a great interview on this on Democracy Now.

Retired Senator (and former presidential candidate) George McGovern notes in a recent op-ed that all it would take is a one sentence law, extending Medicare coverage to all Americans.

I think all these folks are correct. I’ve been saying for months that the time for single-payer (something I started supporting in 1979, when I was a community organizer for the Gray Panthers and this was their main plank) is NOW.

If you’re in the US, tell your Senators and Congressional representative. And tell your state government to push for it.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Media Ethics, Politics, Social and Economic Justice, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , , ,

I may get smeared for this as Van Jones was, but let me say that I find it disgraceful that Van Jones was the target of a smear campaign and was forced out as Obama’s Green jobs person. He was one of the few genuine progressive voices in a sea of “moderate-centrists” who would have been considered quite far to the right a few decades back.

What were Jones’ “crimes”?

* He called for an investigation into possible government foreknowledge about 9/11. It’s pretty clear that elements within the U.S. government had advance knowledge that something was brewing (even George W. Bush was briefed on this the month before the attack, as Condoleezza Rice admitted in her May 19, 2004 testimony in front of the 9/11 investigation commission), and many respected scholars such as David Ray Griffin have widely circulated hypotheses of U.S. government involvement. My own view is that the U.S. saw the attack coming and decided for its own purposes to let the attack occur (our Reichstag fire, if you will)–but were not directly involved. Why is it unreasonable to ask for an investigation?

* He used an unfortunate metaphor to describe his radicalization in the aftermath of the acquittal verdict in the Rodney King beating case:

By August, I was a Communist,” he says in the article, describing his sense of radicalization at the time.

* He said that Republican strong-arm legislators who managed to force through legislation even when short of a super-majority in the Senate were “assholes.” How is this any worse than commentator Glenn Beck, who led the charge against Jones, calling Obama a racist, or
George W. Bush, when he was Governor of Texas, threatening a legislator with “I’m going to kick your butt if you don’t go along with me.”. And if you listen to it in context, the subtext was that Democrats are too gentlemanly to play this kind of hardball, and that’s why they can’t get their agenda enacted. This, unfortunately, is patently obvious to observers of the current political scene.

Glenn Beck, this is the latest in a long line of despicable things you’ve done. You may feel smug now, but you’re the one whose conscience will bother you–not Van Jones.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Uncategorized

Remember all the election irregularities with paperless voting machines? Now the two largest players (both with strong conservative ties) are planning a merger. This could be a real disaster for free and fair elections in the U.S.

Black Box Voting has been leading the charge for fair elections since at least the 2000 debacle. I’m not in the habit of doing this, but I’m posting the entire announcement (including the call for financial support).

—– Forwarded Message —-
From: Bev Harris
Sent: Thursday, September 3, 2009 11:41:42 AM
Subject: BlackBoxVoting to file AntiTrust complaint re: ES&S/Diebold(Premier) merger

Diebold/Premier Election Systems is being purchased by Election Systems & Software (ES&S). According to a Black Box Voting source within the companies, there will be a conference call among key people at the companies within the next couple hours. An ES&S/Diebold-Premier acquisition would consolidate most U.S. voting under one privately held manufacturer. And it’s not just the concealed vote-counting; these companies now also produce polling place check-in software (electronic pollbooks), voter registration software and vote-by-mail authentication software.

You can discuss this here:
https://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/8/80622.html
(If not registered or need to re-register because forgot your old login info, you can do that here:
https://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-profile.cgi?action=register )

ES&S attempted to consolidate the electronic voting industry in 1997 with a purchase of Business Records Corporation (BRC), but the purchase was blocked by the US Security and Exchange Commission on antitrust grounds, and the acquisition of BRC was split between ES&S and Sequoia Voting Systems.

Here is a press release from Diebold/Premier confirming the acquisition:
https://www.premierelections.com/news_room/press_releases/ESS%20Premier%20Release%20FINAL%20CLEAN%209.02.09%204%20PM.PDF

We will post the Black Box Voting complaint to the SEC at https://www.blackboxvoting.org later today.

If you believe Black Box Voting is doing important work, please consider generous support. We are going into what promises to be a brutal 2010 battle for control of the U.S. Congress, and pieces are being put in play RIGHT NOW to attempt to tip the scales.

You can become a patron with monthly subscription support in any amount you choose, or do a one-time donation, here:
https://www.blackboxvoting.org/donate.html
or mail to:
Black Box Voting
330 SW 43rd St Suite K
PMB 547
Renton WA 98057

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Uncategorized

One of the two most successful environmental activist groups I’ve ever been involved with is the group I founded ten years ago in Hadley, Massachusetts: Save the Mountain.

We were formed specifically for one purpose: to stop a super-destructive proposed housing development going up the entire side of a mountain immediately next to the much-loved state Mount Holyoke Range State Park/Joseph Allen Skinner State Park.

All the “experts” agreed this was a terrible project, but they said “there’s nothing we can do.” And that’s when I got mad enough to do something about it. I figured the campaign would take five years, but we involved over a thousand environmental activists (at least to the level of putting up a bumper sticker or yard sign, or singing a petition)–and we stopped the project in just 13 months. About 35 people were in the core, working on a number of fronts to make sure this monstrosity was never built. People brought a wide range of strengths to the effort. I had an organizing and marketing background, but I knew nothing about lobbying, state land issues, or endangered species. Others in the group had all that expertise, to name just a few things.

Yesterday, about half of that core group gathered for a tenth-anniversary celebration: a hike through the land we’d saved (now owned by the adjoining state park) and a potluck at my house (site of the very first meeting, which drew over 70 people).

Jim Seltzer, Chris Dixon, Holly Perry
Jim Seltzer, Chris Dixon, Holly Perry
on the Save the Mountain Hike”]Preparing to Depart on the Save the Mountain Hike[/caption]

I go into the history and success of Save the Mountain a bit in my award-winning book Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First.

Some of our naturalists
Some of our naturalists
Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, General Commentary, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

Who knew? The tomato blight that’s been ravaging organic farms and gardens in my area of Western Massachusetts has been traced to starter plants apparently grown originally at one location in the South, and shipped to some of the big-box suppliers like Wal-Mart.

I know at least three local farms growing tomatoes in commercial quantities that have no crop this year. Thousands of infected plants had to be destroyed. At least one of those started their own plants from seed, and yet was done in by blight spreading from infected plants grown far away form the local ecosystem. And of course, organic farms can’t, by definition, use chemical fungicides.

Just tearing out our half-dozen rotten, smelly, toxic plants and doing our best to dispose of them properly was a job and a half. I can’t imagine dealing with a whole field’s worth.

In 2007 and 2008, we averaged about 1600 tomatoes, with a taste that simply cannot be equaled with commercial methods. This year, we managed to harvest *one* San Marzano before the blight set in. We still have a few from the hundreds that I dried last year, but not having fresh tomatoes is a huge disappointment. Still, I count my blessings. Compared to those who farm for a living and/or supply CSA members, we had a lot less to lose. Farms are faces losses of thousands and thousands of dollars.

The sad thing is, the farms hardest hit are those with a commitment to local, sustainable agriculture–tainted by other companies’ reliance on non-local, centralized systems that allowed this nasty disease to blanket the Northeast all the way out to Ohio.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized, Web 2.0/Social Media Tagged with , ,

One of the fun things about social media marketing is that you rub shoulders with other social media marketers, and there a bunch of smart folks with lots of good ideas. I’m always in learning mode, and a lot of my consulting practices synthesizes a gazillion bits I’ve picked up from a book, blog, teleseminar, lecture, or even a Tweet.

During my rather frequent travels, I’ve often put in one or two blog posts, but usually from some Internet cafe or library on the road. Watching Chris Brogan continue to keep his blog active during vacation with a bunch of preloaded posts, I decided to do that as well. After all, why spend my travel time looking for WiFi? Chris is posting pretty much daily. I’m not as ambitious as he is–but this is one of three posts that will appear over the next ten days while I’m off on the West Coast.

Hopefully it’ll work. The last time I preloaded a post, which was not for a vacation but to coincide with a blogosphere event, I had to go in manually and publish it.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Energy & Sustainability, Uncategorized Tagged with , ,

I think this is soooo cool! Bicycles are already an incredibly liberating, essentially nonpolluting technology. Now someone in Africa has found a way to use native bamboo as a bicycle-building material. Sustainable, renewable, widely available, and with potentially an enormous impact.

How great would it be if this were widely adopted?

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Politics, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

Yesterday, the fate of Minnesota’s Senate seat, undecided since the November election, was finally decided; the margin, out of 2.9 million votes cast, all of 312. Congratulations to Senator Al Franken.

In 2000, George W. Bush’s winning margin in Florida (and thus the presidency of the United States), was 537 votes, in an election whose legitimacy is still hotly debated (and to me, will never be legitimate). The hanging-chads issue alone could have swung the election to Gore by thousands of votes–just one among many irregularities. But in any case, it was close enough that it was possible to steal.

Years ago, I managed a friend’s campaign for local office; he was declared the winner by seven votes, and in the recount, his margin of victory slipped to four.

Four votes determined that election. If just five more people had shown up up to vote for his (entrenched incumbent) opponent, he would have lost.

Of course, it’s not enough that every vote counts. Who counts the votes is also an issue; witness the calamity in Iran.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Ethics-International, Uncategorized

I love it that just about every scientific study ever conducted validates the opinions I’ve been expressing (without research stats to back me up) for years.

Here’s a fabulous study from Australia on whether ethics matters to employees. Conclusion: ethics does matter, big time:

* 84% of individuals believe being responsible environmentally is included in the definition of business ethics.

* A staggering 93% of individuals believe that organisations have an obligation to act ethically even if it occasionally harms their profits.

* And 91% agree that all organisations should make a formal commitment to acting ethically.

* 80% of individuals agree that they are willing to put in extra effort at work if they know that their organization is run ethically.

* 77% agree that if their employer acted in a way that contradicted their core principles, they would definitely leave the organization.

So, if you want some hard facts to back up the idea that ethics works better, here you go.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail