A nice piece on John McCain, in twilight

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a13119478/the-last-detail/

Dream - Graceful Crash Landing

I am viewing/touring a city from above - a jet creeps along the skyline with a trailer like hitch hauling a glider with plenty of seating (2 seats wide) and a great view. I am in the one of the front seats of this convertible glider. As we pull in closer to the Salt Lake City Mormon Temple, the spire with the angel Moroni nudges and torques the hitch for a few seconds before it disentangles itself. A few seconds later our hitch to the towing jet has released us.

I remember a brief apathetic thought that 'We're going to die.' We have some rudimentary wings, and as we accelerate downward to the ground I know that we are heading west somehow - by GPS or my own orientation I am not sure. We are heading to the end of the land to the west by a great sea, is it California? There is a large granite arch with tidal waters at its base before and beyond it. We appear to be going down to the water at the base of the arch's entrance when I have a great idea that will clearly save us all. We must all lean back! Our glider rumbles to a stop on the soft earth just within the arch. I believe everyone is ok.

Help us go out of business Part 2

The creative destruction of our economy due to technologic advancement continues to provide many examples where the deconstruction of outdated products, protocols and habits of organizations is desired. Some for-profit companies have had notable success with a vision that perpetually shatters the status quo and leads them from one decaying business model to another one more adapted to the times. These companies are exceptions to the rule but could provide a model that could be adapted to philanthropy. Consider providing philanthropy in a way that has enough momentum to avoid the perverse incentive to maintain a benefactor/beneficiary relationship.

Help us go out of business Part I

Most businesses have a goal to maximize their market share, to maximize the need and desire for their products and/or services. The maximizing of profits as well as long term organizational and individual employee security depend implicitly on the business attaining this goal. Survival of the organization and the security of its employees are the basic premise of the businesses' profit-making goals.

In contrast, philanthropic and non-profit organizations often have mission statements that place prime priority on the provision of services and/or products that improve the quality of life, the effectiveness and efficiency of the its 'customers' - without mention of profit or market share. Many market driven businesses dabble in 'social responsibility' endeavors in parallel to their profit making in order to improve their image as a beneficial entity within the society. It is not only the tax exemption incentives that motivate organizations and individual people to provide not-profit services. Humanism is alive and well. But is it doing well enough? Philanthropic and non-profit organizations and their employees have a common implicit goal with profit driven businesses - that is the suvival of the organization and the security of it's employees. What if philanthropic and non-profit organizations had the same killer instinct as for-profit businesses i.e. to maximize market share?

The non-profit would then have as its mission to put itself and its employees out of business.

Limp

I don't remember his name. My was telling me that she had seem him in the clinic and that she had brought him with her to the hospital. He was waiting at radiology with another smaller child who had a high fever, cough and was breathing fast - concerning for a pneumonia. My planned to x-ray both kids, the smaller child to look for a pneumonia, and the other little guy because he wasn't moving his left arm. My ran the story by me, and something didn't sound right. There was no pain or sign of a broken bone that could damage a nerve causing the symptoms. He wasn't moving the arm at all she said, it just hung limp by his side. I wanted to exam him myself after hearing the story.

He was there sitting next to an adult who held a child with an IV - the child waiting for the chest x-ray. No parent of his own was around, I remember thinking that the six or seven year-old wasn't shy in the least as I walked right up to him. My told me his entire immediate family except his mother were killed in the quake. I started manipulating his arm and spine feeling for anything abnormal as he fidgeted uncomplaining. After a few minutes, I decided he wasn't faking it. I wasn't going to be able to convince him to move his left arm a budge, even with My translating commands for me or by pinching him on his arm. My said that he had been like this ever since the earthquake. In an attempt to determine the mechanism of the injury as a true sleuthing doctor, I asked him what exactly fell on him before he stopped moving his arm. Maybe the mechanism might help in coming to a diagnosis. My translated for me. I understand almost no Creole. I had studied a little bit with My for a few weeks before our trip. Yet, I understood the prompt and matter of fact one-word response he gave as his eyes wandered the radiology waiting room. I laughed out loud, because I didn't know what else to do. Why would I ask such a ridiculous question. I am still moved deeply by the humility and reality of his response.

'Kai' means house.

Carbon taxes

(Based on an email to my dad about the climate change debate)

Quoting Jeff Turcios

'We all want to live in safe and clean homes, in safe and clean neighborhoods and even in safe and clean cities. But the minute the conversation gets expanded to a global scope we suddenly don’t care. Maybe it’s because we don’t care. Maybe it’s because the minute it’s not our problem it’s not a problem. Maybe having a comfortable life at the expense of others and other things is okay by us. I hope for our sake we don’t find ourselves on the other end of that transaction.'

I agree that from an individual's, a town's or a city's perspective, 'environmentalism' is inefficient and annoying. But from the larger perspectives of those who make national and international policy - waste and it's effects can't be placed where it not in someone's backyard. They either try to address it or ignore it. The first environmental book ('Silent Spring') started a movement around the idea that there are unintended consequences of some of our actions that effect living beings on our planet other than ourselves (ourselves could be 'us' individually, or 'us' as a human species). So on one hand, I think environmentalism comes naturally out of empathy, out of the golden rule. If you can conceive that the planet's living beings are a family, things like DDT, ozone, acid rain, the london smog, leaded gasoline etc. and maybe even global warming has and/or will hurt or killed innocent living beings, then it might be 'right' to adjust some of our activities so that these exposures are prevented.

But on the other hand, this empathy can be ridiculous if taken to far. So, as an individual I like the idea of keeping as many animals around that live 'in the wild' as possible. Let's save the whales and all endangered species I say. Yet, I still go around killing roaches around my sink though they are surely living 'in their wild.' I think this obvious contradiction of mine is similar to the one you point out about global warming. That is, if it is true, which will not be proven until it happens I agree, global warming would be only a consequence of the way we live vis a vis the way we are. This is parallel to the fact that killing roaches is a necessity to have a home I can live in (even with my Buddhist tendencies.)

Anyway, I am skeptical about global warming being accurately predicted, and about its effects. It feels right to me that we should have some reverence for our world and its living things. But at the same time, I must keep my apartment clean of roaches, and I do not expect the lion to lay with the lamb. We will be who and what we are. But there are some things that make sense where almost everyone wins - i.e. using more solar power, wind power, water power (white water rafters don't like this one though) instead of burning fuel or avoiding leaving your car running, leaving your lights on, throwing away perfectly good food. Maybe even some disincentives to using carbon fuels to shift to 'renewable' resources so that oil rich countries do not have a monopoly .. I'd support carbon tax to help shift peoples' choices toward more sustainable practices, I don't think there needs to be global warming to think that.

I think what makes us humans different in the family of beings on earth, is we can recognize the effects we have on things and we can adjust ourselves slightly. I.E. an international carbon tax in the case of burning fuel, and for me a move to a new apartment without roaches.

The Maldives or Niger

I'm sure all of you have heard of the Maldives but may not know exactly where they are. They're a group of tropical islands south of India. Check the green blur on the globe. Most people heard of these islands after the 2004 Tsunami that put the whole country underwater. The rest of us heard about it during recent international political debate when this country was predicted to be the first country needing abandonment because of Climate Change and creeping sea levels.

Well, the Maldives came up during a Climate Change conversation at my recent last dinner in Dublin. A new friend (one whom does not hail from the oldest city in the world) and I were discussing how the citizens of the Maldives would one day have to leave their paradisical islands. We talked about how kind the world would be to take them in because of their unfortunate elevation. She then asked me how the sea rising is different from the difficulties people in developing countries throughout the world are having right now. I listened to her, considering the many living in places with starvation, disease burdens with poor health care, unemployment, and unfertile land.

The world would accept the refugees of the Maldives, would they not? Sure, maybe we can stop this whole Climate Change thing and there will be no Maldivean refugees. Maybe we can even reverse and give the Maldives a little more elevation, but I digress. Well, I think the world would open their borders for these theoretic Climate Change refugees. But then I ask, why then aren't we saving the slowly sinking ships of today. The only way to save these ships I think is to give them harbor. Are there some places where less people should live in? Are there some places where more people could?