Dangerous Tea Party — Positive, Intuitive, Creative Musings from Brilliant Minds

Though there's a bit of a pejorative nature to the term, I am, at heart, an information junkie. One of my biggest assets, however, is my ability to extrapolate and integrate information from the myriad sources that serve as my teachers, and in turn, teach others. As it is in the collective, rather than in isolation, that we grow, I invite others to communicate their ideas and experiences here, as well, so we can each grow and improve our thoughts – and beings.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Funny...the things you learn in Toastmasters

You've heard it said before many people are more afraid of public speaking than of dying. Toastmasters is a well-known antidote for the fear of public speaking. Even so, it has sort of an odd reputation...a bunch of geeky guys and gals who are hypercritical, just waiting to pounce on your every mistake. OK, the truth is, there are a LOT of clubs like that out there.

The Scottsdale club I belong to happens to be different. A LOT different.



For one thing, we laugh more than any single group of people I've ever known. No matter how bad a day I'm having before I get there, once there, it's a sure thing I'll lighten up, loosen up, laugh my ass off, and come out feeling a lot better.

The second thing is that we're inclusive. Even though many strong friendships have been forged within the club, new people are always welcome and embraced right into the fold.

But even bigger than either of those great aspects are the amazing things we teach each other. One member is a spiritual teacher who has taught us all a great deal about the effect of our beliefs on our personal growth. Another is a financial advisor who manages to make that traditionally dry topic interesting. Another member is an Australian-born business coach who recently shared her story about her process of becoming an American citizen.

One of the most profound speeches we heard recently, though, was from a mortgage broker who broke mold to talk about something very different...plastic bags. Now, I've known they're prolific and dangerous to the environment for quite some time...but I had NO idea! Whoa, Nellie!!

Here are just a few plastic bag facts...
  • Well over a billion single-use plastic bags are given out for free each day, worldwide.

  • The production of plastic bags requires petroleum and often natural gas, both non-renewable resources that increase our dependency on foreign suppliers.

  • The toxic chemical ingredients needed to make plastic produces pollution during the manufacturing process.

  • The energy needed to manufacture and transport disposable bags eats up more resources and creates global warming emissions.

  • Annual cost to US retailers alone for the production of these bags is estimated at $4 billion.

  • Thousands of sea turtles die every year from eating discarded plastic bags they mistake for jellyfish, their primary food source. Once swallowed, plastic bags choke the animals or block their intestines, leading to an agonizing death.

  • On land, many cows, goats and other animals suffer a similar fate to marine life when they accidentally ingest plastic bags while foraging for food.

  • Plastic bags take up to 1,000 years to degrade as they sit in landfills. As litter, they breakdown into tiny bits, contaminating our soil and water.
The good news is that we can make a difference!!!

For one thing, if you buy just one or two items, skip the bag!

Reduce the number of bags you use for your produce. Do those bananas and single kiwi really need their own bags? Yeah...I didn't think so.

Many stores are starting to carry reusable canvas, mesh, or plastic bags. They cost anywhere from 50 cents to $1.49. Buy a few, and start using them! By replacing the plastic bags with reusable bags, we can each reduce our consumption an average of 6 bags per week. That's an average of 24 bags a month, 288 bags a year, and 22,176 bags in a lifetime!

Of course, there's always the issue of remembering to take the reusable bags with you. Two quick ways to remember:
  1. Put them in the front seat of your car as soon as you put your groceries away.

  2. Write "reusable bags" at the top of your grocery list.
You can also encourage your grocer to follow the lead of Karns Quality Foods [Pennsylvania] and put a little more in each bag, where possible.

Or we can get REALLY involved and exhort our cities to follow the lead of San Francisco and LA in banning plastic bags.

Of course, as with any issue, there are always dissenters.

So...what will your next steps be? If one in five people in the U.S. gave up their plastic bags, we'd reduce our usage by more than a TRILLION bags in our lifetime. You can do it...even one less bag per week will help.

Oh and if you're one of those folks who has a tough time speaking in front of people, check out your local Toastmasters club. Who knows...it might be good for your health and good for the environment!

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Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Say it isn't so!

I just received an e-mail from a business acquaintance titled, "Here she is!!!"

The she in question? The brand spanking-new USS New York, the battleship built from scrap metal from the destroyed World Trade Center.

I have a knot in the pit of my stomach. What the hell is wrong with us??? Is this how we show the world we're not afraid of terrorists build another battleship with which to conquer? Our precious people and buildings were destroyed, so from their scraps we've built another tool with which to destroy others?? Is it just me, or is there something seriously flawed about this kind of thinking?

As I looked at the pictures, my first thoughts (hopes?) were that it was one of those hoax e-mails that goes around, like the ones about the 21-foot-long crocodile swimming around the flooded streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina. Turns out, though, that it's true, as per both Snopes and About.com's Urban Legends.

Here's the text from the e-mail:
USS New York

It was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center.

It is the fifth in a new class of warship - designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft.

Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite, LA to cast the ship's bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept 9, 2003, "those bi
g rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence," recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. "It was a spiritual moment for everybody there."

Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the "hair on my neck stood up. It had a big meaning to it for all of us," he said. "They knocked us down. They can't keep us down. We're going to be back."

The ship's motto? "Never Forget"

Please keep this going so everyone can see what we are made of in this country!
What we're made of??!!

This is not a victory it's an embarrassment.

I don't get it. How can we ever hope to claim the moral high ground if this is what we do in the aftermath of such heinous events as occurred on 9/11/2001? Yes, we're human and as such, we are a warring people. Violence is pretty much a foregone conclusion at some time and place on the globe. Its nature need not be indiscriminate, though. And it should always be the last solution, not the first.

As Chris Meredith states in his article about the only evolutionary stable strategy when it comes to game theory, tit for tat:

Long before humans started playing games, natural selection discovered the fundamentals of game theory and shaped animal societies according to its rules. Within species, individuals adopt alternative competing strategies with frequencies that reflect the success of each strategy. Evolutionary Stable Strategies occur when alternative competing strategies are at equilibrium. ... However, co-operation within and between species has generated only one Evolutionary Stable Strategy, TIT FOR TAT.

The importance of TIT FOR TAT to the evolution of co-operative behaviour was discovered in a very unusual way, through a worldwide computer competition to find the winning strategy for the well known paradox 'The Prisoner's Dilemma'. In 1981 TIT FOR TAT won that competition, and ever since then it has grown in stature to where it now dominates our thinking about the evolution of co-operative behaviour in animal and human societies.
The United States seems intent on skipping this lesson.

I've never been a pessimist, always finding the bright side of an issue or circumstance. But I am also a realist. We cannot celebrate this repurposing of the buildings that housed our center of commerce as war tools and expect to win anything. You've likely heard the old analogy: It's like taking a hammer to the fire alarm instead of putting out the fire. Or this one: When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Albert Einstein had it right when he said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

Are you willing to at least consider thinking differently about this new battleship called the USS New York? And then will you tell someone?

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Saturday, August 09, 2008

Indecisive or deliberate...that is the question


“The only people who don’t change their minds are either incompetent or dead.” Everett Dirksin

I just read this quote on my Weirdquotes widget on my Google homepage. Of course, the first thing I thought of was the current Presidential contest.

No doubt, both candidates have had their share of changes of mind. I think the question that's not getting asked in all this talk of "flip-flopping" is WHY the candidate is altering his position. There's a distinct difference between going out, researching, seeking new information, and coming to a new position on an important issue, and simply revising one's position out of political expediency, or what can really only correctly be called pandering.

I'll make no bones here. Barack Obama is my candidate. That doesn't mean I like or agree with everything he says or does. Nor would I expect to. He's not me - so there's little to no chance that he and I will see eye to eye on every issue. Taken all the issues, though, and there's no question that he gets my vote.

His recent restatement of his position on offshore drilling is one topic, though, that has me scratching my head. Because he is a consummate politician, he deftly worded his reconsideration of offshore drilling, couching it as one in a litany of considerations that must be taken into account with regard to any comprehensive energy plan.

The thing so few people seem to be talking enough about, though, the Obama campaign included, is the fact that according to the U.S. Department of the Interior's Mineral Management Service, nearly 68 million acres of federal lands (onshore and off) are part of non-producing oil leases as of fiscal year 2007. This is in contrast to 25.7 million acres of leased lands that are currently producing oil. This means we already have 68 million domestic acres of leased land on which companies aren't extracting oil where they could be.

Obama has mentioned this - if not as precisely as some would like, and certainly not often enough. But if he understands the fundamental premise that "Drill Here; Drill Now!" is not a solution, that we cannot possibly drill our way out of this situation, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

People keep describing Obama as arrogant. My answer to that is that any human being who would believe him or herself fit to take on this job had better be damned arrogant - or they will be eaten alive. There's a difference, though, between arrogance and hubris. We've had nearly 8 years of hubris. I'm willing to put my vote and energy behind the new guy, even as he changes positions from time to time. A change of a position done with sincerity, introspection, and deliberation can only be the sign of a competent leader, and we have never been more in need of one of those than we are at this moment in time.

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