Ponder Away

"The more time you spend among poor people, the more you become convinced that poverty is not the..."

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:56:00 -0400

“The more time you spend among poor people, the more you become convinced that poverty is not the result of any incapacity on the part of the poor. Poverty is not created by poor people. It is created by the system we have built, the institutions we have designed, and the concepts we have formulated.”

- Muhammad Yunus

"There is mounting evidence that government is big rather than strong; that it is fat and flabby..."

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:09:00 -0400

“There is mounting evidence that government is big rather than strong; that it is fat and flabby rather than powerful; that it costs a great deal but does not achieve much…just at the time when we need a strong, healthy, and rigorous government. We need a government as the central institution in the society of organizations. We need an organ that expresses the common will and the common vision and enables each organization to make its own best contribution to society and citizen and yet to express common believes and common values. The purpose of government, in other words, is to govern.”

- Peter Drucker in The Age of Discontinuity

"Dear Human: You’ve got it all wrong. You didn’t come here to master unconditional love...."

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 07:18:54 -0400

“Dear Human: You’ve got it all wrong. You didn’t come here to master unconditional love. That is where you came from and where you’ll return. You came here to learn personal love. Universal love. Messy love. Sweaty love. Crazy love. Broken love. Whole love. Infused with divinity. Lived through the grace of stumbling. Demonstrated through the beauty of…messing up. Often. You didn’t come here to be perfect. You already are. You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous. And then to rise again into remembering.”

- Courtney Walsh

"Professional schools are good at teaching students what they know, but they are not as good at..."

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 12:16:24 -0400

“Professional schools are good at teaching students what they know, but they are not as good at teaching them what they don’t know. Leadership requires a mixture of confidence and humility. It is about how well leaders understand the limitations of their knowledge and personal perspective. Good leadership calls for people who are confident enough to ask for help, admit they are wrong, and invite debate and discussion. Good leadership also requires humility. Leaders are imperfect human beings who are put in jobs where the moral margin of error is much smaller because the effect of their actions on others is greater. That is why good leaders need knowledge, self-knowledge, ethics, confidence, humility, and a lot of help from people who will tell them the truth.”

- Joanne Ciulla in “What is Good Leadership?”

"Ethics has everything to do with management. Rarely do the character flaws of a lone actor fully..."

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 11:14:00 -0400

“Ethics has everything to do with management. Rarely do the character flaws of a lone actor fully explain corporate misconduct. More typically, unethical practice involves the tacit, if not explicit, cooperation of others and reflects the values, attitudes, believes, language, and behavioral patterns that define an organization’s operating culture. Ethics, then, is as much an organizational as a personal issue. Managers who fail to provide proper leadership and to institute systems that facilitate ethical conduct share responsibility with those who conceive, execute, and knowingly benefit from corporate misdeeds.”

- Lynn Sharp Paine in “Managing for Organizational Integrity”

"Currently, acting from a place of love contradicts financial self-interest. In a sane society,..."

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:22:42 -0400

“Currently, acting from a place of love contradicts financial self-interest. In a sane society, healing work and charitable work ought to be the most richly rewarded professions. Instead, it’s those which contribute to the demise of the planet that are. But we can’t change the world by invoking shame and guilt. We can help politicians do the right thing by watching, witnessing, helping and not blaming. We have to let go of our hatred and self-hatred. What ties my work together is the transition out of slavery, because what we truly want is the freedom to live our own lives, not the ones that artificial scarcity have given us.”

- Charles Eisenstein

Jason Clay and the World Wildlife Fund’s progressive work...

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 12:21:00 -0400

Jason Clay and the World Wildlife Fund’s progressive work is inspiring in demonstrating that we can effect change as civil society organizations (CSO) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), by pressuring corporations and demanding sustainable production. Even so, I still have a problem with the overreaching system and the fact that there even exists such an overwhelming concentration of power. I tend to support the idea that we need more localization, not more globalization. For example, consider the debates regarding Monsanto. We need fewer subsidies for large corporate agribusiness, and more support for small farmers. Is this work just supporting a broken paradigm riddled with inequality, instead of innovating and adopting promising alternatives?

In addition, it’s great to discuss better production, but what if we’re still dealing with a crap product? Case in point: controversies related to the beef industry, the use of antibiotics and hormones, and the quality of life of the animals to feed the fast food industry; questions and insecurities about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in our food supply; and our society’s self-destructive sugar intake in our diets and the power and influence of sugary drink providers such as Coca-Cola. We should not give up on educating consumers to better not just production but also consumption. We need to jointly demand and consume better quality products for the sustainability and health of our planet and ourselves.

"Human rights are not a matter of charity, nor are they a reward for obeying immigration rules. Human..."

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 22:16:39 -0400

“Human rights are not a matter of charity, nor are they a reward for obeying immigration rules. Human rights are inalienable entitlements of every human being, wherever they are and whatever their status.”

- Navi Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

"The tragedy of the commons stands for the dilemma in which multiple individuals acting independently..."

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 12:11:08 -0400

“The tragedy of the commons stands for the dilemma in which multiple individuals acting independently can ultimately destroy a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone’s long term interest for this to happen.”

- Garrett Harden

"Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house."

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 19:49:28 -0500

“Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house.”

- Mother Teresa

"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we..."

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 20:51:18 -0500

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.”

- Carl Sagan

"Ideas relating to finance, economics, politics, society - are very often tainted by people’s..."

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 18:49:00 -0500

“Ideas relating to finance, economics, politics, society - are very often tainted by people’s personal ideologies. I really hope that this complexity perspective allows for some common ground to be found. It would be great if it has the power to help end the gridlock created by conflicting ideas which appear to be paralyzing our globalized world. Reality is so complex - we need to move away from dogma.”

- James B. Glattfelder

“1% of america has 40% of all the nation’s wealth....

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 18:07:02 -0500

“1% of america has 40% of all the nation’s wealth. The bottom 80%…only has 7% between them.”

Why, God?

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 17:07:33 -0500

Why, God?:

“For whatever reason, certainly foreign to most of us, God has chosen to enter the world today through others, through us.”

“I have never found it easy to be with people who suffer, to enter into the chaos of others. Yet, every time I have done so, it has been a gift to me…I am pulled out of myself to be love’s presence to someone else, even as they are love’s presence to me.”

"Just accept yourself exactly how you are and the struggle will disappear. Your energy will become a..."

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 16:51:32 -0500

“Just accept yourself exactly how you are and the struggle will disappear. Your energy will become a vast reservoir of love, settled and relaxed, then you can listen deeply and trust your inner being.”

- Swami Rajneesh

"If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future...."

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 00:00:44 -0500

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.”

- Lao Tzu

"Science is the poetry of reality."

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 23:28:44 -0500

“Science is the poetry of reality.”

- Richard Dawkins

Photo

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 23:10:34 -0500

"‎It is in the power of everybody, with a little courage, to hold out a hand to someone different, to..."

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 07:25:21 -0500

“‎It is in the power of everybody, with a little courage, to hold out a hand to someone different, to listen, and to attempt to increase, even by a tiny amount, the quantity of kindness and humanity in the world. But it is careless to do so without remembering how previous efforts have failed, and how it has never been possible to predict for certain how a human being will behave. History, with its endless procession of passers-by, most of whose encounters have been missed opportunities, has so far been largely a chronicle of ability gone to waste. But next time two people meet, the result could be different. That is the origin of anxiety, but also of hope, and hope is the origin of humanity.”

- Theodore Zeldin

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:00:11 -0500

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

- Marcel Proust