User Is Content

In Lieu of Presents – Christmas Charity Gift Giving

John — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:12:57 +0000

[Update] Just finished Stones into Schools. I couldn’t put it down once I got started. Fascinating, heart-wrenching and insightful. Afghanistan and Pakistan are complicated places! At least I have a clue now. When I think of what a dollar buys in terms of education over there it sickens me to think a single missile costing upwards of $800,000. On the other hand, I don’t want anything to happen to the girls going to those schools. So yes, I want the troops to come home, but not if it means the Taliban (who emerge in the book as a true enemy) can march right back into Afghanistan. It was so encouraging to read about Colonel Christopher Kolenda reaching out to the elders of Afghanistan- building relationship! That seems to be the way things get done over there!

A few years ago our family stopped giving each other hard drives and boots and started donating to charity instead. It was Mom’s idea. She just loved to give a goat (Oxfam Canada). I had just read Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson’s story about building schools, mostly for girls, in Pakistan and Afghanistan. That book is just so moving. So we donated to the non-profit he has set up to collect funds for more schools.

Greg has a new book, Stones into Schools which I just picked up (purchase from this link donates a percentage of the price to the Central Asia Institute, Greg’s non-profit). I’m looking forward to reading it over the Christmas break. We also chose the Central Asia Institute again this year because I have such a soft spot for educating girls, but also because it makes such a powerful positive impact.

In 2009…
CAI schools total 131
CAI built 29 new schools Afghanistan and
in Pakistan
CAI Students total enrollment is 58,000
CAI now has 36,000 female enrollment
CAI has a total of 17 vocational centers
CAI educated 19 higher education scholarship students.
CAI had teacher training & midwife training workshops
CAI’s Greg Mortenson published 3 new bestseller books
CAI’s Greg Mortenson spoke at 214 events nationally
CAI’s program Pennies for Peace raised 150,000,000 cents
CAI’s Pennies for Peace expanded from 280 to
4500 programs in schools, groups & libraries in 20 countries

Greg Mortenson C-Span interview with Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack. (audio) (video)

Direct donation link.

A Picture Worth A Trillion Dollars

John — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 05:09:59 +0000

After a while the numbers just don’t make any sense. Enter information visualization. Check out this BBC article on the efficacy of presenting hard-to-comprehend information visually.
Picture links to larger image at InformationIsBeautiful.net.

The Billion Dollar Gram

“You’re Only As Young As The Last Time You Changed Your Mind” Whole Earth Discipline – Stewart Brand

John — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:40:47 +0000

Stewart Brand’s new book has a great accompanying website with a million cool links
and enough of the book to let you know you’re going to love reading it. But just in case
you’re not sure, check out the talk (and great questions afterwards) from The
Long Now Foundation. Direct link to the mp3 file here.

Are you a nuclear over reactor?

Non-Profit Pharmaceuticals Non-Profit Business Models

John — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:37:26 +0000

This is a very inspiring talk on many levels. On the one hand Victoria and her organization are saving lives from diseases you and I have never even heard of. But the business model is non-profit. For a pharmaceutical company, that’s truly world changing.

Simply put, Victoria Hale’s organization has saved thousands of lives. Join the founder of OneWorld Health—the first nonprofit pharmaceutical company in the US—as she shares her vision of bringing an end to what she calls the “diseases of poverty.”

Victoria is founder and CEO of the Institute for OneWorld Health, a nonprofit pharmaceutical company with a mission to develop affordable drugs to treat diseases that plague the world’s poorest communities.The institute recently received approval for and brought to market its first drug, paromomycin, a low-cost antibiotic cure for visceral leishmaniasis, which afflicts approximately 1.5 million people worldwide, primarily in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sudan. Research to create paromomycin was largely funded by a grant of $10 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Treatments underway for malaria, diarrheal disease, and Chagas disease hold the potential to save the lives of millions more.

From PopTech (video too) or (right click to download or click the arrow to) listen

Junk Mail Calendars From Conservation Groups? Conservation FAIL

John — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 21:05:30 +0000

Not something I’d normally write about in here, but this is ridiculous! In the last week I received two unsolicited calendars from conservation groups!

Your Free Nature Conservancy Calendar 2010
Your Free National Parks Conservation Association 2010 Calendar

Does sending bulk junk mail calendars send the wrong message?
I think so. I’m going to keep a list of the free calendars I receive (and throw away) here, just to remind me NEVER to support these clueless conservation groups.

Let’s add Carl Pope and the Sierra Club for this Free U.S. Wall Map.
And a bulky full-color guilt trip of a reminder letter from The Nature Conservancy that I still haven’t donated to them for the calendar I didn’t want or ask for.

Juan Enriquez – The stars and stripes forever?

John — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:51:49 +0000

From PopTech.org

The stars and stripes forever? Futurist and author Juan Enriquez isn’t sure of that.
He cites a long history of borders, countries and flags that have changed, and warns
the United States isn’t immune.

Mp3 QTmov
This is a great talk and there are many more on the PopTech site. Juan mentions this MapsOfWar
movie–fascinating. More on the MapsOfWar.com site.

Rare Marshall McLuhan Audio Lecture

John — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:51:07 +0000

Great Marshall McLuhan at John Hopkins lecture
found over at StarLarvae. Thanks to Heresiarch for making it available.

Dance With Chance – Making Luck Work For You

John — Fri, 22 May 2009 07:11:30 +0000

In a nutshell, Dance with Chance is all about knowing what you can and cannot predict and, therefore, what you can and cannot control.

Think about it. Every day human beings make decisions. Some are important: should you invest your life savings in the stock market? Others are trivial: should you take an umbrella today? But in both these cases you have no control. The stock market will go up or down, it will rain or it won’t… and there’s nothing you can do about it.

The problem comes when people seek to gain control by making predictions. By consulting an investment expert or a weather forecast, they think they can control the value of their investments or avoid getting wet.

But this is just an illusion. An illusion that psychologists call ‘the illusion of control’.

In many areas of life – the stock market and the weather are just two examples – accurate prediction just isn’t possible. There is always uncertainty about the future in most areas of our lives. Throw in some emotions, such as greed, fear and hope, and human beings’ predictions get even less accurate. So what are we to do?

Fortunately, Dance with Chance comes up with plenty of positive suggestions. Most importantly, it uncovers a ‘paradox of control’ that’s the antidote to the ‘illusion of control’. By knowing when to give up control, we can actually gain more control over many aspects of our lives than we had in the first place.

Dance with Chance: Making Luck Work for You

Healthcare X PRIZE Releases Initial Design Guidelines

John — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 21:09:04 +0000

Personally I’m a little skeptical about a Healthcare X Prize that is sponsored by Wellpoint, (does it not follow that a giant for-profit healthcare provider would primarily be motivated to discover ways to become more profitable?) but after watching the Peter Diamandis “Why design a Healthcare X PRIZE?” video I’m at least convinced that the experiment could provide some very valuable information.
The idea is to pick five teams that will compete in providing healthcare to test groups of 10,000 people each over a period of three years. The ‘winner’ will have garnered the best quality-of-life score from their group. Let’s hope at least that there will be a Single-Payer team in the competition. Certainly the Healthcare X Prize provides an arena in which advocates of Single-Payer can show their stuff.

Single-Payer National Health Insurance

John — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 07:26:16 +0000

I’ve been through the death of two close relatives through the Canadian medical system. In both cases the illnesses were complicated. In both cases my relatives were treated expertly, without concern for expense–or profit– but with dignity and the loving care that befits all of us. All this talk currently about reforming the U.S. Health Care system, without Single-Payer Health Insurance even on the table?!! Could it be the 4 health care company lobbyists for each Congressperson in Washington? We need to get organized around this. A good place to start is Physicians For A National Health Plan.
I recommend listening to Ian Masters interview with PHNP’s Dr. David Himmelstein–on President Obama’s failure to include the proven success of the single-payer health care model among the possible solutions being considered for national heathcare reform. Dr. Himmelstein is co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, which advocates for a universal, single-payer national health program, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. The author of numerous studies and books, he is recognized as a national leader in the movement for universal health care. Dr. Himmelstein’s interview is second of three interviews on this episode of Background Briefing.

Get it?

Update 061609
From LA Times:

…The documents show, for instance, that one Blue Cross employee earned a perfect score of “5″ for “exceptional performance” on an evaluation that noted the employee’s role in dropping thousands of policyholders and avoiding nearly $10 million worth of medical care.

WellPoint’s Blue Cross of California subsidiary and two other insurers saved more than $300 million in medical claims by canceling more than 20,000 sick policyholders over a five-year period, the House committee said.

Update 062709
From Rhonda Hackett of Castle Rock, a clinical psychologist. DenverPost.com, Debunking Canadian health care myths