Igniting Dreams
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 02/23/2009 - 18:51I’ve been pretty busy with a project for Toomre Capital Markets for the past few weeks and my social media activity has suffered as a result. However, there are a bunch of different updates I would like to highlight.
A few days ago, Fiona and I made brief video about Hamilton Island. This is the Australian island that is look to hire a blogger, a job they’ve descrived as The Best Job In The World. A few days ago was the last chance to upload a video, and I tried to get our video in under the wire. Their servers were very slow, but today, I got an email that they had received the video. You can see it on their site, Aldon, United States – The Best Job In The World. In about eight days, they will announce the top fifty videos. Of that, eleven will be selected to travel to Australia for an interview.
Meanwhile, I’ve gotten two interesting emails about other opportunities for people searching for new jobs. The Network of Executive Women is currently accepting applications for undergraduate scholarships for women residing in or attending schools in Fairfield or New Haven Counties. The deadline for applications is March1st.
On a lighter note, I received an email from another group offering scholarships.
According to The Wall Street Journal, more than 70% of former Bush officials are out of work, and an online Poker training school is offering them free Poker lessons from non-partisan twenty-year olds earning 7 figures a year. To qualify, simply fax in a letter describing your former position in the Bush Administration, along with phone and e-mail contact information, to (623) 889-5670 to process a 30-day subscription to www.BluefirePoker.com.
Sure, these guys helped to dismantle the American economy – and gambled away our futures – now they may want to consider gambling for a living (legally of course).
For online communications, there are two important sites that I want to highlight. Most importantly, my friend Carol continues her battle with leukemia. You can read her story at Carebridge. Currently, they are looking for people that can donate platelets in the St. Louis area. If you can, please check out the Pheresis Donor Program at Barnes Jewish Hospital.
Another friend has just started blogging. Peter Howie is the Managing Director of The Moreno Collegium for Human Centred Learning, Research and Development. He has started the Moreno Collegium Blog.
His first entry is the President’s Report that he wrote for the Australian and New Zealand Psychodrama Associations. It is a wonderful blog post, talking about "We are the ones we have been waiting for" and this is not the time for lone wolves. and promoting Moreno's dream of dreaming again to the world..
In and of itself, it is a wonderful blog post. Yet as I tie it into the fanciful dreams of blogging from a wonderful island, the very real dreams of being able to afford college, and especially the very hopeful dreams of winning a battle against leukemia, and so many other dreams, it becomes all the more powerful. In it, he links to Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’.
When you try your best but you don't succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse.And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
I think of Carol. I think of all the people that are trying to fix her leukemia, who are trying to provide lights to guide her home and to ignite her bones, or at least her bone marrow to return to making the blood cells she needs.
Years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about his dream and for many people, the recent presidential election and inauguration in the United States was the culmination of this dream.
Yet as I think of Carol in her hospital bed, as I think of our economy as it struggles and the struggles of so many without jobs or without health insurance, when I think about the environment, and all the challenges ahead of us, I realize we are not at the culmination of a dream, but at the beginning.
There is so much more dreaming to do and I wish Peter luck with his blog and with The Moreno Collegium for Human Centred Learning, Research and Development that they may join with many to ignite bones, ignite dreams, and help others to dream again.
Postscript: As I finished writing this blog post, I received an email from one of my daughters, “This guy comes off as really crazy, but is probably one of the happiest people in the world right now. http://www.caboodleranch.org/About_Us.html”
Change, and the Land of Steady Habits
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 02/22/2009 - 16:01Connecticut is known as the land of steady habits, a place where change comes slowly. So, how do we bring about change in the land of steady habits? What roles do our budgets, stimulus plans and deficit mitigation plans play in helping bring about change or thwart change? In a state with one of the largest gaps in school achievement between black and white and rich and poor and one of the largest income gaps between rich and poor, what is addressing our problems and what is making our problems get worse?
Too often, it seems, people are looking at the most immediate aspects. They claim that we have too many people working for the state, that we are paying them too high a salary, or that we are not delivering services as efficiently and effectively as possible. Perhaps we would be better off if we looked at ways to address the underlying problems.
Some people look at the disintegration of the family and point to that as an underlying problem. Yet they don’t go further and look at what can be done to make the family stronger and get family members more involved in our schools, towns and our state.
Let me suggest that the first part of the problem to address is the view that the problem is intractable. If you don’t believe you can change the system, then you probably won’t try and we end up with a cycle that just gets worse. Yet the Obama campaign, with its mantra, “Yes, We Can!” is perhaps the most important first step. People have started to believe that they can make a difference. We need to find ways of spreading this belief as an important first step.
Yes, you can make a difference. Start off by finding out who your State Representative is. Contact them. Tell them about what your concerns are. After all, they have been elected and are getting paid to represent you. If you don’t talk with them about what you think matters, they aren’t going to do as good a job as they can.
If you’ve got some time, go through the bills that they are currently considering. Tell them what you think about the bills. An easy way to do this is to look at the legislative committees and the bills that these committees are considering. I’ve written about bills the Government Administrations and Elections Committee are considering as well as bills the education committee are considering. Go out and form your own opinions.
On a local level, go to town meetings. Get involved in your local school system. I’ve often talked about the biggest effect on the success of a school system is the involvement of parents.
Yet this gets me to how our system is designed to fail. Parental involvement in schools is crucial. Citizen involvement in our government is crucial. My wife and I can juggle our schedules to drive to a school meeting or a town meeting. Yet in areas where the schools are under performing, many parents just can’t make it to meetings. If they have the flexibility to juggle their schedules, they may not have the means to get to meetings.
How many school meetings, whether they are board of education meetings or parent teacher meetings are arranged in a way that people who rely on public transportation can easily get to and from the meeting? If you want to improve our schools and our local governments, perhaps a good starting point is to improve public transportation and arrange the schedule of meetings to fit well with public transportation schedules. Lacking that, citizens should find ways to help one another to get to meetings. Perhaps we need citizen action car pools.
Yes, we are a land of steady habits, and some of these are bad habits that need to be broken. One of those bad habits is not looking at structural impediments to what could make our schools, our communities, and our state better off. What are the impediments that are preventing you or people you know from participating more fully in our schools, towns and state? What are you doing to address these impediments?
A starting point can be to start talking about them.
Organizing For Connecticut
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 02/21/2009 - 17:15What will happen to all the people that got energized by the Obama campaign last year? Will they fade back into the woodwork, or will they continue to believe, and act upon that belief, in their own ability to bring about change? As we watch the finagling around stimulus packages, deficit mitigation packages, and proposed budgets, it is easy to imagine that politics as usual has won. However, if the meeting at the Yale Afro-American Cultural Center this morning is any indication, it may be premature to write-off the influence of the newly invigorated.
Of the couple dozen people that showed up to hear a little bit about the shape Organizing for Connecticut is beginning to take, there was a good mix of newly involved and more experienced activists. Heidi Green of 1000 Friends of Connecticut was there. Laurie Santos of the Shoreline League of Democratic Women was there. There were people from Democracy for America there as well as people from various unions.
People there had differing opinions. Some were more concerned about healthcare. Others were more concerned about building a green economy. Some felt that Gov. Rell’s budget proposals reflected a small government philosophy following the example of Grover Norquist. Others felt that she was actively trying to widen the state’s income gap, one of the few areas where Connecticut is outperforming other states. Although it does seem like the small government philosophy of Grover Norquist et al is focused on widening the economic disparity.
Many of the participants will take place in an activist training in early March and everyone seemed energized about acting on their own ability to bring about change, and learning new ways to be more effective at it. How effective will all these new activists be? Some people may have to wait and see. Others may want to get involved now and be part of the solution.
Rick Santelli House Fire
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 02/20/2009 - 21:34CHICAGO – In a strange turn of events, Rick Santelli dies after house fire. Police report that noted CNBC reporter Rick Santelli died of third degree fire burns after being unable to obtain treatment at local hospital. Friday evening, Mr. Santelli, celebrating the success of his commentary from the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange appeared to have caught his house on fire when an ember from a cigar he was smoking fell on a flammable rug and rapidly spread.
Firemen who reported to the fire declined to put the fire out saying that such an action would only reward “bad behavior” and encourage others to smoke cigars and drink martinis. Several neighboring houses were also damaged as the fire spread.
Mr. Santelli was badly injured in the fire and transported to a local hospital where he was left to cool down in the waiting room as doctors and nurses concurred with local firemen and declined to provide treatment voicing similar concerns about rewarding “bad behavior”.
Chicago Mercantile Traders were pleased that the fire department and hospital did not subsidize the loser’s bad behavior.
Fiona Learns about Hamilton Island
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 02/20/2009 - 13:03
Fiona and I made this one minute video for The Best Job in The World competition, www.islandreefjob.com
My understanding is that over 100,000 people have applied, so it is a long shot, but it was fun to make the video and you never know what might happen.
