I came across this amazing video about dolphins a while back and have been meaning to share it with you. To me it represented what is whole and sacred in our world, those which we all have so much to learn from and who we still know very little about. Yesterday I came across the news of the mass killings of dolphins off the coast of Taiji in Japon as part of a seasonal slaughter of dolphins both as meat and as a way to reduce overeating of fish by the dolphins. I was contemplating whether or not to combine the two trains of thoughts. This video is so empowering and beautiful yet this latest story is so tragic and sad. Needless to say I decided that these two threads must go hand in hand if truly we are to chance our consciousness around these magnificent beings.

First, the good: If you only have a cursory understanding of dolphins then this video will blow your mind. This video depicts the amazing capabilities of dolphins, from their ability to clearly communicate with humans through language and art, to their ability to help children recover from paralysis due to strokes. What really blew my mind was seeing the amazing hydrodynamic capabilities of dolphins exemplified by how they blow these bubble-rings (it’s worth waiting through most of the video to see this). This capability showed me how we humans have much to learn from these dolphins. I am reminded of the work by Janine Benyus around biomimicry and how we can harness the intelligence of all beings(plants, animals, minerals, etc.) in nature to create new products. After watching this video, I can’t help but believe and trust that we have teachers in Dolphins.

Now the ugly: This latest news out of Jaiji Japan is another chapter in the already wagging battle with Japan over Whaling. Today many westerners are in Taiji to help halt/curb the killing of thousand of dolphins. I’ve included the link to the CNN article out Feb. 11,2008 with a link to the video of what is happening at Taiji(I have to warn you that it is both graphic and saddening). Here is where consciousness of the past (alive with this particular group of Japanese fishermen) and the consciousness of the now are going head to head. Who is right in this argument? The Japanese claim that they have been doing this for 400 years. From the video it is at least clear that the dolphins are not being killed humanely, which is how any animal that is being killed in the name of food must be treated.

Now the questions: If dolphins were killed humanely(ie. for food) does that make it right? should dolphins as a species be killed for food? Positive videos like the one attached and the negative ones can be instructive and give us the mental paradigm, but at the end of the day the heart knows if it is right or wrong. Clearly this is an issue that is ripe for re-evaluation and a shift in consciousness. Sitting with these two ideas/concepts, one of light and the other of darkness, and by shifting and ever modifying our perspective can we begin to bring about the necessary change within ourselves. The change necessary to work towards true preservation of our oceans for the animals that call it home or perhaps the change necessary to finally pay a fraction more for dolphin safe tuna at the supermarket.

See the CNN LINK to the Dolphin video here.

You’ve heard it here first, the term “Embedded Social Venture” that is.

Today, Coca Cola announced that they are taking a 40% stake in Honest Tea. The founder of Honest tea was quoted as saying “You partner with the whole organization, but we’re marketing the part that’s the solution. This isn’t us selling out – this is them buying into what we’re doing.”

I wanted to point out that partnerships such as this or the likes of Burts Bees being acquired by Clorox that I blogged about represent a new bread of “embedded social ventures” that will begin to create “right” within the walls of corporations with less than stellar reputations. By being purchased these “Good/Green” companies can act as agents of change at an unprecedented rate and scale never before attainable by anyone outside these corporations. The positive impact that one Honest Tea executive or team-member, one with the sensibility of what it means to run a company with the belief-set that corn-syrup does not belong in a beverage, and that all the ingredients should be organic and fair trade, can perhaps go much further than I myself blogging about it or even an NGO screaming publicly that they should do things differently. So I hope!

Coca Cola still has the option to purchase Honest Tea after 3 years. We’ll have to wait and see how it all shapes up… If this social experiment fails(If I may be able to call it that) then we’ll just have to find the next honest tea brand that matches our values. I’ll keep hoping that one day Coca Cola goes back to using healthier ingredients so that I can go back to drinking it they way I used to as a child before Corn Syrup and GMOs ..

Yesterday, on a local SF bay area radio station, I heard an interview with Martha E. Gimenez, a retired professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The interview centered around her essay in the December 2007 issue of the Monthly Review magazine titled “Self-Sourcing: How Corporations Get Us to Work Without Pay!”. I’d like to preface that I am not endorsing this particular magazine, the radio program on which this interview aired or for that matter the author. I say this because I wouldn’t want the left leaning, pro-labor ideologies that may surround this person or this magazine distract you from the point that I’m wanting to make or for that matter the key points that she tries to make(not to mention that I know very little about this magazine).

We’ve all used self-checkout systems at grocery stores, Homedepot, even airline counters by newcomers like Virgin America. We’ve fumbled through the learning process of Read the rest of this entry »

… helping to bring greater awareness in their own unique way about wind-energy.. I just wanted to help spread the word and the warmth..

Adam smith’s notion of the “invisible hand” has been quoted and misquoted many time in popular media and by many of our dear friends who wish to hold on to the belief that “capitalism” is the best institution in the world and that “market forces” are natural and necessary for a healthy society.  In cases where a specific industry is in a dire need of government regulation, opponents are quick to say that businesses must be left alone to self-regulate because the tenants of capitalism, supply and demand will fix all quarks in the system.  Those of us who don’t buy the text-book ideology are often ridiculed , but today on the heals of an “economic stimulus package”, we can once again point to how we do not, nor can we fully practice capitalism in the truest sense of the word. What is about to happen in the congress and with the help of the president and the Fed is an artificial manipulation of the markets in order to satisfy the status quo of wealth, consumerism and ultimately unfettered greed. Sure the package will have various ramifications, short term, long term, some positive and some perhaps negative, some intended and some unintended. None-the-less, we are once gain reminded that what we’ve been led to believe about our financial systems for years is in fact an illusion. Institutional economic collapse has happened before the reality of “globalisation” and it is happening again today with the complexities of globalisation… We don’t need a PHD in economics or listen to CNN to figure this out. The underlying human suffering and the desire to backfill happiness with wealth and power in an unprecedented rate globally I feel is closer to the truth of our current situation, and only once we are able to truly internalize this can we create solutions that will bring prosperity for everyone.

Its another fitting occasion today after the meltdown of global financial institutions that we are once again reminded that the way to get us out of the mess caused by the sub-prime loan fiasco is to increase our individual spending.. Is it me or everyone who has their fingers on the monetary policy of this nation(an other global financial partners) are out of sync with reality. It was greed and the desire for consumers to want more “stuff” that got them into trouble in the first place. How quickly we forget the true reasons behind the sub-prime meltdown..it wasn’t people with bad credit but people who had eyes bigger than their stomach… Somehow we are told that the way to fix the current problem is with a solution that caused the problem in the first place… What are we going to hear next from the Fed : “we must relax lending policies so that we can bring back more sub-prime loans?” We are ripe for a change in how we consume, how we measure health of our societies, how we take care of everyone so that artificial financial situations don’t devastate us? Remember the time in human history where the only societal crisis was a natural disaster like a volcanic eruption or a flood? I think we all know how we got ourselves into this current mess…