Here is a brain tickler: How best to even out wealth inequality in the UK? In a letter posted in yesterday’s Guardian, spurred on by an article written by one Polly Toynbee, several high-profile folks champion the idea of a fairer tax system, a process which might just save those swingeing cuts from the public sector. The think-tank Compass have also issued a report detailing what a fairer tax system might look like, with an 8-point plan of measures that include

1. 50% Income Tax band at £100,000 2.3
2. Uncap NICs and make payable on investment income 9.1
3. Minimum income tax bands 14.9
4. Reintroduce 10p basic rate -10.5
5. Higher Council Tax bands 1.7
6. Abolish tax havens for ‘non doms’ 10.0
7. Financial transaction tax 4.2
8. Cost cutting measures e.g. Trident, ID cards, 15.1
£46.8 bn

(The full report is available to download here)

This, as well as the high pay commission (also of Compass), are attempts to look from a different agenda to the current one in the UK, of curbing both wealth excess and huge great gaps, including details on fair taxation of small businesses and the existence of non-domiciles, elements so crucial to an egalitarian society.

Orthodox opinion on maintaining a rich country and providing for the needy before the crash was to allow the finance system relative freedom to do as they wish (although some bankers, namely Sir David Walker, “a former Morgan Stanley grandee ” now refuse the freedom to name his millionaire staff and cap excessive bonuses, as one article in the Guardian today suggests). Risk, for example, was once convincingly (I say with my tongue in my cheek) argued by some to be both necessary and beneficial to the rest of the economy, but now across the political spectrum opinions have changed. Banks, still, however, are not the site of challenges to wealth inequality.

Certainly the results yesterday testify as much, that overdraft charges are legitimate simply serve to show that arbitrary figures (“in some cases fining £25 a month, plus £25 each time the overdraft increases, plus £35 for every bounced payment” says Dan Roberts of the Guardian) match up with gaps between rich and poor. To suggest, as the Telegraph did yesterday, that bank charges are the impetus needed for utilising freedom of choice, and in this sense are a benefit to free systems, is absurd beyond belief.

Further, to justify the banks win as a way to maintain free banking for those who would never go into the red is lunacy. The notion that banks should dip in as they wish without having to justify their behaviour to the Office of Fair Trading, is the only way for individuals to keep current accounts without paying to open and maintain them, makes my skin crawl so much, it’s any wonder I’m not a walking, ever-decreasing mantle of evaporating red curd (and this was opined in a piece in today’s Guardian, not some rightist rag of filth).

To believe that the way finance capital is organised today is anywhere near the hallmark of freedom and equality, humours the realistically minded as much as German banker who robbed from rich accounts to provide for poor clients should humour the sane. To be sure, this is the only Robin Hood anywhere near the appropriate buttons (she avoided jail luckily), who is using distributionist methods for the poor. Methods of distributionism are nothing new for the rich, and in fact the overdraft charge is the very prop used to keep these customers happy. As Dan Roberts so elequently put, “all big banks openly and routinely use this [charge] to subsidise the cost of providing banking services for better-off clients [and it] flies in the face of natural justice”. What happens if there is a particularly low period of charge productivity, how then do these banks keep their high earner clients happy? Who knows? Who even wants to guess?

But should it really take this illegal action to spur on an agenda of change? No. Then when, and from whom? What does our compass say?

I got the rest of my inking done yesterday for my half-sleeve tattoo.  Jason Phillips at FTW Tattoo yet again did a great job.  If you’re in the East Bay and looking for a great artist, can’t recommend him enough.  Proof of his great work I’ve posted below in photographic form.

The inside of my arm wasn’t as painful this time, maybe because I twisted the hell out of my ankle in Indiana my last night there and it’s been throbbing ever since.  X-Rays show it’s not broken thankfully.

I joked with Jason that if I wanted to get a full sleeve the rest would have to be an underwater theme since it’s under the boat.  Awesome idea, but I don’t know if the full sleeve is for me, at least at this point in life.  The other arm is open for anything and of course I’ve always toyed with the idea of getting more stuff on my back other than a robot and demon.

Honestly, I still love my first two tattoos, but almost regret them now because of the arm tattoo.  The two images on my back mean something to me but they’re kinda just floating there all alone.  This arm tattoo just makes me wish I had included them into a mosaic, something bigger than just themselves.  I kinda wish now the arm tattoo was my first one, but I’m hoping I can work the other two into some type of pattern.

Anyways, I can’t make the arm tattoo one big photo like they do in tattoo magazines, so here are just a bunch of shots of it.  Enjoy!

No snow yet – don’t worry.  No dry rock – don’t worry.  Coming soon…  Navigation courses with nineonesix

We carry many variations of travel journal

I was going to wait until December, but I’m just too excited not to post our newest series of posts regarding Gift Ideas.  As professionals in customer service, I know myself and my fellow retail associates thoroughly enjoy bringing a customer around the store, asking questions that guide us toward the perfect gift.  That idea translates well to the blog, and so we begin our themed journeys around Oblation Papers and Press with just the right subject matter: travel.

1. Olive Leaf Paper Soap from London, 2. Embroidered Luggage Tags from Peru, 3. Map Wrapping Paper from Italy, 4. “Ooh La La” Gift Tag by Tina Givens, 5. Woodblock Book Plate, 6. Bon Voyage Preparation Sheets by Knock Knock

Natural Products, Ltd out of London begins our list with Olive Leaf Paper Soap.  Light and airplane safety restrictions-approved, these thin soap papers make a sweet-smelling stocking stuffer for travelers young and old.  Our selection of  luggage tags gives a nod to the savvy traveler, from leather to handmade pieces, each one is distinct.  Cavallini & Co make an impression with their line of antique map wrapping paper.  This is one of our bestselling items, too!

Add a little “ooh la la” from our selection of Parisian themed gifts, papers, and enclosure tags.  The studious traveler claims their collection of world literature with woodblock book plates.  And, last but not least: “don’t forget!” this list of travel reminders from Knock Knock, an itemized notepad with everything you need to remember in preparation for your next adventure.  The list is just beginning here on the blog, we’ve got many more travel-themed ideas for you and your loved ones this Christmas season.  We’d be happy to answer any questions or help you locate gifts for the people on your lists next time you stop by either of Oblation Papers’ two locations.

Find the elegant way through your Christmas list at Oblation Papers & Press

]]> http://wesleybauman.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/a-search-for-this-america-we-seem-to-have-lost/ Mon, 23 Nov 2009 05:50:48 +0000 mrlensinfocus http://wesleybauman.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/a-search-for-this-america-we-seem-to-have-lost/

or: I’ll trade you civil liberties circa 1980, for the right to beat your wife circa 1920

or: If Glenn Beck were a decade, which one would he be?

For almost a year now, and even further back possibly, I have been fascinated with politics and punditry. I have become a self-proclaimed politico and I follow politics and media pretty closely, as closely as my tenuous hold on sanity will allow. In following politics my liberal mind has always been perplexed by the conservative party line of ‘returning to traditional American values’ and trying to recapture the ‘lost spirit of what it is to be an American’. In recent months it as been the loud ram’s horn call of Glenn Beck, and his ever growing audacity matched only by his ever growing audience, that has caused me to pontificate further on this subject. For the past few weeks this idea of lost values and traditional American fundamentals has led me to research where we might have gone wrong. Is there a specific time and place, a particular era that the GOP and other right-leaning hard-liners would want us to return to? If I can put my finger on the ethos that these guiding principles existed in, can we get back there? I delve in to this quagmire of American history to try and find “Glenn’s America”, so that he and others can stop preaching in general broad strokes and say, “we need to get back to what we believed in 19XX (or 18XX as it may be).”

When examining the general party ideas of what I understand to be the GOP’s fundamental idealogical structure I take my understanding from some 25 years on this planet, though you can’t count the first 16. I think that until you turn 17 and start trying to find yourself and begin to shape your views and identity in preparation for voting and contributing to society you are more of a blank slate in terms of personal free thought; up until this point you do not question a source but only try to fit in to the general parameters of ‘normal’ life as to not rock the boat and interfere with the indoctrination that American public schools instill in our youth. My true views have been shaped in my most recent years and as such I have adopted a view of the world quite different from my parents’, a direct result of informing myself for the first time in my life. In my home growing up as a small boy liberal leaders and democratic ideals warranted venom and crass, lewd criticism. The views I set forth will be of my own creation, independent of those I was raised on, either despite or in spite of them, I cannot tell. A crazy person isn’t crazy if he knows he’s crazy. Indeed.

The GOP seems to feel that gays should not marry, and are sinful. This makes no sense to me as sinful is a religious idea, not a political one; though it seems one position is quite often the result of the other. Gun rights should be protected at all costs to personal safety and public responsibility. Abortion is a no-no, ‘nuff said. They want smaller government, tax cuts, reform to let states decide things, though not gay marriage rights or any of the other items I just mentioned. They are for fiscal responsibility. GOP feels that a free market should regulate itself, again smaller government. They claim to fight for the middle class but public programs and universal anything is bad, that’s more government. They hate the environment as far as I can tell. Campaign finance reform (yeah right), education in America (no child left behind has gone so well after all). Prayer in school is ok, capital punishment and the death penalty are pretty much thumbs up, and the Ten Commandments should be at the steps of a courthouse flying the confederate flag. I am pretty close on this, right? So, basically it is a small government that has an abridged copy of the constitution, a cliff’s notes of the Bill of Rights, and a bible as it’s guiding principles. Hmmm, ok.

So, in American history, where can we find this utopia we strive for every day? This shangri-la we lost so long ago would obviously be the one saving grace for this country of godless sodomites. If we could only return to this point in time then everything would be fine. As far as I can tell it is the GOP that can save us if you believe the rhetoric. The liberals and the liberal media have scattered us across the nation and we are divided along partisan lines and are all doomed unless we jump on the Republican band wagon like some lifeboat after the Titanic sank. This is what self proclaimed “libertarian” Glenn Beck would like you to believe. I will give him credit for criticizing the government as a whole, even in the Bush days, though not in such inflammatory terms, but in reality he is like a Liber-publican. So, let’s take a step, Glenn, in to the way back machine and start a search for the time in American history you would like us to return to, as well as all of the Republican nay-sayers.

I want to start by saying that I am skipping the nineties completely being that he wasn’t happy with Clinton either, and it is far too close to the 21st century and the liberal progress this country has made; there is no way anyone wants to get back to how we were in the nineties, not even me and I loved my teen years in the nineties. And I am going to come back to the eighties later, they were too soon as well, but I will look at them briefly. We are sending our way back machine to a time when I think this country went bat-shit crazy and we were in maybe the most turmoil as a nation than anyone today can recall. I want to start out in the era that good old Glenn was born in, and that many of our current figure heads today, that make our decisions, can remember very ‘fondly’…the sixties.

Well I start here, in this decade of utter unrest by trying to illustrate that this can’t possibly be the America Glenn wants back. This cannot be the period in American history we want to recapture. This was a time that the late Strom Thurman must have hated with more zeal than any other period in history. It is hard to decide where to start. The sixties started out innocent enough, Kennedy beat Nixon and became the President, what followed was the Bay of Pigs incident, rumors about Marilyn, the meager beginning of Vietnam, the cuban missile crisis, then the man is assassinated. Further Vietnam BS, Malcolm X is killed, the Compton Cafeteria Riots in San Fran, then Nixon and all his Vietnam BS and his ‘secret plan to end the war’, the massive inflation crisis, MLK Jr. is killed, Bobby Kennedy is killed, the Stonewall riots of ’69, oh and a little thing who was named Manson did some killing. Great decade.

The sixties were a time of massive riots in the black and gay communities. Civil rights on all fronts tore the fabric of this country apart from women liberation, blacks, gays, even the Chicano revolution in this country. Outside of that was the acid wave of the sixties, a complete change in television, film, art, and especially music. The counterculture as it came to be known galvanized this country after the death of JFK, I think. The nice, homely manners of the 50’s were gone in a big way and now came very free thinkers, revolutionaries, protests exploded, demonstrations, inflation choked the middle class as they tried to compete with the changes in the landscape. The sixties were an ugly, hate-filled time, the emerging civil rights movement after the death of JFK was really the catalyst for it all. There is no way we want to return to the sixties as a country. America was in a violent turmoil and unsure of it’s identity and where the road we were on was going to lead us and people were strung out or scared for their lives, or both. I don’t think Glenn wants that back, so let’s move on.

How about we take a step forward and find Glenn in the seventies as a small boy, maybe these are the innocent and moral times he wants back…but I doubt it. Well in the seventies music really got good including the first ‘rap’ song, movies got weird, TV got lewd, and the country just got fucked up worse. This country started watching shows like All In The Family and the Brady bunch, dealing with some of the issues of the day. Vietnam choked the first few years while a little thing called Watergate slipped by the news press during Nixon’s re-election campaign and then killed him by ’74. It was the most embarrassing and shocking scandal in American political history, which in my opinion was the death of politics. I think that Nixon and his escalation of the doomed Vietnam war and his scandal killed the American political system. Outside of the US revolution was abundant across the world. Woodstock was a shining beacon of what drugs and music and mud can do for young people, a complete change from how we started the decade on the campus of Kent State where the National Guard gunned down peaceful protestors of the war on a college campus; unthinkable today, one would hope. The draft was the height of outrage, an unbelievable moment when Ali fought the draft and Elvis went in. Protest and anti-war sentiment was as widespread in this country as pant legs were flared. The Cold War ramped up a bit and this country got really scared, really fast. Our involvement in a few revolutions and military coupes as well as an assassination or two was a continuation of poor foreign affairs decisions. The middle east started down the road to where we are today with Israel, Egypt, Syria, the Soviet Union, and Afghanistan, all starting to kick each others asses.

The seventies brought women’s rights to the forefront as the sixties had civil rights for minorities eclipsing women’s rights to some extent. Vietnam ended finally, well our involvement, leaving the North to just wait for us to leave and drop Saigon to it’s knees and claim the country unified again. A sad end to a war we should have not been in and an end that was mostly our fault. Oh and lest I forget the massive recession we were in mixed with oil crises a couple of times resulting in rationing and further middle class stresses that included a very high unemployment rate. Then of course there was Jonestown, about 900 dead there. Idi Amin started his tyrannical, violent rule of Uganda as well. Is this the era we should return to? Hatred, war, violence, and tragedy pock marked this era. The seventies hold within their years scandal, racism, and fear-mongering, of the most epic scale one can imagine. There is no way we want to return to the moral or political views of this era. The seventies were the time for change for sure, but it came at great expense on the heels of a decade of radical change and upheaval. The 70’s continued the massive crime rate spikes that the sixties brought and the country still sat on the edge of it’s seat every day as nothing seemed to get better. Surely we don’t want the seventies back.

Ok, the eighties might be better, the days of Reagan and Bush, this might be the most likely time we want to return to. The eighties would be the most formidable years of Beck’s life; the decade of excess. The eighties brought the yuppie, and with it, all the coke, parties, and BMW’s we could handle. We saw great multinational growth and wall street was glamorous, they were kings then, still total scum, but they had better PR people then. Of course Reagan declared a War on Drugs, the Cold War raged to a massive scale. Sure, communism fell apart as did the Berlin Wall, but we saw the further mishandling of the middle east that is the source of our problems and involvement there today, can’t argue with that. Reagan put a major black eye on his presidency with the discovery of the Iran-Contra debacle that Oliver North was the mastermind behind. This country saw massive economic growth against the backdrop of very complicated and protracted battles all over the world including Asia, the middle east, central and south america, and ever Ireland with ‘the troubles’ brewing. (Only badass Irish would call a modern, religious civil war ‘the troubles’, an understatement to say the least)

The eighties, I think were a time of thinking that we could not be beaten, being the short attention span of Americans forgetting the seventies. We were coked out of our minds, living beyond our means, and we were kicking Commie ass. But the eighties, world wide, were complicated, painful growth, some democratic, but on the whole we saw massive famine and destruction abroad as the industrialized countries were making head way. The middle class of nations was being evaporated as the gap between rich and poor nations grew drastically. Domestic issues were tough though, as it seemed we were trying to use our power for good as a people with things like LiveAid and becoming more aware of issues in Africa and other countries, the eighties saw the rise of the religious right. They really got fired up on the gay issue and the discovery of AIDS, ‘the gay plague’. This country grew in many way, a decent decade I guess, I don’t really remember much of it but it seemed like a lot of people were having a lot of fun, safer fun.

Glenn probably liked the eighties, he used to be a liberal and an alcoholic, he draws a fine parallel between the two in a Katie Couric interview you should look up on YouTube, and this might have been his favorite time. Old enough to enjoy and understand it, he probably had a great time. Conservatives in power, strides made internationally, excess and money everywhere. The eighties were a wild party time, a decade that seemed to be a release of the past twenty years of hard work, growing pains, and controversial conflict. The 60’s and 70’s were going to lead inevitably to a time when we finally just cut loose and took a deep breath after so much bloodshed, upheaval, and serious talk. It was the decade we all remembered fondly on VH1. Music was weird, movies were great, TV was filled with classics we all watched, and standup comedians were making it big; the country was having a good laugh, a bump, and some beer. Not too bad.

I discount the nineties entirely so let’s jump back to a more general era I don’t think we can reasonably go back to, the 50’s to the 30’s. This was another era of massive wars, depression, civil rights injustice, bigotry, no women’s liberation, industrialization, organized crime, et al. These were times when blacks were openly hung from gallows, women were expected to be barefoot and pregnant in front of the stove, except when they were making tanks for the troops overseas for next to nothing wages. A time where minorities were rightfully scared at night of police or white boys out for a joyride. The prohibition, crime in the streets, Bonnie and Clyde, the Tommy gun, the B.A.R., saloons, speakeasy’s, and rampant bank robberies and crooked cops on the beat. This was a different time for this country and I don’t think we can agree with many of the ideals that were held to in this time and apply it today, the role of women alone is too much inequality to bare, let alone the rest.

OK, let’s take a big jump to my favorite era, the old west. You know the times, I’m talking post manifest destiny, pre-FBI. A time of no gun laws, showdowns in the streets, legal prostitutes, and riding in to town on a horse. Tombstone, San Francisco, Indian and cowboys. A time where gold was rushing and crazy white drunks ran amok and contracted TB and polio. Yes, when there were still a few Indians around, you had ranchers with thousands of acres, cattle drives, train robberies, and the men of storied legend lived and died by Winchester, Colt, and Smith&Wesson. I like to think I lived in the times with a town sheriff, shitty beer, floozies, and general martial law over most of the country. A time where you could shoot a man in the street in broad daylight in front of 50 people, and they might actually clap and then go about their day. The good times.

I think this might not be far enough back though. When I hear Glenn speak, he talks about the founding father’s principles. The true foundation of the country as he sees it with the men who earned America through blood, sweat, and tears. Jefferson’s America. OK, well let’s first examine the fact that we are talking late 1700’s and early 1800’s. These are pre-electric, pre-phone times. We are talking Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere, plantations, etc. If this is the time Glenn thinks we need to get back to I want to highlight a couple of things. First off, slavery was alive and well…need I say more? Secondly, this country treated women like shit, there were no civil rights, and it was unindustrialized. This country was populated and run by rich, white land owners, and then there was everybody else. I don’t want anyone to romanticize this era. This country was created, founded, and declared on the bodies of millions of natives and the death and suffering of minority races of people removed from their homes and treated worse than dogs in the time period.

America has never been truly righteous. We revolted for selfish reasons, nothing simpler than that. We turned against the imperialism of the Queen and her rule and declared our independence; the worst “dear John” letter ever. Up to that point we had slaughtered, tricked, infected, raped, and pillaged our way to the Mississippi and thought very highly of white skin and could kill a black man for any reason at any time, or sell them, whatever struck our fancy. What I am about to say is going to piss off the right, but if I could meet George Washington I think I would take the opportunity to shake his hand and then slap the wooden teeth out of his head. These were racist white bigots with an knack for the written word and hard on for ‘freedom’ by their definition as it applied to them as an emerging nation of first class citizens at the top of the shit pile. All due respect, but their ideas and principles were fundamentally offensive and their beliefs of equality were for themselves and those they agreed with. How many minorities or women were running around enjoying their freedom of speech or right to bare arms…or even read? I rest my case.

So maybe Glenn does have a time in mind. Maybe he wants the scandalous, violent 70’s, or the civil unrest and inequality of the 60’s. The old west certainly had smaller/non-existent national government, and the 40’s sure were good times to be a gangster, Nixon would have done well, that’s for sure. The eighties surely had the best coke, and some unprecedented growth, outside of post-industrialized America (without all of these pesky labor laws we got). Maybe he wants the great depression era, maybe to live amongst the greatest generation, or rub elbows with white men who raped their slaves on their plantation as a matter of principle and patriotism. The history of America is short, embarrassing, and seemingly without a lesson learned throughout. Glenn, I dare you and your constituents to point out that shining beacon in American history that is so much better than now, ‘cause I must have missed it. All those moments have led up to now, and I’ll be damned if where we are isn’t a hell of a lot better than where we were; you can pry this progress from my cold dead hands, pal.

Students at the University of Florida are working to help farmworkers battle for fair wages and basic human rights.

By Kristen Abdullah and Richard Blake
November 16, 2009

Migrant worker Jorge Rodriguez plays the “quijada,” in Immokalee, Fla. Farmworkers celebrated the recent decision by Taco Bell to accede to the demands of local tomato pickers, who led a four-year boycott against the restaurant chain, and pay a penny more for each pound of Florida tomatoes. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

As we made the four-hour journey south to tomato-town Immokalee, Fla., we ran through the itinerary for the long weekend to come and familiarized ourselves with the 40-plus pages of reading material that we were supposed to have completed three weeks before. The thick packet of literature included stories like “Immokalee family sentenced for slavery,” “Apartheid in America,” and “A more-complete definition of ‘sustainable.’” By the time we arrived in the desolate town, just after midnight, we felt confident in our school-child ability to recite the labor history of this town and felt briefed on the ultimate reason for our visit.

After becoming fed up with the impoverished condition that enslaved them, migrant workers started a grassroots organization called the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in 1993. Consisting mostly of people from Mexico, Guatemala, and Haiti, these workers had already experienced both verbal and physical abuses since their arrival in the United States. Most of them could remember a time when, back in their own countries, they survived as subsistence farmers—selling crops and living off corn, squash, beans, and, most important, their own autonomy. They weren’t rich, but they were dignified.

But after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was established among the United States, Canada, and Mexico, these small-time farmers could not compete with subsidized crops from the States. Before, Mexico was a major wheat exporter. Now, Mexico only exports cheap labor.

“I think of myself as a son of NAFTA,” CIW staff member Lucas Benitez says. Poverty and exploitation forced these people north, where they hoped conditions would improve. But in Immokalee, the reality was much different.

As we pulled up to the CIW headquarters, a man who we had previously only known through e-mails warmly greeted us. He was Marc Rodriguez, the national coordinator of the Student/Farmworker Alliance (SFA), and he directed us to our sleeping quarters—the Immokalee Non-Profit Housing children’s care center, about two miles away. Finally settling down among baby toys and children’s books in Spanish, it dawned on us that we had barely scratched the surface of this town.

ENCUENTRO

The next morning, about 150 people convened in an old church for the official start of the fifth annual CIW/SFA Encuentro, which means “the meeting.” These people gather to discuss campaign strategy for the upcoming year, bringing together students and activists from across the United States with the like-minded goal of working in solidarity to bring positive change to the lives of migrant farmworkers in Immokalee. After an introduction to the SFA, Benitez and several other members of the CIW filled in a few more gaps in our knowledge of the coalition’s history.

In 1995, the CIW held its first major action. After Pacific Tomato Growers threatened to cut workers’ pay from the minimum wage $4.25 an hour to $3.85 an hour, more than 3,000 farmworkers went on strike for one week without compensation, including nearby citrus workers acting in solidarity, and built alliances with local church groups, schools, and universities. The pressure was so great that the company announced it would instead increase the hourly wage to $5.25.

Unfortunately, not all growers were as responsive as Pacific Tomato Growers. In fact, after this first event, it became frustratingly difficult to convince growers to yield to the CIW’s demands of a wage increase of one penny more per pound of tomatoes and to follow a human rights code of conduct.

So the coalition began to research every link in the food supply chain and noticed a striking trend. No matter the players, the line of succession was always the same—the food suppliers pull all the strings from the top; the growers act as the strings being pulled; and the farmworkers dangle like marionettes at the bottom.

THE BATTLE WITH ARAMARK

This system is apparent within the makeup of UF’s own food supplier, Aramark Corporation.

“We strive to offer clients and customers fresh whole foods that are raised, grown, harvested, and produced locally and in a sustainable manner whenever possible. And we partner with suppliers to increase the availability of such foods,” Aramark states on its website.

However, Aramark is constantly being ridiculed for not living up to its self-mandated standards of ensuring a sustainable supply chain of workers at the ends of its own puppet cabaret: Workers like those in Florida who pick roughly 90 percent of the country’s tomato supply while reaping little, if any, of its profits.

On Martin Luther King Day in 2001, the CIW took a bold step to bring farmworkers a little closer to their suppliers. They officially threatened a nationwide Taco Bell boycott outside of the Mexican fast-food chain in Ft. Myers, Fla. Three months later, they presented a list of demands to Taco Bell: Meet with the CIW and tomato growers to discuss possible solutions to farmworkers’ problems, contribute to an immediate wage increase per pound of tomatoes picked, and join the CIW to draft wage and working conditions standards to be required of all Taco Bell tomato suppliers.

Three years and thousands of protest signs later, Taco Bell folded. The “Boot the Bell” campaign by students and farmworkers was so successful that the victory received Mother Jones’ “Campus Activism Victory of the Year” award.

Taco Bell set the bar, and the rest dropped like flies: McDonald’s, Burger King, and eventually all of Yum Brands (Burger King’s supplier). Whole Foods, Subway, and Bon Appétit also agreed to pay the people who pick their tomatoes one penny more per pound, as well as agreeing to follow a code of conduct for growers and suppliers.

These victories created an astounding precedent, proving that a group of farmworkers with few legal protections could organize, take on huge corporations, and actually see a response to their demands.

MODERN-DAY SLAVERY

Back at the Encuentro, everyone prepared for a walking tour, filling their water bottles and gathering big-brimmed hats and sunglasses. We trudged down the sad, steamy roads of the migrant housing neighborhood, stopping in the shaded areas in front of various points. The first site was a small trailer park stuffed with dinky green trailers with bright “for rent” signs shining through their dusty window panes. Our guides Silvia Perez and Melody Gonzalez explained that the dilapidated trailers—most of them lacking basic amenities like air conditioning and hot water—were owned by tomato growers in the area and rented out to migrants for a going rate of $60 per person per week. The growers have the ability to charge outlandish prices for several reasons, including proximity to pick-up points for work and the lack of a housing market demand by residents other than the workers.

A few blocks away, we stopped across the street of the next site—a house that looked like its inhabitants had been gone for several weeks. Our guides, apprehensive about getting any closer to the house, began to unfold the tale of its history.

Just one year ago, the owner of this house and several others were arrested and charged with modern-day slavery. Gonzalez, in her rustic Spanish accent, explained that about a year and a half ago a large U-haul was nestled in the driveway. The chain lock around the U-haul was not to keep people out, but to keep them in.

In a fashion similar to the years just after the American Civil War, tomato growers were holding immigrants hostage as indentured servants, working to pay off their “debt” to the growers for bringing them to the United States. In essence, the growers were smuggling people from Latin America into the States and then enslaving them—making them work long, stringent hours for little or no pay and charging outlandish prices like $5 to shower outside with a hose and bucket and even more obscene amounts for food and water.

In 2008, one enslaved worker escaped and informed the CIW of his condition. The coalition created uproar, attracting media outlets from across the country and bringing the growers to trial. The tomato farmers were sentenced to 50 years in prison by a federal court for practicing modern-day slavery.

STUDENTS ORGANIZE ON BEHALF OF WORKERS

Now, the CIW is turning its attention back to the penny-per-pound campaign. After the coalition forced so many corporations to come to the table, they were ready for something larger: The overarching food service providers, like Aramark, that organize and manage food courts and dining services on campuses, workplaces, tourist destinations, and even prisons nationwide. This newest campaign, aptly named “Dine with Dignity,” is in full swing across the country, focusing not only on Aramark, but also Sodexo and Compass food service providers, as well as corporate grocers like Publix and Kroger.

Compass has already come to the table.

The University of Florida just renewed a 10-year contract with Aramark in June of while many students were away for the summer, allowing it to pass without protest. But several groups, including the Students for a Democratic Society, The Fine Print, and the newly formed Gainesville SFA are not allowing it to go unnoticed.

Concerned students presented a resolution that strongly urges Aramark representatives at UF to enter into negotiations with the CIW. The resolution did not pass, but this hasn’t killed the campaign. In fact, “Dine with Dignity” is swiftly making its presence known on UF’s campus through fliers, petitions and collaboration with student groups on campus.

Students and community members looking to get involved are asked to send an e-mail to GainesvilleSFA@googlegroups.com, and sign the petition.

Kristen Abdullah and Richard Blake are students at the University of Florida. This article originally appeared in The Fine Print, a publication that is part of the Campus Progress Journalism Network.

The ship roared and crashed in the waves as the young sailor battled to climb the ropes.  Up the rigging she sat keeping lookout, eager to please and happy to keep everything shipshape.  She went beyond what was needed to keep people happy, putting herself in danger for the good of the ship.

But there came a time when she was called in to see the Captain.  He commended her for all her hard work, but he told her that soon she would be needed to look after the maps and take over the navigation of the ship.  She was appalled at this turn of events and coud not understand why she should be needed for such a job.  But the Captain explained that he would be the compass and if she simply followed him she would not get lost.

Hi everyone!

If I’ve learned one lesson in my 18 years on this earth, it’s this: procrastination is a terrible thing, but sometimes it pays off. One prime example is that instead of finishing my Spanish homework due tomorrow, I decided to update this blog!

In a few days, I’ll be home for the first time since coming to Georgetown. I’ve been reflecting quite a bit on the three months I’ve spent here so far. I’ve been exposed to so many new ideas, met so many new people, and experienced so many new things — things I may or may not want to write home about. After all, there’s a time and place for everything, and it’s called college! (Thanks, South Park.)

I’ve experienced a few poetic moments when something I’ve learned in the classroom translates beautifully to my work in the greater community, whether on campus or outside the stone walls that delineate what we refer to as the “Georgetown bubble.” A few ideas have emerged as common threads between my academic, extracurricular, and social pursuits.

For example, I’m a member of a social entrepreneurship business on campus called Compass Partners, a brand new organization that supports student-run social entrepreneurial endeavors. Social entrepreneurship is the idea that businesses should be run with what we call a double bottom line: making financial profit and serving the greater social good. One well-known contemporary social entrepreneur is Muhammad Yunus , the founder of an international microfinance organization called Grameen Bank, who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

Our campus group operates on a significantly smaller and more local scale. We’re supporting ventures like selling fair trade products on campus, a student-run bike rental company, etcetera. However, we endeavor to operate under the same principle that Yunus and other successful social entrepreneurs follow: inspiring and engaging members of the community to work to better their own community.

It’s the secret weapon of the most successful social entrepreneurs. Rather than paternalistically “helping” a community — whether one’s own community or another halfway across the globe — by imposing one’s values on it, the most successful social entrepreneurs engage the people they are working to benefit, observe and listen to their needs, wants, and concerns, and work with them to find a solution that benefits all members of the community. (Here’s where my microeconomics class comes in: if there’s one thing I remember from the interminably long lectures, it’s Professor Schwartz waxing eloquent on the beauty of Pareto improvements. I only wish I remembered more…)

This social entrepreneurial ideal has been implemented successfully in peer-to-peer lending in developing countries. For example, a few weeks ago I was talking with my friend Donna Harati, a Georgetown senior in the SFS that also graduated from St. John’s, over the crispy shiitake mushrooms at our favorite (and very cheap!) Chinese restaurant, Harmony Café. Donna spent two summers working for Project Concern International in Zambia. Her first summer, she worked closely with a women’s empowerment program that encouraged community banking and peer-to-peer lending to facilitate small business development without dependency on outside institutions. (Donna regaled me with a song the women came up with to express their newfound sense of empowerment, entitled “Don’t Need No Husband.”)

Donna’s experience was an incredibly inspiring example of what can be achieved by equipping people with the tools for their own success and empowering them to take action in their own communities. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case.

In a seminar class I’m taking this semester, Leapfrogging Technologies for Sustainable Development, we discuss ways that developing countries can bypass certain inefficient stages of development and “leapfrog” directly to more advanced stages of social, economic, political, and technological progress. We read a New York Times article at the beginning of the semester entitled “Paying for Pollution in Energy Hunger,” about the increasing demand for electricity in developing countries and how we can — and should — respond to the need in clean and efficient ways.

Well-intentioned development agencies have introduced new technologies like solar, wind, and hydroelectric power to the developing world. But often these groups make a huge mistake by not engaging members of the communities they serve in the efforts toward progress. (Notable exception: The Barefoot College in India, which trains illiterate rural women as solar engineers.) For example, a hydroelectric project installed by well-meaning Japanese investors in Bhutan was destroyed by overflowing streams. When asked about the project’s failure, the villagers shrugged and said, “Nobody asked us, we knew every third year there would be a flood.”

If we wish to effect meaningful change in the world, we need to be careful to avoid the “hydroelectric dam effect,” even though I too am guilty of this.

Earlier this semester, I was relaxing in Dupont Circle on a sunny afternoon (which are getting increasingly rare as we approach December) when I noticed a homeless man asking for money. Rather than giving him a dollar, I offered him a nutritious and crunchy granola bar. I was pretty pleased with myself for racking up some karma points when he responded, “Ma’am, thank you so much, but I can’t eat this.” I then realized he didn’t have teeth.

My well-intentioned efforts were totally wasted because rather than taking the time to see what this man needed, I tried to impose my rigid values — literally and figuratively — on him. Lesson learned: I went across the street, bought him a Krispy Kreme donut, and all was good. Now I volunteer with an on-campus student group called HOPE that takes food to Dupont Circle on Friday evenings and eats with the homeless men and women there.

I have to thank the GU TEDheads for my last example. In case you’re unfamiliar with the organization TED, visit their website; the Georgetown chapter of TEDheads convenes weekly to watch and discuss a TED video each week. I discovered TED after being invited to a meeting and have obsessively scoured the website ever since.

One of my favorite TED videos is a presentation by Iqbal Quadir, the founder of Gonofone and later GrameenPhone, on how mobile phones (a prime example of leapfrogging in the developing world) can fight poverty. Here’s my summary of his 18-minute speech for you time-pressed readers.

Why does poverty still exist? Rich countries have been sending aid to poor countries for the last 60 years. By and large, this has failed. The real progress of the Western world in the last few centuries is that citizens’ power rose relative to that of the authorities. But the current foreign aid model encourages the opposite; it empowers authorities and as a result marginalizes citizens. The best way to improve developing countries is to recognize that economic development is of the people, by the people, and for the people. Instead of viewing a country’s poorest citizens as recipients, they should be seen as a resource. Instead of labeling them uneducated and incapable, recognize them as eager learners and capable survivors. Instead of giving poor countries aid, give poor people the capital to start businesses, because the people and not the authorities will benefit the most.

Quadir might be one of the world’s most successful social entrepreneurs, and his lesson is a simple one: power to the people. So as each one of us embarks on our various missions to make the world a better place in our own way, let’s remember that our role is not only to teach but also to learn, not only to produce but also to observe, not only to provide but also to participate.

I apologize for the long post, and if you made it this far, thanks for reading!

Manifesto of the Conference-Going Classes.

Jon Cruddas MP and Andrea Nahles MdB have announced that “European social democracy needs a fresh start”. They have launched the “Good Society” debate (here). About the future of the European left. And ideas of what a good society should be. All within the background of declining electoral weight for the main socialist and social democratic parties.

In Building the Good Society, launched this April, Cruddas and Nahles, set out some ideas. They define the contours of the Compass project.

This document consists of tightly written paragraphs around seven main topics. Its admriers see at as a major step forward. In defining the post-Brown agenda of the left.

So what is its defining agenda? Not much is sparkling, new. Much is ‘ante’, not ‘post, the Third Way. A few good points, though not much.

As we can see:

• The pages open on the screen with the observation that social democracy (New Labour, the German SPD onwards) has failed to offer an alternative to unrestrained globalisation. That it saw (as we can read in Anthony Giddens’ work) a “positive” side of the process. This ignored the down-side of free-market expansion. Markets and growth have to be harnessed. For a better version of social democracy, Cruddas and Nahle assert that redistributive approaches are needed.  For, well…a better world. As indeed does Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, all relying on on the same processes of international agreements that underpin the institutions they claim to want to reform.
• They emphasise the central place of democracy to social democracy - not perhaps a very new idea.   
•  That social democracy  is based on the principles of solidarity, social justice and autonomy. Does it need pointing out that this is an even older trilogy? It could have been stated any time since the setting down of the Synoptic Gospels.
• Justice and equality are core values for the social democratic left. A claim that repeats Crosland’s View in The Future of Socialism (1956) – whose aim as a “just, co-operative and classless society”. The classless bit never got defined then. This document does not care to offer any development.
• That society should be run on a  co-determination (Mitbestimmung) basis. The German model which obliges companies to have a degree of responsibility to ’social partners’ – a principle the TUC used to promote in the days when Will Hutton was listened to.  It has failed to take on in the UK. The employers don’t want it. So it’s got forgotten. Now it’s come back. Whoppie!
• Welfare – making people into “assets” in the economy. This is a market state idea full of pitfalls for the left (see below).
•  Social Europe – a range of social policy standards set on a Continent-wide basis. The best bit. Better than dead-end nationalism. But there si no programme to overturn existing EU institutions to make this possible.
• Wrapped around the document is the ideas that a ‘civic state’ should replace the ‘market state’.  idea about how a “civic state” should replace the ‘market state’. That a wide range of forms of social enterprise (co-operatives, not for profit projects) , including renationalised utilities,  should reassert  a democratic imput into mixed economy. There is little that is  different from Crosland’s original description of social democracy.

It would seen that ’social democracy’ in this form is just the ‘left-wing’ of the Third Way.

Two major problems are not tackled.

The first is that the ‘market state’ is not just the result of a political choice by  Labour Governments to deepen the rule of private companies over public life. It now has its own material logic  – a stratum of parasitical contractors carrying out state functions. This lobby, representing a class fraction of the state bourgeoisie, is not challenged by words,. It needs a programme to cut it out. Secondly, the Good Society, fails to begin to grasp the problem of equality. Notably in the area of  welfare. Cruddas backed welfare reform – in fact his support for making people an ‘asset’ is a pure market state concept. It is  not to support people on an equal basis but to ‘equip’ them to ‘compete’ on the ‘global market’. This involves compulsion and payments of benefits at such low rates that any employment will be taken – making the system a permanent drag down on working conditions and wages. Work for Your Benefits, which he endorsed, will accelerate this process, and undermine public services by creating a pool of unpaid forced labour to take over public functions.

Secondly, the document does not begin to look at the structural nature of ownership and control of the economy and the state. Its ambitions are limited to restoring the ‘balance’ of the mixed economy which was lost during the 1970s. It fails to identify the political agency (one created by political parties as much as structurally inevitable), that could change these relations. In short, it is no democratic socialist programme based on the labour movement. Its ambitions are for reforms, by the well-intentioned. That is, not the popular masses, but  the conference-going classes. And some grandstanding pundits (Polly Toynbee).

It is not surprising that the journal Soundings has warmed to the Compass debate. The review’s editors come from the tradition that was immersed in 1980s concept of “radical democracy” and “populism” as alternatives to class based socialism. During the Blair decade those that had a residual belief in working class participation in participative democracy have tried to reinvent themselves. On the Left. But they have not dropped the strategy of ‘hegemony’ through coalitions  ’articulated’ in a  wider programme . More recently their allies have opposed (or, in they’d say, ‘critiqued’ ) universal human rights. Notably  the ‘cultural imperialism’ of gay rights.  Andy Newman of Socialist Unity adds to this mix an embrace of ‘progressive national identity’. 

Perhaps Andy’s warmth for the good side of the national progressive identities of the old Soviet Block  is a trail-blazer here. For some of Sounding’s writers to go back to their own past. O those halcyon days Sally, we had in the Woodcraft Folk!

All of which avoid the central mechanisms of class formation that left politics tries to latch onto. In its ambitions to fight oppression (of a wide nature) and exploitation (capitalism), through a democratic movement. Or the argument made by left specialists in Europe’s left, for example, John Callagham. That social democracy, based on the above approach, has failed in the past. That the Third Way was  a dilution, not a replacement, of it. And  that class continues to play a significant role in British politics which the left should grasp (The Retreat of Social Democracy. 2001), amongst other writings) More specifically, social democracy failed in the past to answer the democratic socialist alternative. One based on the dominance of social ownership  and popular control.

It is not suprising that in this debate (at least as far as one can see) there is little mention the rise of new left parties, such as the German Die Linke, or alliances, such as the Front de Gauche, in France. These are broad enough to cover a radical  strand and traditional labour movement lefts. But they involve people doing things. Not just attending prestigious media-eying conferences to agree with weighty debate on values, and  ‘concerns’ about Gordon Brown and the Tories.

That would be a tent too big by far.

I’m happy to see that Comrade Akehurst has been doing quite a bit of blogging recently. As usual, he provokes strong reactions.

I strongly agree, for example, that we in the Labour Party need fighters and believers right now – not quitters and plotters. Calls from the likes of Compass and Polly Toynbee for Labour to dump Gordon and change the leader before the election can’t be taken seriously. It’s too late for that now.

Compass’ frequent emails may address me as ‘Dear Supporter’ (where they got that idea from I don’t know!) and they may be holding their Christmas Bash conveniently close to Jako Towers in Islington, but I don’t think I’ll be joining in the ‘No Turning Back’ fun (and I expect Luke Akehurst won’t be either).

Yesterday, Nick Robinson divided the PLP into plotters, quitters and fighters. Today, Cicero Consulting, Jonathan Freedland and Rod Liddle have done great jobs of putting further meat on the kind of arguments that sustain the fighters;  We’ve had a Queen’s Speech that seeks to frame the General Election in “caring Labour versus cruel Tory” terms; and reports suggest that Compass are considering joining the ranks of the plotters. So, much is going on, it would seem. But, fundamentally, nothing has changed since July, which was the last time that I said: Labour has three options: 1.) Back Brown, 2.) Replace him, 3.) Allow him to continue without backing him. The quitters only exist because they have concluded that the second of these worlds can’t be achieved by the plotters. The quitters are right to draw this conclusion. However, the continued existence of the quitters and the plotters threatens to leave Labour stranded in the third world, so to speak, which is the worst of all worlds for Labour. There remains, therefore, no logical defence for a Labour person not being a fighter and embracing the first of the three worlds. Labour should be fighters, not quitters, or even plotters, as someone didn’t quite say. The arguments of Cicero, Freedland and Liddle provide much reason to believe that the world of the fighter is far from an awful or hopeless world.

November I’ve always thought was kind of okay. It’s the start of the chilly season, so short days, wrapping up warm and eating big hearty meals by the fire in my fictional country home that lives in my mind, seems all cosy and romantic. Come February you’ll find I have a rather different attitude to the colder season, which is generally one of ‘FUCK THE FUCK OFF!’. But for now, get a woolly jumper on, drink some warm cider and make the most of the insane amount of live music going on right now.

Last week (as an example of November being heavy on the live music) was insanely gigtastic for myself. It went down like this:

Flaming Lips at The Troxy

Wednesday - Incredible scenes at Oh, Inverted World at the Old Queens Head. It was such a special night, so huge thanks to Player Piano, Mariners Children and Treetop Flyers. Thanks also to Dave Depares for his awesome DJing – the boy has skillz.

Thursday – The Mighty Mighty Biffy Clyro at Brixton Academy: Amazing amazing amazingness.

Friday – Tegan and Sara at Shepherds Bush Empire: Brilliant girly fun.

So all that music was nice. There’s also been a few new tunes rocking my world in these newly chilly days. First is the pretty wonderful Think About Life from Montreal. A cross between Black Kids, TV On The Radio, and, er something very pop. They’re just amazing and I’ve pretty much not stopped playing ‘Havin’ My Baby’ for the past two weeks. They released an album earlier this year called ‘Family’ that I don’t think is available in the UK, but those lucky American and Canadians can purchase away.

Here are two tracks from the new album:

Havin’ My Baby – Think About Life

Johanna – Think About Life

Some time ago a band called Venice Is Sinking from Athens, Georgia contacted us. They were nice enough to send over a copy of their new album ‘Azar’ and it’s actually really great. It’s college orchestral indie-rock, if such a genre exists, and is definitely worth some of your listening time.

Here they are!

oh, and an mp3 too! Man, do we spoil you…
Compass – Venice is Sinking

So that’s it for today. We’ll hopefully have some news for you guys soon about the next Oh, Inverted World night that’s going to come and make your life worth living. We promise it won’t be long.

Late breaking news on the Tribune website from my editor… it seems that – a few weeks after press speculation about this died down – backbench MP Barry Sheerman WILL challenge Gordon Brown by running for the chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party next week on a Brown-must-go ticket. More details here.

Apparently it will be discussed among centre-left MPs at the Compass AGM tomorrow – where Jon Cruddas and Labour manifesto author Ed Miliband are speaking.

Also of interest is the possible candidacy of former energy minister (and sometime Tribune contributor) Malcolm Wicks, supported by the Labour’s Future group. Many MPs (as noted by Kevin Maguire here) don’t think Sheerman has the necessary support to win. The group was set up earlier this year to apparently float policy papers and includes notorious anti-Brownite Charles Clarke. Looks like its agenda could extend to sparking a leadership election after all.

Compass, Consel, Ducato, Findomestic e Unicredit Family Financing Bank: nei contratti delle carte revolving emesse da queste società abbiamo trovato decine di clausole vessatorie. Il titolare è in balìa di condizioni che cambiano unilateralmente senza avere la possibilità reale di esercitare il diritto di recesso previsto dalla legge. Ed è anche costretto a pagare penali salate (fino al 30%) se ritarda nei pagamenti. Abbiamo inviato a queste società una diffida a eliminarle dai contratti e a non farle valere in quelli già in essere. Altrimenti chiederemo l’intervento del giudice.

La nostra analisi sulle carte revolving
La nostra analisi dei contratti di queste società è stata fatta in collaborazione con le Camere di Commercio di Roma e Milano.
Sono tante le carte revolving in circolazione nel nostro Paese: ben 14,6 milioni (fine 2008, dati Assofin), anche se non sempre chi ne è titolare è ben consapevole che non si tratta di una semplice carta di pagamento, ma di un finanziamento. Infatti, quando si usano per pagare una spesa, si attiva un prestito che si ripaga a rate mensili con tassi di interesse spesso salati.

L’incremento dei flussi finanziati nei primi sei mesi del 2009 è stato più contenuto (+2,9%) rispetto allo stesso periodo del 2008 (+7,2%). Ma in assoluta controtendenza rispetto all’andamento medio del credito al consumo più in generale, che ha registrato un -11,2%.

Nel periodo da giugno a ottobre di quest’anno sono state 4.910 le telefonate giunte agli esperti di Altroconsumo su banche e servizi di pagamento. Tra le segnalazioni scritte 1.432 riguardano credito e disservizi e ben il 10% le carte revolving.

Fonte: www.altroconsumo.it

Refine Entertainment is located in Silver Spring, Maryland. The company services offered cover a range of industries. Services are provided in videography, travel & accommodations, health & wellness, beauty products and cosmetics, mentorship and coaching. Its goal is to educate consumers (or educate the public), thereby improving lives. Due to our current economy some of our service costs have been adjusted so that the average individual can accomplish their goals in life and/or in their line of business, improving productivity, as well as obtaining free, high quality products, superb service, and receive low costs in accommodations.

Seit geraumer Zeit verwende ich ja das T-Mobile G1 (aka HTC Dream) als privates Phone und habe daher schon einige Zeit mit Android verbracht.

Hier die Apps, die ich verwende:

• Vorinstallierte Android Apps: Google Maps (auch als Öffi- und Fußweg-Planer!), Kalender, Email, Gmail, SMS, Google Talk, Chrome (Browser, Facebook nur über Browser), Musik (da braucht man einen HW-Adapter für Klingenstecker), Kamera, YouTube
• Andere häufig benutze Apps vom Android Market: Twidroid (twitter), Netcounter (Datenverbrauch), Battery Graph (Akkuverbrauch), OI Dateimanager (File-Explorer), Close Everything (schließt offene Apps), OI Notepad, WeatherBug, OI Einkaufsliste, Skype Lite Beta, Greed (Feedreader), AndNav2! (Navigationssytem, vgl TomTom), Text-To-Speech Library Extended (braucht man für AndNav2!), barcoo (Barcode Scanner), qik (Video aufnehmen und gleich online stellen), Shazam (Erkennen von Musik vom Lautsprecher)
• Widgets (auf Home-Screen): Brightness Toggle Widget, Headset Toggle Widget, Kalender
• Spiele: Labyrinth Lite, Bubble Burst Lite, FML (Fuck My Life, lustige Geschichen), Pacman, Sudoku Free, Tic Tac Toe, Slide Puzzle, Android Space Invaders etc.
  Leider gibt es auf iPhone einige Spiele, die ich im Android vermisse, z.B. Fastlane, Pocket God, Vooch, Zooma, Stoneloops, Peggle.
• System Apps vom Android Market: Camcorder, Compass, Bubble, JF Updater (Updaten auf andere Android-Firmeware-Versionen, geht nur bei gerootetem Android), Metal Detector, mp3tagger, Taschenlampe, APNdroid (ein und ausschalten der gesamten Netzwerkverbindung, im Ausland sinnvoll), Phonalyzr (Grafische Darstellung der Verwendung)

Wem das nicht reicht, marc (aka murdelta) hat auch eine kleine Liste mit Apps geschrieben, die er am Android Market entdeckt hat.

T-Mobile Pulse

Die Firmware verhält sich beim T-Mobile Pulse im Vergleich zum G1 sehr ähnlich. Ein paar kleine Features sind dazugekommen und die Icons für die Applikationen sehen etwas anders aus, aber im Wesentlichen ist alles beim Alten, sodass ich mich gut zurecht gefunden habe.

Leider hat uns T-Mobile dieses mal für die T-Mobile Pulse Testaktion (bei der G1 Aktion schon) kein Screenshot-Tool zur Verfügung gestellt, deswegen muss ich leider auf die Bilchen von anderen verweisen (siehe links).

Die Hardware ist sehr ansprechend, erinnert stark an das iPhone, weil es auch so rund ist und das Display etwas größer ist als das vom G1. Vom Gewicht her dürfte es sehr gleich sein. Die Anwendungen reagieren schnell, so wie ich es von anderen Android Phones auch gewöhnt bin.

Mein Eindruck vom T-Mobile Pulse hat sich zu meinem letzten Beitrag allerdings nicht verändert: Die herausschiebbare Tastatur fehlt mir sehr!

Die Software der Onscreen-Tastatur kann zwar durch andere Apps ersetzt werden, aber mir gehen die Tasten wirklich ab, da ich bei der Tippgeschwindigkeit sicher auf ein Drittel herunter gebremst werde. Mein mittlerweile gut trainiertes 10-Finger-auf-2-Daumen-System im Querformat ist durch ständiges Vertippen unbrauchbar geworden und zur iPhone-mäßigen ein-Zeigefinger-Tipperin fehlt mir irgendwie die Geduld – vor allem, seit ich weiß, dass es auch anders geht.

Daher bleibe ich vorerst beim G1 und freue mich schon auf Motorola Droid, ein Android Phone mit Android 2.0 (aka Eclair) und herausschiebbarer Tastatur, das in einigen Monaten kommen soll.

Pond

ONLINE DEBATE ON THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE

Online debate on the future of social democracy in Europe

Dear All

The text below was written by Jonathan Rutherford, of the journal Soundings.

People are invited to:-

”Contribute to a major online debate about the future of social democracy in Europe. The debate is hosted by Social Europe journal http://www.social-europe.eu and Soundings journal http://www.soundings.org.uk and is supported by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung http://www.feslondon.org.uk and Compass http://www.compassonline.org.uk

Contributions should be no more than 700 words in length. The debate is running from November to January 2010 with over 50 contributors to date from across Europe.

If anyone would like to contribute, can they contact Jonathan Rutherford at: jonathan@jrutherford.demon.co.uk and I will send them further information and a deadline.

The poor results in the European elections in June were proof that we need to revive and reinvent our traditions. Since then the elections in Germany have delivered a terrible result for the SPD and in Britain the Labour Party faces a very difficult future. Change is essential. But what kind of change?

In April 2009 Andrea Nahles of the SPD in Germany and Jon Cruddas of the British Labour Party jointly published a document ‘Building the Good Society’ http://www.goodsociety.eu which was launched in London and Berlin. It brought together social democrats from Germany and Britain to discuss a new direction for social democracy in Europe. The next stage is to use this exploratory text to build a pan-European network of social democrats who are looking ahead to build the good society.

Contributors are asked to critically engage with the text and to use their expertise and knowledge to explore the key issues facing us today, both from the perspective of their own nation and from a wider European view.

The aim of ‘Building the Good Society’ is to help create an European wide conversation about the future of social democracy. This debate will contribute to a conference organised by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and Compass which will be held in London in January 2010. It will bring together politicians of the left from across Europe.

Best wishes, Jonathan Rutherford

For “The Spaces of Democracy and the Democracy of Space” network website: http://www.spaceofdemocracy.org/

For Radical Politics Today magazine: http://www.spaceofdemocracy.org/resources/publications/magazine/magazine.html

For more on the book What is radical politics today?, published in 2009 by Palgrave MacMillan: http://www.spaceofdemocracy.org/resources/resources_bookstoread.html

Jonathan Pugh
Senior Academic Fellow
Director “The Spaces of Democracy and the Democracy of Space” network
School of Geography, Politics and Sociology
5th Floor Claremont Tower
Newcastle University
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 7RU
United Kingdom
Honorary Fellow, The Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

From Automotive News:

“By 2014, 12 nameplates from Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep or Ram will have heavy Fiat influence. They will either be developed on Fiat Group platforms or rebadged and imported from the Fiat Group.”

Here’s what they have in store for Jeep:

“Subcompact SUV: A small SUV is planned in 2013, based on the platform for the next generation Fiat Panda Cross.

Patriot: Minor exterior and interior changes are planned for 2010. Production ends in 2012.

Compass: Minor exterior and interior changes are slated for 2010. The Compass will be dropped in 2012.

Compact crossover: The unnamed crossover will be developed on a Fiat Group platform. Sales begin in 2013.

Wrangler: A new interior is scheduled for 2010. A new powertrain will be offered in 2011.

Liberty: Minor cosmetic and interior changes are planned for 2010. The redesigned Liberty debuts in 2013, based on a Fiat Group platform.

Commander: U.S. production ends late in 2010. The Commander may be assembled outside North America for export markets.

Grand Cherokee: The redesigned Grand Cherokee and next-generation Mercedes-Benz full-size SUVs are linked at the hip. Vehicle development started when Daimler owned Chrysler. Component sharing is expected to continue for several years. The redesigned Grand Cherokee debuts in May 2010.”

To see what’s in store for Chrysler & Dodge Models, read the full article here.

This copy of the Quantum Tarot is special in that I have blacked out the card names at the bottom. The colorful oval in the middle of that strip still indicates which card each is, but the black space (instead of the name of the card) gives you time to think about the new implications of the card with the Quantum images before you get bogged down in RWS meanings. Click on either photo for a larger scan. The spread is the Compass Spread by my friend Sherry at Green Trinity.

The “center” card, which represents where I am at now, is Jupiter (King of Wands). Jupiter was the ultimate father figure in Roman times, and is very self controlled. I’ve been controlling myself almost to the point of stifling lately, so it makes sense.

The North position of my compass is the Solar System (Ten of Pentacles), representing what leaves me cold. I think right now I just feel like security is so far away as to be a joke, and without security, how can we have that sense of completion that comes with the tens?

What warms me is Particle Decay (Five of Cups). I’m starting to feel good about getting past what I have lost and working the new, different situation into my life. It’s a challenge, not a painful situation. Or at least that is how I am trying to see it.

I am set back by Mars (Knight of Wands). He is passion and fiery energy. I want to go to war with my problems. I want to fix them, and I mean yesterday, but my largest problem right now can only be solved by patience, persistence, and time. It’s getting me pretty riled up, and I have not been feeling my best because of the impotent feelings of it.

What moves me forward is Neptume (King of Cups). Looks like my husband is the driving force pulling me forward. Makes sense to me. There were a lot of court cards today!

Car Finder app

Picture this:
It’s Holiday Shopping Season and you are stalking shoppers for a potential parking spot nearest the mall entrance. You’ve probably gone around the mall parking hundreds of times with no luck and your patience has worn thin. So you settle for the parking spot you never knew even existed and bolt for the mall entrance in the piercing winter cold.

Several hundreds – if not thousands – of dollars gone and bags from your favorite designers shackled to your arms…you trudge back outside only to remember that you did not remember where you parked. Remind you that it is probably even colder than when you first entered the mall. Sucks, but its happened to all of us.

ENTER the “Car Finder” app from the iTunes App Store. This app from Intridea, Inc. sets the location of your car (of course you set it when you first park). Then when you need to find your car turn the app on and use the camera viewfinder see an overlay of where your car is at. The app uses Augmented Reality to find your car and it will tell you what direction your car is and how far away it is. It is only compatible for the iPhone 3GS.

Helpful for those “OH SHIT!” moments during Holiday Shopping.

Here’s a watercolor I made over the past 10 days while in a yoga teacher training. Every day after hours of energy work and yoga, I would work on it, so this one’s super charged. Soften your eyes, gaze, and  let it take you on your own journey.