Locally Owned Business Quotes

Even in engineering-driven Silicon Valley, the buzzwords of the moment call for building a “lean startup” that can “adapt” and “evolve” to an ever-changing environment. Would-be entrepreneurs are told that nothing can be known in advance: we’re supposed to listen to what customers say they want, make nothing more than a “minimum viable product,” and iterate our way to success. But leanness is a methodology, not a goal. Making small changes to things that already exist might lead you to a local maximum, but it won’t help you find the global maximum. You could build the best version of an app that lets people order toilet paper from their iPhone. But iteration without a bold plan won’t take you from 0 to 1. A company is the strangest place of all for an indefinite optimist: why should you expect your own business to succeed without a plan to make it happen? Darwinism may be a fine theory in other contexts, but in startups, intelligent design works best.

Banks do not create money for the public good. They are businesses owned by private shareholders. Their purpose is to make a profit.

Nowdays, Rosie the Rivetere was a former soccer mom who had just opened her own catering business when Last Night came down and her husband and kids were eaten by a parking attendant at the local megamall’s discount- appliance emporium.

In education, we need to begin paying attention to matters routinely ignored. We spend long hours trying to teach a variety of courses on, say, the structure of government or the structure of the amoeba. But how much effort goes into studying the structure of everyday life — the way time is allocated, the personal uses of money, the places to go for help in a society exploding with complexity? We take for granted that young people already know their way around our social structure. In fact, most have only the dimmest image of the way the world of work or business is organized. Most students have no conception of the architecture of their own city's economy, or the way the local bureaucracy operates, or the place to go to lodge a complaint against a merchant. Most do not even understand how their own schools — even universities — are structured, let alone how much structures are changing under the impact of the Third Wave.

The amateur study of philosophy is like taking a few laps with a NASCAR driver. You’re not qualified to do it on your own, you have no business behind the wheel, but for a few laps or paragraphs, you’re right in there with ‘em, and when it’s all over, you’ve learned something. Or, as my local fire chief once said, you’ve simply exasperated the situation.

I believe that a new philosophy will be created by those who were born after Hiroshima which will dramatically change the human condition. It will have these characteristics: (1) It will be scientific in essence and science-fiction in style. (2) It will be based on the expansion of consciousness, understanding and control of the nervous system, producing a quantum leap in intellectual efficiency and emotional equilibrium. (3) Politically it will stress individualism, decentralization of authority, a Iive-and-let-Iive tolerance of difference, local option and a mind-your-own-business libertarianism. (4) It will continue the trend towards open sexual expression and a more honest, realistic acceptance of both the equality of and the magnetic difference between the sexes. The mythic religious symbol will not be a man on a cross but a man-woman pair united in higher love communion. (5) It will seek revelation and Higher Intelligence not in formal rituals addressed to an anthropomorphic deity, but within natural processes, the nervous system, the genetic code, and without, in attempts to effect extra-planetary communication. (6) It will include practical, technical neurological psychological procedures for understanding and managing the intimations of union-immortality implicit in the dying process. (7) The emotional tone of the new philosophy will be hedonic, aesthetic, fearless, optimistic, humorous, practical, skeptical, hip. We are now experiencing a quiescent preparatory waiting period. Everyone knows something is going to happen. The seeds of the Sixties have taken root underground. The blossoming is to come.

And there they stayed, a sole phenomenon in the Republic of Brooklyn, where cats hollered like people, dogs ate their own feces, aunties chain-smoked and died at age 102, a kid named Spike Lee saw God, the ghosts of the departed Dodgers soaked up all possibility of new hope, and penniless desperation ruled the lives of the suckers too black or too poor to leave, while in Manhattan the buses ran on time, the lights never went out, the death of a single white child in a traffic accident was a page one story, while phony versions of black and Latino life ruled the Broadway roost, making white writers rich—West Side Story, Porgy & Bess, Purlie Victorious—and on it went, the whole business of the white man’s reality lumping together like a giant, lopsided snowball, the Great American Myth, the Big Apple, the Big Kahuna, the City That Never Sleeps, while the blacks and Latinos who cleaned the apartments and dragged out the trash and made the music and filled the jails with sorrow slept the sleep of the invisible and functioned as local color.

New Rule: Not everything in America has to make a profit. If conservatives get to call universal health care "socialized medicine," I get to call private, for-profit health care "soulless vampire bastards making money off human pain." Now, I know what you're thinking: "But, Bill, the profit motive is what sustains capitalism." Yes, and our sex drive is what sustains the human species, but we don't try to fuck everything. It wasn't that long ago when a kid in America broke his leg, his parents took him to the local Catholic hospital, the nun stuck a thermometer in his ass, the doctor slapped some plaster on his ankle, and you were done. The bill was $1.50; plus, you got to keep the thermometer. But like everything else that's good and noble in life, some bean counter decided that hospitals could be big business, so now they're not hospitals anymore; they're Jiffy Lubes with bedpans. The more people who get sick, and stay sick, the higher their profit margins, which is why they're always pushing the Jell-O. Did you know that the United States is ranked fiftieth in the world in life expectancy? And the forty-nine loser countries were they live longer than us? Oh, it's hardly worth it, they may live longer, but they live shackled to the tyranny of nonprofit health care. Here in America, you're not coughing up blood, little Bobby, you're coughing up freedom. The problem with President Obama's health-care plan isn't socialism. It's capitalism. When did the profit motive become the only reason to do anything? When did that become the new patriotism? Ask not what you could do for your country, ask what's in it for Blue Cross Blue Shield. And it's not just medicine--prisons also used to be a nonprofit business, and for good reason--who the hell wants to own a prison? By definition, you're going to have trouble with the tenants. It's not a coincidence that we outsourced running prisons to private corporations and then the number of prisoners in America skyrocketed. There used to be some things we just didn't do for money. Did you know, for example, there was a time when being called a "war profiteer" was a bad thing? FDR said he didn't want World War II to create one millionaire, but I'm guessing Iraq has made more than a few executives at Halliburton into millionaires. Halliburton sold soldiers soda for $7.50 a can. They were honoring 9/11 by charging like 7-Eleven. Which is wrong. We're Americans; we don't fight wars for money. We fight them for oil. And my final example of the profit motive screwing something up that used to be good when it was nonprofit: TV news. I heard all the news anchors this week talk about how much better the news coverage was back in Cronkite's day. And I thought, "Gee, if only you were in a position to do something about it.

The relationship between any two communities in the global economy is not unlike a marriage. As couples counselors advise, relationships falter when two partners are too interdependent. When any stress affecting one partner - the loss of a job, an illness, a bad-hair day - brings down the other, the couple suffers. A much healthier relationship is grounded in the relative strength of each partner, who each should have his or her own interests, hobbies, friends, and professional identity, so that when anything goes wrong, the couple can support one another from a position of strength. Our ability to love, like our ability to produce, must be grounded in our own security. And our economy, like our love, when it comes from a place of community, can grow without limit.

And so many of the indies have partnered with Google to sell ebooks right from their own websites. These stores are embracing the “new technology” instead of hiding from it, because they realize it’s about the story, not the ink on paper. If you want ebooks, your local indie can sell you ebooks. If your local independent is hanging up posters saying that ebooks will kill everything, you should tag that bookstore as a favorite in your GPS doohickey. You’ll get great deals, because that store will have a going-out-of-business sale soon. Yes, even though you try to save it with a letter-writing campaign.

The blackest chapter in the history of this State will be the Indian guardianship over these estates,” an Osage leader said, adding, “There has been millions—not thousands—but millions of dollars of many of the Osages dissipated and spent by the guardians themselves.” This so-called Indian business, as White discovered, was an elaborate criminal operation, in which various sectors of society were complicit. The crooked guardians and administrators of Osage estates were typically among the most prominent white citizens: businessmen and ranchers and lawyers and politicians. So were the lawmen and prosecutors and judges who facilitated and concealed the swindling (and, sometimes, acted as guardians and administrators themselves). In 1924, the Indian Rights Association, which defended the interests of indigenous communities, conducted an investigation into what it described as “an orgy of graft and exploitation.” The group documented how rich Indians in Oklahoma were being “shamelessly and openly robbed in a scientific and ruthless manner” and how guardianships were “the plums to be distributed to the faithful friends of the judges as a reward for their support at the polls.” Judges were known to say to citizens, “You vote for me, and I will see that you get a good guardianship.” A white woman married to an Osage man described to a reporter how the locals would plot: “A group of traders and lawyers sprung up who selected certain Indians as their prey. They owned all the officials…. These men had an understanding with each other. They cold-bloodedly said, ‘You take So-and-So, So-and-So and So-and-So and I’ll take these.’ They selected Indians who had full headrights and large farms.

The impression given by Bill and May as a couple was of a marriage that was never seriously under strain but was based on habit as much as on affection, with each of them, increasingly, pursuing his or her own interests: Bill in his business, sport, walking, and playing cards; May in the running of the household, the welfare of her sons, Tullow Parish Church, local events such as dog shows, the garden, her dogs, and a donkey called Kish.67

his business. On Denman's death he returned to his former trade, and shortly set up a printing house of his own from which he published "The Pennsylvania Gazette," to which he contributed many essays, and which he made a medium for agitating a variety of local reforms. In 1732 he began to issue his famous "Poor Richard's Almanac" for the enrichment of which he borrowed or composed those pithy utterances of worldly wisdom which are the basis of a large part of his popular reputation.

On behalf of those you killed, imprisoned, tortured, you are not welcome, Erdogan! No, Erdogan, you’re not welcome in Algeria. We are a country which has already paid its price of blood and tears to those who wanted to impose their caliphate on us, those who put their ideas before our bodies, those who took our children hostage and who attempted to kill our hopes for a better future. The notorious family that claims to act in the name of the God and religion—you’re a member of it—you fund it, you support it, you desire to become its international leader. Islamism is your livelihood Islamism, which is your livelihood, is our misfortune. We will not forget about it, and you are a reminder of it today. You offer your shadow and your wings to those who work to make our country kneel down before your “Sublime Door.” You embody and represent what we loathe. You hate freedom, the free spirit. But you love parades. You use religion for business. You dream of a caliphate and hope to return to our lands. But you do it behind the closed doors, by supporting Islamist parties, by offering gifts through your companies, by infiltrating the life of the community, by controlling the mosques. These are the old methods of your “Muslim Brothers” in this country, who used to show us God’s Heaven with one hand while digging our graves with the other. No, Mr. Erdogan, you are not a man of help; you do not fight for freedom or principles; you do not defend the right of peoples to self-determination. You know only how to subject the Kurds to the fires of death; you know only how to subject your opponents to your dictatorship. You cry with the victims in the Middle East, yet sign contracts with their executioners. You do not dream of a dignified future for us, but of a caliphate for yourself. We are aware of your institutionalized persecution, your list of Turks to track down, your sinister prisons filled with the innocent, your dictatorial justice palaces, your insolence and boastful nature. You do not dream of a humanity that shares common values and principles, but are interested only in the remaking of the Ottoman Empire and its bloodthirsty warlords. Islam, for you, is a footstool; God is a business sign; modernity is an enemy; Palestine is a showcase; and local Islamists are your stunned courtesans. Humanity will not remember you with good deeds Humanity will remember you for your machinations, your secret coups d’état, and your manhunts. History will remember you for your bombings, your vengeful wars, and your inability to engage in constructive dialogue with others. The UN vote for Al-Quds is only an instrument in your service. Let us laugh at this with the Palestinians. We know that the Palestinian issue is your political capital, as it is for many others. You know well how to make a political fortune by exploiting others’ emotions. In Algeria, we suffered, and still suffer, from those who pretend to be God and act as takers and givers of life. They applaud your coming, but not us. You are the idol of Algerian Islamists and Populists, those who are unable to imagine a political structure beyond a caliphate for Muslim-majority societies. We aspire to become a country of freedom and dignity. This is not your ambition, nor your virtue. You are an illusion You have made beautiful Turkey an open prison and a bazaar for your business and loved ones. I hope that this beautiful nation rises above your ambitions. I hope that justice will be restored and flourish there once again, at least for those who have been imprisoned, tortured, bombed, and killed. You are an illusion, Erdogan—you know it and we know it. You play on the history of our humiliation, on our emotions, on our beliefs, and introduce yourself as a savior. However, you are a gravedigger, both for your own country and for your neighbors. Turkey is a political miracle, but it owes you nothing. The best thing you can do

Early in the summer of 1980, shortly after his son turned three, A. and the boy spent a week together in the country, in a house owned by friends who were off on vacation. A. noticed that Superman was playing in a local theater and decided to take the boy, on the off-chance that he would be able to sit through it. For the first half of the film, the boy was calm, working his way through a bin of popcorn, whispering his questions as A. had instructed him to do, and taking the business of exploding planets, rocket ships, and outer space without much fuss. But then something happened. Superman began to fly, and all at once the boy lost his composure. His mouth dropped open, he stood up in his seat, spilled his popcorn, pointed at the screen, and began to shout: "Look! Look! He's flying!

Every business needs capital. Whether we’re talking about a barbershop or a bank, a boutique e-commerce store or a hotdog stand. Whether we’re talking about a restaurant or a clothing store, a giant like Walmart, or the local bodega that’s owned by a local family. They all need capital.

Robbers, thieves, smugglers, and cheats know their own local and personal circumstances and conditions extremely well, and pay the most active attention to their business; but it by no means follows therefrom, that society is in the best condition where such individuals are at least restrained in the exercised of their private industry.

I had dropped more or less by chance into the only community of any size in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism were more normal than their opposites. Up here in Aragon one was among tens of thousands of people, mainly though not entirely of working-class origin, all living at the same level and mingling on terms of equality. In theory it was perfect equality, and even in practice it was not far from it. There is a sense in which it would be true to say that one was experiencing a foretaste of Socialism, by which I mean that the prevailing mental atmosphere was that of Socialism. Many of the normal motives of civilized life — snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc. — had simply ceased to exist. The ordinary class-division of society had disappeared to an extent that is almost unthinkable in the money-tainted air of England; there was no one there except the peasants and ourselves, and no one owned anyone else as his master. Of course such a state of affairs could not last. It was simply a temporary and local phase in an enormous game that is being played over the whole surface of the earth. But it lasted long enough to have its effect upon anyone who experienced it. However much one cursed at the time, one realized afterwards that one had been in contact with something strange and valuable. One had been in a community where hope was more normal than apathy or cynicism, where the word ‘comrade’ stood for comradeship and not, as in most countries, for humbug. One had breathed the air of equality. I am well aware that it is now the fashion to deny that Socialism has anything to do with equality. In every country in the world a huge tribe of party-hacks and sleek little professors are busy ‘proving’ that Socialism means no more than a planned state-capitalism with the grab-motive left intact. But fortunately there also exists a vision of Socialism quite different from this.

Why does Joe Normie think it’s a litmus test for morality if one returns one’s shopping cart? Big-box stores put out of business local retailers, they automated their systems to reduce employees, and they got customers to be their own cashiers without getting paid for their labor, and yet to prove I’m a good person, I’m supposed to do more unpaid work for them to streamline their operation?

Concentrating on local foods means thinking of fruit invariably as the product of an orchard, and winter squash as the fruit of an early-winter farm. It's a strategy that will keep grocery money in the neighborhood, where it gets recycled into your own school system and local businesses. The green spaces surrounding your town stay green, and farmers who live nearby get to grow more food next year, for you.

Sonia Gandhi and her son play an important part in all of this. Their job is to run the Department of Compassion and Charisma and to win elections. They are allowed to make (and also to take credit for) decisions which appear progressive but are actually tactical and symbolic, meant to take the edge off popular anger and allow the big ship to keep on rolling. (The best example of this is the rally that was organised for Rahul Gandhi to claim victory for the cancellation of Vedanta’s permission to mine Niyamgiri for bauxite—a battle that the Dongria Kondh tribe and a coalition of activists, local as well as international, have been fighting for years. At the rally, Rahul Gandhi announced that he was “a soldier for the tribal people”. He didn’t mention that the economic policies of his party are predicated on the mass displacement of tribal people. Or that every other bauxite “giri”—hill—in the neighbourhood was having the hell mined out of it, while this “soldier for the tribal people” looked away. Rahul Gandhi may be a decent man. But for him to go around talking about the two Indias—the “Rich India” and the “Poor India”—as though the party he represents has nothing to do with it, is an insult to everybody’s intelligence, including his own.) The division of labour between politicians who have a mass base and win elections, and those who actually run the country but either do not need to (judges and bureaucrats) or have been freed of the constraint of winning elections (like the prime minister) is a brilliant subversion of democratic practice. To imagine that Sonia and Rahul Gandhi are in charge of the government would be a mistake. The real power has passed into the hands of a coven of oligarchs—judges, bureaucrats and politicians. They in turn are run like prize race-horses by the few corporations who more or less own everything in the country. They may belong to different political parties and put up a great show of being political rivals, but that’s just subterfuge for public consumption. The only real rivalry is the business rivalry between corporations.

To make way for more resorts with spectacular views, developers destroy native habitats and ignore local concerns. Preservationists decry the growing propensity to bulldoze old hotels and buildings in favor of constructing new resorts, water holes and entertainment spots that look identical whether in Singapore, Dubai or Johannesburg; a world where diversity is replaced with homogeneity. Another catastrophe for countries betting on tourism has come from wealthy vacationers who fall in love with a country and buy so many second houses that locals can no longer afford to live in their own towns and villages. Among the more thoughtful questions is how mass tourism has changed cultures. African children told anthropologists that they want to grow up to be tourists so they could spend the day doing nothing but eating. The tourists who do not speak the local language and rely on guides to tell them what they are seeing and what to think marvel at countries like China with its new wealth and appearance of democracy. Environmentalists wonder how long the globe can continue to support 1 billion people racing around the world for a long weekend on a beach or a ten-day tour of an African game park.

This business with Sir Magnus Pye had got off to an inauspicious start. It was one thing to be stabbed in your own home—but to be decapitated with a medieval sword the moment darkness fell was quite simply outrageous. Saxby-on-Avon was such a quiet place! Yes, there had been that business with the cleaner, the woman who had tripped up and fallen down the stairs, but this was something else again. Could it really be true that one of the villagers, living in a Georgian house perhaps, going to church and playing for the local cricket team, mowing their lawn on Sunday mornings and selling home-made marmalade at the village fête, was a homicidal maniac? The answer was yes—quite possibly.

Sonnet of Consumerism Ever wonder in a world of consumerism, Who's the consumer, who's the product! You may think that you are the one owning things, But it's the things that own you, head and heart. When unmoderated materialism is the world's norm, Consumer is the product, product does the consuming. And this insanity is revered as industrial growth, Then they wonder, why is there so much suffering! The point is, your insecurity is good for business, The shallower you are, the more your pocket empties. But if you don't wanna end up at la casa de loco, Stop living in products and focus on memories. Corporations chasing revenue cause economic disparity. Buy less, buy local, to construct a sustainable economy.

In my own periods of darkness, in the underworld of the soul, I find myself frequently overcome and amazed by the ability of people to befriend each other, to love their intimate partners and parents and children, and to do what they must do to keep the machinery of the world running. I knew a man, injured and disabled by a car accident, who was employed by a local utility. For years after the crash he worked side by side with another man, who for his part suffered with a degenerative neurological disease. They cooperated while repairing the lines, each making up for the other’s inadequacy. This sort of everyday heroism is the rule, I believe, rather than the exception. Most individuals are dealing with one or more serious health problems while going productively and uncomplainingly about their business. If anyone is fortunate enough to be in a rare period of grace and health, personally, then he or she typically has at least one close family member in crisis. Yet people prevail and continue to do difficult and effortful tasks to hold themselves and their families and society together. To me this is miraculous—so much so that a dumbfounded gratitude is the only appropriate response. There are so many ways that things can fall apart, or fail to work altogether, and it is always wounded people who are holding it together. They deserve some genuine and heartfelt admiration for that. It’s an ongoing miracle of fortitude and perseverance

Inside the KGB offices, staff members were busy burning all the files. Putin later stated, “We burned so much stuff that the furnace exploded.”46 He recounts that despite the local office’s efforts to get the Soviet military to come to their rescue, and in general to defend their positions in East Germany, “Moscow was silent. . . . I only really regretted that the Soviet Union had lost its position in Europe, although intellectually I understood that a position built on walls . . . cannot last. But I wanted something different to rise in its place. And nothing different was proposed. That’s what hurt. They just dropped everything and went away. . . . We would have avoided a lot of problems if the Soviets had not made such a hasty exit from Eastern Europe.

The rise of loneliness as a health hazard tracks with the entrenchment of values and practices that supersede any notion of "individual choices." The dynamics include reduced social programs, less available "common" spaces such as public libraries, cuts in services for the vulnerable and the elderly, stress, poverty, and the inexorable monopolization of economic life that shreds local communities. By way of illustration, let's take a familiar scenario: Walmart or some other megastore decides to open one of its facilities in a municipality. Developers are happy, politicians welcome the new investment, and consumers are pleased at finding a wide variety of goods at lower prices. But what are the social impacts? Locally owned and operated small businesses cannot compete with the marketing behemoth and must close. People lose their jobs or must find new work for lower pay. Neighborhoods are stripped of the familiar hardware store, pharmacy, butcher, baker, candlestick maker. People no longer walk to their local establishment, where they meet and greet one another and familiar merchants they have known, but drive, each isolated in their car, to a windowless, aesthetically bereft warehouse, miles away from home. They might not even leave home at all — why bother, when you can order online? No wonder international surveys show a rise in loneliness. The percentage of Americans identifying themselves as lonely has doubled from 20 to 40 percent since the 1980s, the New York Times reported in 2016. Alarmed by the health ravages, Britain has even found it necessary to appoint a minister of loneliness. Describing the systemic founts of loneliness, the U.S. surgeon general Vivek Murthy wrote: "Our twenty-first-century world demands that we focus on pursuits that seem to be in constant competition for our time, attention, energy, and commitment. Many of these pursuits are themselves competitions. We compete for jobs and status. We compete over possessions, money, and reputations. We strive to stay afloat and to get ahead. Meanwhile, the relationships we prize often get neglected in the chase." It is easy to miss the point that what Dr. Murthy calls "our twenty-first-century world" is no abstract entity, but the concrete manifestation of a particular socioeconomic system, a distinct worldview, and a way of life.

In country after country where local moneys were abolished in favor of interest-bearing central currency, people fell into poverty, health declined, and society deteriorated12 by all measures. Even the plague can be traced to the collapse of the marketplace of the late Middle Ages and the shift toward extractive currencies and urban wage labor. The new scheme instead favored bigger players, such as chartered monopolies, which had better access to capital than regular little businesses and more means of paying back the interest. When monarchs and their favored merchants founded the first corporations, the idea that they would be obligated to grow didn’t look like such a problem. They had their nations’ governments and armies on their side—usually as direct investors in their projects. For the Dutch East India Company to grow was as simple as sending a few warships to a new region of the world, taking the land, and enslaving its people. If this sounds a bit like the borrowing advantages enjoyed today by companies like Walmart and Amazon, that’s because it’s essentially the same money system in operation, favoring the same sorts of players. Yet however powerful the favored corporations may appear, they are really just the engines through which the larger money system extracts value from everyone’s economic activity. Even megacorporations are like competing apps on a universally accepted, barely acknowledged smartphone operating system. Their own survival is utterly dependent on their ability to grow capital for their debtors and investors.

The local cultures around the world that are carried by today’s immigrant poor have been eroded by centuries of colonialism and are in danger of being extinguished by the onslaught of global capitalism’s drive for commodified homogeneity. The church must reassert the Genesis wisdom of a “scattered” human family by nurturing diversity, and must reaffirm the Pentecostal vocation of native-language empowerment. For in the great narrative of the Bible, God’s intervention is always subversive of the centralizing project of empire and always on the side of the excluded and outcast, the refugee and immigrant. The Spirit has busted out and busted up business as usual many times since Babel and Jerusalem, and she is waiting to do the same in our own time—if our tongues would but dare to loosen.

The wit and grace of Machado’s writing never diminish in these stories, and the scene is almost always the same. We are watching the bourgeoisie of Rio Janeiro at play, and occasionally trying to be serious. They misunderstand each other, they get married, they worry about dying, there is the occasional violent murder. Money and the business of keeping up appearances are large questions. The characters read Hugo and Feydeau, Dumas père and Dumas fils, and indeed the general tone is that of nineteenth-century Paris as reconstructed in so many Latin American locations of that time. Machado is gently mocking this class that believes only in borrowed culture, or in what the Brazilian critic Roberto Schwarz calls “misplaced ideas,” but he is not advocating any kind of nativism. When the chief character of “The Alienist,” refusing distinguished positions offered to him by the king of Portugal, refers to the Brazilian city of Itaguaí as “my universe,” we laugh because he seems to have made his world so small. But then we may also feel that his grandiose claim for his hometown and the exclusive fascination of others with the culture of Europe are simply rival forms of provincialism. There is a third way. We can take all culture, local and international, as our own, and this is the practice suggested by Machado’s own allusions, as it is by those of Jorge Luis Borges, writing a little later in a neighboring Latin American country. “We cannot confine ourselves to what is Argentine in order to be Argentine,” Borges says, and Machado might add that we don’t have to believe that Paris is the capital

When you buy from an independent, locally owned business, as opposed to nationally owned businesses, you strengthen the economic base of our city. And of course there’s no doubt that you’ll receive a better quality product or service. I share John Roeser’s amazement that people today tend to prefer saving a dollar or too two on a birthday cake, for example, by purchasing a sub-par cake made with artificial, cheap ingredients from a mass retailer, when Roeser’s Bakery offers some of the most delectable, housemade cakes in the world. How could anyone step into a fast food joint when we live in a city that has Lem’s barbecque rib tips, Kurowski’s kielbasa, Manny’s matzo ball soup, and Lindy’s chili within reach? You can’t even compare the products and services of the businesses featured in this book with those of mass retailers, either: Jjust try putting an Optimo hat on your head—you’ll ooze with elegance. Burn a beeswax lambathe from Athenian Candle and watch it glow longer than any candle you’ve ever lit. Bite into an Andersonville coffeecake from the Swedish Bakery—and you’ll have a hard time returning to the artificial ingredient– laden cakes found at most grocers. Equally important, local, family- owned businesses keep our city unique. In our increasingly homogenized and globalized world, cities that hold on tightly to their family-owned, distinctive businesses are more likely to attract visitors, entrepreneurs, and new investment. Chicago just wouldn’t be Chicago without these historic, one-of-a-kind places, and the people that run them from behind the scenes with nothing but love, hard work, and pride.

Do you really think that the Revolution is a ridiculous proposition? That we cannot engineer our own structures? What's ridiculous is the system we have now. If we were starting society anew, who among us would propose a monarchy, an aristocracy, a financial elite that exploits the earth and farms its population? If at one of the local or regional meetings that we have to govern our community someone proposed, instead of equality, that all of us, including the poorest among us, donated a percentage of our income to a super-rich family with a little old lady at its helm who would turn up annually in our parliament, draped in jewels and finery, to tell us that austerity had to continue, you'd tell them they were mental. If someone said that we should give 64 per cent of British land to 0.28 per cent of the population, we would not vote for it. If trade agreements were proposed that meant local businesses were shackled so that transnational corporations could create a farcical tyrannical economy where produce was needlessly transported around the world for their gain and to the detriment of everyone else, it would be forbidden. If energy companies said they wanted to be run for huge profit, without regulation, whilst harming the environment, we wouldn't allow it. That pharmaceutical and food companies could run their own governing bodies, flood the world with inferior and harmful products that damage and even kill the people that use them, we would not tolerate it. Here is the truth they fight so hard to suppress: to create a better world, the priority is not the implementation of new systems, though that is necessary, it is a refusal to cooperate with the obsolete and harmful structures that are already in place.

FREE COFFEE Get to know every single barista/o in your local coffee shop. That’s Emma, Jason, Helen, Anjara, Brooklyn, and Jeremy! And because there’s high turnover, now it’s Angela, Jeremiah, Lupe, Jason, and Carmela! Oops—now Amber, Kat, Jonny, and Jason! Learn the names of their pets. Ask about their cat, Stanley. Like and repost their self-made music videos of ballet dancing while high. Give them your address and the code to get into your house to use the pool. After two to seven months of this, forget to pay. That’s twelve ounces of your favorite coffee beverage gratis! Become CONSUMED WITH GUILT. You just STOLE five-dollars-plus out of the pocket of a small, family-owned business in your own neighborhood! Anja, the owner, will find out and you will be BANNED. Within twenty-four hours, send ten dollars via Venmo to Anja. REPEAT THIS PROCESS FOR DECADES. 2. Diagnos-YES! Why I need so badly to belong somewhere: because there’s something really wrong with me!

George Romney’s private-sector experience typified the business world of his time. His executive career took place within a single company, American Motors Corporation, where his success rested on the dogged (and prescient) pursuit of more fuel-efficient cars.41 Rooted in a particular locale, the industrial Midwest, AMC was built on a philosophy of civic engagement. Romney dismissed the “rugged individualism” touted by conservatives as “nothing but a political banner to cover up greed.”42 Nor was this dismissal just cheap talk: He once returned a substantial bonus that he regarded as excessive.43 Prosperity was not an individual product, in Romney’s view; it was generated through bargaining and compromises among stakeholders (managers, workers, public officials, and the local community) as well as through individual initiative. When George Romney turned to politics, he carried this understanding with him. Romney exemplified the moderate perspective characteristic of many high-profile Republicans of his day. He stressed the importance of private initiative and decentralized governance, and worried about the power of unions. Yet he also believed that government had a vital role to play in securing prosperity for all. He once famously called UAW head Walter Reuther “the most dangerous man in Detroit,” but then, characteristically, developed a good working relationship with him.44 Elected governor in 1962 after working to update Michigan’s constitution, he broke with conservatives in his own party and worked across party lines to raise the minimum wage, enact an income tax, double state education expenditures during his first five years in office, and introduce more generous programs for the poor and unemployed.45 He signed into law a bill giving teachers collective bargaining rights.46 At a time when conservatives were turning to the antigovernment individualism of Barry Goldwater, Romney called on the GOP to make the insurance of equal opportunity a top priority. As

Do not develop a habit of associating with people who are materially minded and involved in worldly affairs. Live alone, or else with brethren who are detached from material things and of one mind with yourself. For if one associates with materially minded people involved in worldly affairs, one will certainly be affected by their way of life and will be subject to social pressures, to vain talk and every other kind of evil: anger, sorrow, passion for material things, fear of scandals. Do not get caught up in concern for your parents or affection for your relatives; on the contrary, avoid meeting them frequently, in case they rob you of the stillness you have in your cell and involve you in their own affairs. 'Let the dead bury their dead,' says the Lord; 'but come, follow me' (cf. Matt. 8:22). If you find yourself growing strongly attached to your cell, leave it, do not cling to it, be ruthless. Do everything possible to attain stillness and freedom from distraction, and struggle to live according to God's will, battling against invisible enemies. If you cannot attain stillness where you now live, consider living in exile, and try and make up your mind to go. Be like an astute business man: make stillness your criterion for testing the value of everything, and choose always what contributes to it. Indeed, I urge you to welcome exile. It frees you from all the entanglements of your own locality, and allows you to enjoy the blessings of stillness undistracted. Do not stay in a town, but persevere in the wilderness. ‘Lo,' says the Psalm, 'then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness' (Ps. 55:7). If possible, do not visit a town at all. For you will find there nothing of benefit, nothing useful, nothing profitable for your way of life. To quote the Psalm again, 'I have seen violence and strife in the city' (Ps. 55:9). So seek out places that are free from distraction, and solitary. Do not be afraid of the noises you may hear. Even if you should see some demonic fantasy, do not be terrified or flee from the training ground so apt for your progress.

The Saint-Domingue business was a great piece of folly on my part,’ Napoleon later admitted. ‘It was the greatest error that in all my government I ever committed. I ought to have treated with the black leaders, as I would have done the authorities in a province.’71 One lesson he did learn was that blacks could make excellent soldiers, and in November 1809 he set up a unit called the Black Pioneers, made up of men from Egypt and the Caribbean under a black battalion commander, Joseph ‘Hercules’ Domingue, to whom he gave a special award of 3,000 francs. By 1812 Napoleon didn’t believe any colonies could be held in perpetuity, predicting that they would all eventually ‘follow the example of the United States. You grow tired of waiting for orders from five thousand miles away; tired of obeying a government which seems foreign to you because it’s remote, and because of necessity it subordinates you to its own local interest, which it cannot sacrifice to yours.’72 The defeat in Saint-Domingue ended for ever Napoleon’s dreams of a French empire in the West.

It’s not like I wasn’t busy. I was an officer in good standing of my kids’ PTA. I owned a car that put my comfort ahead of the health and future of the planet. I had an IRA and a 401(k) and I went on vacations and swam with dolphins and taught my kids to ski. I contributed to the school’s annual fund. I flossed twice a day; I saw a dentist twice a year. I got Pap smears and had my moles checked. I read books about oppressed minorities with my book club. I did physical therapy for an old knee injury, forgoing the other things I’d like to do to ensure I didn’t end up with a repeat injury. I made breakfast. I went on endless moms’ nights out, where I put on tight jeans and trendy blouses and high heels like it mattered and went to the restaurant that was right next to the restaurant we went to with our families. (There were no dads’ nights out for my husband, because the supposition was that the men got to live life all the time, whereas we were caged animals who were sometimes allowed to prowl our local town bar and drink the blood of the free people.) I took polls on whether the Y or the JCC had better swimming lessons. I signed up for soccer leagues in time for the season cutoff, which was months before you’d even think of enrolling a child in soccer, and then organized their attendant carpools. I planned playdates and barbecues and pediatric dental checkups and adult dental checkups and plain old internists and plain old pediatricians and hair salon treatments and educational testing and cleats-buying and art class attendance and pediatric ophthalmologist and adult ophthalmologist and now, suddenly, mammograms. I made lunch. I made dinner. I made breakfast. I made lunch. I made dinner. I made breakfast. I made lunch. I made dinner.

In case you haven't noticed,rodeos are a serious business.Careless cowboys tend to break bones,or even their skulls,as hard as that may be to believe." She stared down at the hand holding her wrist. Despite his smile,she could feel the strength in his grip. If he wanted to,he could no doubt break her bone with a single snap. But she wasn't concerned with his strength,only with the heat his touch was generating. She felt the tingle of warmth all the way up her arm.It alarmed her more than she cared to admit. "My job is to minimize damage to anyone who is actually hurt." "I'm grateful." He sat up so his laughing blue eyes were even with hers. If possible,his were even bluer than the perfect Montana sky above them. "What do you think? Any damage from that fall?" Her instinct was to move back,but his fingers were still around her wrist,holding her close. "I'm beginning to wonder if you were actually tossed from that bull or deliberately fell." "I'd have to be a little bit crazy to deliberately fell." "I'd have to be a little bit crazy to deliberately jump from the back of a raging bull just to get your attention, wouldn't I?" "Yeah." She felt the pull of that magnetic smile that had so many of the local females lusting after Wyatt McCord. Now she knew why he'd gained such a reputation in such a short time. "I'm beginning to think maybe you are. In fact,more than a little.A whole lot crazy." "I figured it was the best possible way to get you to actually talk to me. You couldn't ignore me as long as there was even the slightest chance that I might be hurt." There was enough romance in her nature to feel flattered that he'd go to so much trouble to arrange to meet her. At least,she thought,it was original. And just dangerous enough to appeal to a certain wild-and-free spirit that dominated her own life. Then her practical side kicked in, and she felt an irrational sense of annoyance that he'd wasted so much of her time and energy on his weird idea of a joke. "Oh,brother." She scrambled to her feet and dusted off her backside. "Want me to do that for you?" She paused and shot him a look guaranteed to freeze most men. He merely kept that charming smile in place. "Mind if we start over?" He held out his hand. "Wyatt McCord." "I know who you are." "Okay.I'll handle both introductions. Nice to meet you,Marilee Trainor. Now that we have that out of the way,when do you get off work?" "Not until the last bull rider has finished." "Want to grab a bite to eat? When the last rider is done,of course." "Sorry.I'll be heading home." "Why,thanks for the invitation.I'd be happy to join you.We could take along some pizza from one of the vendors." She looked him up and down. "I go home alone." "Sorry to hear that." There was that grin again,doing strange things to her heart. "You're missing out on a really fun evening." "You have a high opinion of yourself, McCord." He chuckled.Without warning he touched a finger to her lips. "Trust me.I'd do my best to turn that pretty little frown into an even prettier smile." Marilee couldn't believe the feelings that collided along her spine. Splinters of fire and ice had her fighting to keep from shivering despite the broiling sun. Because she didn't trust her voice, she merely turned on her heel and walked away from him. It was harder to do than she'd expected. And though she kept her spine rigid and her head high, she swore she could feel the heat of that gaze burning right through her flesh. It sent one more furnace blast rushing through her system. A system already overheated by her encounter with the bold, brash,irritatingly charming Wyatt McCord.

And spend they did. Money circulated faster and spread wider through its communities of use than at any other time in economic history.8 Workers labored fewer days and at higher wages than before or since; people ate four meals a day; women were taller in Europe than at any time until the 1970s; and the highest percentage on record of business profits went to preventative maintenance on equipment. It was a period of tremendous growth and wealth. Meanwhile, with no way of storing or growing value with this form of money over the long term, people made massive investments in architecture, particularly cathedrals, which they knew would attract pilgrims and tourists for years to come. This was their way of investing in the future, and the pre-Renaissance era of affluence became known as the Age of Cathedrals. The beauty of a flow-based economy is that it favors those who actively create value. The problem is that it disfavors those who are used to reaping passive rewards. Aristocratic landowning families had stayed rich for centuries simply by being rich in the first place. Peasants all worked the land in return for enough of their own harvest on which to subsist. Feudal lords did not participate in the peer-to-peer economy facilitated by local currencies, and by 1100 or so, most or the aristocracy’s wealth and power was receding. They were threatened by the rise of the merchant middle class and the growing bourgeois population, and had little way of participating in all the sideways trade. The wealthy needed a way to make money simply by having money. So, one by one, each of the early monarchies of Europe outlawed the kingdom’s local currencies and replaced them with a single central currency. Instead of growing their money in the fields, people would have to borrow money from the king’s treasury—at interest. If they wanted a medium through which to transact at the local marketplace, it meant becoming indebted to the aristocracy.

Are you an influencer? Are you in media? Do you run a conference? A business? A podcast? Are you a mom in the PTA? Are you a teller at the local bank? Are you a volunteer for Sunday school at church? Are you a high school student? Are you a grandma of seven? Great! I need you. We need you! We need you to live into your purpose. We need you to create and inspire and build and dream. We need you to blaze a trail and then turn around and light the way with your magic so other women can follow behind you. We need you to believe in the idea that every kind of woman deserves a chance to be who she was meant to be, and she may never realize it if you—yes, you—don’t speak that truth into her life. You’ll be able to do that if you first practice the idea of being made for more in your own life. After all, if you don’t see it, how do you know you can be it? If women in your community or your network marketing group or your Zumba class don’t ever see an example of a confident woman, how will they find the courage to be confident? If our daughters don’t see a daily practice of us feeling not only comfortable but truly fulfilled by the choice to be utterly ourselves, how will they learn that behavior? Pursuing your goals for yourself is so important, and I’d argue that it’s an essential factor in living a happy and fulfilled existence—but it’s not enough simply to give you permission to make your dream manifest. I want to challenge you to love the pursuit and openly celebrate who you become along the journey. When your light shines brighter, others won’t be harmed by the glare; they’ll be encouraged to become a more luminescent version of themselves. That’s what leadership looks like. Leaders are encouraging. Leaders share information. Leaders hold up a light to show you the way. Leaders hold your hand when it gets hard. True leaders are just as excited for your success as they are for their own, because they know that when one of us does well, all of us come up. When one of us succeeds, all of us succeed. You’ll be able to lead other women to that place if you truly believe that every woman is worthy and called to something sacred.

If we truly seek to understand segregationists—not to excuse or absolve them, but to understand them—then we must first understand how they understood themselves. Until now, because of the tendency to focus on the reactionary leaders of massive resistance, segregationists have largely been understood simply as the opposition to the civil rights movement. They have been framed as a group focused solely on suppressing the rights of others, whether that be the larger cause of “civil rights” or any number of individual entitlements, such as the rights of blacks to vote, assemble, speak, protest, or own property. Segregationists, of course, did stand against those things, and often with bloody and brutal consequences. But, like all people, they did not think of themselves in terms of what they opposed but rather in terms of what they supported. The conventional wisdom has held that they were only fighting against the rights of others. But, in their own minds, segregationists were instead fighting for rights of their own—such as the “right” to select their neighbors, their employees, and their children’s classmates, the “right” to do as they pleased with their private property and personal businesses, and, perhaps most important, the “right” to remain free from what they saw as dangerous encroachments by the federal government. To be sure, all of these positive “rights” were grounded in a negative system of discrimination and racism. In the minds of segregationists, however, such rights existed all the same. Indeed, from their perspective, it was clearly they who defended individual freedom, while the “so-called civil rights activists” aligned themselves with a powerful central state, demanded increased governmental regulation of local affairs, and waged a sustained assault on the individual economic, social, and political prerogatives of others. The true goal of desegregation, these white southerners insisted, was not to end the system of racial oppression in the South, but to install a new system that oppressed them instead. As this study demonstrates, southern whites fundamentally understood their support of segregation as a defense of their own liberties, rather than a denial of others’.

Despite its reputation for individualism and unbridled capitalism, the United States has a history rich in cooperation and communalism. From the colonial era to the present—and among the indigenous population for millennia—local communities have engaged in self-help, democracy, and cooperation. Indeed, the “individualistic” tradition might more accurately be called the “self-help” tradition, where “self” is defined not only in terms of the individual but in terms of the community (be it family, township, religious community, etc.). Americans are traditionally hostile to overarching authorities separate from the community with which they identify, a hostility expressed in the age-old resentment towards both government and big business. The stereotype, based on fact, is that Americans would rather solve problems on their own than rely on political and economic power-structures to do so. The following brief survey of the history substantiates this claim. While my focus is on worker cooperatives, I will not ignore the many and varied experiments in other forms of cooperation and communalism. Certain themes and lessons can be gleaned from the history. The most obvious is that a profound tension has existed, constantly erupting into conflict, between the democratic, anti-authoritarian impulses of ordinary Americans and the tendency of economic and political power-structures to grow extensively and intensively, to concentrate themselves in ever-larger and more centralized units that reach as far down into society as possible. Power inherently tries to control as much as it can: it has an intrinsic tendency toward totalitarianism, ideally letting nothing, even the most trivial social interactions, escape its oversight. Bentham’s Panopticon is the perfect emblem of the logic of power. Other social forces, notably people’s strivings for freedom and democracy, typically keep this totalitarian tendency in check. In fact, the history of cooperation and communalism is a case-study in the profound truth that people are instinctively averse to the modes of cutthroat competition, crass greed, authoritarianism, hierarchy, and dehumanization that characterize modern capitalism. Far from capitalism’s being a straightforward expression of human nature, as apologists proclaim, it is more like the very antithesis of human nature, which is evidently drawn to such things as free self-expression, spontaneous “play,”131 cooperation and friendly competition, compassion, love. The work of Marxist historians like E. P. Thompson shows how people have had to be disciplined, their desires repressed, in order for the capitalist system to seem even remotely natural: centuries of indoctrination, state violence, incarceration of “undesirables,” the bureaucratization of everyday life, have been necessary to partially accustom people to the mechanical rhythms of industrial capitalism and the commodification of the human personality.132 And of course resistance continues constantly, from the early nineteenth century to the present day. “Wage-slavery,” as workers in the nineteenth century called it, is a monstrous assault on human dignity, which is why even today, after so much indoctrination, people still hate being subordinated to a “boss” and rebel against it whenever they can.

If I as Pekwa Nicholas Mohlala take my family, my brothers and sisters, myself, and our children, combined, we have all the resources, knowledge, skills, and capacity to run a successful, profitable, and sustainable small business. If I take my extended family both maternal and partenal, my aunts and uncles and my cousins, myself, and our children, combined, we have all the resources, knowledge, skills, and capacity to run a successful, profitable, and sustainable medium business. If I take Ba Ga Mohlala family in general, including aunts, uncles, and grandchildren, combined, we have all the resources, knowledge, skills, and capacity to run a successful, profitable, and sustainable Big Business business. If I take Banareng clan including aunts, uncles, and grandchildren, combined, we have all the resources, knowledge, skills, and capacity to run a successful, profitable, and sustainable multinational business. YET, we are not able to do that because of lack of unity, and the lack of unity is caused by selfishness and lack of trust. At the moment what we have is majority of successful independent individuals running their individual successful, profitable and sustainable small businesses and successful individuals pursuing their own fulfilling careers. If ever we want to succeed as families and one united clan, we need to start by addressing the issue of trust, and selfishness. Other than that, anything that we try to do to unite the family will fail. And to succeed in addressing the issue of trust, and selfishness, we must first start by acknowledging that we are related. We must start by living and helping oneanother as relatives, we must first start by creating platforms that will overtime make us to reestablish our genetic bond, and also to build platforms where we can do that. So, let us grab the opportunity to use existing platforms and build new ones, to participate, contribute positively, and add our brothers and sisters, our cousins, and other extended family members to those platforms as a way towards building unity, unity of purpose, purpose of reclaiming our glory and building a legacy. Unity of empowering ourself and our communities. Unity of building a successful and sustainable socioeconomic livelihood for ourselves and our communities. We will keep on preaching this gospel of being self sustainable as Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng in general, until people start to stop and take notice, until people start listening and acting, we will keep on preaching this gospel of being self sustainable as Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng in general, until people take it upon themselves and start organizing themselves around the issue of social and economic development as a family and as a clan, until people realize the importance of self sufficiency as a family and as a clan. In times of election, the media always keep on talking about the election machinery of the ruling parties in refence to branches of the ruling parties which are the power base of those ruling parties. Luckily as Ba Gs Mohlala, we also have Ba Ga Mohlala branches across the country as basic units in addition to family, and extended family units. So, let us use those structures as basic units and building blocks to build up Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng to become successful forces which will play a role in socioeconomic sphere locally, regionally, provinvially, nationally, and internationally. To build Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng to be a force to reckon with locally, provinvially, nationally, and internationally. The platforms are there, it is all up to us, the ball is in our court as a collective Ba Ga Mohlala and Banareng. It must become a norn and a duty to serve the family and the clan, it must become a honour to selflessly serve the family and the clan without expecting anything in return. ALUTA !!!!!!!! "Struggle of selfsuffiency must continue

What I have been doing lately from my WIP "In Hiding" is available on my website. *Strong language warning* Wayne sat in the hygienic emergency room trying to ignore the bitch of a headache that began radiating at the back of his skull. His worn jeans, a blood-stained t-shirt, and his makeshift bandage sat on a nearby chair. The hysteria created by his appearance in the small hospital ward had died down. A local cop greeted him as soon as he was escorted to the examination room. The conversation was brief, once he revealed he was a bail enforcer the topic changed from investigation to shooting the bull. The experienced officer shook his hand before leaving then joked he hoped this would be their only encounter. The ER doc was a woman about his age. Already the years of long hours, rotating shifts and the rarity of a personal life showed on her face. Her eyelids were pink-rimmed, her complexion sallow; all were earmarks of the effect of long-term exhaustion. Wayne knew it all too well as he rubbed his knuckle against his own grainy eyes. Despite this, she attended to him with an upbeat demeanor and even slid in some ribbing at his expense. He was defenseless, once the adrenaline dropped off Wayne felt drained. He accepted her volleys without a response. All he mustered was a smile and occasional nod as she stitched him up. Across the room, his cell toned, after the brief display of the number a woman’s image filled the screen. Under his breath, he mumbled, “Shit.” He intends for his exclamation to remain ignored, having caught it the doctor glanced his direction with a smile. Without invitation, she retrieved his phone handing it to him without comment. Wayne noted the raised eyebrow she failed to hide. The phone toned again as he glanced at the flat image on the device. The woman’s likeness was smiling brightly, her blue eyes dancing. Just looking at her eased the pain in his head. He swiped the screen and connected the call as the doctor finished taping his injury. Using his free uninjured arm, he held the phone away from him slightly, utilizing the speaker option. “Hey Baby.” “What the hell, Wayne!” Her voice filled the small area, in his peripheral vision he saw the doc smirk. Turning his head, he addressed the caller. “Babe, I was getting ready to call.” The excuse sounded lame, even to him. “Why the hell do I have to hear about this secondhand?” Wayne placed the phone to his chest, loudly he exclaimed; “F***!” The ER doc touched his arm, “I will give you privacy.” Wayne gave her a grateful nod. With a snatch, she grabbed the corner of the thin curtain suspended from the ceiling and pulled it close. Alone again, he refocused on the call. The woman on the other end had continued in her tirade without him. When he rejoined the call mid-rant, she was issuing him a heartfelt ass-chewing. “...bullshit Wayne that I have to hear about this from my cousin. We’ve talked about this!” “Honey...” She interrupts him before he can explain himself. “So what the hell happened?” Wisely he waited for silence to indicate it was his turn to speak. “Lou, Honey first I am sorry. You know I never meant to upset you. I am alright; it is just a flesh wound.” As he speaks, a sharp pain radiates across his side. Gritting his teeth, Wayne vows to continue without having the radiating pain affect his voice. “I didn’t want you to worry Honey; you know calling Cooper first is just business.” Silence. The woman miles away grits her teeth as she angrily brushes away her tears. Seated at the simple dining table, she takes a napkin from the center and dabs at her eyes. Mentally she reminds herself of her promise that she was done crying over this man. She takes an unsteady breath as she returns her attention to the call. “Lou, you still there?” There is something in his voice, the tender desperation he allows only her to see. Furrowing her brow she closes her eyes, an errant tear coursed down her cheek.

There’s a tendency for those unfamiliar with cooperatives to look down on them as the leftovers of the mainstream economy, implying that if these ideologically driven people simply reorganized themselves into “normal” private companies, they would be more efficient and productive. In fact, just the opposite is true: Cooperatives often enter into economic activities that private businesses will not take on. The most fertile period of cooperative growth was during the Great Depression. Rural electric cooperatives spread across the American plains when it became clear that other investor-owned and municipally owned utilities were uninterested in wiring up sparsely populated regions. Credit unions, as we’ll soon explore, have seen an upsurge during the recent financial crisis.

Exploitation: early entrants make use of the wealth of opportunity in their environment to multiply. Most fail, not least because they are poorly-connected individuals facing a dangerous world on their own, but some may eventually build a system with potential and connectedness. This is known as the r phase: r has for many years been used as a label for the rate of growth of the population of an ecology (example of phase: young trees).2 2. Conservation: the system persists in its mature form, with the benefit of a complex structure of connections, strong enough now to resist challenges for a long time, but with the weakness that the connections themselves introduce an element of rigidity, slowing down its reactions and reducing its inventiveness. This is the K phase, where the ecology reaches its carrying capacity (example: mature trees).3 In due course, however, the tight connections themselves become a decisive problem, which can only be resolved by . . . The back loop (moving from bottom-right to top-left in the diagram): 3. . . . release: at this point, the cost and complication of maintaining the large scale—providing the resources the system needs, and disposing of its waste—becomes too great. The space and flexibility for local responsiveness had become scarce, the system itself so tightly connected that it locked: a target for predators without and within, against which it found it harder and harder to defend itself. But now the stresses join up, and the system collapses (example: dying trees). This is the omega (Ω) phase, as suggested by Holling and Gunderson, and it is placed by them in its ecological context: The tightly bound accumulation of biomass and nutrients becomes increasingly fragile (overconnected, in systems terms) until it is suddenly released by agents such as forest fires, droughts, insect pests, or intense pulses of grazing.4 4. Reorganisation: the remains of a system after collapse are unpromising material on which to start afresh, and yet they are an opportunity for a different kind of system to enjoy a brief flowering—decomposing the wood of a former forest, recycling the carbon after a fire, restoring the land with forgiving grass, clearing away the assumptions and grandeur of the previous regime. Reorganisation becomes a busy system in its own right (example: rotting trees). This is the alpha (α) phase.5 In this phase, there is a persistent process of disconnecting, with the former subsidiary parts of the system being broken up. But our diagram is drawn on a graph of potential (increasing from bottom to top) and connectedness (increasing from left to right), which allows us to note a curious aspect of this back loop: the defining relationship of the fore loop—where more potential is correlated with more connectedness—is reversed. In the back loop (even) less connectedness goes with more potential. How can this be?

In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok you would never see him doing such a thing, tossing the dry snow over the mountain of his bare, round shoulder, his hair tied in a knot, a model of concentration. Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word for what he does, or does not do. Even the season is wrong for him. In all his manifestations, is it not warm and slightly humid? Is this not implied by his serene expression, that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe? But here we are, working our way down the driveway. one shovelful at a time. We toss the light powder into the clean air. We feel the cold most on our faces. And with every heave we disappear and become lost to each other in these sudden clouds of our own making, these fountain-bursts of snow. This is so much better than a sermon in church, I say out loud, bud Buddha keeps on shoveling. This is the true religion, the religion of snow, and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky, I say, but he is too busy to hear me He has thrown himself into shoveling snow as if it were the purpose of existence, as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway you could back the car down easily and drive off into the vanities of the world with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio. All morning long we work side by side, me with my commentary and he is inside the generous pocket of his silence, until the house is nearly noon and the snow is piled high all around us; then, I hear him speak. After this, he asks, can we go inside and play cards? Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk and bring cups of hot chlorate to the table while you shuffle the deck, and our boots stand dripping by the door. Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes and leaning for a moment on his shovel before he drives the fun blade again deep into the glittering white snow.

International leaders in business, government, and nonprofit organizations whisper behind closed doors about the way visiting Americans live in their own bubbles without having much genuine interaction with their overseas counterparts, much less the locals. One senior foreign policy advisor told Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek, “When we meet with American officials, they talk and we listen—we rarely disagree or speak frankly because they simply can't take it in.”13 Kishore Mahbubani, Singapore's former foreign secretary and ambassador to the United Nations, put it this way: “There are two sets of conversations, one with Americans in the room and one without.”14

You’ve begun to master several techniques for controlling your anxiety. You’re learning the finer points of interaction and studying ways to apply your interactive skills. The next step is to add community resources—relevant agencies, groups, and organizations—to your self-help program. As you consider your particular needs, look to your own community for ways to enhance your social system: Parks and recreation departments, churches and synagogues, singles groups, self-help groups, clubs, volunteer organizations, business associations—there is an infinite array of resources to choose from. Contact your local chamber of commerce, consult newspapers for upcoming activities, and even inquire at area shops about any clubs or groups that share an interest (for example, ask at a garden center about a garden club, at a bookstore about a book club, and so on). Working through the exercises in this book is merely one component of a total self-help program. To progress from background knowledge to practical application, you must venture beyond your home and workplace (and beyond the confines of a therapist’s office, if you are in counseling). For people with social anxiety an outside system of resources is the best place to work on interactive difficulties. Here are three excellent reasons to use community resources: 1. To facilitate self-help. Conquering social anxiety necessitates interaction and involvement within the community, which is your laboratory. Using community resources creates a practical means of refining your skills and so moving forward on your individual map for change. 2. To diminish loneliness. Becoming part of the community provides the opportunity to develop personal and professional contacts that can enhance your life in many ways. 3. To network. Community involvement will not only give you the chance to improve your interactive skills, but will allow you to promote your academic or work life as well as your social life. Building connections on different levels can be the key. Any setting can provide a good opportunity for networking. In fact, I met the writer who helped me with this book in a fairly unlikely place—on the basketball court! A mutual friend introduced us, and when the subject of our professional interests came up, we saw the opportunity to work together on this project. You never know!

In recent years there has been a tendency by some Western historians and politicians to look back at the aftermath of the Second World War through rose-tinted spectacles. Frustrated with the progress of rebuilding and reconciliation in the wake of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq at the beginning of the twenty-first century, they pointed to the success of similar projects in Europe in the 1940s. The Marshall Plan in particular was singled out as the template for postwar economic reconstruction. Such politicians would have done well to remember that the process of rebuilding did not begin straight away in Europe – the Marshall Plan was not even thought of until 1947 – and the entire continent remained economically, politically and morally unstable far beyond the end of the decade. As in Iraq and Afghanistan more recently, the United Nations recognized the need for local leaders to take command of their own institutions. But it took time for such leaders to emerge. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the only people who had the moral authority to take charge were those with proven records of resistance. But people who are skilled in the arts of guerrilla warfare, sabotage and violence, and who have become used to conducting all their business in strict secrecy, are not necessarily those best suited to running democratic governments.

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Finance capital subordinates the Canadian State more and more directly to its interests and control. State-monopoly capitalism — the integration or merging of the interests of finance capital with the state — is a new stage in the extension of corporate control to all sectors of economic and political life. The government, while seemingly independent of specific corporate interests, has become predominantly the political instrument of a small group comprising the top monopoly capitalists for exercising control over the rest of society. Finance capital uses the state to provide orders, capital and subsidies, and to secure foreign markets and investments. Monopoly capital supports the expansion of the state sector — both services and enterprises — when that serves its interests, and at other times it uses the state to cut back and privatize. The state is also used to redistribute income and wealth in favour of monopoly interests through the tax system, and through legislation to drive down wages and weaken the trade union movement. State-monopoly capitalism undermines the basis of traditional bourgeois democracy. The subordination of the state to the interests of finance capital erodes the already limited role of elected government bodies, federal, provincial and local. Big business openly intervenes in the electoral process on its own behalf, and also indirectly through a network of pro-corporate institutes and think tanks. It uses its control of mass media to influence the ideas and attitudes of the people, and to blatantly influence election results. It corrupts the democratic process through the buying of politicians and officials. It tramples on the political right of the Canadian people to exercise any meaningful choice, thereby promoting widespread public alienation and cynicism about the electoral process.

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Suraj solar and allied industries, Wework galaxy, 43, Residency Road, Bangalore-560025. Mobile number : +91 808 850 7979 Introduction to Solar Rooftop in Bangalore Solar rooftop systems have emerged as a game-changing innovation in Bangalore's energy consumption, providing a green and sustainable alternative to conventional sources of power. Solar rooftops are gaining a lot of traction among residential, commercial, and industrial users in the city as it deals with rising energy demands and environmental concerns. This article examines the advantages, drawbacks, government initiatives, case studies, and prospects for the future of solar rooftops, which have had a profound effect on Bangalore's energy landscape. 1. Introduction to Bangalore's Solar Rooftops An Overview of Bangalore's Solar Rooftop Systems Ah, Bangalore! Home to tech whiz kids, filter coffee connoisseurs, and now the progressive pioneers who are embracing solar rooftops! The eco-friendly Batman of the energy industry, solar rooftop systems are perched atop buildings and convert sunlight into clean, renewable power. Installed on rooftops, these systems use solar panels to generate electricity, assisting in the reduction of reliance on conventional grid power. 2. Economic Benefits of Solar Rooftops for Energy Consumption Who doesn't love saving money while protecting the environment? The economic benefits of solar rooftops in Bangalore are significant. By producing your own power, you can slice those heavy energy bills and even bring in an additional money by selling overabundance influence back to the matrix. It's like having a solar side business on your roof! Impact on the Environment Let's be honest: Bangalore's air quality could use a break. When it comes to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollution, solar rooftops emerge as the cloaked crusaders. You are reducing your carbon footprint and contributing to a cleaner and greener Bangalore by using solar power. When the sun shines on your rooftop panels, it's like giving Mother Nature a high five. 3. Impact of Solar Rooftop in Bangalore Energy Landscape Reduction of Carbon Footprint Bangalore, with its vibrant culture and bustling IT hubs, can also be a hotbed for emissions. Sun powered roofs go about as the eco-heroes, checking carbon impressions and advancing manageability. The city has the potential to make a significant leap toward a more healthy environment and a brighter future for future generations by utilizing solar energy. Integration with Existing Energy Infrastructure The beauty of solar rooftops in Bangalore is that they seamlessly combine solar power with traditional grid energy. These frameworks can undoubtedly incorporate with the current energy foundation, making a more strong and dependable energy organization. It's like combining the best of both worlds to guarantee the city's bustling energy supply's stability and sustainability. 4. Adopting Solar Rooftops: Obstacles and Solutions Initial Cost and Return on Investment We understand that the initial cost of installing solar rooftops may appear to be the bad guy in this sustainability tale. However, rest assured! The return on investment for solar rooftops in Bangalore is brighter than a sunny day thanks to government subsidies, tax incentives, and lower panel prices. Consider it a long-term investment in the environment and your savings. Technical Considerations and Maintenance Although the process of maintaining solar rooftops may appear intimidating, it is not rocket science—rather, it is solar science! To keep your solar panels in top condition, all you need to do is clean them on a regular basis, keep an eye on how well the system is working, and do occasional maintenance checks. Navigating the technical aspects of solar rooftops has never been easier thanks to technological advancements and the assistance of local experts.

The most remarkable thing is that even in Adam Smith’s examples of fish and nails and tobacco being used as money, the same sort of thing was happening. In the years following the appearance of the Wealth of Nations, scholars checked into most of these examples and discovered that in just about every case, the people involved were quite familiar with the use of money, and in fact, were using money- as a unit of account. Take the example of dried cod, supposedly used as money in Newfoundland. As the British diplomat A. Mitchell pointed out almost a century ago, what Smith describes was really an illusion, created by a simple credit arrangement: In the early days of the Newfoundland fishing industry, there was no permanent European population, the fishers went there for the fishing season only, and those who were not fishers were traders who bought the dried fish and sold to the fishers their daily supplies. The latter sold their catch to the traders at the market price in pounds, shilling and pence, and obtained in return a credit on their books, which they paid for the supplies. Balances due by the traders were paid for by drafts on England or France. It was quite the same in the Scottish village. It’s not as if anyone actually walked into the local pub, plunked down a roofing nail, and asked for a pint of beer. Employers in Smith’s day often lacked coin to pay their workers; wages could be delayed by a year or more; in the meantime, it was considered acceptable for employees to carry off either some of their own products or leftover work materials, lumber, fabric, cord, and so on. The nails were de facto interest on what their employers owed to them. So they went to the pub, ran up a tab, and when occasion permitted, brought in a bag of nails to charge off against the debt. The law making tobacco legal tender in Virginia seems to have been an attempt by planters to oblige local merchants to accept their products as a credit around harvest time. In effect, the law forced all merchants in Virginia to become middlemen in tobacco business, whether they liked it or not; just as all West Indian merchants were obliged to become sugar dealers, since that’s what all their wealthier customers brought in to write off against their debt. The primary examples, then, were ones in which people were improvising credit systems, because actual money- gold and silver coinage- was in short supply.

At a macro level, a company will be most successful if the senior managers optimize for the company’s success (think of this as a global optimization) as opposed to their own personal success (local optimization).

But leanness is a methodology, not a goal. Making small changes to things that already exist might lead you to a local maximum, but it won’t help you find the global maximum. You could build the best version of an app that lets people order toilet paper from their iPhone. But iteration without a bold plan won’t take you from 0 to 1. A company is the strangest place of all for an indefinite optimist: why should you expect your own business to succeed without a plan to make it happen? Darwinism may be a fine theory in other contexts, but in startups, intelligent design works best.

I’m all in favor of “buying local.” In fact, sometimes it’s our only choice in Alaska, where it takes so much time and money to ship up goods. Aside from buying local, I’m also a big believer in deciding local. I believe that individual states, counties, cities, towns, and communities should govern their own affairs as much as they can—that’s what gives us, “We the People,” a voice. When decisions are made in some faraway bureaucracy in Washington, D.C., they’re made in a bubble—too distant from the people who will actually be affected. Instead of politicians deciding healthcare plans, education systems, our retirement savings, or anything else in the comfort of their urban offices, decisions should be made as close to home as possible. You, not some bureaucrat in Washington, should be free to make your own decisions regarding your healthcare, the education of your children, and yes, even what sort of light bulbs you can use. Government bureaucrats often forget that they are “public servants” rather than our masters or our nannies. SWEET FREEDOM IN Action Today, reflect on the fact that we have a God-given right and duty to look after ourselves, our businesses, our homes, and our families. Take a vow to support elected representatives who will return power to the people and their local communities. Self-governance is what our Founders envisioned for Americans and it is what God envisions for us as well.

The top echelons of the UP bureaucracy had their own traditions; those lower down had theirs, even if these were less known. There are two informal indexes that aid decisions regarding transfers and postings in the UP police. These help superior officers place the right people in the right areas. One is the ‘HLI’ or ‘high loot index’, which rates a locality. For instance, a part of town that is full of markets and businesses would be a ‘high loot index’ area. In other words, a lucrative place for a policeman to be. The other index is the RHI, or the ‘Robin Hood index’, and this rates personnel. A cop who has a high ‘RHI’ mark isn’t someone who, as the name might suggest, robs from the rich and gives to the poor. He simply robs. That is, extorts. When decisions regarding assignments are taken, superior officers try to keep in mind HLI and RHI and find a balance. If, for instance, a high RHI station house officer is posted to a station that’s in a low HLI area, chaos could ensue. Low HLI means fewer extortion opportunities, and a high RHI cop’s appetite would not be satisfied. So the few businesses in the area would be put under an unfair amount of pressure.

Essayist and critic Wendell Berry, in his book Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community (New York: Pantheon, 1994), takes aim at a premise beneath much of today’s hostility to the Christian ethic—namely, the assumption that sex is private, and what I do in the privacy of my bedroom with another consenting adult is strictly my own business. Thinkers like Berry retort that this claim appears on the surface to be broad minded but is actually very dogmatic. That is, it is based on a set of philosophical assumptions that are not neutral at all but semi-religious and have major political implications. In particular, it is based on a highly individualistic understanding of human nature. Berry writes, “Sex is not, nor can it be any individual’s ‘own business,’ nor is it merely the private concern of any couple. Sex, like any other necessary, precious, and volatile power that is commonly held, is everybody’s business . . .” (p. 119). Communities occur only when individuals voluntarily out of love bind themselves to each other, curtailing their own freedom. In the past, sexual intimacy between a man and a woman was understood as a powerful way for two people to bind themselves to stay together and build a family. Sex, Berry insists, is the ultimate “nurturing discipline.” It is a “relational glue” that creates the deep oneness and therefore stability in the relationship that not only is necessary for children to flourish but is crucial for local communities to thrive. The most obvious social cost to sex outside marriage is the enormous spread of disease and the burden of children without sufficient parental support. The less obvious but much greater cost is the exploding number of developmental and psychological problems among children who do not live in stable family environments for most of their lives. Most subtle of all is the sociological fact that what you do in private shapes your character, and that affects how you relate to others in society. When people use sex for individual recreation and fulfillment, it weakens the entire body politic’s ability to live for others. You learn to commodify people and think of them as a means to satisfy your own passing pleasure. It turns out that sex is not just your business; it’s everybody’s business.

In the modern era of the printing press, certificates of indulgence had become a lucrative business for the Church. Indulgence salesmen would come into a town, set up their wares in a local church, suspending all regular prayer and service. Their certificates were mass-produced, with blank spaces for names, dates, and prices, and all good Christians were obligated, for the sake of their dead friends and relatives and for their own souls, to purchase this afterlife insurance to speed the sinner’s exit from purgatory to heaven. Luther found the practice vile and replete with ecclesiastical errors and feared for the fate of people who believed that salvation could be bought. The priests in Wittenberg had a loathsome saying that sickened him, “As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, another soul from purgatory springs.

The 49-year-old Bryant, who resembles a cereal box character himself with his wide eyes, toothy smile, and elongated chin, blames Kellogg's financial woes on the changing tastes of fickle breakfast eaters. The company flourished in the Baby Boom era, when fathers went off to work and mothers stayed behind to tend to three or four children. For these women, cereal must have been heaven-sent. They could pour everybody a bowl of Corn Flakes, leave a milk carton out, and be done with breakfast, except for the dishes. Now Americans have fewer children. Both parents often work and no longer have time to linger over a serving of Apple Jacks and the local newspaper. Many people grab something on the way to work and devour it in their cars or at their desks while checking e-mail. “For a while, breakfast cereal was convenience food,” says Abigail Carroll, author of Three Squares: The Invention of the American Meal. “But convenience is relative. It's more convenient to grab a breakfast bar, yogurt, a piece of fruit, or a breakfast sandwich at some fast-food place than to eat a bowl of breakfast cereal.” People who still eat breakfast at home favor more laborintensive breakfasts, according to a recent Nielsen survey. They spend more time at the stove, preparing oatmeal (sales were up 3.5 percent in the first half of 2014) and eggs (up 7 percent last year). They're putting their toasters to work, heating up frozen waffles, French toast, and pancakes (sales of these foods were up 4.5 percent in the last five years). This last inclination should be helping Kellogg: It owns Eggo frozen waffles. But Eggo sales weren't enough to offset its slumping U.S. cereal numbers. “There has just been a massive fragmentation of the breakfast occasion,” says Julian Mellentin, director of food analysis at research firm New Nutrition Business. And Kellogg faces a more ominous trend at the table. As Americans become more healthconscious, they're shying away from the kind of processed food baked in Kellogg's four U.S. cereal factories. They tend to be averse to carbohydrates, which is a problem for a company selling cereal derived from corn, oats, and rice. “They basically have a carb-heavy portfolio,” says Robert Dickerson, senior packagedfood analyst at Consumer Edge. If such discerning shoppers still eat cereal, they prefer the gluten-free kind, sales of which are up 22 percent, according to Nielsen. There's also growing suspicion of packagedfood companies that fill their products with genetically modified organisms (GMOs). For these breakfast eaters, Tony the Tiger and Toucan Sam may seem less like friendly childhood avatars and more like malevolent sugar traffickers.

January 2013 Andy’s Message   Hi Young, I’m home after two weeks in Tasmania. My rowing team was the runner-up at the Lindisfarne annual rowing competition. Since you were so forthright with your OBSS experiences, I’ll reciprocate with a tale of my own from the Philippines.☺               The Canadian GLBT rowing club had organised a fun excursion to Palawan Island back in 1977. This remote island was filled with an abundance of wildlife, forested mountains and beautiful pristine beaches.               It is rated by the National Geographic Traveller magazine as the best island destination in East and South-East Asia and ranked the thirteenth-best island in the world. In those days, this locale was vastly uninhabited, except by a handful of residents who were fishermen or local business owners.               We stayed in a series of huts, built above the ocean on stilts. These did not have shower or toilet facilities; lodgers had to wade through knee-deep waters or swim to shore to do their business. This place was a marvellous retreat for self-discovery and rejuvenation. I was glad I didn’t have to room with my travelling buddies and had a hut to myself.               I had a great time frolicking on the clear aquiline waters where virgin corals and unperturbed sea-life thrived without tourist intrusions. When we travelled into Lungsodng Puerto Princesa (City of Puerto Princesa) for food and a shower, the locals gawked at us - six Caucasian men and two women - as if we had descended from another planet. For a few pesos, a family-run eatery agreed to let us use their outdoor shower facility. A waist-high wooden wall, loosely constructed, separated the bather from a forest at the rear of the house. In the midst of my shower, I noticed a local adolescent peeping from behind a tree in the woods. I pretended not to notice as he watched me lathe and played with himself. I was turned on by this lascivious display of sexual gratification. The further I soaped, the more aroused I became. Through the gaps of the wooden planks, the boy caught glimpses of my erection – like a peep show in a sex shop, I titillated the teenager. His eyes were glued to my every move, so much so that he wasn’t aware that his friend had creeped up from behind. When he felt an extra hand on his throbbing hardness, he let out a yelp of astonishment. Before long, the boys were masturbating each other. They stroked one another without mortification, as if they had done this before, while watching my exhibitionistic performance carefully. This concupiscent carnality excited me tremendously. Unfortunately, my imminent release was punctured by a fellow member hollering for me to vacate the space for his turn, since I’d been showering for quite a while. I finished my performance with an anticlimactic final, leaving the boys to their own devices. But this was not the end of our chance encounter. There is more to ‘cum’ in my next correspondence!               Much love and kisses,               Andy

Those who are attracted to Dole’s vision of life in Russell, Kansas, need to spend a little time here. It turns out there’s a reason ambitious people like Dole have been fleeing the place in droves: while its mythical counterpart grows in stature, the actual Russell has been slowly withering. A bleak local economic history could be written from inside any store on Main Street. For example, the biggest and oldest store—a department store called Bankers, for which Dole modeled clothes—opened in 1881, ten years after Russell was founded, beside the new tracks laid by the Union Pacific Railroad. It prospered through the oil boom of the 1920s and the farming boom of the 1940s, reaching its apogee in the 1950s, when it stocked three full floors of dry goods. Since then the store’s business has gradually waned so that it now occupies barely one floor, some of which is given over to the sale of Bob Dole paraphernalia. Where once there were gardening tools there are now rows of Dole buttons, stickers, T-shirts, and caps. The oldest family-owned business in Kansas will probably soon close for lack of business and of a family member willing to live in Russell. “I’d manage the place,” says one of the heirs, who lives in Kansas City, “but only if you put it on a truck and moved it to another town.

chapter 3 I turn toward the task of congregational exegesis, outlining a very practical method for interpreting congregational subcultures that can be engaged by busy pastors while carrying on the ordinary tasks of ministry. Drawing on the expertise of authors in the fields of congregational studies and cultural anthropology, this chapter identifies seven symbols of congregational life that hold particular promise for revealing cultural and theological identity, and provides interpretive frameworks through which the local pastor can deepen his or her understanding of the congregation's own worldview, values, and ethos. At stake is not only enhanced cultural understanding, but also a deepening awareness of the local theologies that already exist within the life of a congregation (beliefs regarding God, humanity, nature, time, the church, and their interrelationships). Chapter 4 then turns to the question: "So, what difference does all this make for the theology of preaching?" Here we revisit the "text-to-sermon" process (revisioned as a "con/text-to-sermon" process), observing how greater attention to congregational context at each juncture-from the selection of biblical texts for proclamation, to the pastor's initial reading of them, to the methods used for biblical interpretation, to the discernment of fitting themes and strategies for proclamation-can positively contribute toward preaching as local theology. Sermons of local pastors, preached in their own unique congregational contexts, provide real-life examples of contextual theologizing in

Started in Argentina, escrache has spread to other Latin American countries as a popular movement to oust, shame and ostracize retired generals, politicians and other powerful figures who have committed unpunished crimes. After locating the criminal in question, the organizers would inform his neighbors that here lives a state-sanctioned mass murderer or torturer, or a looter of public funds. Later, thousands of people would converge on this man's house to publicly indict the blood-drenched fat cat. Though this Latin American version of a Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush or Obama is never physically attacked, the monster will be shunned by many of his neighbors, with local businesses even refusing to sell him a meal or a newspaper. Critics of escrache have denounced it as a form of vigilante justice and, as the outburst of an angry mob, something that should be declared illegal, but the protesters are only reacting to acts that are themselves clearly illegal, not to mention outrageously immoral. The protesters' public harassment does not compare to their targets' torturing and/or raping, then throwing their victims from airplanes into the ocean, or kidnapping their children and erasing their identities. Too often, the state will use the legality argument to bind its opponents, while doing whatever it pleases, legal or not. Not satisfied with a monopoly on violence, the state also wants to be the sole interpreter of what's right and wrong, as implied by the often-bandied-about legality question, and the more criminal the state is, the more illegal, the more it will shriek about the need for everyone else to walk the straight and narrow, according to its own power-drunk markings. Talking to Borzutsky's class, I asked the students to consider escrache in the North American context. Who are our criminals in high places and what should we do about them? Unlike our southern neighbors, we have neither the clarity to identify our enemies from within, nor the courage or unity to confront them. To be fair, though, our top criminals don't move among us, with many never even being mentioned by our obfuscating media, as great a killer of brain cells as any, and worse than any glue. Even when not anonymous, however, the most malignant Americans are hidden behind guarded gates, bulletproof glass or acres of real estate, so that it would take considerable enterprise to target them. When faced with an illegal and ultraviolent enemy, we must resort to any and all tricks, be extra clever and strike hard, for real, but most of us are too tightly bound to our bifurcated harness to do more the jiggle, every once in a while, an electronic voting machine. Geez, I wonder who they'll let us pretend to vote for next time, if there's a next time?

Although a partner’s compensation depends in large part on the amount of business he brings to the Firm, no one goes out to knock on doors. The Firm waits for the phone to ring. And ring it does, not because McKinsey sells, but because McKinsey markets. It does this in several different ways, all of them designed to make sure that on the day a senior executive decides she has a business problem, one of the first calls she makes is to the local office of McKinsey. The Firm produces a steady stream of books and articles, some of them extremely influential, such as the famous In Search of Excellence by Peters and Waterman.* McKinsey also publishes its own scholarly journal, The McKinsey Quarterly, which it sends gratis to its clients, as well as to its former consultants, many of whom now occupy senior positions at potential clients. The Firm invites (and gets) a lot of coverage by journalists. Many McKinsey partners and directors are internationally known as experts in their fields.

a company will be most successful if the senior managers optimize for the company’s success (think of this as a global optimization) as opposed to their own personal success (local optimization).

Though it’s hard to believe now, newspapers were once the envy of the business world. Through the eighties and nineties, 20, 30, even 40 percent returns on investment were not uncommon, triple the norm for U.S. industry over the same period. Dollar signs in their eyes, chains devoured up local papers, consolidating and centralizing to maximize shareholder value, sometimes purchasing vibrant independent publications just to kill off competition. The overlords of monopoly journalism became increasingly disconnected from the communities they were supposed to serve. And when profits plateaued, they gutted themselves to maintain growth, trimming staff, reducing reporting budgets, and publishing fluff. Today, newspaper chiefs prefer to point fingers at new technology or distracted readers or even their own staff, but the erosion of standards and depth owes more to their long greedy binge than to the Internet or the rise of blogging or social media.

Building and supporting these local economies is critical to our bottom line. As repeatedly proven by Building Alliances for Local Living Economies (BALLE), spending at a locally owned business on average keeps 68 out of every 100 dollars circulating within the community. When spending on things from outside our communities, however, only 43 dollars stay local.

Mary Johnson may have been the first African American woman. She arrived sometime before 1620 as the maid of a Virginia planter. Like white women, the black residents of the early southern colonies found opportunities in the general chaos around them. Johnson and her husband were indentured servants, and once they earned their freedom, they acquired a 250-acre farm and five indentured servants of their own. By the mid–seventeenth century, a free black population had begun to emerge in both the North and the South. African American women, who weren’t bound by the same social constraints as white women, frequently set up their own businesses, running boardinghouses, hair salons, or restaurants. Catering was a particularly popular career, as was trading. In Charleston, South Carolina, black women took over the local market, selling vegetables, chickens, and other produce they acquired from the growing population of slaves, who generally had small plots beside their cabins. The city came to depend on the women for its supply of fresh food, and whites complained long and loud about the power and independence of the trading women. In 1686, South Carolina passed a law prohibiting the purchase of goods from slaves, but it had little effect. A half century later, Charleston officials were still complaining about the “exorbitant price” that black women charged for “many articles necessary for the support of the inhabitants.” The trading women had sharp tongues, which they used to good effect. The clerk of the market claimed that the “insolent and abusive Manner” of the slave women made him “afraid to say or do Anything.” It’s hard to believe the marketers, some of whom were slaves, were as outspoken as their clientele made them out to be, but the war between the black female traders and their customers continued on into the nineteenth century. (One petition in 1747 said that because of the market “white people…are entirely ruined and rendered miserable.”) The

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The moral solution is the distributive ownership of small properties. These take the form of independent farms, of local businesses, of homes owned by the occupants, where individual responsibility gives significance to prerogative over property. Such ownership provides a range of volition through which one can be a complete person, and it is the abridgment of this volition for which monopoly capitalism must be condemned along with communism.

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There was a curfew in place now, which would, among other things, make it nearly impossible for anyone working the late shift to eat out when they were done. They’d have to eat at home. There were rules forbidding group meetings of more than a certain number. The Imperials weren’t closing the cantinas, but they were shortening the hours and restricting the food and alcohol available. With the lost business, it would be only a matter of time before the cantinas closed on their own. It was everything you’d do to keep the locals from communicating with each other and getting organized. It was everything you’d do to soften them up before the hammer fell.

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We are God’s workmanship. We’re his masterpieces. God created each one of us. He had a plan and a purpose for our lives before time even began, and he handcrafted us to be unique and bring beauty to the world, each in our own way. No, we won’t all have the perfect fashion sense, the cleanest house, be able to juggle it all, or have a Pinterest-perfect life. We won’t all have a platform or be an influencer or run a business or open an Etsy shop. We can’t be everything we admire in everyone we know. We can’t do foster care and host people all the time and make the most delicious bread and look like an ad for our local gym and homeschool and travel all over the country and lead five Bible studies and restore furniture on the side. Let’s learn from each other. Let’s be inspired by one another. And let’s fight against comparison. Against the lie that we have to do it all and be good at everything. Against the lie that we’re not enough, that what we have is not enough.

Do you want to marry someone because they pulled a gun at you and professed their undying love? This whole business of love, he concludes, is a protection racket, like paying your weekly bhatta to your local hoodlum so that you are not mugged on your own street.

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Ah,” replied Shorenstein, “you’re worried? Listen. Did you ever go down to the wharf to see the Staten Island Ferry come in? You ever watch it, and look down in the water at all those chewing-gum wrappers, and the banana peels and the garbage? When the ferryboat comes into the wharf, automatically it pulls all the garbage in too. The name of your ferryboat is Franklin D. Roosevelt—stop worrying!” The Shorenstein rule no longer has quite the strength it had a generation ago, for Americans, with increasing education and sophistication, split their tickets; more and more they are reluctant to follow the leader. Politicians, of course, still look for a strong leader of the ticket; yet when they cannot find such a man, when it is they who must carry the President in an election rather than vice versa, they want someone who will be a good effective President, a strong executive, one who will keep the country running smoothly and prosperously while they milk it from underneath. In talking to some of the hard-rock, old-style politicians in New York about war and peace, I have found them intensely interested in war and peace for two reasons. The first is that the draft is a bother to them in their districts (“Always making trouble with mothers and families”); and the second is that it has sunk in on them that if an H-bomb lands on New York City (which they know to be Target A), it will be bad for business, bad for politics, bad for the machine. The machine cannot operate in atomic rubble. In the most primitive way they do not want H-bombs to fall on New York City—it would wipe out their crowd along with all the rest. They want a strong President, who will keep a strong government, a strong defense, and deal with them as barons in their own baronies. They believe in letting the President handle war and peace, inflation and deflation, France, China, India and foreign affairs (but not Israel, Ireland, Italy or, nowadays, Africa), so long as the President lets them handle their own wards and the local patronage.

Eugenians are proud of the regional bounty and were passionate about incorporating local, seasonal, and organic ingredients well before it was back in vogue. Anglers are kept busy in fresh waters, fishing for wild chinook salmon in the spring and steelhead in the summer, and sweet Dungeness crab is abundant in the estuaries year-round. Local farmers gather every Saturday downtown to sell homegrown organic produce and honey, foraged mushrooms, and wild berries. The general demographic is of hippies who protest Whole Foods in favor of local co-ops, wear Birkenstocks, weave hair wraps to sell at outdoor markets, and make their own nut butter. They are men with birth names like Herb and River and women called Forest and Aurora.

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We moved to Eugene, Oregon, a small college town in the Pacific Northwest. The city sits near the source of the Willamette River, which stretches 150 miles north, from the Calapooya Mountains outside of town to its mouth on the Columbia. Carving its way between mountains, the Cascade Range to the east and the Oregon Coast Range to the west, the river defines a fertile valley where tens of thousands of years ago a series of ice age floods surged southwest from Lake Missoula, traveling over eastern Washington and bringing with their floodwaters rich soil and volcanic rock that now shore up the layers of its earth, alluvial plains fit for a vast variety of agriculture. The town itself is coated in green, hugging the banks of the river and spreading out up into the rugged hills and pine forests of central Oregon. The seasons are mild, drizzly, and gray for most of the year but give way to a lush, unspoiled summer. It rains incessantly and yet I never knew an Oregonian to carry an umbrella. Eugenians are proud of the regional bounty and were passionate about incorporating local, seasonal, and organic ingredients well before it was back in vogue. Anglers are kept busy in fresh waters, fishing for wild chinook salmon in the spring and steelhead in the summer, and sweet Dungeness crab is abundant in the estuaries year-round. Local farmers gather every Saturday downtown to sell homegrown organic produce and honey, foraged mushrooms, and wild berries. The general demographic is of hippies who protest Whole Foods in favor of local co-ops, wear Birkenstocks, weave hair wraps to sell at outdoor markets, and make their own nut butter. They are men with birth names like Herb and River and women called Forest and Aurora.

Naskar is made by Naskar alone, not an industry or benefactor - or more importantly, by family wealth. I had a roof over my head, food on the table, and clothes on my back - that was more than enough. I started writing with literally zero dollar in my pocket. Let me tell you how it began, because for some reason, I completely forgot a crucial event of my life when I wrote my memoir Love, God & Neurons. I once met an American tourist at a local train in Calcutta. The first thing he asked me was, had I lived in the States? I said, no. Then how come you have an American accent - he asked. Watching movies - I said. We got chatting and he told me about a book he had recently published, a memoir. I believe, this was the cosmic event that planted the thought of writing my own books in my head - I had already started my self-education in Neurology and Psychology, and I was all determined to publish research papers on my ideas, but not books. Meeting the person somehow subconsciously shifted my focus from research papers to books. So the journey began. And for the first few years, I made no real money from my books. Occasionally some of my books would climb the bestsellers list on amazon, like my very first book did, and that would keep the bills paid for several months. Then the invitations for talks started coming, but they too were not paid in the beginning. The organizers made all the travel arrangements, and I gave the talks for free. It's ironic and super confusing really - I remember flying business class, but I didn't have enough money to even afford a one way flight ticket, because I had already used up my royalties on other expenses. Today I can pick and choose which speaking invitations to accept, but back then I didn't have that luxury - I was grateful for any speaking gig and interview request I received, paid or not. One time, I gave an interview to this moderately popular journalist for her personal youtube channel, only to find out, she never released the video publicly - she posted an interview with a dog owner instead - whose dog videos had gained quite a following on social media. You could say, this was the first time I realized first hand, what white privilege was. Anyway, the point is this. Did I doubt myself? Often. Did I consider quitting? Occasionally. But did I actually quit? Never. And because I didn't quit, the world received a vast never-before seen multicultural humanitarian legacy, that you know me for today. There is no such thing as overnight success. If you have a dream, you gotta work at it day in, day out - night after night - spoiling sleep, ruining rest, forgetting fun. Persist, persist, and persist, that's the only secret - there is no other. Remember this - the size of your pocket does not determine your destiny, the size of your dedication does.

A study from the American Communities Project at the Michigan State University School of Journalism on rural counties published in 2019 found that the counties that are doing the best economically are those that welcome new immigrants. Immigrants open new businesses and inject local economies with much-needed energy. Counties that encourage artists to move in and build artistic communities also thrive. But Arkansans—and denizens of rural counties across the United States—vote and respond to national events in ways that are hostile to immigration, hostile to anyone from outside their own communities. They support presidents and senators and policies that would close the borders, cut taxes to nothing, and pass initiatives preventing schools from teaching about racism accurately.

Even the occasional Solarian captain in those regions, barred from such direct and forceful action by his own government's policies, had adopted the policy of handing the crews of such ships over to the closest Manty or Havenite captain. After all, both the Star Kingdom and the Republic were treaty partners, weren't they? What happened to criminals after being duly delivered into the custody of one of the local governments was hardly the arresting captain's business, was it? And, besides, the method of execution was such poetic justice.

Ebay is still the number one site for individuals and small businesses to sell their items to people worldwide. While it is much larger than it was initially, at its core, Ebay still functions like the world’s largest flea market with items of every type and at every price point available. Ebay continues to expand and improve, giving sellers like me confidence that they will be around for years to come. With nearly two hundred million registered Ebay users, there are still plenty of opportunities to make money on Ebay. But why sell your items on Ebay instead of a garage sale or consignment shop? Hands down, you will get the most money for your items on Ebay versus selling them locally. As I mentioned earlier, there are nearly 200 million registered Ebay users, meaning there are 200 million more chances to sell your items. Let’s say you have a rare collectible to sell. While only a handful of people will come to your garage sale or enter your local consignment shop, on Ebay, your item is available for purchase to the millions of Ebay account holders worldwide. You only need to wait for that one

When eBay entered the Chinese market in 2002, they did so by buying the leading Chinese online auction site—not Alibaba but an eBay impersonator called EachNet. The marriage created the ultimate power couple: the top global e-commerce site and China’s number one knockoff. eBay proceeded to strip away the Chinese company’s user interface, rebuilding the site in eBay’s global product image. Company leadership brought in international managers for the new China operations, who directed all traffic through eBay’s servers back in the United States. But the new user interface didn’t match Chinese web-surfing habits, the new leadership didn’t understand Chinese domestic markets, and the trans-Pacific routing of traffic slowed page-loading times. At one point an earthquake under the Pacific Ocean severed key cables and knocked the site offline for a few days. Meanwhile, Alibaba founder Jack Ma was busy copying eBay’s core functions and adapting the business model to Chinese realities. He began by creating an auction-style platform, Taobao, to directly compete with eBay’s core business. From there, Ma’s team continually tweaked Taobao’s functions and tacked on features to meet unique Chinese needs. His strongest localization plays were in payment and revenue models. To overcome a deficit of user trust in online purchases, Ma created Alipay, a payment tool that would hold money from purchases in escrow until the buyer confirmed the receipt of goods. Taobao also added instant messaging functions to allow buyers and sellers to communicate on the platform in real time. These business innovations helped Taobao claw away market share from eBay, whose global product mentality and deep centralization of decision-making power in Silicon Valley made it slow to react and add features. But Ma’s greatest weapon was his deployment of a “freemium” revenue model, the practice of keeping basic functions free while charging for premium services. At the time, eBay charged sellers a fee just to list their products, another fee when the products were sold, and a final fee if eBay-owned PayPal was used for payment. Conventional wisdom held that auction sites or e-commerce marketplace sites needed to do this in order to guarantee steady revenue streams.

Over the next few years, the number of African Americans seeking jobs and homes in and near Palo Alto grew, but no developer who depended on federal government loan insurance would sell to them, and no California state-licensed real estate agent would show them houses. But then, in 1954, one resident of a whites-only area in East Palo Alto, across a highway from the Stanford campus, sold his house to a black family. Almost immediately Floyd Lowe, president of the California Real Estate Association, set up an office in East Palo Alto to panic white families into listing their homes for sale, a practice known as blockbusting. He and other agents warned that a 'Negro invasion' was imminent and that it would result in collapsing property values. Soon, growing numbers of white owners succumbed to the scaremongering and sold at discounted prices to the agents and their speculators. The agents, including Lowe himself, then designed display ads with banner headlines-"Colored Buyers!"-which they ran in San Francisco newspapers. African Americans desperate for housing, purchased the homes at inflated prices. Within a three-month period, one agent alone sold sixty previously white-owned properties to African Americans. The California real estate commissioner refused to take any action, asserting that while regulations prohibited licensed agents from engaging in 'unethical practices,' the exploitation of racial fear was not within the real estate commission's jurisdiction. Although the local real estate board would ordinarily 'blackball' any agent who sold to a nonwhite buyer in the city's white neighborhoods (thereby denying the agent access to the multiple listing service upon which his or her business depended), once wholesale blockbusting began, the board was unconcerned, even supportive. At the time, the Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Administration not only refused to insure mortgages for African Americans in designated white neighborhoods like Ladera; they also would not insure mortgages for whites in a neighborhood where African Americans were present. So once East Palo Alto was integrated, whites wanting to move into the area could no longer obtain government-insured mortgages. State-regulated insurance companies, like the Equitable Life Insurance Company and the Prudential Life Insurance Company, also declared that their policy was not to issue mortgages to whites in integrated neighborhoods. State insurance regulators had no objection to this stance. The Bank of America and other leading California banks had similar policies, also with the consent of federal banking regulators. Within six years the population of East Palo Alto was 82 percent black. Conditions deteriorated as African Americans who had been excluded from other neighborhoods doubled up in single-family homes. Their East Palo Alto houses had been priced so much higher than similar properties for whites that the owners had difficulty making payments without additional rental income. Federal and state hosing policy had created a slum in East Palo Alto. With the increased density of the area, the school district could no longer accommodate all Palo Alto students, so in 1958 it proposed to create a second high school to accommodate teh expanding student population. The district decided to construct the new school in the heart of what had become the East Palo Alto ghetto, so black students in Palo Alto's existing integrated building would have to withdraw, creating a segregated African American school in the eastern section and a white one to the west. the board ignored pleas of African American and liberal white activists that it draw an east-west school boundary to establish two integrated secondary schools. In ways like these, federal, state, and local governments purposely created segregation in every metropolitan area of the nation.