ken atchity door to door: January 2010

AEI CLIENTS GERRY S. BLAINE & LISA MCCUBBIN SIGNING KENNEDY DETAIL WITH GALLERY BRASS MITCH IVERS & LOUISE BURKE OCEANA, MANHATTAN 1/20/10

IN MEMORIAM At the Russian Consulate With Composer Richard Nanes

BIRTHDAY SHOT: On Peninsula Rooftop

LILI THOMPSON TAKES TO THE AIR

TRULY HILARIOUS ANN BANCROFT [via Nadine Saubers]

BRAVO TO TOM & YOLANDA STERN FOR PUTTING THE WORLD IN WHEELCHAIRS!

Hello to all,

Dayang Yolanda Stern just signed the papers for our next shipment to the Philippines, which will make something like 13,200 wheelchairs our incredible team has delivered to that nation as the partner of Free Wheelchair Mission; and added to the 1,650 to Cambodia with their recent shipment, that makes around 15,000 free wheelchairs that have gone to the poorest of the poor.

It is a milestone that calls for CELEBRATION and RECOGNITION of the astounding work you have all done.

Seriously. Take a moment to imagine the amount of suffering relieved by a single wheelchair; and then multiply it 15,000 times...really...do that mental exercise and faintly grasp the scope of what you have done. Including the attendant pushing, I figure it would make a train 16 miles long. Breathtaking!

I am celebrating! And I am deeply grateful for the remarkable work you have done, which began with a single request for a single wheelchair, soon coupled to an idea which grew with the nurturing of each volunteer. Remarkable.

Our goal of reaching 25,000 units, once a pipe-dream, now is in view. I know we can do it. We will do it.

Please circulate this report to your mailing list because we need to become known to grow.

Again, thanks to everyone.

Tom Stern,MD

Chairman of the Board

One World Institute

BIRTHDAY DINNER AT FOUR SEASONS NY WITH KAYOKO, CLIENT JOCK MILLER & HIS WIFE KAY: YES, THAT’S COTTON CANDY DESSERT!

DARE YOU NOT TO LAUGH OUT LOUD [via Steven Kates]

Jazz at the Ice Caves [via Lisa Cerasoli]

Prodigies Vijay and Geeta Nazareth Perform at The Barge

A Yoga Class From The Heart - January 30th

If anybody is interested, please register now at yogagivesback@earthlink.net, as space is very limited due to very enthusiastic response!

Check out details at : http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=250410431640

Ya Complete

MASTERS OF THE AIR [via Nina Reznick]

Biologist Doug Altshuler has turned his lab into a kind of hummingbird training center, where he can test the limits of their aerial agility. The key, he says, is hovering.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/hummingbirds-magic-in-the-air/video-incredible-agility/5441/

BLACK HOLE: A SIMPLE FABLE [via David Adashek]

Dalton Trumbo's Masturbatory Epistle to His Son

Antonym, n.: The opposite of the word you're trying to think of. - Unknown via Michael A. Simpson

BIRD BEAUTY [via Nina Reznick]

Half a Lifetime Spent in Pursuit of Waterbirds

By THOMAS LIN

Twenty years ago, Theodore Cross traveled 16 time zones, from New York to Moscow, Irkutsk and Yakutsk, and finally to the tundra of the Kolyma Delta, in northeastern Siberia, to catch a coveted glimpse of an Arctic bird, the Ross’s gull. Mr. Cross did spot one gull, but its nest was overtaken by a parasitic jaeger before he could return with his blind and his long telephoto lens. The trip was a failure.

Two weeks later, the unexpected happened: a Ross’s gull showed up in Baltimore. Thousands of birders converged on the spot for the rare sighting.

“They call it the bird that launched 20,000 binoculars,” Mr. Cross said.

Audio Slide Show

Birds of Courage

His 344-page volume, “Waterbirds” (W. W. Norton & Company), is part visual encyclopedia, part memoir of a nearly half-century pursuit of birds. In intimate portraits of birds, like tiny sandpipers and the “flying boxcar” of a bar-tailed godwit, and in personal anecdotes of his birding adventures, Mr. Cross, 85, describes how he spent the first half of his life oblivious to birds only to become one of their most ardent photographers and advocates in the second half. Now, he writes, “the memories of them help me accept the brevity of the time that lies ahead.”

Among his favorites are the roseate spoonbill, which was hunted to near extinction a century ago for pink plumes to adorn women’s hats, but has been making a comeback.

The red-tailed tropicbird of Christmas Island is known for its acrobatics. At midday Mr. Cross said, “they take to the air and engage in unbelievable pirouettes, somersaults in a deafening clatter of noise.”

The bar-tailed godwit flies 6,800 miles each year from Alaska to New Zealand without food, water or rest in what Mr. Cross calls “one of nature’s miracles.” And the semipalmated sandpiper, small enough to fit into a teacup, migrates between South America and the Arctic, “through gales and hurricanes, over mountains and ocean.”

“Birds are very much like people in some ways,” Mr. Cross said. “The reddish egret will pretend it’s leaving its nest, the way humans sometimes pretend they’ve lost interest in a boyfriend or girlfriend. But sure enough, they’re going to come back.”

The white tern is incredibly friendly. “If you visit any island in the South Pacific,” he said, “a dozen or more of these little guys will come out and greet you.”

Mr. Cross hopes someday to capture the perfect picture, which he describes as “two reddish egrets in courtship with their fantastic feathers flared up and pointed to the sky.”

WARP & WEFT ANNUAL MEETING AT TALESAI--JOHN SCOTT SHEPHERD

"There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."-- W. Somerset Maugham via Michael A. Simpson

JIM WHITE’S PICKS FOR BEST WINE OF YEAR!

Napaman’s Best Wines of the Year!

And nearly half of them were not from Napa Valley.
Check out my favorite wines of the year.

If there is any thing to be learned from the list, it is that they are listed in an order which relates to how these wines surprised me and from which I had no expectation. And then BWAM!... poured from the bottle, these wines overwhelmed me for their sensuality, elegance, balance, harmony and overall achievement.

Joseph R. Cervasio and Connie Francis

Dear Ken,

On behalf of Nik Halik and the Financial Freedom Institute Team, we would like to send our christmas message of peace, joy and love to you and your family for a safe holiday season and a happy, prosperous new year.

We thank you for your support during 2009 and look forward to being of greater service to you in 2010.

We would like to take this opportunity to advise you that our office will be closed over the festive season as of 5pm on Wednesday 23th December 2009 and will reopen at 11am Monday 11th January 2010.

Nik's The Thrillionaires® network has come up with this small video to help inspire greatness for the year ahead.

http://www.thethrillionaires.com/blog/pages/pathways-movie.php

All the very best.

Yours in prosperity,

The Financial Freedom Institute Team

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Yoga Gives Back

Written by Kayoko Mitsumatsu

From Posture To Power: Microcredit Changes Lives On Both Sides of the Ocean

We can talk about making change. But affecting real change in the world comes from impacting the lives of individuals. It comes from empowering people to be independent and able to make a living on their own while at the same time being fully integrated in our interdependent global community. Sometimes it takes something that seems to be radical to make this change, but these shifts can be deceptively small. They can be even as small (or as large) as the cost of a Los Angeles Yoga class.

How could this be? In the practice of microcredit, lending seemingly small amounts of money to small-scale entrepreneurs allows them to succeed and change their circumstances. This is the fundamental basis of microcredit’s transformative power; it’s a revolutionary concept in finance. This practice shifts the emphasis from financial transactions being focused only about large loans and large scale businesses, which are out of reach of many one-person operations, institutions and organizations – to lending practices that actually make a positive difference in a person’s life. Microcredit practices based on social justice and empowerment operate through a combination of small-scale loans based on trust and community support, with structured repayment plans and programs that encourage savings. In these situations, people actually have the opportunity to solidify long-term change in their lives.

Dr. Muhammad Yunus and the Yoga Gives Back Team: Joel Bender, Leslie Hendry, Dr. Muhammad Yunus and Kayoko Mitsumatsu (left-right)

In 2006, economist Dr. Muhammad Yunus and the institution he founded, the Grameen Bank, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This award was in recognition of their revolutionary efforts to create this micro-credit model, support sustainable economic practices, and provide an alternative to what were exploitive norms. When a person is caught in a cycle of poverty, they may become trapped in the system, particularly since large banking institutions have historically ignored people without assets or credit histories, who are just starting out and who may not have already proven themselves. Most banks prefer to lend large sums of money that represent a greater profit margin and are set up only for large loans in order to make a profit themselves. And even making it more challenging, people at the bottom of the economic scale worldwide have had to rely on moneylenders charging usurious terms and interest rates to obtain funds to plant the next crop, buy inventory of new equipment, or upgrade a business in any way. Institutions such as the Grameen Bank and their affiliates are offering another approach. It’s one that has significantly impacted millions of people.

As Dr. Yunus described in an exclusive interview with Yoga Gives Back in May, 2009, “We started in 1976, and today within Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, eight million people borrow micro loans, ninety-seven percent of them women.” This represents an enormous potential for change and empowerment that just did not exist on a large scale in this form prior to 1976.

There is a social cycle in economics, and Dr. Yunus explained this: “Poverty is not inside the person. Poverty is forced from outside. Poor people are as capable [a] human being as anybody else. They have the same power and energy, same potential. But they are denied such facilities. They cannot express themselves. Money is one of the most important items missing in their lives. You need a dollar to catch a dollar. You cannot catch a dollar with an empty hand. So, that first dollar, nobody has given to her. So she remains dependent on someone else. She has to be hired, to slave; she has to work to make food available on the table. What we have done, we have put that first dollar into her hands as a banking proposition. Conventional banks never come to the poor people. They go to rich people to make more money. The person who does not have a dollar – she cannot get it. So we did it. We did it in a way that is affordable to her. Because we do not insist on collateral. There is no collateral.”

While that may seem like a radical concept, the Grameen Bank has proven that their success is much more than ideological. Dr Yunus cited statistics for us, “The repayment rate is almost 100%, without collateral or anything. This is the strength of microcredit which is now spread all over the world. There are by now at least 150 million borrowers in the world today. Bu it is still very small comparing to the need. We need more microcredit organizations in the world so that more people can be reached.”

Yoga Gives Back is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization begun in LA, with the goal to provide a way for Western Yoga practitioners to give back to India, the birthplace of Yoga, which has given us so much. We’re heeding Dr. Yunus’ call to reach more people through expanded opportunities for and awareness of microcredit and have targeted India and Indian families, women, and would-be entrepreneurs, who would be otherwise stuck in the cycle of poverty that Dr. Yunus described. Yoga Gives Back supports microfinancing operations in India, through the Grameen Foundation, headquartered in Washington, DC. Donations go directly to Grameen Koota, Bangalore, South India and our YGB awareness campaign focuses on the real stories of how poor women are changing their lives with small loans from Grameen Koota.

Ms. Vinatha M Reddy

Grameen Koota was started by visionary teacher and philanthropist, Ms. Vinatha M Reddy (pictured, above) in 1999, who learned about Nobel Peace Recipient Dr Muhammad Yunus’ microfinancing and immediately began exploring ways of replicating his work in her hometown. In 2000, she started providing small microcredit loans, averaging $25.00 a month, to fifty local women. Today, Grameen Koota’s work is reaching out to over 280,000 women in Bangalore, Mysore and many areas of Karnataka state, in South India, making real impact on these women’s lives as well as on the local economy.

Yoga Gives Back

The Los Angeles-based Yoga Gives Back has a worldwide reach and began out of the inspiration and dedication of my Yoga mentor Joel Bender and me. Our group has suddenly started growing almost daily and our mission is shared by a quickly expanding and loving Yoga community.

When I was growing up in Japan, which is a very middle-class society, I had never experienced or seen any real poverty, especially growing up in Tokyo in 1960s and 1970s, when Japan's post-war economic miracle was taking place. Then, I had a chance to live in Brazil in the late 1970s for two years, where as a teenager, I saw the divide between poverty and wealth, the reality of the real slums, kids on the streets begging every time you stopped the car at the traffic light, all very much like India. Social injustice hit me hard.

Once I started Yoga practice and feeling my life being so enriched by it , I felt a need to use my resources to help others. I was producing a documentary on Social Entrepreneurship and learned about microfinancing. I shared this information with Joel [featured in the teacher profile in this month’s issue of LA YOGA] who had been looking for the way he could give back to India since his first visit there – so we teamed up.

When I think about the growth of Yoga Gives Back thus far, I give a lot of credit to the entrepreneurship and volunteer spirit of Americans, willing to embrace and support a new grass roots campaign like ours.

Kayoko Mitsumatsu, co-founder of Yoga Gives Back, is a documentary filmmaker whose films deal with social justice issues, including First They Killed My Father a memoir of a Cambodia’s Killing Fields’ survivor.

A Life Changing Story of Microcredit: Jayashree

Jayashree

Jayashree lives in the suburbs of Bangalore and is married and the mother of two children. We visited her at her humble dirt floor one room home for the first time in 2007. We were touched by her warm smile and most generous hospitality, serving us hot tea and cookies.

Jayashree was born into a very poor family in Bangalore. When she was a child, her family’s financial situation became so severe that she had to drop out of school and work at a garment factory. She toiled throughout her childhood and after she got married at fifteen, her meager earnings had to support her ailing in-laws. She had two children. Her husband’s rickshaw business was not enough to pay her sons’ education or secure food for the family.

In 2007, Jayashree learned from her neighbors about Grameen Koota’s microcredit program and applied for her first loan. She was granted a first loan of 7,000 rupees ($175), and immediately bought her husband’s auto rickshaw. Owning their own rickshaw business increased their income significantly.

Jayashree was able to pay back her entire loan in one year and became eligible for her second loan in 2008. Having proven her diligence, her second loan amount doubled to 15,000 rupees ($375). This time, she bought a sewing machine and started stitching bags. The family’s earnings have now tripled and she is earning 150 rupees ($3.75) a day. In addition, she opened a small shop next to her house to sell her products which is earning her an additional 100 rupees ($2.50) a day.

She is sending her elder son to a medical school. Her son dreams of becoming a doctor and thanks his mother’s business for providing his education, their own home and daily food.

To participate in a Yoga practice where the proceeds support Yoga Gives Back and directly impact the transformation of not only your own life, but that of someone in India, start your Thanksgiving week at Yogaglo, Sunday, November 22, 10:00 A.M. - 12 noon. Some of the teachers include John Sahakian, Felicia Tomasko, Alexandra Aiken and Ally Hamilton; more to be announced. Yogaglo.com; yogagivesback.com.

For more information on Yoga Gives Back or to host a Yoga Gives Back class at your own studio or location, visit: yogagivesback.org or contact yogagivesback@earthlink.net.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAYOKO!