ken atchity door to door: June 2012

Sharing In Class [via Nina Reznick]

One day a fourth-grade teacher asked the children to tell the class what their fathers did for a living. All the typical answers came up: fireman, mechanic, businessman, salesman and so forth. Little Justin was uncharacteristically quiet, so the teacher prodded him to share with his classmates.

Clearly reluctant, the boy said, "My father's an exotic dancer in a gay cabaret and takes off all his clothes to music in front of other men and they put money in his underwear. Sometimes, if the offer is really good, he will go home with some guy and stay with him all night for money."

The teacher, shaken, hurriedly set the other children to work on some exercises and took little Justin aside.

"Is that really true about your father?" he asked the boy.

"No," said Justin. "He works with the Republican National Committee and is helping to get Romney elected, but it is just too embarrassing to say that in front of the other kids."

Map of Europe: 1000 AD to Present Day [via Nina Reznick]

Look at all those changes over the time

Check Out Karling Applegates's New Gig!

GRRRRReat tips [via Sam Cormier]

You can flip a toaster on its side and grill cheese in it

You can divide and store ground meat in a zip loc bag. Just break off how much you need and keep the rest in the freezer for later. So much easier than dividing and individually wrapping each pound or half pound.

Cereal canisters make the perfect trashcan for your car

If you place a wooden spoon over a pot of boiling water, it won't boil over.

Freedom Flask [via David Adashek]

HELL EXPLAINED [via David Angsten]

The following is an actual question given on a University of Arizona chemistry mid term, and an actual answer turned in by a student.

The answer by one student was so 'profound' that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well :

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

'BY A CHEMISTRY STUDENT

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving, which is unlikely.. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, 'It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,' and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct..... ....leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting 'Oh my God.'

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+.

Zen Judaism [via David Adashek]

*If there is no self,
whose arthirits is this?

*Be here now.
Be someplace else later.
Is that so complicated?

*Drink tea and nourish life.
With the first sip... joy.
With the second... satisfaction.
With the third... peace.
With the fourth, a danish.

*Wherever you go, there you are.
Your luggage is another story.

*Accept misfortune as a blessing.
Do not wish for perfect health or a life
without problems.
What would you talk about?

*The journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single "oy".

*There is no escaping karma.
In a previous life, you never called, you
never wrote, you never visited.
And whose fault was that?

*Zen is not easy.
It takes effort to attain nothingness.
And then what do you have?
Bupkes.

*The Tao does not speak.
The Tao does not blame.
The does not take sides.
The Tao has no expectations.
The Tao demands nothing of others.
The Tao is not Jewish.

*Breathe in. Breathe out.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Forget this, and attaining Enlightenment
will be the least of your problems.

*Be patient and achieve all thing.
Be impatient and achieve all things faster.

*To find the Buddha, look within.
Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers.
Each flower blossoms ten thousand times.
Each blossom has ten thousand petals.
You might want to see a specialist.

*To practice Zen and the art of Jewish
motorcycle maintenance, do the following:
Get rid of the motorcycle.
What were you thinking?

*Be aware of your body.
Be aware of your perceptions.
Keep in mind that not every physical
sensation is a symptom of terminal illness.

*The Torah says, "Love thy neighbor as thyself."
The Buddha says there is no "self".
So maybe you are off the hook.

*The Buddha taught that one should
practice loving kindness to all sentient
beings. Still, would it kill you to find a
nice sentient being who happens
to be Jewish?

Congratulations to Roger DeKay, Awareded CCIM Designation

DEKAY AWARDED CCIM DESIGNATION

Achievement Signifies Expertise in Commercial Real Estate


Shreveport, LA May 2012 –Roger DeKay, CCIM, Associate Broker, Sealy Real Estate Services, a division of Sealy and Company, Shreveport, was awarded the Certified Commercial Investment Member (CCIM) designation by the CCIM Institute, one of the leading commercial real estate associations in the world. The designation was awarded last month at the institute’s business meetings in Kansas City, Missouri.

Only about 6% of the estimated 150,000 commercial real estate practitioners nationwide hold the CCIM designation, which reflects not only the caliber of the program, but why it is one of the most coveted and respected designations in the industry. The designation is awarded to commercial real estate professionals upon successful completion of a graduate-level education curriculum and presentation of a portfolio of qualifying experience. The curriculum addresses financial analysis, market analysis, user decision analysis, and investment analysis, the cornerstones of commercial investment real estate. CCIMs are recognized experts in commercial real estate brokerage, leasing, asset management, valuation, and investment analysis.

Mr. DeKay joined Sealy & Company in 1995. He serves as an Associate Broker, licensed in Louisiana and Texas, specializing in sales and leasing of retail, office, land, and industrial properties. Roger received a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from Louisiana State University. He has served as president of the Commercial Investment Division of the Northwest Louisiana Association of Realtors, former president of the North Shreveport Business Association, and a current member of the International Council of Shopping Centers.

            Since 1969, the Chicago-based CCIM Institute has conferred the Certified Commercial Investment Member designation to commercial real estate and allied professionals through an extensive curriculum of 200 classroom hours and professional experiential requirements. An affiliate of the National Association of Realtors®, the CCIM Institute’s recognized curriculum, powerful technology tools, and networking programs impact and influence the commercial real estate industry.

Visit www.ccim.com for more information.

On the Horizon, a Northern Lights Extravaganza [via Nin Reznick]

By ELIZABETH CHEN

The photographer Ole C. Salomonsen first saw the northern lights while growing up in the northern Norwegian city of Tromso, where the best time to see them is in the cold winter months.

“When I was a child, my parents and my grandparents would tell me that if you wave at the northern lights for too long, they will come after you,” he said.

Today Mr. Salomonsen chases auroras for a living, spending countless sleepless nights waiting to capture them so he can share them with the rest of the world. Right now he’s excited about a phenomenon called the solar maximum, when the sun’s activity is so high that it causes auroras to appear more often and in places where they usually don’t occur. The next solar maximum is expected in 2013, and to call attention to it, he recently released a stop-motion video called “Celestial Lights.”
“I want to make people aware that the sun will cause faster and more aggressive auroras,” Mr. Salomonsen said. “More people will be able to witness the northern lights, not just those of us up north.”

The northern lights, or aurora borealis, occur when the earth’s atmosphere comes into contact with particles from the sun. The earth’s magnetic field then drives these particles toward the North and South poles, which is why the northern lights are normally seen in places like Alaska, Canada and northern Europe.

Ole C. Salomonsen“Arctic Alps.”

But every 11 years, the northern lights can be seen farther south, in places like England or the United States, when the sun reaches its most active phase. At this point of the solar cycle, the north and south poles of the sun flip, and more sunspots and flares occur. NASA scientists predict that the sun will hit solar maximum next year.

Mr. Salomonsen’s video opens with an ominous musical score composed by Kai-Anders Ryan as the camera homes in on a tumultuous sun and its lunging flares.

“I included the solar maximum to put some story to it, to show the eruption of the sun as the source of the northern lights,” the photographer said. “The sun is getting angrier, so the auroras are getting angrier and more dramatic.”

Ole C. SalomonsenTitled “Divine Presence,” this image won Mr. Salomonsen second place in the “Earth & Space” category of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition in 2011.

From October to March, Mr. Salomonsen spent many nights shooting more than 150,000 stills of auroras soaring above Scandinavian mountains and valleys. About 6,000 of these stills went into the production of “Celestial Lights.”
Hunting for auroras isn’t easy. Before heading out, he checks the weather forecast and a university Web site that monitors the earth’s geomagnetic activity, which can predict the level of solar activity on a given night. If there are clear skies and indications of high solar activity, he bundles up, packs some coffee and prepares for a long night of driving and waiting in the dark.

With the video, his main challenge was to show the auroras moving as close to their actual speeds as possible.

While some auroras move as fast as lightning, that is not the norm, Mr. Salomonsen said. “Many tourists who come to see the northern lights get disappointed because they think that’s how auroras move,” he said. “They can move fast, but most of the time, they move very slowly and majestically.”

Ole C. Salomonsen“Majestic Elements.”

Although Mr. Salomonsen has been shooting auroras for many years, he did not seriously pursue photography until 2007, when he left his job as an equity broker and started his business, Arctic Light Photo. His work, particularly his two aurora videos, has gathered a wide following: “Celestial Lights” has been viewed 279,000 times in the last month.

Still, he believes the auroras are best appreciated when people venture out and see them for themselves. Although they are present year-round, they are most visible in Norway from December to early February.

“No matter how good a photo or video is, you could never use that to justify not seeing the auroras with your own eyes, if you are lucky enough to get the chance,” he said.

Redneck Vasectomy [via Sam Cormier]

Humor

Morning Yoga Class at the Stella McCartney store to benefit Yoga Gives Back

The beautiful Stella McCartney store in West Hollywood is providing a morning yoga class to benefit Yoga Gives Back, June 5, 2012 at 10am. Kathryn Budig will teach and give a talk on nutrition. Yoga Gives Back Founder, Kayoko Mitsumatsu, will speak about the impact on the lives of the women we support in India. A fresh juice tasting will follow.

Please join us. Register at info@yogagivesback.org.

THANK YOU!!!

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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.