ken atchity door to door: August 2012

Italian Business Strategies [via David Adashek]

Luigi (the father) says to his son ...'I want you to marry a girl of
my choice.'

The son says, 'I will choose my own bride!!!'

Luigi says, 'But the girl is Bill Gates' daughter.'

Son answers, 'Well, in that case ....ok.'

Next Luigi approaches Bill Gates and says, 'I have a husband for your
Daughter.'

Bill Gates answers, 'But my daughter is too young to marry!!'

Luigi says, 'But this young man is a vice-president of the World Bank.'

Bill Gates answers, 'Ah, in that case ...ok.'

Finally, Luigi goes to see the president of the World Bank.

Luigi says, 'I have a young man to recommend as a vice-president.'

The president answers, 'But I already have more vice-presidents than I
Need!'

Luigi says, 'But this young man is Bill Gates' son-in-law.'

The president answers: 'Ah, in that case ...ok.'

And that, my friends, is how Italians do business!

SERIOUSLY? More ... These are shoes?

SERIOUSLY? These are shoes?

Support Susannah Cord's return to Kenya to complete her multi- media book project ... Katika Nuru, Calling Me

Humor [via Alex Cord]

After twelve years of therapy my psychiatrist said something that brought tears to my eyes. He said, "No hablo ingles." --Alex Cord

Absolutely Epic Ad [via David Angsten]

DON'T PUNK WITH PUTIN

Russian Band Given 2-Year Term for Stunt Deriding Putin

A Moscow judge delivered a two-year prison sentence on Friday against three members of a punk band who staged a protest against Vladimir V. Putin in an Orthodox cathedral last February and whose jailing and trial on hooliganism charges have generated worldwide criticism of constraints on political speech in Russia.

The case has become a touchstone in the political conflict that began in Russia after disputed parliamentary elections last December. That is partly because of the sympathetic appearance of the defendants — two are mothers of young children — partly because their group uses music to carry its message, and because it has pitted them against a united power-structure: the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church.

Details Here

Are You Being Watched? [Nina Reznick]

From the Bell Tower
By Steven Bell

As an academic librarian who remembers quite well those days when the Patriot Act was a newly enforced law, there was real angst in the library community about the implications it would have on maintaining the privacy of patron records. Within the academic community, while there was a fair amount of information exchange on responding to and preparing for this new era in national security, there was also a shared perception that our public library colleagues would bear the brunt of whatever challenges these new laws created. Now the burden may shift to academic librarians. A revival of student activism is combining with growing spy paranoia on campus to raise new worries for colleges and universities – and more specifically their police forces. National security experts are sounding an alarm portraying the campus as incubator for revolutionary radicals and terrorist organizations. The possibility that this new atmosphere of fear could extend itself into the academic library is an issue that should have librarians thinking and preparing for how they will respond to privacy threats.
Big Brother on Campus

Institutions of higher education should be bastions of free speech and intellectual freedom. More recently both external and internal police forces are making colleges and universities look more like Big Brother than defender of individual rights. In one highly publicized case, the New York City Police were accused of spying on Muslim student associations at twenty colleges, since 2006, in an effort to connect students to terrorist groups. At multiple institutions, campus police resources were targeted for monitoring Occupy Wall Street groups. Colleges certainly have the right to protect their property and keep campuses civil, but it’s shocking to learn of clandestine agreements with Homeland Security and the FBI to keep tabs on student groups. Equally unexpected is how some campus police forces are arming themselves to the teeth in ways that go way beyond pepper spray. One can only wonder what Armageddon campus police are preparing for that requires them to acquire water cannons, tasers, bean bag guns and assault rifles.

Our Patriot Act experience will remind us that federal agents with subpoenas or warrants are not so easily deterred. All librarians have an ethical commitment to protect the privacy of their community members, but resisting government efforts to tap our records for information could prove a futile endeavor.

Read More

Daily Humour [via David Adashek]

Anybody who believes that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach flunked geography. — Alex Cord

Teddy Bear’s Picnic [via Nina Reznick]

The sweet-toothed bear would grab a mouthful of candy and walk it outside where he'd eat it up only to come back in for more and more helpings. 7News reports that the bear made seven trips outside to eat the chocolatey delights during his twenty minute raid.

According to Estes Park News, the bear's favorite treats were chocolate covered Rice Krispie Treats, peanut butter cups, the store's special "Balls of Joy," English Toffee and -- wait for it -- giant chocolate covered cookies called "Cookie Bears." Naturally.

The 15 Hottest Pizzerias Across the Country [via Katherine & Russel Taylor ]

Here is a list of the fifteen hottest pizzerias across the Eater universe. Among this crop of newish restaurants are the Neapolitan spots (800 Degrees in LA, Antico in Atlanta, Pizaro's in Houston), places for an East-coast-style slice (Gioia in San Francisco), the return of a grunge-era favorite (World Pizza in Seattle), examples of pizzaiolos bringing deep-fried montanara to the U.S. (Forcella in NYC), and options from established chefs that have freewheeling menus but a strong emphasis on pizza (Balena in Chicago, Oven & Shaker in Portland). Many thanks to the Eater city editors for their nominations. And please remember, these are in no particular order. Tried any of the places on the list or feel there are any glaring omissions? You know what to do.

Miami: Harry's Pizzeria

3918 N Miami Ave Miami, FL 33127 (786) 275-4963

Michael Schwartz, whose direct, market-driven cooking at the Genuine Restaurants in Miami and the Cayman Islands has been a total hit, turns his attention to pizza at …

Seattle: World Pizza

672 S King St Seattle, WA 98104 (206) 682-4161

After a 15 year absence, this popular 1990s, rock-and-roll pizzeria returns in a new Chinatown address. The space has changed, but the gorgonzola, rosemary, and roasted …

Houston: Pizaro's Pizza

14028 Memorial Dr Houston, TX 77079 (281) 589-7277

The owners of this popular new pizzeria brought in a 900-degree oven straight from Naples, which has been a key factor in drawing people to the west Houston location. The …

Dallas: Il Cane Rosso

2612 Commerce St Dallas, TX 75226 (214) 741-1188

A no-bullshit Neapolitan pizzeria that continues to bring them in with a simple but rigorous formula: pizza made according to the AVPN tenets, a badass oven, and salumi …

Boulder: Pizzeria Basta

3601 Arapahoe Ave Boulder, CO 80303 (303) 997-8775

There is a serious refinement to chef Kelly Whitaker's food at Basta, where he uses his experiences cooking in Naples to make some of the best pizza in the state. But the …

Las Vegas: Due Forni Pizza & Wine

3555 S Town Center Dr Las Vegas, NV 89135 (702) 586-6500

Due Forni may be off the strip, but just listen: two ovens here cook up Roman and Neapolitan pizzas with an ingredient list showcasing some of the best products from …

Atlanta: Antico Pizza Napoletana

1093 Hemphill Ave NW Atlanta, GA 30318 (404) 724-2333

] Giovanni Di Palma went to Naples five years ago, reconnected with his family roots, and fell in love with pizza tradition. He brings it all to Atlanta at Antico, where …

Los Angeles: 800 Degrees

10889 Lindbrook Dr Los Angeles, CA 90024 (424) 239-5010

This perennially packed pizzeria comes from an owner of the Umami Burger chain, but the approach here is considerably more traditional — and Neapolitan, to be …

Cambridge: All Star Pizza Bar

1238 Cambridge St Mid-Cambridge, MA 02139 (617) 547-0836

This pizzeria has just opened in Inman Square, diagonally across from its sibling restaurant, the hipster favorite All Star Sandwich Bar. The menu is straightforward, …

Chicago: Balena

1633 N Halsted St Chicago, IL 60614 (312) 867-3888

Balena, the new restaurant from the pros at the Boka Group, may not be a pizzeria per se, but the pies here are a serious draw. That's thanks to Chris Pandel, the man …

Washington, DC: La Forchetta

3201 New Mexico Ave NW Washington, DC 20016 202-244-2223

La Forchetta could have been a more under-the-radar opening, but it earned a instant buzz upon the hiring of longtime Washington chef Roberto Donna. Though Donna is …

Philly: Nomad Pizza

611 S 7th St Philadelphia, PA 19147 (215) 238-0900

Founded in Hopewell, NJ, Nomad is the newest addition to Philly's high-end pizza roster. The company started as a mobile operation running out of a converted REO …

New York: Forcella

334 Bowery New York, NY 10012 (212) 466-3300

This is the bigger outpost of pizzaiolo Giulio Adriani's spot, which originally popped up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Here you will find traditional, beautiful Neapolitan …

San Francisco: Gioia Pizzeria

2240 Polk St San Francisco, CA 94109 (415) 359-0971

Karen and Will Gioia have brought Berkeley's cultish, East-coast-style slice shop right to the heart of Polk Street foot traffic. But this Gioia is a sit-down, stylish …

PDX: Oven & Shaker

1134 NW Everett St Portland, OR 97209 (503) 241-1600

The Pearl gets an uber-buzzy pizza and cocktail bar from an all-star team: Nostrana's Cathy Whims heats up the oven while Aviation's Ryan Magarian shakes things up behind …

A Novel's Polestar [via David Angsten]

"A long-exposure photograph of the night sky will show you something that you never see, however often you look at the stars: thousands of perfect curves, concentrically arranged around an invisible pinhead. Everything is wheeling slowly about a single point.

"A good book or a great adventure, fictional or real, often does the same. There is a fulcrum: a still, quiet centre to the tale."

Matthew Parris

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.