FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


“THE ECONOMIC $OLUTION SUMMIT”

From corrupt to conscious capitalism. Building upon capitalism’s most powerful assets while infusing it with a higher purpose.

The first Economic $olution Summit to look at how we got here, the real economics, the remedies and a new mission for mankind.

Join a distinguished faculty of futurists, visionaries, entrepreneurs, business leaders, economic and relationship advisors, as we explore the causes, impacts and solutions to the current global financial crisis.

The Summit takes place at the Galiano Island Oceanside Inn and Spa (www.galianoinn.com) Nov. 13-16th.

The goal of the Summit is to provide ideas and practices to ease your anxieties and fears during this troubling and traumatic time. You will receive real and practical tools to serve you in your business and personal life, and the renewed energy and heart to move ahead with your dreams.

“We have a situation where we don’t trust our government or our capitalist system and the level of distrust right now is probably unparalleled since the 1930’s.”- Charles Lewis Founder, Centre for Public Integrity

Because of limited space, the Summit is open to only twenty couples. To reserve today call toll free 1-877-530-3939

This special Summit is being presented by The Zentrepreneurism Centre (www.zentrepreneurism.com) and The Good Life Radio Show & Network (www.goodlifenetworks.com )

“Changing the Way the World does Business”
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RE-PLAY OF "THE WALL STREET MELTDOWN" TELE-FORUM -HOW IT WILL AFFECT THE WORLD, YOUR BUSINESS, AND YOUR LIFE IS NOW AVAILABLE. LISTEN TO THE EXPERTS BY CALLING PlayBack # 1- 641-715-3440 Access Code 446420#

BREAKING NEWS!!

..... REPLAY OF THE TELE-SUMMIT FORUM ON "THE WALL STREET MELTDOWN" IS NOW AVAILABLE BY CALLING 1-641-715-3440 ACCESS CODE: 446420# YOU CAN HEAR THE ENTIRE CONFERENCE CALL.

........ALLAN WAS RECENTLY INTERVIEWED ON "SQUEEZE PLAY" ON THE BNN (BUSINESS NEWS NETWORK). YOU CAN WATCH THE INTERVIEW BY CLICKING ON http://ping.fm/mTkjJ

.......THIS SUNDAY MORNING ALLAN WILL BE INTERVIEWED BY WELL KNOWN RADIO HOST JESSE DYLAN ON THE GOOD LIFE SHOW ON 650 CISL AM FROM 7:00-8:00 a.m. pst, 8:00-9:00 a.m. mst, 10:00-11:00: a.m. est. You can listen on-line to live streaming audio at www.650cisl.com

BREAKING NEWS

Allan is being interviewed today on BNN, The Business News Network in Canada at 2:20 p.m. pst, 3:20 p.m. mst, 5:20 p.m. est. Check your local listings for the station in your area. In Vancouver it is Channel 58 on Shaw Cable.

COUNTDOWN TO CRISIS

URGENT TELESUMMIT

TONIGHT



WHAT: "WALL STREET WRECKAGE"- THE AFTERMATH IMPACT IT WILL HAVE ON THE U.S., NORTH AMERICA ,THE WORLD, YOUR BUSINESS AND YOUR LIFE!!

WHEN: TONIGHT IN 2.5 HOURS

TIME: 6:30-8:30 P.M. (PACIFIC) 7:30-9:30 P.M. (MOUNTAIN) 9:30-11:30 P.M. (EASTERN)

TAPE OR TVO THE VP DEBATE OR WATCH IT LATER ON CNN, IT IS BEING RE-BROADCAST AT 9:00 P.M. PACIFIC, 10:00 P.M. MOUNTAIN OR MIDNITE EASTERN.

COST: FREE

PROGRAM: THIS A TOWN HALL FORUM WITH EXPERTS FROM THE U.S. AND CANADA DISCUSSING THE MOST IMPORTANT TIME IN OUR ECONOMIC HISTORY. NOT SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION HAS THERE BEEN A FINANCIAL CRISIS OF THIS MAGNITUDE.

HOW TO PARTICIPATE: YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN THIS EVENT. LET YOUR VOICES BE HEARD BY CALLING: 1-218-339-4300 AND THEN ACCESS CODE: 446420#

YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESPOND TO THIS INVITATION, AS ADVANCE REGISTRATION IS CLOSED. PLEASE DO NOT CALL THE ABOVE NUMBER UNTIL THE START TIMES LISTED ABOVE.

WE LOOK FORWARD TO HAVING YOU JOIN US. THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE EVENT BEING SPONSORED BY THE ZENTREPRENEURISM CENTRE. www.zentrepreneurism.com

LAST DAY TO REGISTER

GLOBAL TELE-FORUM TOMMOROW ON "THE WALL STREET MELTDOWN" Register today at: http://ping.fm/yPFlq

BREAKING NEWS

ONE DAY LEFT TO REGISTER FOR THE TELE-SUMMIT FORUM ON THE "WALL STREET MELTDOWN". IT'S TOMMOROW NIGHT. ALL YOU NEED IS A LAND LINE PHONE. THERE ARE A FEW TICKETS REMAINING. REGISTER TODAY FOR A COMPLIMENTARY PASS AND YOUR ACCESS CODE!

DO NOT USE UNTIL THURSDAY OCT. 2ND

Call: 1-218-339-4300 and then access code 446420#

REGISTER TODAY! DON'T MISS OUT ON THIS IMPORTANT TELE-SUMMIT!

GET YOUR COMPLIMENTARY TICKET WHILE THEY LAST!

Click here to register now! http://ping.fm/yPFlq

Wall Street Meltdown

URGENT TELE-SUMMIT FORUM BY PHONE

What: "Wall Street Meltdown"

How will it affect North America, your Business and your Life??

An interactive conference call forum with a distinguished panel of experts from around the world.

When: Thursday Oct. 2nd

Time: 6:30 p.m. pst, 7:30 p.m. mst, 9:30 p.m. est.

There are a limited number of complimentary tickets available.

To register while tickets last go to: http://wallstreetmeltdown.eventbrite.com

"Wall Street Wreckage"

How will it affect North America, your business and your life?

A special TELE-SUMMIT with the distinguished faculty of The Zentrepreneurism Centre.

Thursday Oct. 2nd at 6:30 p.m.pst , 7:30 p.m. mst, 9:30 p.m. est.

Limited Complimentary Tickets Available for this extraordinary interactive event!

To register while they last go to:

http://ping.fm/yPFlq

Wall Street Wreckage

These are profound times. "The Wall Street Wreckage" has been the wake up call not only America needed, but the world needed. In a recent CNN poll over 99% of the participants called for an immediate independent investigation into the meltdown, and that the managers of the companies' gone bankrupt should be subject to criminal charges. The two presidential candidates are now calling for "transparency" on Wall Street. This is simply too late and only represents the fact that desperate times result in desperate measures, including running away from the truth.

What we are witnessing today is the massive karmic repercussions of years of cheating, greed, and fraudulent behaviour on the beltway and on Wall Street.

Zentrepreneurism not only exposes this truth but it offers a solution and a new way of doing business that we believe will manifest over the next hundred years. Three years ago when Allan wrote his book he predicted that we were on the threshold of the events taking place today and that America needed a wake up call. That wake up call has turned into a fire alarm!.


Next week, The Jenkins Group and The Book Tree (Allan's publisher) will be launching a massive national media campaign in both the U.S. and Canada alerting the major outlets to Allan's timely book and offering interviews.

In 1989, Charles Lewis left the world of high-profile broadcast journalism to invent the world of what he calls "public-service journalism." Lewis, who was awarded a Macarthur Fellowship in1998, founded the Center for Public Integrity in 1990 to pursue investigative projects that the major media were neglecting. During the past 17 years, the center has produced 10 books and more than 100 reports documenting the often-sordid ties between big money and big politics.

When Lewis was asked whether the problem was based on a few bad apples, Lewis's response was:" Not unless the whole world is your orchard. That's a lot of apples, folks! More companies are restating their earnings now than at any time in U.S. history. And by the way: They have dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the political process to weaken any laws that might exist to curb the excesses. You can't look at Wall Street without looking at Washington. They're joined at the hip.


Lewis was asked who you can trust today to tell us the truth. "It's a very short list," he says, "Everyone has been discredited. We have a situation where we don't trust our government or our capitalist system. The level of distrust right now is probably unparalleled since the 1930s.

The events of the past week have literally put people into a "panic" mode. Everyone is looking for a "life "raft" or at least a roadmap on where to go from here.

To address your concerns and to create a forum for dialogue, The Zentrepreneurism Centre is hosting a special urgent tele-summit with it's distinguished faculty facilitated by the founder of Zentrepreneurism, Allan Holender on Thursday Oct. 2nd at 6:30 p.m. pst, 7:30 p.m. mst, 9:30 p.m. est.

There is a limited number of tickets available, and to the first 50 that register, your ticket is complimentary!

Once you register you will need the following access information:

DO NOT USE UNTIL THURSDAY OCT. 2ND

Call: 1-218-339-4300 and then access code 446420#

REGISTER TODAY! DON'T MISS OUT ON THIS IMPORTANT TELE-SUMMIT!

GET YOUR COMPLIMENTARY TICKET WHILE THEY LAST!

Go to: http://wallstreetmeltdown.eventbrite.com

Wall Street and the White House

The Corporate Criminals or Why Good People Do Bad Things

In the past few years we have seen a rise in the number of entrepreneurs and business leaders caught with their hands in the cookie jar. What makes everyday people commit extraordinary crimes of fraud and deceit?

Bernie Ebbers, the former chief executive of WorldCom, was sentenced to twenty-five years in jail for orchestrating an $11 billion fraud, the biggest in U.S. corporate history, at the once high-flying U.S. telecommunications company.

U.S. district Judge BarbaraS. Jones said the sentence reflected the gravity of the crime.“Although I know this will probably mean Ebbers will spend the rest of his life in prison, sentencing him to anything less would not reflect the seriousness of the crime.”

Ebber’s sentence is one of the most severe to be handed down for a white-collar crime.Robert Mintz, a lawyer with McCarter & English, called the sentence staggering. “This sends a very chilling message that if you get convicted of these large-scale financial frauds, you’re going to be looking at a sentence that a Mafia kingpin or a drug lord wouldface,” he said.



Is the Era of Imperial CEOs Over?

What’s the mark of a great conman – he’s arrogant, cocky,brazen, and he loves his work!
Jennifer Reingold wrote in Fast Company in October, 2003 that there is a new era of accountability. Most of the nation’s worst performing bosses have been shown the door.“The death certificates have been signed. The eulogies have been written. The bagpipes have sounded. That’s right, folks. The era of the imperial CEO is officially over" or so we thought till this past weekend on Wall Street.

Thanks to the humiliating collapse of the fraud-riddled likes of Enron, HEALTHSOUTH,Tyco, and WorldCom, chief executives today are about as respected as, oh, Internet stock analysts.”Another prominent departure three years ago was American Airlines chief Donald Carty, forced out after neglecting to mention the special bonus pool for top executives while he was asking stewardesses and pilots to take massive pay cuts.

And this was just the tip of the iceberg. Many CEOs were knocked off their lofty perch for accounting irregularities, manipulation of annual reports, insider trading, and lavish perks, like Dennis Koslowski of Tyco and his$4 million dollar paintings for his $18 million apartment on fifth avenue, (plus another six residences valued at over $30 million,all at shareholder’s and employees expense). Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom received a severance package of $1.5 million a year for the rest of his life, plus the use of the WorldCom jet for 30 hours ayear, plus numerous other benefits. Keep in mind that Ebbers had already received $44 million in pay, but claimed he didn’t understand that WorldCom had defrauded investors of $7 billion.


• The CEOs of twenty-three large companies under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other agencies earned 70 percent more than the average CEO, banking a collective $1.4 billion in two years, while the market value of these twenty -three companies in January 2001 nose-divedby over $500 billion (or about 73 percent) and 160,000 employees were laid off.

• Enron’s CEO Kenneth Lay pulled in over $100 million, while100 executives and energy traders collected more than $300million-in the year before the company filed for bankruptcy,with a $68 billion loss in market value, the loss of jobs for 5,000 employees, and $800 million lost from their pension funds.

Politics and Corporate Crime

Thirty-one corporate criminals gave more than $9 million to the Democratic and Republican parties during the 2002 election cycle, according to a report released by Corporate Crime Reporter.Corporate criminals gave $7.2 million to Republicans (77 percent)
and $2.1 million to Democrats (23 percent), the report found.

The Republicans and Democrats are awash in dirty money,” said Russell Mokhiber, the editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter.“They took in more than $9 million from convicted criminals. When the heat was up on WorldCom and Enron, politicians from all stripes returned campaign contributions from these two tainted entities or sent them on to charity. The parties should do the same.”

Daniel Pink spoke to Charles Lewis, a former high profile broadcaster about Wall Street and Washington – strange bedfellows in the rising tide of corporate greed.

Pink says:“There are no guarantees in business and in life. Luck is always a factor, and the dice can roll against you. But that does not change the fact that those who go about their lives and work with the passion to create and build in pursuit of self-created goals are the only ones who will find meaning in the end – regardless of whether the dice roll their way. The fact of the matter is that life is short, and we only carry to our graves the inner integrity of
our efforts. Only we know how we lived our lives, whether we cut corners, whether we did anything of value – or whether we took the built-to-flip approach to life.”

In 1989, Charles Lewis left the world of high-profile broadcast journalism to invent the world of what he calls “public-servicejournalism.” Lewis, who was awarded a Macarthur Fellowship in1998, founded the Center for Public Integrity in 1990 to pursue investigative projects that the major media were neglecting.

During the past 17 years, the center has produced 10 books and more than 100 reports documenting the often-sordid ties between bigmoney and big politics.
When Lewis was asked whether the problem was based on a few bad apples, Lewis’s response was:

“Not unless the whole world is your orchard. That’s a lot of apples, folks! More companies are restating their earnings now than at any time in U.S. history. And by the way: They have dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the political process to weaken any laws that might exist to curb the excesses.

You can’t look at Wall Street without looking at Washington.They’re joined at the hip. Congress and the politicians were the enablers for those scandals. They needed the campaign cash.The corporate executives needed certain favors. Everyone got what they wanted – except, of course, investors and the public.

Ninety-six percent of Americans don’t contribute to political campaigns at all. The wealthiest elements of this country are sustaining and sponsoring the political process and its actors.

What that means is that you get a government that’s essentially bought and paid for by the powerful interests affected by those decisions. Sometimes it does feel like we’re trying to force people to drink castor oil. People don’t really want to get bad news. But information is power. Until you find out the truth, you can’t dig yourself out of the mess.”

Lewis was asked who you can trust today to tell us the truth. “It’s a very short list,” he says, “Everyone has been discredited. We have a situation where we don’t trust our government or our capitalist system. The level of distrust right now is probably unparalleled since the 1930s."

So how do we build that trust you might ask, well based on Lewis’s theories, we need to set tougher standards, and then to everyone’s amazement you actually enforce them. There is an urgent need in America right now for transparency. That should be the case for all governments in power, but more so in America where lying has become commonplace. There needs to be openness and a set of rules. It’s indeed time for zenlightened leadership, in the boardroom,the oval office and on Capitol Hill.



Failure is Not an Option

How tough is it to be honest these days – really tough? As a child you may have been taught that to fib is okay; a “little white lie”has never hurt anybody. How about that little fib when you didn’t declare that new suit you bought across the border. They’ll never find out, I’ll just wear it. Or how about when you made excuses to the teacher when you didn’t do your homework. Any excuse to avoid the preconceived notion that the result of the truth would mean a terrible punishment or reprimand – in the mind of an eight-year old, a fate too gruesome to imagine.

The fear of discovery is far greater than the unknown consequence of the truth. As a society we are driven to succeed in virtually everything we live our lives for. In public school, in university, in sports, in our marriages, in our businesses, and in our relationships with our children, everything is measured by success.

This need for success is the single most destructive force operating in our free enterprise system.

If you doubt this, just look at the self-help section of any bookstore, where shelves are lined with books on “How to Succeed” in everything from business, sales, your marriage and relationships, to your golf game, your tennis game, your poker game, and your life. It seems every new workshop or seminar has a Tony Robbins look-alike telling you he or she has the seven secrets of highly successful people and for $1000 he’ll tell you the secrets so you no longer have to walk around with your head down wondering how you became such a failure.

I know the game because I played it. I am a recovering Tony Robbins franchise owner. Many men and women who have risen to the top inwardly feel like imposters. If asked, they may reveal that their biggest fear is being found out.

In Robbins’ book, Ultimate Power, “Fake it till you make it” is his war cry. It’s okay to pretend for a while; just never admit that you are afraid, or that you don’t know yourself. Fear of failure corrupts the mind. Because we are programmed to avoid it at any cost, it makes us do things we would not ordinarly do without thought or remorse.

Failure is not an option is the mantra of many young entrepreneurs who have just started their new business, while in the background ring the incessant voices of the fallen, the dot-com failures, and the overnight millionaires who have now gone bankrupt and taken tens of thousands of unfortunate with them.

The Essence of
Zentrepreneurship

Allan Holender, author of the book Zentrepreneurism – A 21stCentury Guide to the New World of Business, will present a FREE
evening seminar on how Western enterprises and business people can implement Eastern philosophies in their search for more meaningful work, and find ethical paths to lasting
prosperity.

A popular media personality and host of a nationally syndicated business radio show, Allan delivers his life lessons with both passion and humor – helping others to enter the era of “Enlightened Capitalism”, where the bottom
line is not the only reason to be in business.

Don’t miss this opportunity to join him for a FREE seminar and book signing at:

Where: Langara College
main campus
(100 West 49th Avenue)
When: Wed, October 29th
Time: 6:30 pm
RSVP: To register call
Oren Lupo at
(604) 876-1023 or email
olupo@langara.bc.ca

Allan will also be offering courses on the
practice of Zentrepreneursim during the
upcoming winter (2009) term. Information
will be made available at www.langara.bc.ca
once the details are confirmed.

Sedona Zentreat Up-Date! Only two days to register for the first world wide gathering of Zentrepreneurs in magical Sedona, Arizona. REGISTER TODAY FOR THE LAST REMAINING SPACES at www.zentrepreneurism.com

Coming Soon! Exclusive Limited Charter Memberships at The Zentrepreneurism Centre! More anticipation and life-changing than the Biden announcement!

"Strange Bedfellows"-The Olympics & Presidential Race

What do the Olympics and the U.S. Presidential Race have in common? Both spend a lot of money to win. That's a very simplistic analogy. But it goes much deeper than that, and that's the part that gets scary. If you are my age, you probably recall that hit single of the 60's "The Eve of Destruction". Our current times resemble a another time in our history when everything just seemed to be going crazy, chaotic and out of control.

Fast forward to today's madness and you can see that it's not so much different. The price tag has just gotten higher. To "win" at all cost is a fabric of the American culture, it's in the DNA, and is instilled into every child from the age of five on. It's on every Wheaties box, and it's in their face; at school, from their parents, their coaches, their friends, and every time they turn on the television. The runner up coach from the Super Bowl is seldom interviewed on late night television.

And now we are discovering that this mad race to succeed at all cost is a part of the next great super power, China. Little girls must now have to lie about their age in order to succeed and win. This is encouraged by the government, their parents and their friends. Why, because China wants to be just like America only better and more powerful. And they are succeeding, and not just at the Olympics.

As of yesterday, there should be no remaining doubts as to the tectonic shift in the global economy--the world's largest and most profitable bank is Chinese. While banks in North America and Europe are still counting massive credit crunch losses, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has surged ahead of it's international competitors thanks to a booming economy that has dramatically bolstered profits.

Profits it seems in the eyes of many translates into power, power transforms into greed, greed transforms into corruption, corruption leads to lying and cheating. This is historical, it's even in the bible.

So what to do? Begin at the every fundamental level of teaching your kids that success is not about winning and that attainment is more important that achievement. That becoming someone is far more important than being like someone else. America is consumed with heroes and celebrities; it's an addiction.

By the end of the political campaign for President in the U.S. it is estimated that both candidates will have spent a billion dollars; that will be the most money spent on a campaign in the history of elections in the U.S. Is that something to be proud of or is it pure and utter insanity.

I have always said it is not the American people that have brought them to the "eve of destruction", it is their belief system. The American dream has become it's worst nightmare. And the irony is that neither candidate will have a solution, because they both are willing participants in the madness. What do you think the family who just lost their house is thinking, or the single parent mother who has two jobs, making about $6.00 an hour at each of them to feed her family. They must feel like ponds or fodder for political speeches and promises. "Verbal diarrhea", as my former college professor calls it.

Given that we are at the lowest level of trust of government since the 1930's, why should we believe Obama or McCain. Obama said yesterday to an audience in middle America;"I will wake up each and every morning thinking about each and everyone of you". How narcissistic can you get. How about each and everyone of you should be thinking about how you can help each other. When Obama spends 52 million dollars to get elected and McCain spends $25 million, that should not make Obama's chances of getting elected better, it should send a clear message to all Americans to "stop the insanity"!

Corruption for the Enrichment of a few.

A guest blog by Bruce Stewart

Corruption has stolen the future of millions of people- Mohan Nepali, Nepal

In Zentrepreneurism and on this blog, Allan Holender has discussed the Enron story, a story of deliberate deception and corruption for the enrichment of a few. In the wake of the collapse of this company, the US Congress passed highly restrictive laws known as Sarbanes-Oxley (after the legislation’s sponsors) designed to ensure another such event could not occur. Anyone investing their hard won savings in a firm regulated in the United States by virtue of being traded on an American investment market would be safe and secure.

Here we are, six years later, and the Enron story unfolds again, only this time in the public sector. Benjamin Franklin reported, as the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, that the framers had built “a republic, if you can keep it”. Apparently keeping to even the shade of the republic is no longer the purpose of those in public life. Instead, the American people have been made milch cows to serve at the pleasure of their corporatist and political masters.

Somehow, “making the Hamptons safe for Wall Street profits” doesn’t ring quite as nobly as “making the world safe for democracy”, although that is precisely what is going on under Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, with the connivance of the President and the US Congress. When President Bush signed into law the “bail out my friends in the name of saving the American homeowner” legislation on Wednesday, July 30 — a 7.00am signing, indicating even he knew how distasteful and subversive of America this is — another large railway spike in the coffin of the Republic was banged home.

While some Zentrepreneurial efforts may well grow to be enterprises of substance, most Zentrepreneurs will build businesses that support their life. They will be scaled to be small and local, where they can ensure their principles are not subverted. To burden people like these with the costs of bailing out the trillions in unfunded liabilities associated with the looting of America in the credit bubble and the bailout of the very institutions that inflated that bubble to a global crisis is to make a mockery of their efforts to build a better world for themselves and those they love.

One might, of course, say “well, that’s America”. Alas, Canada has no shortage of larceny, either: in the country in the G8 that runs trade surpluses, current account surpluses and has a pristine central bank balance sheet with twice the reserves required under the current international regime, Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, has decided to follow the Federal Reserve into the game of contaminating the national currency backing with the liar loan derivatives that have fractured the American banking system. Does Canada or its financial institutions need this? No: but Carney “wanted to be useful”. In doing so, his behaviour corrupted something Canadians count on to be honest, fair and right.

Zentrepreneurs, in other words, have more to look out for than just the achievement of their dreams. These days, the moral framework of the Zentrepreneur is needed more than ever, in a society that wants no part of truth, right action or good behaviour on the part of its officials.

Bruce Stewart is an author, speaker, and futurist who wrote the forward to "Zentrepreneurism". You can visit his website at www.accendor.com

People Don't Elect Presidents

It has finally sunk in. After watching "Recount" last night with Kevin Spacey, I have come to a conclusion I had realized for many years since the Florida debacle, that indeed people do not elect Presidents in America, political machines do. And so another myth shot down, just as I along with so many others after watching Obama's speech at the Democratic Convention were buoyed by the young freshman senator. There were more "dirty tricks" in that movie last night than through the entire presidency of Richard Nixon.

But alas since the front runners for the Democratic nomination began to empty their pockets to the equivalent of most people's lifetime of earnings, I began to get this sickening feeling that it was a horse race being run not on the basis of who would make the best President but who can raise enough money to become the media favourite.

And now here we are at the post again, and this time it's a two horse race. Here is the bet on favourite according to some political race pundits, Obama. Why because he has $400 million dollars and McCain has a mere $200 million. Some suggested that in the last days of Hillary, she was offered $22 milllion by Obama's team to pay off some of her political debts.

There were more foreclosures in America this year than at any other time in American history. The working poor in America are at an all time high. 30 million Americans make no more than $5.15 an hour. Gas is closing in on $5 a gallon. The war in Iraq has now killed more American soldiers than VietNam and George W. wants another $ 70 billion to stay the course. Is it no wonder that American television networks have turned to reality t.v. to escape the sheer insanity going on in supposedly the world's most progressive and democratic country.

So you tell me, is the American President elected or annointed by the 34,750 lobbyists in Washington, DC, the major corporate players who have the power and money to call the shots, and who conceivably make up 90% of the $400 million dollars needed to win. Or is it Joe Citizen in Newark New Jersey making $5.15 at the 7 Eleven who can't even own a house let alone buy one to foreclose. Does his vote count, does his $20 basic membership contribution count, or is it just smoke and mirrors when Obama and McCain get up in front of an audience and say "We believe in change, we believe in every American's right to the American dream, we believe in the power of the people. And just to hedge their bet, if you notice they end with a little help from above; " And May God Bless America".

The Dalai Lama in his book "How to See Yourself as You Really Are" says; "In the past attempts have been made to create more just and equal societies. Institutions have been established with noble charters to combat antisocial forces. Unfortunately, such efforts have been undermined by selfishness and greed. Today we bear witness to the way ethics and noble principles are obscured by self-interest in the political sphere. Politics devoid of ethics does not further human welfare, and life without morality reduces humans to the level of beasts. This leads some of us to refrain from politics altogether, but politics is not axiomatically dirty. Rather, the misguided instruments of our political culture have distorted our high ideals and noble aspirations".

IMPORTANT NEWS RELEASE

For immediate release


Can Zentrepreneurism revolutionize the way we do business in the 21st Century? A group of passionate Entrepreneurs think so and have decided to lead the way...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


July 12, 2008, Vancouver, BC — Allan Holender, Founder of Zentrepreneurism today announced the establishment of the World Wide Association of Zentrepreneurs

Zentrepreneurism is surfacing across a wide spectrum of successful, purposeful businesses. Many individuals have tried different things and are looking for meaning in their work: work that has integrity and purpose. Social entrepreneurs are exploding across North America and are looking to solve social problems on a larger scale, giving birth to zentrepreneurs who are aligning their personal values with their professional goals. Allan Holender's new book, Zentrepreneurism: A 21st Century Guide to The New World Of Business provides just that.

Zentrepreneurism is about making a fundamental shift in the way North America does business, as well as a swing towards a new era of 'enlightened capitalism', where the chief "embezzlement" officer is being replaced by the chief "enlightenment" officer. Baby boomers are awakening to the growing prevalence of innovation and altruism that is emerging and how they can incorporate this into their business lives. And according to Zentrepreneurism, leading market research companies are predicting that Generation X-ers might become the next Zen-ers.

"We have a situation where we don't trust our government or our capitalist system, and the level of distrust right now is probably unparalleled since the 1930's." according to Charles Lewis, founder of the Centre for Public Integrity. The "American Dream" has become, its worst nightmare, with the shrinking of the middle class and 30 million Americans earning $5.15 an hour. The relentless pursuit of money, "bling", success, and power has led North Americans to unhappiness, greed, and emptiness, with the burning question; "Is that all there is"?

"People are expecting more from the companies they're working for and more from the companies they're doing business with and more from the companies they're buying from", says Sydney Finkelstein, Professor of Strategy and Leadership Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business.

By fostering this new era for business, author Allan Holender feels that Western businesses and business people have already begun to implement Eastern philosophies in their search for more meaningful work. It is now a matter of spreading this revolutionary idea world wide. In his book Holender shares the stories of a number of business people who are already doing this, and the impact their newfound practices are having on their lives. According to Holender, "The fusion of one's personal vision with one's professional mission grounded in activism and a holistic philosophy will hallmark the next hundred years."

You can join the world wide movement by signing up yourself and inviting others by going to the following link: http://tinyurl.com/5obm24

CONTACT INFORMATION:


Allan Holender
Centre for Zentrepreneurism
Founder & Chairman
e: allan@zentrepreneurism.com
w: Worldwide Association of Zentrepreneurs

PANGEA DAY JOINS AUDIENCES AROUND THE WORLD

Audiences around the globe join for short films, speeches and one big drum circle.
By Steve Appleford, Special to The Times
May 12, 2008

There was a message in the drumbeats. The final moments of the first international Pangea Day event on Saturday were big on symbolism, as seven drummers of varied cultures were linked via satellite from Stage 15 at Sony Studios to an international drum circle scattered across the planet.

There were drummers from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, South America and elsewhere, all beating as one during a worldwide broadcast designed to encourage peace and understanding. Pangea Day was a four-hour program of short films, live music and brief messages of hope, humor and sadness, named for the prehistoric super-continent
"By sharing stories, we have begun the process of turning strangers into friends," filmmaker Jehane Noujaim told the U.S. studio audience in Culver City on the same soundstage where Dorothy and Toto once danced down the Yellow Brick Road. Noujaim had conceived of the idea of a multinational film festival broadcast, and it was supported through a prize from the annual TED Conference, a gathering of creative thinkers in science and culture.

The emphasis was on storytelling. The first film, "The Ball" from Mozambique, was a lighthearted short piece about African children building a soccer ball out of an inflated condom and yarn, while making a subtle message about sexually transmitted disease. It was followed by a film from Los Angeles, "A Thousand Words" by Ted Chung, which suggested the power of snapshots discovered on a found digital camera. Other films offered vivid scenes of sadness and contemplation, of joy and tragedy: a lonely French woman on the Metro, children at a Chad refugee camp. In "Walleyball" by Brent Hoff, Mexicans and Americans played an international game of volleyball by using the border fence as a net.

Worldwide

Sitting in the Culver City audience was film producer Lawrence Bender, whose "An Inconvenient Truth" had its own global reach.

"It sounds a little airy-fairy, but the world is such a tough place right now," said Bender, a TED Conference regular and a Pangea Day advisor. "We kind of need something like this event."

The program was broadcast in seven languages. The live audience at Sony was about 1,200, joining crowds of 2,000 each in London, Rio de Janeiro, the Great Pyramids of Egypt, Mumbai, India, and Kigali, Rwanda, with smaller gatherings in other cities. At Sony, there were big video screens and a news ticker that listed a roll call of the cities and small towns participating (Each of the films and a one-hour highlight show was put up on the web at pangeaday.org right after the broadcast.)

Actress and Pangea presenter Cameron Diaz, in her dressing room after presenting an animated, environmentally themed short, said she hoped the event's message would spread.

"Hopefully, all the people watching from different locations will see how they're connected," she said. "We're not separate. There's nothing that happens on this planet that doesn't affect all of us. Our choices every day will affect somebody on the other side of the world."

A communal feeling was the goal. In Los Angeles, hosts asked audience members to shake the hand of the person next to them. Among the presenters was Queen Noor of Jordan, who said, "We must learn from each other's stories."

Among the most surprising and uplifting films was about the "laughter clubs" of India, headed by Dr. Madan Kataria, who hopes to establish 1 million of these clubs across the world. On Saturday, he and actress Goldie Hawn led the audience in several moments of roaring laughter across the planet. "When you laugh, you change," Kataria told the crowd. "And when you change, the whole world changes around you."

The central focus of the broadcast was the power of film to communicate beyond borders and misunderstanding, but live music also played a meaningful role.

In Brazil, musician and activist Gilberto Gil stood alone with a guitar, as many on Stage 15 and elsewhere clapped and sang along. Rokia Traore of Mali performed her gentle, lilting vocals from London, accompanied by cascading harp melodies.

In harmony

At Sony, there was the modern riff-rock of Hypernova, a Los Angeles-based act of Iranian rockers. And later, Eurythmics co-founder Dave Stewart led a large band through a pair of songs. He was joined by hip-hop singer Nadirah X, whose urgent words of dissatisfaction were set against Stewart's guitar and a string section.

When it was finally over, Noujaim looked ecstatic and a little drained as she hugged friends and collaborators. TED curator and key Pangea organizer Chris Anderson admitted to tears as he watched the worldwide drum circle. World peace was still out of reach, but they expected to be back with another Pangea Day in two more years.

Pangea Day Saturday May 10th

Next Saturday, May 10, 2008, is Pangea Day!

The program on Pangea Day, May 10, is a celebration of the power of film to unite us all. You'll see films that are funny -- sad -- gorgeous -- stark -- powerful. Voices that have never been heard before. Things you've never seen. Scenes from worlds you didn't know existed. A cross-section of our amazing, complicated, noisy, beautiful world. Tune in or find a viewing party to watch on May 10, 2008, at 6:00 PM GMT. Click here to find the many ways to watch.

And once you've seen inside so many other lives, we hope, you'll be moved to act. To become involved in a pressing issue -- to share your own video or photos -- to join a discussion that might move the world a bit further toward understanding.

Join us on Pangea Day!

http://www.pangeaday.org/

SMALL IS SUCCESSFUL

A growing number of businesses discover that getting big is not the best measure of accomplishment.

Jay Walljasper | July/August 2007 Ode issue

In April 17, 2000, Gary Erickson was about to fulfill the wildest hopes of any business entrepreneur. That morning he drove to the Berkeley office of Clif Bar, a company he'd founded eight years earlier, and got ready to sign papers selling it to food giant Quaker Oats for $120 million. Erickson would take home half that: a cool $60 million.

It was a remarkable rags-to-riches story for a guy who at age 33 was living in his parents' garage and making less than $10,000 a year when he envisioned a more wholesome energy snack. An avid outdoors enthusiast, he hit upon the idea on the last stretch of a one-day, 175-mile bike ride as he realized he couldn't stomach another bite of energy bars that tasted like cardboard. His initial investment was $1,000, and R and D was done in his mom's kitchen. He named the product for his dad.

But rather than feeling on top of the world about this dream deal, Erickson was uneasy. "I stood in the office waiting to go out and sign the contract," he recounts in his book Raising the Bar. "Out of nowhere, I started to shake and couldn't breathe." He told his business partner that he needed to get some air. Outside in the parking lot, he broke down in tears. And then it hit him as he began to walk around the block: "I don't have to do this.


"I began to laugh, feeling free," he writes. "I turned around, went back to the office and told my partner, 'Send them home. I can't sell the company.'"

What possessed Gary Erickson to turn his back on millions of dollars and throw away a golden opportunity for his company to get big? He was bucking all the business trends. Many of the outspoken and Jerry's, The Body Shop, Stonyfield Farms, Green and Black's chocolate, Tom's of Maine and Aveda eventually sold to corporate conglomerates. And even the brash young Internet companies, which trumpet their independence as a badge of hipness, are conceived with the intention of being gobbled up soon by Google or another huge firm.

***

Erickson stubbornly clung to the idea of guiding Clif Bar according to his own vision, not the business-as-usual paradigm of rapid expansion fueled by massive outside investment.

"If we had sold to Quaker Oats, we would just be another bar on the shelf," Erickson explains, sitting at a small desk in his surprisingly modest office that looks out on the sidewalk where he made the fateful decision. "We would not have an environmental program; we would not have given $1.2 million last year to charity in money and products. We would not have gone organic. No one working here would even be here now."

Saying no to conventional-style growth has made Clif Bar a stronger brand, showing that small is not only beautiful but successful. The company now features numerous new energy snacks and has grown 20 percent in each of the last two years.

But that is not what Erickson likes to brag about. He shows more excitement talking about Clif Bar's shift to mostly organic ingredients; the Lunafest women's film festival they sponsor in 120 U.S. cities; company vehicles that run on biofuels; the cutting-edge sustainable architecture at the headquarters they are set to build; public-education efforts to address global warming; ample opportunities for staff to volunteer at favourite charities on company time and a work environment that includes a lavish on-site gym, personal trainers, massages and-since the Clif Bar wrapper features a mountaineer-a climbing wall.

Mo Siegel, founder of Celestial Seasonings, who sold his tea company to Kraft at a huge profit, once heard Erickson telling the story of Clif Bar's aborted sale and asked, "Can we switch places?"

Clif Bar is not the only thriving company choosing to grow its own way rather than follow the "get big or get out" ideology of global business that has led to Wal-Mart accounting for almost 10 percent of U.S. retail sales and some corporations accumulating economic output higher than that of some nations. Even if you don't read about them in the business press, most companies today measure success in some way other than ever-increasing sales and profits. They don't reject growth per se, but simply decide that the usual tools to achieve it-bringing in big-time investors, selling publicly traded shares or franchising the business-don't fit with their missions and values.

Even in the booming, turbo-charged Internet sector, there are companies that refuse to play by the usual rules. Facebook, a hot social-networking site launched in 2004 by a Harvard sophomore and now based in Silicon Valley, has reputedly turned down a $750 million offer from Viacom and a billion from Yahoo. "I am here to build something for the long term," founder Mark Zuckerberg has declared. "Anything else is a distraction."

Some companies have been doing business this way for centuries. Bob de Kuyper, chairman of the internationally known distillery that bears his name, meets regularly with private equity firms that are interested in buying him out. "Such discussions are always useful in terms of contacts," De Kuyper says. But he knows the outcome in advance. The gin distiller and liqueur producer located in the Dutch city of Schiedam has been in the same family since 1695. "And our strategy aims to keep it that way," he adds. His family business produces some 80 different alcoholic beverages that are exported all over the world. With around 100 employees, the company reports annual turnover of 60 million euros ($80 million ) "and a substantial return we're proud of."

De Kuyper questions the alleged advantages of getting big through acquisitions or capital injections from outside investors. "Growth is nice and important, but constant fast growth is nonsense," he says, pointing out that benefits of scale can also be achieved without mergers and acquisitions-such as the joint venture De Kuyper entered into with other drink producers to invest jointly in a bottling plant.

So many businesses are now adopting this idea of growing on their own terms that it amounts to an emerging economic movement, according to Don Shaffer, executive director of the Business Alliance of Local Living Economies (BALLE, www.livingeconomies.org), which coordinates 52 networks of local businesses in North America, encompassing 15,000 entrepreneurs. "We believe that a strong base of locally owned businesses in a place is good for democracy, for the community and for the economy," he says. "Staying small is no longer just a romantic ideal, or a niche market. It's a viable way of doing business."

Shaffer points to New Seasons Market, which operates eight natural-food stores in Portland, Oregon. "They have been encouraged many times to expand to other cities and become the next Whole Foods. But they're not interested; they want to invest their energies at home. Many businesses are now defining success differently."

As co-owner of San Francisco-based Comet Skateboards, Shaffer walks his talk as a businessman. "We have ambitions to be the best company in the business, not the biggest," he says, noting how Comet's skateboards are carefully designed for top performance and made from Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood, ensuring it was ecologically harvested. "We consciously decided we were looking for just a segment of the skateboard audience-the enthusiasts that know quality in skateboards and care about sustainability. We're still small but we're excited by the loyalty we're getting from our audience."

While companies like these seem to defy the fundamental economic realities of our age, Shaffer responds that BALLE's membership has tripled in the last 18 months due to mounting interest in finding a different way to do business. The group is now making connections to similar networks that have popped up recently in other countries, such as Sur Norte in Argentina. "This is a new approach to entrepreneurship for the 21st century," he predicts.

***

If there truly is a "small is beautiful" revolution underway in business today, it first erupted in San Francisco around the same time hippies were emerging as a cultural force in the soon-to-be-famous Haight-Ashbury district. But while hippies saw LSD as the substance that would change the world, this revolution began with beer.

Fritz Maytag, owner of Anchor Brewery, remembers, "It was 1965 and the brewery was bankrupt. It was going to close on Friday and I bought it on that Wednesday." At the time, small breweries were dying out all across America, with no one giving it much thought. Their beer was considered inferior to huge brands like Budweiser and Miller, which had shiny new industrial facilities and millions to spend on advertising. But Anchor was, as Maytag saw it, "a beloved San Francisco institution," noted for its Steam brand beer which had a taste distinct from the lackluster lager beers flooding the American market.

Maytag, who had recently graduated with a degree in Japanese from Stanford University, and was heir to a washing-machine company, set about studying European brewing traditions and gradually improved his beer to the point that that drinkers would pay the same price for Anchor Steam as for Guinness, Heineken and other fancy imports. This made Anchor America's first microbrew-which helped touch off an explosion of high-quality artisan breads, cheese, wine and other goods from small producers dedicated to the principle that bigger is not necessarily better. The tables have turned since 1965, and today the burden of proof in some industries is on large companies to prove their products are as good as those coming from small ones.

"I like things small," Maytag explains. "I didn't want to sell my company to outsiders in order to finance a bigger brewery. In a small company, everyone knows each other. That has its advantages."

Then, almost on cue, Maytag stops and points through his office window, which looks out on the copper brewing kettles imported from Germany. "Look over there; it's overflowing. They don't notice it yet." He waits a moment, ready to rush out and draw attention to the problem, but then seeing a worker bring the situation under control, he returns to our conversation. In how many big companies can the president spot a problem on the production line? "But how do you stay small?" Maytag continues. "No one asks that question."

***

Bo Burlingham, longtime editor at Inc. magazine, addresses that issue in his book Small Giants, which studies 13 companies that have decided "to be great instead of big." They range from countercultural outposts like Zingerman's food companies in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and singer Ani DiFranco's Righteous Babe records in Buffalo, New York, to very straight enterprises like ECCO in Boise, Idaho, which manufactures warning lights for commercial vehicles.

What makes these companies special in Burlingham's eyes, beyond a record of clear financial success and a conscious decision not to pursue growth for growth's sake, is a quality of infectious enthusiasm he calls "mojo." They aren't just pumping out product in the name of ever-rising quarterly profit goals, he writes, "they had a buzz. There was excitement, anticipation, a feeling of movement, a sense of purpose. That happens, I think, when people find themselves totally in synch with their market, with the world and with each other." He questions whether "mojo" is possible in a big operation.

Burlingham also detects something else in these organizations that accounts for their unlikely success-a "feeling of intimacy" that fosters strong connections with their customers, with their suppliers, with the communities where they are based and, most important, within the workplaces themselves. All of this would be difficult to replicate in larger companies.

***

Small, however, remains a controversial idea in the business world, even among those who advocate that companies must have a sense of social responsibility:

Gary Hirshberg, president of sustainable business leader Stonyfield Farm, has absolutely no regrets about selling his yogurt company to the French multinational Groupe Danone in 2001 (see sidebar). "Being larger made our dreams come true," he says. "We are giving millions more to our Profits for the Planet charitable programs. And we are supporting tens of thousands of acres of organic production around the world."

Peter Barnes, co-founder of the socially responsible pioneer Working Assets and author of Capitalism 3.0, doesn't see that reducing the scale of businesses solves the core problems with our economy today. "There are always a few people who will buck the tide, but that shouldn't be confused that with systemic change. The tide is still there. Something in the operating system of capitalism today requires companies, especially publicly traded companies, to maximize profits. So we have to look at changing that operating system so we can save the commons, save the planet."

Marjorie Kelly, founder of Business Ethics magazine and author of The Divine Right of Capital, is not ready to give up on larger businesses, feeling that they can drive positive changes in the economy. But she admits that the push to get bigger constantly instills a dangerous short-term economic mentality: "Studies show four out of five business executives will ignore business fundamentals to meet some short-term goals. The situation has been set up so that now seems normal."

Even Fritz Maytag himself, despite his stature as father of the microbrew revolution, refuses to speak as a prophet of smallness. He's full of praise for big companies, noting the great innovations that they've made in management practises and overall production quality. "There's no doubt that big is the modern way," he notes. "If you make something well, and you sell more and more of it, the price goes down and the profits go up."

Surprised at this, I ask if he regrets staying small at Anchor. "Not at all," he answers. Maytag certainly had the chance to expand the business dramatically in the 1980s when it couldn't produce enough beer to meet the demand. "I often say we were saved by the bell," he says with a grin. "We welcomed all the new microbreweries that came in and took the pressure off of us to grow." Today Anchor brews eight top-quality beers amounting to 85,000 barrels a year with about 50 full-time employees, up from 600 barrels in 1965 but considerably less than some other microbreweries.

Maytag's smile widens as he tells me about his more recent business forays. In a corner of the brewery's basement is a tiny distillery making whiskey (Old Portrero), gin (Junipero) and a recent experiment with the Italian liqueur grappa. Maytag and his staff's effort to revive traditional rye whiskey-America's leading drink throughout the 19th century-has sparked a small rye renaissance in barrooms across the country, much as they did with richer-tasting beer 30 years ago. Maytag also runs a winery across the street in an old soy sauce factory. He seems irrevocably drawn to starting modestly scaled operations.

Although Maytag firmly resists making broad pronouncements about the virtues of small business, his own personal observations are nonetheless persuasive. "I think its more fun this way. I have found being small a joy," he says, with a note of reverie in his voice. "It's like having a good team. You get to know your teammates and how everyone can help each other do their best. That wouldn't feel the same with 1,000 players on the field."

Tibetan unrest spreads despite massive show of force by China

Up to 80 protesters killed during rioting, aides to Dalai Lama say

Aileen Mccabe, Canwest News Service
Published: Monday, March 17, 2008

SHANGHAI -- A massive show of strength by Chinese security officials appears to have restored an eerie calm in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, but the Dalai Lama said Sunday he feared the Chinese were intent on "cultural genocide" in Tibet.

Meanwhile, the anti-China protests spilled over into neighbouring Sichuan province Sunday, where there is a large Tibetan population. The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said it had confirmed reports of eight deaths in Ngaba County "after armed troops shot indiscriminately into the peacefully protesting Tibetans."

It also reported a second day of protests by ethnic Tibetans in Lanzhou, in China's northwestern Gansu province. Aides to the Tibetan spiritual leader told reporters their unconfirmed reports put the death count from Friday's rioting in Lhasa eight times higher than the 10 "innocent civilian" deaths the Chinese government is acknowledging. The Dalai Lama said he had "grave concerns" about what really happened when Buddhist monks and their supporters clashed with the Chinese security forces on Friday.


The Dalai Lama called China's response to protests in Tibet 'cultural genocide.'

Speaking from his headquarters in Dharamshala, India, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate told reporters: "Whether intentionally or not, cultural genocide is taking place" in Tibet.

He said the Chinese "simply rely on using force to simulate peace, a peace brought by force using a rule of terror."

The holy man pleaded for an international investigation into Friday's riots in the vast Himalayan state.

The Chinese, meanwhile, continued to insist "a handful of monks" -- the "Dalai clique" -- incited the violence and is responsible for the deaths of innocent shopkeepers and hotel workers. They maintain security forces handled the dangerous situation appropriately.

Chinese troops moved to tackle more unrest in ethnic Tibetan enclaves today, as a deadline loomed for "troublemakers" who took part in protests in Lhasa.

"We are completely capable of protecting the security of the Tibet people. Right now the overall situation in Tibet is very good," the mayor of Lhasa, Doje Cezhug, said from Beijing, in remarks posted on the Tibet government's website.

Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, said senior official Sun Qian laid the blame for the unrest on a "scheme premeditated by the Dalai clique to separate Tibet from China and sabotage the normal, harmonious and peaceful life of people in Tibet."

Reuters reported that Wu Shuangzhan, commander of the People's Armed Police, said Sunday: "I can honestly tell you that none of the means we have adopted (in Lhasa) have exceeded the constitutional rights of the armed forces or international law."

Human rights groups around the world are skeptical. There are unconfirmed accounts of security forces using tear gas, cattle prods, live bullets and brute force to quell the demonstrations that began last Monday with a peaceful march by monks commemorating the 49th anniversary of a failed anti-Chinese demonstration in Tibet.

Reporters are not allowed into Tibet without special permission from Beijing and most of the foreign tourists who were providing eyewitness accounts of events earlier in the week have now been convinced by authorities to leave.

Up to 80 protesters killed during rioting, aides to Dalai Lama say
Aileen Mccabe, Canwest News Service
Published: Monday, March 17, 2008
Tour operators say existing travel permits have been cancelled and tourists are no longer allowed to enter the region.

The Chinese Communists annexed Tibet in 1951 and since then have systematically moved Han Chinese into the mountainous region in what many see as an attempt to wipe out dissent among the native population.

There have been short stories in the Chinese media about demonstrations by the "Dalai Lama clique," saying the situation is now under control and state TV showed pictures of people cleaning up the debris on otherwise deserted streets in Lhasa.



Around the world, leaders have called on China to exercise restraint in Tibet and in several countries demonstrators have marched in sympathy with the Lhasa monks.

The reaction is exactly what Beijing does not want to see as it counts down to the opening of the Olympic Games in August.

The Beijing Games have taken on an importance here far beyond their value as a sporting event.

They are supposed to be China's "coming-out party," as the newly prosperous nation wants to reposition itself in the world and show itself off as a modern forward-looking state. And the last thing it wants is renewed concern over its human rights record to overshadow its "re-launch."

Islamic Institution Turns Basic Banking Principles Upside Down

Craig and Marc Kielburger, Special to the Sun
Published: Monday, March 17, 2008

Pervez Nasim may look like an average businessman with his collared shirt, pressed slacks and neatly groomed beard, but when you begin to discuss finances with him it quickly becomes apparent that the similarities end there.

"Maximizing profit is not the most important," he tells us. "Charity and social responsibility are part and parcel with the bottom line."

Nasim is the Chairman of the Ansar Co-operative Housing Corp., a Toronto-based financial institution that strictly adheres to the rules of Islam. He's part of a rapidly growing faith-based financial industry that is turning the basic principles of banking upside down.

From North America to Asia, hundreds of Islamic-inspired banks offer interest-free services that emphasize charity and community over profit, in accordance with the Koran. Once found only in pockets of the Muslim world, growing Islamic wealth and a return to religious values has helped these banks multiply, skyrocketing them to a worth of $200 billion worldwide. "Your thinking has to change," Nasim says of Islamic banks. "Your focus has to change."

With interest forbidden by the Muslim holy book, Ansar turned to an approach that appears similar to a secular co-op, but like other Islamic business models, is rooted in religious beliefs. It purchases homes on behalf of customers, who then pay it back over time by buying shares in the company. Customers live in the homes and pay rent during the process, splitting any gain or loss in the home's value with Ansar.

"The whole Islamic concept of finance is sharing the risk and benefit together," Nasim says. "This is a community organization."

Since 1981 Ansar has sold 700 homes across the country. Despite not being able to charge interest, its success rate is nearly perfect. Nasim says the company only had trouble collecting its money once. He chalks this up to the fact that customers are driven by faith as much as they are by finances.

Ansar has been so successful that it now receives calls from financial institutions in the U.S., Australia and even Saudi Arabia looking to copy it.

Along the way, Ansar has not wavered from what Nasim calls another major tenant of Islamic banking -- social consciousness. It has regular investors looking to help first-time homebuyers, and when one of its customers died in a car accident while paying off his home, the co-op waived its remaining fees for four months to allow his wife to grieve.

"If there is a genuine need, it is our responsibility to help," Nasim explains. "As human beings, we have to look after each other and help each other."

Islamic banks are also careful not to invest in anything deemed unethical by the Koran, such as gambling or alcohol. Ansar soon hopes to invest in a senior citizens' home.

Nasim says the principles of Islamic banking used to draw laughter from those in mainstream banks, but with an annual growth rate topping 10 to 15 per cent, no one laughs any more. In fact, HSBC and other major banks are jumping on board and have opened their own Islamic financial institutions around the world. With stories of people losing their homes amid an impending recession in the United States, alternatives like this one will only become more attractive.

"It's sad," Nasim says of the U.S. mortgage crisis. "On a corporate level, they are on a different planet."

At the moment Ansar is open only to Muslims, a rule Nasim says is in place to cut down on fickle customers only looking to get a good deal on a house. That may change though, as Muslims and non-Muslims alike become increasingly committed to finding ethical ways of investing their money.

"There is a lot of opportunity [in Canada]," Nasim explains. "It's just a matter of time."


Craig and Marc Kielburger co-founded Free the Children. The primary goal of the organization is to free children from poverty and exploitation through education.

http://www.freethechildren.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

YOU TUBE ACCESS BLOCKED IN CHINA

AFP
Published: Monday, March 17, 2008

Access to YouTube in China was denied on Sunday after footage of recent deadly protests in Tibet appeared on the video posting site.

Attempts to call up the site met with a blank screen and an error message saying the web page could not be displayed.

The access problems came after video clips began appearing on the site showing violent unrest in the Tibetan capital Lhasa that triggered a virtual lockdown of the city by security forces.



Chinese riot police march through the city of Kangding, located around 400 kilometres (250 miles) west of Chengdu in Sichuan Province March 17, 2008. Chinese officials declared a "people's war" of security and propaganda against support for the Dalai Lama in Tibet after the worst unrest in the region for two decades racked the regional capital Lhasa over the past few days.


China, which strictly controls access to information, has kept a tight lid on news out of Lhasa, with foreign journalists being denied access and foreign tourists ordered out of the city.

The only footage broadcast by state-run media so far has been a short clip showing Tibetan rioters in the city destroying Chinese shops, but nothing has been released on the resulting crackdown by police.

China's official death count puts the toll at 10, but the India-based Tibetan government-in-exile says at least 80 deaths have been confirmed.

China also has been regularly blacking out the domestic feed of CNN whenever it runs a story about the Tibet unrest.

Access to popular Chinese-language video posts such as tudou.com were operational on Sunday but a search for videos of the Tibet violence came back with no results.

In late January, China introduced new restrictions on posting online video that critics saw as an extension of the Communist Party's tight noose on the nation's media outlets.

Amid China's information clampdown, the Internet has provided a rare window into the situation, with amateur video and pictures

Take Action: Tell your Congressional Representative to Support Tibet!

In Lhasa, the Chinese authorities have issued a notice to Tibetans who have taken part in demonstrations to give themselves up by midnight on Monday, March 17th. Not waiting for the deadline however, armed Chinese police have been conducting house-to-house searches and making arbitrary arrests. There is no reliable estimate of the number of detentions but reports suggest wide-scale raids and arrests across Lhasa. A curfew is now in place in Lhasa and the city is completely sealed off.

China's brutal clampdown on Tibetans continues as protests have spread throughout the country.

Please take immediate action by sending the letter below to your congressional representative urging him/her to speak out in support of Tibetans inside Tibet.

Dear [ Decision Maker ],


(Edit Letter Below)

As protests spread throughout Tibet, I am gravely concerned about China's continued brutal repression of Tibetans.

The Chinese authorities in Lhasa have threatened an increased crackdown after midnight Monday (12 noon EST) and according to Chinese state-run media, "Those who harbor or hide criminal elements shall be punished severely according to law upon completion of investigations."

Already, armed Chinese police have been conducting house-to-house searches and making arbitrary arrests. There is no reliable estimate of the number of detentions but reports suggest wide-scale raids and arrests across Lhasa. According to eyewitness reports received by the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, "mothers and elderlies in the families helplessly plea at security forces upon seeing their sons and loved ones being beaten and dragged away."

Please, I am urging you to speak up for Tibet:

1) The U.S. should speak out forcefully against China's brutal crackdown in Tibet.

2) The U.S. government should strongly support the Dalai Lama's call for a United Nations team of investigators to go to Tibet as soon as possible.

3) The U.S. should do everything in its capacity to urge China to withdraw military and security forces, release those detained, and allow peaceful protest. China must halt house-to-house searches; and authorities must refrain from any further arrests of Tibetan protesters even after its so-called surrender deadline has passed on Monday at midnight. China must immediately allow foreign journalists back into all Tibetan areas (Tibetan Autonomous Region as well as the Tibetan areas of Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan).

For five decades, the Tibetan people have suffered greatly under China's brutal rule. The Chinese government has swamped Tibet with Chinese settlers, poured money into mega-infrastructure projects like the railway that solidify its control, and ruthlessly attacked Tibetan culture and religion. As the Olympics approach and the world's eyes turn to Beijing, this outpouring of frustration is the natural consequence of China's ongoing repression in Tibet.

Please speak out now to help ensure that further violence against Tibetans is stopped.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your address

ZENTREPRENEURISM IN PAPERBACK

Good news for all Zenners and Zenners in waiting. Zentrepreneurism, the new groundbreaking book that is rocking the business world is now available in paperback at www.amazon.com.


"I love your book, thanks for sending me a copy.

"I'm delighted to be called a"zenner" and have been for quite a few years now. My company "weapons of mass entertainment" has many entrepeneurial ventures in the works all of which will impact the planet in a positive way. I'm pleased to announce that after working hand in hand with Greenpeace we are now going into business together and in fact they are moving into my offices to share our space and business ideas together."

I hope the book launch goes well and that many of you get the same buzz I got when reading it. Life is too short to mess around doing other stuff...start zenning today


David A. Stewart
President
Weapons Of Mass Entertainment

MAKING THE GOLDEN YEARS SHINE

Why the baby boom generation should be itching to reinvent retirement.

Marc Freedman | November 2007 issue of Ode Magazine www.odemagazine.com

A fit, handsome sixty-something couple stretches out on a sandy beach. Another silver-haired pair steers a sailboat toward the sunset. A grey-templed golfer watches his drive soar down the fairway. This life of relaxation and luxury, in which every day is one big happy holiday, has long been a powerful part of the American dream of retirement. Depicted in so many advertisements for pension plans and retirement communities, these scenes have become an indelible feature of the landscape.

But wait a minute: Who looks forward to endless retirement anymore, 30 years of R and R? Who can afford it—even with the most diligent savings plan? For reasons of money and meaning, the golden-years vision being peddled by the financial and real estate industries is already obsolete. Stretched from a justified period of relaxation after the mid-life years into a phase lasting just as long, this version of retirement has been distorted into something grotesque, something that no longer works for individuals—or for society.

In the next couple of decades, more and more people will hit the traditional retirement age and become eligible for social benefits. This trend has experts worried: Soon a quarter (or more) of the population will be spending a third (or more) of the time in subsidized leisure, squeezing investments in education, environment and economy and threatening to bankrupt society as a whole. The prospect alone has led some pundits to predict that aging boomers will be remembered as a self-absorbed, self-serving horde of over-indulgers who used their votes and their dollars to shove their own interests to the forefront, posterity be damned.

But this troubling conclusion amounts to scenario-planning through the rear-view mirror. Retirement as we’ve known it is far from an eternal verity. In fact, it is already being displaced as the central institution of the second half of life, soon to be supplanted by a new stage of life and work opening up between the end of mid-life and the eventual arrival of true old age. Indeed, four out of five boomers consistently tell researchers they expect to work well into what used to be known as the retirement years.

The emerging trend toward extended productivity needs to be supported at every turn, as individuals seek to make ends meet over longer lifespans and societies seek to balance the fiscal ship. But we can go one important step further if we hope to make the most of the great gift of longevity. Aging boomers should be encouraged not only to continue contributing, but to rethink the purpose of that work—in short, to dust off their idealism of the ’60s and ’70s, and get to work making the world a better place.

It is the perfect opportunity for the generation that set out to change the world and got lost along the way. Now, as tens of millions of boomers careen toward what were once the golden years, I believe more and more people are interested in living out a distinct and compelling vision of contribution in the second half of adult life, one built around the ideal of an “encore career” at the intersection of continued income, new meaning and significant contribution to the greater good.

It is a dream with the potential to work for individuals, for employers, for our fiscal health and for the society at large. Never before have so many individuals had so much experience—and the time to put it to good use. While financial-service companies keep telling us the freedom from work will satisfy our desires, we’re better off looking for the freedom to work—in new ways, on new terms, to new and even more important ends.

Instead of accepting the notion of a career as an arc that rises in youth, peaks in mid-life, and declines into retirement, we stand poised to chart a new trajectory—one that for many will reach its apex of meaning and impact at a juncture when others in past generations were heading for the sidelines.

Marc Freedman is the founder and CEO of Civic Ventures, and author of Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life. For more information: www.encore.org

CAN ETHICS BE TAUGHT?

In a recent editorial, the Wall Street Journal announced that ethics courses are useless because ethics can't be taught. Although few people would turn to the Wall Street Journal as a learned expert on the teaching of ethics, the issue raised by the newspaper is a serious one: Can ethics be taught?

The issue is an old one. Almost 2500 years ago, the philosopher Socrates debated the question with his fellow Athenians. Socrates' position was clear: Ethics consists of knowing what we ought to do, and such knowledge can be taught.

Most psychologists today would agree with Socrates. In an overview of contemporary research in the field of moral development, psychologist James Rest summarized the major findings as follows:


Dramatic changes occur in young adults in their 20s and 30s in terms of the basic problem-solving strategies they use to deal with ethical issues.


These changes are linked to fundamental changes in how a person perceives society and his or her role in society.


The extent to which change occurs is associated with the number of years of formal educaton (college or professional school).


Deliberate educational attempts (formal curriculum) to influence awareness of moral problems and to influence the reasoning or judgement process have been demonstrated to be effective.


Studies indicate that a person's behavior is influenced by his or her moral perception and moral judgements.

Much of the research that Rest alludes to was carried on by the late Harvard psychologist, Lawrence Kohlberg. Kohlberg was one of the first people to look seriously at whether a person's ability to deal with ethical issues can develop in later life and whether education can affect that development.

Kohlberg found that a person's ability to deal with moral issues is not formed all at once. Just as there are stages of growth in physical development, the ability to think morally also develops in stages.

The earliest level of moral development is that of the child, which Kohlberg called the preconventional level. The person at the preconventional level defines right and wrong in terms of what authority figures say is right or wrong or in terms of what results in rewards and punishments. Any parent can verify this. Ask the four or five year old why stealing is wrong, and chances are that they'll respond: "Because daddy or mommy says it's wrong" or "Because you get spanked if you steal." Some people stay at this level all of their lives, continuing to define right and wrong in terms of what authorities say or in terms of reaping rewards or avoiding unpleasant consequences.

The second level of moral development is the level most adolescents reach. Kohlberg called this the conventional level. The adolescent at the conventional level has internalized the norms of those groups among whom he or she lives. For the adolescent, right and wrong are based on group loyalties: loyalties to one's family, loyalties to one's friends, or loyalty to one's nation. If you ask adolescents at this level why something is wrong or why it is right, they will tend to answer in terms of what their families have taught her, what their friends think, or what Americans believe. Many people remain at this level, continuing to define right and wrong in terms of what society believes or what laws require.

But if a person continues to develop morally, he or she will reach what Kohlberg labeled the postconventional level. The person at the postconventional level stops defining right and wrong in terms of group loyalties or norms. Instead, the adult at this level develops moral principles that define right and wrong from a universal point of view. The moral principles of the postconventional person are principles that would appeal to any reasonable person because they take everyone's interest into account. If you ask a person at the postconventional level why something is right or wrong, she will appeal to what promotes or doesn't promote the universal ideals of justice or human rights or human welfare.

Many factors can stimulate a person's growth through the three levels of moral development. One of the most crucial factors, Kohlberg found, is education. Kohlberg discovered that when his subjects took courses in ethics and these courses challenged them to look at issues from a universal point of view, they tended to move upward through the levels. This finding, as Rest points out, has been repeatedly supported by other researchers.

Can ethics be taught? If you look at the hard evidence psychologists have amassed, the answer is yes. If you read the Wall Street Journal, you wouldn't have thought so.

What do you think? Can ethics be taught? Would like to hear your thoughts. Please respond to this blog entry? Let's start a dialogue on this critical issue in the business world.

In Praise of Unreasonable People

A Book Review from Ode Magazine, March, 2008 www.odemagazine.com

John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan's new book, "The Power of Unreasonable People."

Spot the similarities. The Childline India Foundation offers a free hotline for the countless street kids of Mumbai, India. Sekem, a cluster of Egyptian companies that produce organic food and medicines, among other things, reported joint profits of $1.7 million in 2005. These initiatives appear to have little in common. The first is a charity run by volunteers and funded with donations; the second, a financially strong, profitable business that operates on the world market. Yet both fall into the category of “social entrepreneurship,” a broad term that encompasses organizations that offer goods and services­ of benefit to society.

Both Childline and Sekem (which reinvests its profits­ in the companies as well as in services for local communities) are described in The Power of Unreasonable People (Harvard Business School Press, 2008) by John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan, a chronicle of this emerging blend of activism and entrepreneurship.

It’s a fascinating look at the achievements, challenges and limitations of a relatively new field both authors know quite well. Elkington was one of the first and most prominent corporate sustainability advisers, while Hartigan is the managing director of Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, which has been active for 10 years selecting and supporting the most effective social enterprises.

The book’s title refers to an aphorism by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” In that context, the social entrepreneurs portrayed in the book are clearly unreasonable. They are unreasonable because they want to change the system, because they are insanely ambitious, because they aren’t guided by reason but emotion, because they think they know what the future will bring, because they will not listen to “no.” And that’s precisely why they’re so successful.

Elkington and Hartigan’s book offers an image of social entrepreneurs that is at times lyrical, then sobering. They can’t shower enough praise on the non-profits for their idealism, but claim the greatest impact comes from combining forces—at the very least—with the commercial sector. The authors believe the ideas that can be carried out and repeated on a large scale come from social enterprises that are allowed to make a profit. This explains the recent expansion of the Indian telephone support line to include the organization Aflatoun, which teaches children about their rights and how to handle money. The alliance with banks is meant to ensure that this strong model can stand on its own financially.

Surely such an approach would meet with the approval of Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Bengali microcredit institution Grameen Bank and winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. In his new book, Creating a World Without Poverty (Public Affairs, 2008), Yunus dreams of companies that come up with profitable products or services that address social problems—and use the profits to combat those problems elsewhere. His vision includes an economy in which social value is as highly regarded as financial value. He also sketches the contours of a social stock exchange­ and a Social Wall Street Journal.

Yunus’ book refers to the recent collaboration between Grameen Bank and the French food giant Danone. Women can take out a small loan from the bank and use the funds to buy containers of vitamin-rich yogurt from the factory, which they then sell door-to-door or on the street. When the women repay their loans, the factory reinvests the profits to build new plants elsewhere in the country.

Yunus’ enthusiasm is infectious, and the thoroughness with which Elkington and Hartigan have researched the field makes for a hopeful perspective of capitalism with a human face—the faces of lots of unreasonable people.

Zentrepreneurism Now in Paperback

Synopsis

The world of service coupled with entrepreneurial success has been building for the past thirty years. Only now has it begun to explode with great strides and creativity. We seek a life where our families, businesses, and our efforts merge into a single harmonious whole-and where we measure our success in more ways than just the balance of our bank accounts.

This book can bring back the values in our lives that often get lost in the quest for success. One does not have to be a Buddhist to benefit, as the success stories within will testify to, but should simply be open to trying a powerful, compassionate, new way of doing things in the business world.

Instead of the greedy, short-sighted business mentality of the past, we can move into areas that will improve the lives of many others beyond, but still including, ourselves. With the ever-increasing value of service on the rise, one can actually achieve larger success in many cases, than if generosity and service were not creatively employed.

What people are saying;

“ We have a situation where we don’t trust our government or our capitalist system. The level of distrust right now is probably unparalleled since the 1930’s”- Charles Lewis, Founder, Centre for Public Integrity.


"People are expecting more from the companies they're working for, more from the companies they're doing business with, and more from the companies they're buying from”, - Sydney Finkelstein, professor of strategy and leadership, Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business

“Allan Holender has looked unflinchingly at the dark and
self-destructive aspects of our business culture that most commentators
ignore or deny. Zentrepeneurism, the profound but practical
philosophy that he dramatically outlines in this book builds upon
capitalism's most powerful assets while infusing it with a higher
purpose. It is more than a new business model. It is an inspiring new
value system for business leaders, a guidepost for the 21st Century.”-Robert L. FitzPatrick, Business analyst and author of the book, False
Profits

"Allan Holender reveals the valueless and destructive tendencies of
contemporary business while remaining passionately and optimistically
committed to the possibility of a better future."-Joel Bakan, author The Corporation

AVAILABLE NOW IN PAPERBACK! Go to www.amazon.com or Barnes & Noble www.bn.com

For more on the growth of the Zentrepreneurism movement go to www.zentrepreneurism.com

THE MEANINGS OF LIFE

Contributed by David Servan-Schreiber | January/February 2008 issue of Ode Magazine

When I was 15, a church sermon left its mark on me. The priest began with the question, “Where should we seek God?” Years later, I found my own answer. I believe what for centuries has been called “finding God” means finding meaning in our lives. A new perspective has emerged from neuroscience in the past 20 years. What gives life its richness does not come from reason and intellect. It comes instead from a well-balanced emotional brain, that deepest and most archaic part of the nervous system. And what does a balanced emotional brain need? Above all, strong connections, full relationships. These can be found in four areas of our lives.

Our physical existence: If we don’t allow ourselves to taste, smell, touch, listen and look while concentrating on the present moment, we are not connected to our bodies. Yoga, an ancient source of wisdom, is first and foremost an education in connecting to our physical beings. Exercise, too—which engages our attention, our agility, our strength and builds endurance in our cells—is another means of connecting. As we grow aware of our bodies’ reactions to the world, we are connected to the roots of our emotions.


Intimacy: The emotional brain is connected to the body, but it is also designed to regulate our emotional relationships. Naturally, love is an effective way of giving us meaning. When we look each other in the eyes and feel our hearts beating faster, we stop asking existential questions. All that involves us in intimate relationships anchors us firmly in our existence. We don’t question the meaning of life when we take a child by the hand on his first day at school, or when we watch our daughter singing in a choir. All those to whom we feel close connect us to life and give it meaning.


The community: I had a 30-year-old patient whose life expectancy was limited to a few months by cancer. He was no longer working as an electrician and spent his time moping in front of the television, in anguish at his approaching death. I saw him once a week and we talked about his fear and what his life had been like. He ended up volunteering his time to repair the air-conditioning system in his local church. He spent several hours at the church almost every day. People greeted him by name when they met him in the corridors. When he was working on the roof, they waved to him, and brought him food and drink. In a few weeks, even though his health was getting worse, his anxiety abated. All it took, in the end, was to feel useful and appreciated.



Spirituality: It is possible to feel connected to a dimension beyond the body. For some, the greatest source of meaning is the sense of being in the presence of something much greater. We often feel this simply when we are face to face with nature, or in certain places that remind us how insignificant we are in the universe. Strangely, it is at the precise moments when we experience how small we are that life itself seems to fill with meaning—and so do we.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

David Servan-Schreiber is a psychiatry professor in France and the U.S., and author of Healing without Freud or Prozac.

I APPROVE OF THIS MESSAGE

Lost in the clutter of the American presidential election, and the Obama love affair, is some important developments along the lines of human conciousness raising.

Of course it took an American Queen to bring it into mainstream America. When Oprah talks, everyone listens, when Oprah annoints, the masses worship. Oprah, for better this time, has annointed a local spiritual author, Eckart Tolle. Reminds me of the old EF Hutton brokerage firm commercial, "When EF Hutton talks ,everyone listens". This is symbolic on two fronts.

One, this is America's wake up call. As I have said in my book, America has lost it's soul and is desperate for anything or anyone that can fill the void, left by a President the likes of which has defied logic in every humanly way possible; from an unjustified war based on lies and deceit to his failures in New Orleans. He will go down in history as the worst President ever. When Bill Mahr, the comedian was asked how he would rank Bush in terms of 13 Presidents before him, he said, 14th. But the big picture in America is all about honesty and integrity. No one knows what or who to believe anymore, whether its' sports heroes like Roger Clements or business leaders like Lee R. Raymond at Exxon Mobil, Richard D. Parsons at Time Warner or Ivan G. Seidenberg at Verizon.

Maurice R. Greenberg of the American International Group, for example. (A.I.G. paid $126 millio to settle federal investigations into whether it helped other companies to inflate their earnings. Then there is Franklin D. Raines of Fannie Mae, forced to resign amid allegations that Fannie had fudged its books, and Henry A. McKinnell Jr. at Pfizer, under fire for keeping the drug Celebrex on the market despite research linking it to increased risks of heart attack and stroke.) . When he joked that it was good to be king, Mel Brooks couldn't have imagined how good some corporate kings have it. Consider Charles K. Gifford.


Mr. Gifford (Chad to his friends) spent almost four decades at what was Fleet Financial, the last two years as C.E.O. Luckily for him, he was in the corner office when Bank of America bought Fleet in 2003.

That opened the taps on executive benefits that go beyond mere cash, though there is plenty of that: a bonus of as much as $8.6 million and $3.1 million a year for life. Mr. Gifford, now 62, also gets a host of perks, like free use of the corporate jet and the option to buy tickets for 15 Red Sox games from the bank, which has season tickets. That may seem plenty, compared with the severance of two or three months' pay for the 12,500 others who lost their jobs in the merger.

So are the American people ready to hear about the message of climbing the consciousness ladder rather than the corporate ladder. Well judging by the new TV Shows; "Cashmere Mafia" and "Lipstick Jungle" there is still a struggle going on between the two. Will enlightenment ever be viewed as profitable by the media giants?

And then there is "Eli Stone" on ABC , the story of a corporate lawyer who keeps hearing voices from above with messages, that he has a mission and it's not about greed and the pursuit of the American dream, it's about the pursuit of compassion, purpose and service.

His boss and potential father-in-law who is head of the firm, thinks differently. And so you have the battle between a toxic learned pattern of behaviour and a new way of thinking. The timing of Eckart Tolle's re-awakening with Oprah and a "New Earth", also means that the stars are aligned for a "NEW WORLD OF BUSINESS", meaning the timing of the release of "Zentrepreneurism"
to the American public is no accident.

Let the Zenning begin!

DEMOCRATIC CAPITALISM

By Contributing Writer Amy Domini,

Last year, when Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize, millions of people around the world learned of the miracles that banks serving the poor could deliver. It was a well-deserved honour for Yunus, and a great reminder of what microloans and other slight tweaks to “business as usual” can mean to hundreds of thousands of disenfranchised people. Yunus’ Grameen Bank is a marvelous example of the potential of community lending, the third leg of the stool for socially responsible investing. (The others are setting standards for what shares we will buy and entering into dialogue with companies we own.) For large populations around the globe, “the triumph of capitalism” has meant no improvement to personal well-being. Even in wealthy nations, large pockets of poverty are scattered throughout crowded and crumbling inner cities and hard-hit agricultural areas. Around the globe, many people are able and willing to work, but have little opportunity.

Access to capital is an essential component of building healthy communities. But capital is not always available to the poor. Banks are driven by the desire to be ever more profitable. Since a $600 loan and a $6 million loan take about as much effort from the bank, and have a vastly different impact on the bottom line, the bank opts for eliminating smaller customers.

In addition, poor people seeking a loan often appear suspicious or quirky to bankers. For example, let’s look at the case of a mobile-home park where an old couple running the operation wants to retire by selling the land. Between them, the owners of these mobile homes may have enough income to buy the land with a loan to be paid back over a reasonable period of time. But banks don’t lend to new co-operative ventures. They lend to a person or a corporation with good credit. Since no single person living in the mobile-home park can guarantee the payments, there can be no loan. Community-oriented financial institutions have come about as an answer to this problem. Such institutions may be a bank (or a bank branch) dedicated to making loans that boost the community and alleviate poverty. It may be a credit union, created perhaps by a church or community group, that loans money only to its own members and only for the purpose of building healthier neighbourhoods. It may even be a non-profit group, set up to borrow from caring people and lend to those in need.

Support for these kinds of community-development financial institutions is one of the ways sustainable or socially responsible investing can be approached. At Domini Social Investments, we have a fund that purchases bonds, backing up community institutions that make microcredit loans globally; we purchase insured deposits that support poor populations; we even use activist tools to help the community-development world.

Community-development loans have an important place in socially responsible investment portfolios, allowing investors to participate directly in relieving poverty and—unlike philanthropy—enabling them to keep their money even after using it this way. Most important, such loans offer evidence that finance can be used to alleviate poverty and create universal human dignity. Nowhere is the connection stronger than it is when investors support these grassroots lending organizations, be they microcredit institutions like Grameen Bank in Bangladesh or community-building groups like Latino Community Credit Union or the Self Help Credit Union, both in North Carolina.


Amy Domini is the founder and CEO of Domini Social Investments, and author of several books on ethical investing