Full Moon Rising - Made In The USA

May I Salute You?

Last month President Obama celebrated the 20th Anniversary of the creation of the Department of Veteran Affairs, designed to give Cabinet-level clout to our nation's veterans.  President Obama used the occasion to announce sweeping changes to U.S. policy for veterans, and pledged significant increases in funding for our vets.  According to the White House, these funds will be used to expand the VA health care program so that in can serve an additional 500,000 veterans by 2013; to implement a GI Bill for the 21st century; to provide better health care; and to dramatically improve services related to mental health and injuries like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury. The funds will also be used for technology that will ease the transition from active duty to home for our nation's service members. 

Unfortunately for some, like U.S. Army medic PFC Joseph Dwyer, an Iraqi veteran who in 2003 was photographed rescuing a young Iraqi boy during an intense fire-fight near the village of Al Faysaliyah, it's too little, too late.  Widely heralded as a war hero, Dwyer committed suicide last summer.  Dwyer's family and various experts blame Dwyer's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for his untimely death.  Of course, he's not the only one.

This past weekend, Dwyer's brother Brian led a Motorcycle and Classic Car Rally event on Long Island to help raise money for Veteran's Health and Mental care.  The whole thing makes me think of the classic line from the the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom conference in 1979, “It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy bombs”. 

It was with this event fresh in my mind that my brother-in-law sent me the following essay, written in pre-9/11 2001 I believe.  I found what I believe to be the original article here (if this is not correct, please let us know and we will give full credit accordingly).  I implore you to take two minutes out of your hectic schedule and read this.  Hopefully, it will change your day.  It certainly did mine.

May I Salute You

by Capt. Patricia Salwei, USAF

I approached the entrance to Ft Belvoir's medical facility last year as an old veteran puttered towards me. Easily over 80 years old, stooped and slow, I barely gave him a second glance because on his heels was a full bird colonel.  As they approached, I rendered a sharp salute and barked, "Good morning, Sir!"  Because they were heel to toe, I began my salute, as the old veteran was about two paces from me.  He immediately came to life!  Transformed by my greeting, he rose to his full height, returned my salute with pride, and exclaimed, "Good morning, Captain!"  I was startled, but the full bird behind him was flabbergasted.  The colonel stopped mid-salute, smiled at me and quietly moved on. 

As I entered the clinic, the utter beauty of the encounter preoccupied me.  What prompted the old man to assume that I was saluting him?  Perhaps he just thought, "It's about time!"  After all, doesn't a W.W.II vet outrank us all?  I turned my attention to the waiting room taking a moment to survey the veterans there.  Service people rushed around, loudspeakers blared, the bell for the prescription window kept ringing.  It was a whir of activity and the older veterans sat quietly on the outside seemingly out of step, patiently waiting to be seen.  Nobody was seeing.  My old friend stayed on my mind.  I began to pay attention to the military's attitude towards its veterans.

Predominately, I witnessed indifference: Impatient soldiers and airmen plowing over little old ladies at the commissary; I noticed my own agitation as an older couple cornered me at the Officer's Club and began reminiscing about their tour in Germany.  To our disgrace, I have also witnessed disdain.  At Ramstein, AB, an airman was condescending and borderline cruel with a deaf veteran flying Space A.  An ancient woman wearing a WACS button was shoved aside by a cadet at the Women's Memorial dedication in DC; A member of the Color Guard turned away in disgust from a drunk Vietnam vet trying to talk to him before the Veterans Day Ceremony at the Vietnam Wall. 

Have you been to a ceremony at the Wall lately?  How about a Veteran's Day Parade in a small town?  The crowds are growing faint.  Why do we expect the general public to care if we don't?  We are getting comfortable again.  Not many of us around that have been forced to consider making the ultimate sacrifice.  Roughly 60% of today's active duty Air Force did not even participate in Desert Storm.  I always lament about the public's disregard for the military.  I do not count all the days I stayed in bed instead of going to a ceremony or parade.  It was my day to be honored and I deserved to sleep in.  It's just like a 28-year-old, whose weapon was "Microsoft PowerPoint Slide Presentation" during the last conflict, to complain about recognition. 

Sometimes I wonder who is going to come to our parades in 20 years; will anybody look me up in the Women's Memorial Registry?  The answer lies in the present.  We will be honored as we honor those who have gone before us.  The next generation is watching.  It is not my intention to minimize the selfless service of our modern military; my comrades are the greatest people I know (and frankly should be treated better).  But, lately I'm wondering if the public's attitude towards the military isn't just a reflection of the active duty military's attitude towards its own veterans.  It's time to ask - do we regard them, do we consider them at all? 

How does our attitude change when the hero is no longer wearing a uniform?  I was proud to wear my uniform.  Can I admit that I thought I was cool?  There is no denying that there is something about our profession, combined with youth that feeds the ego a little.  We have all seen a young pilot strut into the Officer's Club with his flight suit on.  He matters; he takes on the room; he knows he can take on the world.  But, one day he will leave his jet for a desk, and eventually he will have to hang up that flight suit.  A super hero hanging up his cape.... How will we measure his value then?  He will no longer look like a pilot, an officer, a colonel.  He'll just look like an old man coming out of the clinic with his prescription.  But, is he less of a hero? 

Will anybody remember or care about all the months he spent away from his newborn daughter while making peace a possibility in the Balkans?  Probably not.  Our society has a short memory.  Maybe it is not for the protected to understand.  Rather, it is my hope that when a young lieutenant walks by him they will each see themselves reflected in the other-one's future, the other's past.  In that moment, perhaps, the lieutenant will also see the hero, now disguised as an old man, and thank him.  The truth is there are heroes in disguise everywhere.  I use to wonder why people would want to chat with me when I was in uniform - telling me about their four years as radio operator in Korea.  So what?  I wasn't impressed relative to my own experiences.  Now I understand that they were telling me because nobody else cared.  Proud of their service, no matter how limited, and still in love with our country, they were trying to stay connected.  Their stories were code for: "I understand and appreciate you, can you appreciate me?" 

The answer is, yes.  I separated from the Air Force in February.  I'm out of the club.  Still, I want you to know that I'll attend the parades, visit the memorials, and honor you.  All this while my kids and your kids are watching.  Then, maybe, someday when I'm an old woman riding the metro, a young airman will take a moment of her time to listen to one of my war stories.  I, in turn, will soak in her beauty and strength, and remember.  Today, as I reflect on my adventures in the Air Force, I'm thinking of that ancient warrior I collided with at Ft Belvoir.  I'm wondering where he is, if he's still alive, if it's too late to thank him.  I want to start a campaign in his honor - Salute A Veteran.  What a great world this would be if all our elderly veterans wore recognition pins, and we would salute them even if we were out of uniform and saw them coming out of a Seven Eleven.  Yes, this started out as a misunderstanding on my part.  But, now I get it.  That day was the first time in my life that I really understood what it meant to salute someone.    

Dear Veteran, I recognize and hail you! I do understand what I have and what you have given to make it possible.  So I'm wondering, if we meet on the street again - may I salute you?

Who's the REAL Shareholder?

In remarks on the breakdown in the Swiss Bank UBS's risk management plan to the Swiss Federal Banking Commission, CEO Marcel Rohner said, “The problem was not a failure to appreciate complexity, but rather the opposite. It was a lack of simplicity and critical perspective, which prevented the right questions from being asked while there was still time.”

Excellent point, Mr. Rohner.  Here's another simple, yet critical question - for industry and government leaders alike:  Who's the REAL shareholder?

Here's a little illustration to help you think about that one...

Contracts Can’t Be Broken—Unless They Involve Union Workers

The outrage over the AIG bonuses are beginning to die down, at least in the media.  But the bigger backlash - one that politician's will ignore at their own peril - is coming from the grassroots, who see the gross discrepancies in the way things are handled for the rich as compared to the way they're handled for the "working poor" (by which I mean the average hourly-wage employee).  The issue that's smoldering throughout the middle class isn't the bonuses themselves - it's the excuse that's being chanted by politicians like a mantra: the "sanctity of contract" language.  I highly doubt that there's a working man or women in the U.S. who's buying this, because most of us have been on the wrong end of an employment contract of some sort, whether it's being screwed out of legally required overtime pay (i.e., working beyond normal duty hours without compensation), not receiving contractually agreed upon benefits, or even being wrongly dismissed.  And don't even get me started on how pregnant women are treated in the workplace. 

The following is an excellent article written for the AFL-CIO's News Blog.  See if you don't agree with its author.

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Contracts Can’t Be Broken—Unless They Involve Union Workers

by Tula Connell, Mar 18, 2009

Contracts can’t be broken. We learned that lesson well over the past few days when AIG honchos swore that despite being bailed out by $173 billion in taxpayer funds, they couldn’t break the sacrosanct contractual bond that guaranteed billions in bonuses to the same top executives who brought the insurance giant to its knees.

But we also were taught another lesson in these months of financial chaos: Contacts can’t be changed—unless they involve unionized autoworkers.

Tim Rutten at the Los Angeles Times really hits the mark today when he writes:

What we’re essentially being asked to believe is that employment contracts involving hardworking men and women on Detroit’s assembly lines are somehow less legally binding—less “sacred” in the current rhetorical argot—than those protecting a bunch of cowboy securities traders living in Connecticut. [snip]

For years, the smart guys on Wall Street have convinced a growing number of Americans that organized labor is an impediment to economic progress, an unacceptable “cost” in a globalized system of production, a quaint social fossil from the era of mills and smokestacks. If there’s a lesson to be gleaned from the current crisis, however, it’s that when the chips are down, organized labor is a far more responsible social actor than the snatch-and-run characters who fancy themselves financiers.

Who re-negotiated their contracts in the face of a taxpayer bailout? Not AIG CEOs. It was the autoworkers who agreed to put their middle-class wages on the line to help out the struggling industry. So far, not one AIG CEO has stepped up to the plate to return that $1 million or so bonus. (AIG bigwigs aren’t alone in soaking up taxpayer money for personal fun—a video clip here by Brave New Films lists more CEOs on the taxpayer dole and urges people to take action on March 19.)

When General Motors (GM) and Chrysler asked for government support in December, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) pushed a pay cut amendment in the Senate that called for slicing the autoworkers’ wages to those paid to nonunionized workers. So, Bob, your fans are waiting breathlessly to hear you call for AIG billionaires to give back their bonuses. Or, as a columnist in Corker’s home state puts it:

Paging Bob Corker! Explanation please! [snip]

So, to make sure I have this right, we can give $185 billion to AIG and we have to uphold their employment contracts with 80 people, but we can’t give 1/5th that amount to General Motors unless they abrogate their employment contracts with 100,000 workers.

Yes, taxpayers own 80 percent of AIG. But we can’t seem to stop AIG execs from getting bonuses. After all, AIG CEO Edward Liddy and the company’s apologists argue, AIG knew it needed to keep its people. The implication here is that financial wizards who run a global company into the ground are more valuable than the blue-collar men and women who aren’t paid seven-figure salaries and whose jobs involve creating tangible products like, say, automobiles. Meanwhile, AIG bonus information so far includes:

• $200 million in bonuses.
• 73 AIG employees receiving bonuses of $1 million each, almost all of the employees…responsible for creating the exotic derivatives that caused AIG’s near collapse.
• Some of those receiving the bonuses are not U.S. citizens.

A CNN poll released today shows the American public increasingly fearful that the nation’s economic downturn will mirror the Depression. Asked whether Depression-era circumstances could reign in the next 12 months, 45 percent of those polled reported that was likely. That’s an increase from 38 percent who responded in the same fashion in December.

As AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says, “These outrageous bonuses are yet another example of an economy that has become fundamentally imbalanced.”

All of the power is concentrated in the hands of the very few at the very top and the gap between CEOs’ and  workers’ pay continues to grow. That is why we need to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

Passing the Employee Free Choice Act will allow workers to have a voice at work, lift their standard of living and build stronger communities as well as stronger families.

A Gallup poll released in recent days found 53 percent of the U.S. public supports the Employee Free Choice Act, which was reintroduced in the U.S. Congress last week. Why? Because we need a stronger middle class. One with contracts that are sacrosanct.

American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organizations Copyright © 2009 AFL-CIO.  All Rights Reserved.

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Have you been on the wrong end of a employment contract dispute?  Let us know about it!

Brian Fallon

John Mellencamp muses on the business of music

As the saying goes, music soothes the savage beast.  But apparently not when the beast resides on Wall Street, according to superstar John Mellencamp.  In a recent blog post on the Huffington Post, Mellencamp details his perceptions of The Way Things Were, and the systemic problems wrought upon the industry because of short-sighted "profit before prose" mentality.  

The following is a condensed version of Mellencamp's post.  For the full article, just click on the title.

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On My Mind: The State of the Music Business

John Mellencamp

Posted March 22, 2009 | 08:18 PM (EST) on The Huffington Post

Over the last few years, we have all witnessed the decline of the music business. We've read and heard about the "good old days" and how things used to be. People remember when music existed as an art that motivated social movements. Artists and their music flourished in back alleys, taverns and barns until, in some cases, a popular groundswell propelled it far and wide. These days, that possibility no longer seems to exist. Had the industry not been decimated by a lack of vision caused by corporate bean counters obsessed with the bottom line, musicians would have been able to stick with creating music rather than trying to market it as well.

Reagan's much-vaunted trickle-down theory said that wealth tricked down to the masses from the elite at the top. Now we've found out that this is patently untrue -- the current economic collapse reflects this self-serving folly. The same holds for music. It doesn't trickle down; it percolates up from the artists, from word of mouth, from the streets and rises up to the general populace. Constrained by the workings of SoundScan/BDS (Broadcast Data Systems), music now came from the top and was rammed down people's throats.

By 1997, consumers, now long uninvolved, grew passive, radio stations had to change formats. Creative artistry and the artists, themselves, were now of secondary importance, taking a back seat to Wall Street as the record companies were going public. The artists were being sold out by the record companies and forced to figuratively kiss the asses of their corporate overlords at the time these record companies went public. In essence, the artists were no longer the primary concern; only keeping their stockholders fat and happy and "making the quarterly numbers" mattered; the music was an afterthought.

Long-tenured employees of these companies were sacrificed in the name of profitability and the culture of greed was burned into the brains of even the most serious music lovers. It seemed that paying attention sales, who had the #1 record from one week to next, and who fell or rose on the charts was all that validated music.

While all this was going on, technology, just as it always does, progressed. That which, by all rights, should have had a positive impact for all of us -- better sound quality, accessibility, and portability -- is now being blamed for many of the ills that beset the music business. The captains of the industry it seemed, proved themselves incapable of having a broader, more long-range view of what this new technology offered. Not understanding the possibilities, they ignorantly turned it into a nightmarish situation. The nightmare is the fact that they simply didn't know how to make it work for us.

The CD, it should be noted, was born out of greed. It was devised to prop up record sales on the expectation of people replenishing their record collections with CDs of albums they had already purchased. They used to call this "planned obsolesce" in the car business. Sound quality was supposed to be one of the big selling points for CDs but, as we know, it wasn't very good at all. It was just another con, a get-rich-quick scheme, a monumental hoax perpetrated on the music consuming public.

Now that the carnage in this industry is so deep you can hardly wade through it, it's open season for criticizing artists, present company included, for making a misstep or trying to create new opportunities to reach an audience, i.e., Springsteen releasing an album at Wal-Mart and, yes, we all know what Wal-Mart is about. The old rules and constraints that had governed what was once considered a legitimate artist are no longer valid. When you think about it, you must conclude that there really is no legitimate business; there is no game left.

If we have any hope for survival of the music that we all love, compassion must replace name-calling, fairness must replace greed and we need to come together as a musical community and try to understand each other's problems. So let's try to put our best foot forward and remember that anyone can stand in the back of a dark hall and yell obscenities but if you want a better world it starts with you and the things you say and do.

Copyright © 2009 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.  All Rights Reserved. 

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Why is AIG being treated differently?

Our friend Roger Simmermaker, author of the book, How Americans Can Buy American was on the Fox Business Network (FBN) recently discussing the un-equal treatment of the insurance conglomerate AIG and the U.S. Auto industry with regards to the federal bailout efforts.

Roger, who writes "Buy American Mention of the Week" articles for WorldNetDaily.com and his website HowToBuyAmerican.com, is a member of the Machinists Union and National Writers Union, and no stranger to TV news.  

Roger does a great job pointing out some of the decades-old underlying problems that U.S. manufacturers have to face...and the staggering toll that the loss of U.S. manufacturing capability would mean to this country.

Here's a transcript of his interview with David Asman and Liz Clayman on FBN's "Bulls & Bears" segment, aired March 18, 2009.  

Note: Any errors in the transcript are mine (Brian Fallon). 

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AIG, Take a Page From UAW

David Asman:  What with all the talk of AIG and it's bonus contract obligation, we can look at the auto makers example, who were pressured to renegotiate union contracts in order to survive.

Liz Clayman:  So I'm sorry, but why couldn't AIG executives do the same?  Re-negotiate their bogus contracts before they paid out these large sums?  Let's bring in Roger Simmermaker, author of How Americans Can Buy American.  Roger, from the start, we have seen the US auto worker eviscerated for making seventy grand - if that's what it even is - and here these guys are getting millions in bonus payments and everybody's taking it to Congress, but how is it that they were able to force auto workers and frankly white collar workers in the auto industry to take all kinds of changes in their worker contracts, yet this involves so much push-back?

Roger Simmermaker:  Well this is indicative of the treatment that we, uh, the way that we treat the U.S. auto makers compared to somebody like AIG, and it's the same kind of unequal treatment the US auto makers get with the foreign automakers.  I mean, we allow South Korea and Japan to import unlimited cars into the US; we're locked out of their market.  GM and Ford routinely have to pay billions of dollars in health care for their workers and retirees, whereas the Japanese [government] pick that up for their auto makers, so it's unequal treatment, and this is just another example where we rake the US auto makers over the coals for every penny we propose to give to them, but we treat AIG - as everybody has seen - quite differently.  

David Asman:  Why?  Why do you think that is?  

Roger Simmermaker:  I don't know why it is.  It seems like we have this disdain for manufacturing in this country, and if it's...if there's any term that the American public has become very familiar with lately, it's the Ripple Effect...

David Asman:  But Roger, let me just... let me just press you on that for a second.  Roger, do you think that there might be...I mean, we know that, uh, you know, Wall Street was well represented in the last treasury, it's well represented in this treasury.  Do you think there's some kind of conspiracy among bankers here to...to help out each other and...and ignore the car companies? 

Roger Simmermaker:  I don't know if it's a conspiracy, but I...I just think we've turned to a more service oriented economy.  We've turn our backs on manufacturing, and the fact is for every manufacturing job we have, it supports four other jobs.  In the service industry you only have a ripple effect between one and two jobs.  You know, we have to have a US auto industry in this...in this country.  We have to have an American company in every category of industry in the United States.  If GM, Ford and Chrysler fail, we don't have an auto industry anymore.  But if AIG fails, we will still have a US based insurance industry...

Liz Clayman:  You're right! 

Roger Simmermaker:  ...because there are a lot of other insurance companies out there."

Liz Clayman:  You're right!  I'm just wondering, you know, we keep hearing, Roger, we keep hearing, "Oh, unskilled auto workers."  You know, last I checked, they actually can make hybrid complicated engines that are worth something, versus these credit default swaps.  How much anger is out there, on behalf of the auto workers right now, that they're looking at this?

Roger Simmermaker:  Well, I'm sure there's a lot of anger, because there's a lot of instability about their jobs.  They don't know what's gonna happen.  There...they've seen their reduced, uh, seen their pay cut.  I mean, Sully, the pilot who landed his airplane on the Hudson, you know, he said, 'Look, my pay has been cut 40% my pension's been eliminated,' and we look at pensions for stability, but yet we're willing to cut them and throw them into an unstable stock market...

Copyright (c) FBN 2009.  All Rights Reserved. 

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Shift Happens

Here's a fascinating video that'll really make you think about things.

This video (to the best of my knowledge) is called "Globalization & The Information Age."  It was researched and original design credits are given to Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod and Jeff Brenman (Copyright 2008, All Rights Reserved).  Allegedly, it was adapted by Sony BMG at an executive meeting they held in Rome last year.

If anyone has better information about its origins and the data presented, we'd love to hear from you!

A Community of One

I've been reading a lot of things about a lot of things the last few days, very little of it related, but in my mind, it's all inter-related.

Of course, I've been reading a lot about the economy (or lack thereof, as it sometimes seems).  One of the things I read that I thought was very good was a blog post from Copyblogger, a blog which is, as the site itself says, "all about words that get people to take some form of action."  They had a very nice post the other day entitled, "Four Old-School Reasons Why You Can Thrive in this Recession.

Listed as Reason Number One is "Self Reliance.  This Emersonian term has been bandied about a lot lately, especially by certain over-sized media personalities who presume to expound on the failures of others while conveniently ignoring their own short-comings, not to mention the fallacies of their irrational pontifications.  But those annoying noise-makers aside, this issue of 'self reliance' - especially within the context of the larger global economic crisis we're all having to deal with - is something upon which I've been ruminating, too.

Which brings me to something else I've been reading, which is a wonderful book my fiance gave me, called Spark Your Dream.  It's a true story of an Argentinean couple, Herman and Candelaria Zapp, who embark on a journey from their home in Buenos Aires to travel 43,000 miles to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska in an antique 1928 Graham-Paige Model 610 Touring car.  Their original plans of arriving in Alaska in six months turns into a 4 year epic.  Rather than being n ordeal, it's an inspirational story of discovery, adventure and insight which they chronicle with passion.

One of the passages that really sparked my fancy was one where Herman is marveling at the rich diversity of humanity that they'd encountered, having  at this point traveling the length of South America and up through Central America.  In the course of experiencing so many strange, new cultures and making many new friends along the way, he was struck by how he and his wife had been transformed.  "If you portray yourself as something you're not," he writes, "it's impossible to enjoy the essence of the moment.  I remember that before the trip, sometimes I showed myself differently from who I really was, just to please others.  So what was happening was that I created a situation that in the end I didn't enjoy because I wasn't myself.  One's value is in who one is, not in what one appears to be.  Now that we are more transparent, I can verify that the relationships are stronger and clearer.

I believe that the human truth that Herman has discovered is true for business as well.  I think that the multiple exposures of failures, scandals, and mind-boggling frauds that have been dominating the headlines of late are the painfully necessary astringents required for the healing process to begin.  Sunshine is, after all, the best disinfectant.  But learning from mistakes is the hallmark of maturity.  But more than just exposing the wrong doers, as professionals I think we all need to look around at our own business arrangements.  Transparency of the books is of course crucially important, but self-transparency in corporate culture - the willingness to walk the walk, as it were - is also vital.

Those companies who embrace openness, diversity and value their employees ideas as well as their labors will, I believe, be the ones who succeed.  Those that look to minimize such intangibles in the blind pursuit of maximizing profits for the elite few will be the ones who ultimately fail.  A company that can recognize the wealth of its people's ambitions, that reaches inward to nurture and reward new ideas, and seeks to forge strong partnerships with its employees and business contacts is, in my opinion, the kind of company that embraces the best aspects of Self Reliance: independent; assured; enterprising; resolute; capable.  Woven throughout the  inter-dependent web of producers, suppliers, logistics and marketing, companies which aim to be working cooperatively with each other (as opposed to a few massive companies trying to subjugate smaller businesses to their Big Box demands), balanced with fair rules and reasonable oversight to ensure a level playing field, such companies can create the kind of business community which promotes healthy competition.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich made an interesting point along these lines a few weeks ago. Noting that the Powers That Be (across two Administrations) had been claiming that there were large financial and industrial corporations which were "too big to [allow to] fail."  "Pardon me for asking," Reich writes in his blog, "but if a company is too big to fail, maybe – just maybe – it’s too big, period.  We used to have public policies to prevent companies from getting too big. Does anyone remember antitrust laws?"  This is - again, my own personal opinion - a long over-due discussion for American society. 

I think that the time has come for Americans to embrace the idea that the global marketplace is not territory for which a few gargantuan corporate predators need to dominate and possess, but one in which the rich tapestry of "Self Reliant" businesses come together to create the communal environment in which all who are willing to play by the rules are welcome to come and share their talents.  Allow for talent, innovation and creativity to thrive and grow, but grow proportionally to its market, and with the understanding that we're all passengers on this beautiful Big Blue Marble of ours, and we'd better keep our gardens clean.  Think of it this way - which tastes better, a local sustainably-organic farm's heirloom tomatoes, or a 5 pound hot-house chemically manufactured tomato?  Bigger is not always better.

So what is "The Little Guy" to do in these tumultuous economic times?  "Embrace the entrepreneurship that’s in your DNA," cheers Copyblogger.  "Keep your eyes open for problems to solve and markets to serve. And buckle up. Like every exciting ride, this one’s got a few hairpin curves."  

So don't be afraid to get into your garden and get a little dirty.  We here at Full Moon Rising, Inc. are ready to start tilling, and we've got our American-made boots on.

Steps Towards a More Sustainable Life of Less

I know this sounds like I have lost my mind, since we as a company make money selling things, but our philosophy has always been to only sell what is needed and to make the best recommendations possible.

It is also the reason we focus on USA Made products and Eco-Friendly products and solutions to marketing. By helping you to make good choices about clothing and promotional marketing items, you will increase your ROI (Return On Investment) and overall cost.

This article is from Zen Habits and I think is very appropriate for the times we live in.

Personally I have been moving away from having more things. I find the more clutter and things I never use that I get rid of the happier I am. I find joy in knowing that many of the items are used and needed by others. Some just end up in the recycling bin.

I'd like to hear what you think of this article and concept. 

Bryan

Steps Towards a More Sustainable Life of Less

Posted: 09 Mar 2009 04:07 PM PDT

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

When my grandparents were young, none of the appliances (let alone hi-tech gadgets) in our homes were in common use — not the refrigerator, electric stove, dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, toaster, television, computer, air-conditioner, microwave, etc.

None of it. They had cars, but they walked far more often than we do today. They had telephones, but not cell phones or Blackberries or iPhones, and they weren’t using phones all the time. They had stores, but they didn’t order things online and they didn’t buy all the time. In fact, during their Great Depression childhood, they bought very little and used very, very little technology.

And while the last 70-80 years have advanced our lives in amazing ways, and there’s no doubt that the comfort and convenience of our lives have improved tremendously … we rarely stop to consider whether technology and consumerism have always changed our lives for the better.

I mean, I am as big a proponent of the miracles of the Internet as anyone, but have we given up too much of our lives that used to exist offline and outdoors? It’s great that we have such comfortable cars that can drive incredibly fast and take us anywhere we want to go in minutes … but have we thrown away the joy and the health benefits of walking places?

It’s great that we can communicate instantly from anywhere with our mobile devices, but have we given up personal face-to-face conversations and the pleasure of being outdoors, disconnected from the world?

It’s great that food is so convenient these days, but have we given up the pleasures of slow eating for fast food, the joys of cooking for microwaving, the wonders of real food for processed food?

It’s great that we can buy pretty much anything we want these days (and often do), but have we allowed the abundance of cash we’ve had (until recently, but even now we’re still pretty rich) to force us to have bigger houses just to store all our stuff?

I propose a life of less. A life that’s more sustainable.

And yes, some will wonder if that will hurt the economy even more — buying and consuming less will mean people will lose jobs, no? Not necessarily. Scaling back our lives means we need to find jobs for people that are based not on producing more goods, but on producing more value — valuable information, valuable inventions that require fewer resources, valuable contributions to the community. But how will all of this be paid for if no one is buying stuff? There will be less wealth produced because less is being consumed … but if we consume less then we actually need less wealth. We just need to get off the escalating cycle of consuming and producing more.

We work more than ever before, despite advances in labor-saving technology that mean we should be able to work less. We do so to support a lifestyle that has become more expensive than ever, because of the new levels of convenience and abundant consumer goods that we’ve become accustomed to. We can break out of this trap, by consuming less and then needing to work less.

I’ve thought these things for awhile now, but it struck me most as I was walking to a meeting with a friend and business partner. Most people where I live don’t walk — cars are used all the time, even if the destination is just a few blocks away. I’ve been getting into the habit of walking places — for traveling, not exercise — but I’m a weirdo for doing so. And it struck me that only 50 years ago, I would have been normal — everyone walked back then.

And I wondered how we lost this valuable activity — walking to get places.

We lost it because convenience and speed have become more valuable to us than health and frugality and the enjoyment of the world around us.

I propose a life of less. A life that is more leisurely, a little more spartan, a little less expensive, a little less heavy on consuming the Earth’s resources.

I don’t think we can change the economy overnight. We can’t even change our lives overnight. But we can make a gradual change in that direction, with small steps.

Here are but a few ideas — I’m sure you could contribute some of your own:

• Can we walk to more places and drive less? We’d get fitter and use less fossil fuel. We’d have to loosen up our schedules to do this, but I think that’s a good change anyway.
• Can we start building more livable communities, where things are less spread out, so that we can walk more instead of driving everywhere? Where everything we need is a 10-20 minute walk away, or at least reachable by bike or public transportation? You might already live in a place like that, but not where I live, and not in lots of places. Even work should be close by. Again, this is a long-term change, but I think a good one.
• Can we start living in smaller houses, so that we need less heating and cooling and land and maintenance and cleaning? We can if we buy less stuff, which leads to …
• Can we start buying less stuff? We don’t need all the stuff we buy.
• Can we start celebrating things like birthdays and Christmas without spending sprees? We could do nice things for each other instead, or make things, or bake something.
• Can we start buying locally more? I know a lot of people already do this, but it would be great if this trend continued. It supports local farmers and drastically reduces the amount of resources needed to get food to our homes.
• Can we start packaging food less? Even non-food items (like toys) come with ridiculous amounts of packaging these days. I’d like to see a return to olden ways, when you scooped flour out of a huge bin into a container or something like that. Packaging we throw away (or even recycle) is so wasteful.
• Can we stop buying so much processed food? Real food is so much healthier, requires fewer chemicals and resources, and tastes better once you wean yourself from the addiction to processed foods.
• Can we eat slower, and enjoy the food more, instead of rushing through meals?
• Can we stop our addiction to mobile devices and being connected all the time, so that we can enjoy the pleasure of other people’s company without interruptions, or enjoy solitude or a nice quiet walk without being connected?
• Can we design cities and towns so that they aren’t based on the automobile, so that perhaps private vehicles parked at the outside of cities, and then people used public transportation or walked within the cities? We’d reclaim the streets for the pedestrian, make them alive once again with street markets, cafes, parks, children running around without fear of death, people exercising and doing tai chi and jogging and walking and enjoying a fume-free outdoors.

Again, these are just a few ideas. There are thousands more.

And I’m not saying we should give up techonology. I love connecting with people from around the world! I love being able to access information instantly that I would never have had access to just 15-20 years ago! I love the ability to express myself online that is unprecedented in human history!

But I also think we need to keep the good things that have come with the advances in technology, and throw out the bad, the things that have made our lives worse.
—
Read more about simplifying your life in my book, The Power of Less.

Tough cases for tough times

Here's a great mission statement:

"Our mission is to lead our industry by providing quality products, superior customer service, technical innovation, and on-time delivery. We realize that we cannot exist without the support of our customers, employees, and suppliers and we will treat them with the highest level of integrity and professionalism."

The problem with most mission statements is that they're only as good as the Good Times the company is enjoying, usually early in their history.  Once the Tough Times show up, all that good will goes right out the window, replaced with that all-too familiar Ebenezer-ish mantra of "We're not running a charity here!" and then it's all about the pleasing the bean counters, usually at the expense of customer service, employees, and integrity.

Usually, but not always.  

One example of a company that lives its mission statement is the same company that claims the above-quoted mission statement as its own.  It's a company that's been making incredibly high-quality, innovative, industry-leading American Union-made products since 1921.

Platt Luggage, Inc.  That's who.

L to R: Kathy Anweiler, Platt Luggage Sales Manager, and Brian Fallon, Full Moon Rising, Inc., at the PPAI Show in Las Vegas, January 2009.

I could post a LOT of pictures of the incredible variety of plastics, aluminum, and fabric cases that Platt Luggage produces.  But as Allan Evavold, Platt Luggage Executive Vice President/Chief Operating Officer told me, "A picture's worth a thousand words.  A sample's worth a thousand pictures."  

Truer words have seldom been spoken, because until you can actually hold one of Platt's cases in your hands and see - and FEEL - the quality craftsmanship, you'll understand that pictures just can't do these cases justice.  And until you need a custom-order case built to your specifications, you just can't appreciate how seriously Platt Luggage takes its mission statement.  But I'm sure you can appreciate these industry-leading innovations, ALL of which Platt Luggage can claim as their own:

• The first combination locks on luggage
• The first cushioned handles on cases and luggage
• The first to use their own hardware, produced for specific products
• The first to mold bowling bags from plastic
• The first to mold plastic end shells on catalog cases
• The first to mold a urethane pallet

Another innovation of Platt's is their TSA Approved locks, available AS STANDARD EQUIPMENT on over two dozen popular models of cases.  Platt's TSA locks have a window that changes from green to red whenever the TSA opens the case, so that as soon as you pull your case off the airport conveyer belt, you can know if it's been opened, and know to check the contents immediately.

Platt Luggage has come a long way since its founder, Benjamin Platt, took his talents learned from cutting leather Cossack saddle harnesses for the Czar's army at the turn of the 20th century and began to shape fine cowhides into sturdy suitcases and stylish bags. His new creations were well-suited to endure the rough handling that 1920-era trips entailed, and Platt Luggage was born.  Four generations later, this Chicago-based company continues leading the industry forward, and while they are rightfully proud of their rich heritage, they are certainly not stuck in the past.  Platt Luggage utilizes the latest cutting-edge Auto-CAD systems to produce their amazingly durable cases, as well as unique production scheduling and control system software which allows them to cut their production lead times and offer more reliable delivery performance, all at ever-more competitive prices. 

Such progressive practices are not just impressive; in today's turbulent economic climate, it's imperative.  Platt Luggage, founded in the Roaring 20's, didn't survive the Great Depression by resting on its reputation built on The Good Times.  Rather, its reputation was forged because of their devotion to their mission statement's constitution during the Tough Times.  "We've weathered a number of storms," Mr. Evavold said.  When I asked him about Platt Luggage's outlook over the next few quarters, he was matter of fact, "We're seeing continued activities in all our departments.  We're doing a lot of things [to adapt].  Business is still out there.  It's just taking a little longer for people to make decisions."

Built with modern materials which reflect an age of portability and efficiency, Platt Luggage Union-made cases are designed to endure some seriously rough handling.  Lead with a corporate culture of leadership, responsibility and integrity, Platt Luggage, Inc. is destined to endure through these tough times.  So when you need to get your gear on the move, give Full Moon Rising, Inc. a call and we'll help make your choice for industrial-strength cases and professional luggage a simple decision!

Coffee never tasted better

The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce."  

~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Hi, my name's Brian, and I'm a caffiene addict.  There, I've said it.  Fact is, me and about 150 million other Americans just can't get our day started without that jolt of java.  

While I might need coffee to get my day started, the promotional products businessperson in me gets woken up with numbers like "300 million eyes, every day, see what's printed on that cup!"  Yea, sure, they see, and all those around them see it, too.  But do they really see it, or is that cup just another piece of visual spam?

Not if it's a cup from Sunset Hill Stoneware, it won't be!

 

Sunset Hill's hand crafted stoneware is exactly what its name implies: actual pottery stoneware, hand crafted on a potter's wheel, one at a time, to your exact specifications, by American artisans.  These are stunningly beautiful, weighty, kiln-fired pieces, shipped directly to you in 100% recyclable packaging.  All stoneware is food-safe, dishwasher & microwave safe, lead-free and Proposition 65 compliant.

Sunset Hill Stoneware was founded in 1997 with one mission in mind: to produce the highest quality hand-thrown stoneware possible.  Nestled deep in the verdant countryside of Wisconsin's beautiful Fox River Valley, Sunset Hill offers 33 different cup designs, and 14 different steins (after all, not everybody drinks coffee!).

For customized items, Sunset Hill applies your artwork to a hand-crafted clay medallion that forms a three-dimensional crest.  The unique process used to create this medallion captures even the most intricate detail.  Your logo will be colored with the same glaze as the cups themselves, while the medallion itself remains a neutral clay, which acts as the perfect backdrop.  Every piece is meticulously examined prior to packaging to ensure the highest levels of quality control. 

So when you're ready to get your customers to wake up and take notice of you, give Full Moon Rising, Inc a call and we'll get busy brewing up some spectacular promotional items for your drinking pleasure!