The first time I saw flagrant food waste was when I was on a Caribbean cruise.  I must have gained what felt like 50 lbs in just 2 weeks from eating 7 decadent meals a day – Yup.  Watching the chefs carve beautiful birds out of a watermelon and huge sculptures out of ice to provide the garnish for feasts was such a thrill UNTIL I saw the tons of food they threw out to sea when nobody was looking.  What was worse than just the volume of precious food being tossed out was that when we pulled up to Haiti – an impoverished country known for its massive starvation – the captain of the ship announced that we were not allowed to feed the Haitians when we toured the island! Bulls**t!

That’s when my family vacation became my mission to feed the starving.  I started stockpiling bread, fruits and veggies, and anything non-perishable in my suitcases and bags in my cabin.  The ship’s crew warned us that if we fed the hungry, they would mob us.  I was sickened by their cavalier attitude about hungry people and this gauche solution to keeping the fat and privileged Americans from being inconvenienced by these starving people. So I came up with a plan to feed as many people as I could during the one day I spent in Haiti.

I told my family to take their tour without me so I could feed the Haitians (that wasn’t the reason I told my father).  With Rob by my side, we carried bags of food into the center of town and left them on street corners where passersby could easily find them.  I didn’t want to create a riot or mob scene. Then we returned to the ship and carried bags of food out for the entire day.  We even went up the buffet to grab piles of cheese, meats, and whatever we could when we ran out of the stockpile in our cabin.  Surprisingly, the crew didn’t say anything and didn’t try to stop us.

Food waste is rampant all over the world, and as our population increases, we will face massive starvation because our food production system is wasteful.  I’ll be blogging about ways to change this paradigm we have become accustomed to so that we can feed the planet without resorting to genetically-modified foods or other unhealthy means.

 

Remember the craze over Pokemon-Go? I never quite got it.  Watching thousands of people searching for an imaginary character here in the real world for the sake of, um, well, “catching” one seemed odd to me. While not into the game itself, I was most impressed with the marketing strategy used to get intelligent, busy people to find time to travel out of their way to play this game.

While talking with one of my clients during our session, we mused about the Pokemon-Go phenomenon.  What happened next was really exciting. This 16-year-old student decided to create an app that is similar to the Pokemon-Go game in concept but with a wonderful twist.  Instead of luring gamers to chase inanimate objects, his app would connect people who need a little help with nearby caring people who have a little time (and desire to win a lottery!). Yup!

Ever wish someone could pick up some diapers or coffee creamer for you when you’re in a bind?  Or if your back goes out while carrying in groceries, wouldn’t it be nice to have someone carry them in for you? There’s always someone nearby but they just don’t know you need help. So instead of chasing a Pokemon character, you would be checking to see if anyone needs help.  My student is setting up an app that connects these people by creating a point system for the volunteer and a nominal-fee system for the person needing help. To encourage the do-gooders to check their app to see if anyone needs a little assistance when they might have 10-15 minutes to spare, the nominal fees go into a big pot (like a lottery) that can be won by any of the do-gooders. 

Now that’s a game even I would play.  I could help someone out when I have extra time and I could win some money?  Um, yeah! If he could get a fraction of the people who chased Pokemon to help others, imagine how we could transform our communities into a more giving and loving world. I’ll keep you posted on my student’s progress.  Want to help him build the app?  Call me at Merit (831-462-5655)!

I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed with politics in our nation’s capital, which has made it more difficult to wade through the volumes of articles, blogs, and news about what’s really going on with climate change. 

If you live in Santa Cruz County or the San Francisco Bay Area, you might be interested in attending the Climate Science and Policy Conference 2017 at UCSC.  This year’s focus is on ACTING NOW TO SECURE A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE.  It’s on Friday night, Feb 24^th and all day Saturday, Feb 25^th up on the beautiful UC Santa Cruz campus. 

Registration is free!  Check out the list of speakers 

Hearing from professors from Stanford, George Mason University, UC Santa Barbara and UC Santa Cruz, and elected officials and government agencies should be entertaining.  Sometimes it’s best to hear from people who are actively engaged in research instead of the media.  Hope to see you there!

Today’s Guest Blogger is Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman, historian, lecturer, and author of God’s Law or Man’s Law. 

Between the 16th and 18th centuries, Europeans engaged in mutual slaughter over religion: the Catholic-Protestant wars. Religion was not the only issue; the birth of nation-states added poisonous nationalism to the fray. The scientific and industrial revolutions added another element. Catholic states were fighting a rear-guard action in defense of the feudal world. The Protestant states, over time, advanced all the ideological changes that we value: participatory governance, religious tolerance, emancipation of women, and an economy that produced middle class majorities.

Fighting over borders is straightforward; fighting over ideologies is not. When people are “true believers” in anything, even death is no longer an impediment. Otherwise rational human beings can become mindless fanatics seeking the death of all who do not share their belief and willingness to die for the cause. Suicide bombers illustrate this process.

Islam is a religion with no central authority (such as a Pope). Over the centuries, many different schools (interpretations) of Muslim jurisprudence sprang up as the religion spread across the globe. But early in the 20th century, a new form of Islam emerged, an ideology influenced by Fascism, and based on reviving the 7th century Islam of the Prophet Mohammad and his companions. These fanatics believe that they must revive early Islam’s mission to convert non-Muslims by force, persuasion, or terror when necessary, defending every horrifying attack by citing Islamic history and religious texts.

The new wrinkle is that they use modern weaponry, modern medicine for their leaders, and modern means of communications and propaganda. Saudi Arabia’s bonanza of oil money has taken this campaign global, supporting it with money, mosque building and staffing, and brainwashing schools throughout the Muslim world. They unconvincingly profess alliance with us in our “war against terror.”

Ordinary people following Islam are in the middle of this war. A growing number of Muslims living in the west are “cultural” Muslims, like most Jews and Christians in the modern world.  They revere the best in their religions and do not literally practice the worst. Some do not follow religion at all. But others living around the world are foot-soldiers carrying out terror attacks against ordinary Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and modern states. This is not precisely a religious war, but it is a war based on one interpretation of that religion. The terrorists are true believers. The cynical leaders of ISIS, al Qaeda, al Shabab, Boko Haram, Hamas, and others, recruit and brainwash young men and women who find out too late that they have been used. Defection from these cults, like defection from early Islam, is punished by death. Decapitation has returned from the dark ages, along with slave markets.

But there is light at the end of this tunnel. It has been too little noted that the forces of Muslim modernity are finally fighting back. The long awaited Islamic reform movement has begun in the US. Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser has founded the Muslim Reform Movement, representing 14 other Muslim reform groups. Their declaration of principles includes human rights, secular governance, and rule of western law. This modern declaration conflicts with the Cairo “Islamic Declaration of Human Rights,” which defines human rights as anything that Sharia law mandates: child marriage, stoning for sexual offenses, amputation of limbs for theft, lashing for criticism of the state, and death for “insulting Islam.” Cairo Human Rights are an “alternate system” that the UN has not challenged.

This “alternate system” is creating martyrs of women, journalists, bloggers, homosexuals, judges, and artists. The punishment for “insulting Islam” is death.

A Pakistani court acquitting a Muslim mob of 155 that torched homes in a Christian neighborhood in Lahore because a Christian man had supposedly “insulted” the Prophet. This fits Cairo’s “Human Rights” standards.

The Islamists have overreached. Their attacks on the US, India, Britain, Spain, France, Belgium, Australia, Indonesia, and Germany should remind us what Israel has always known. This is not just an Israeli/Palestinian conflict over turf.  It is a global conflict over whether Western values or those of murderous nihilists will prevail. We defeated the Nazis and Communists. We will win this one too.

The ever-changing dynamics of business requires occasional updates on what is preferred and acceptable business behavior.  Instantaneous connections on mobile phones has created a world where everyone expects instant answers from you after office hours – something that wasn’t even possible just a decade ago.  Clients feel entitled to having your personal cell phone numbers so they can call or text you at any hour of the night, and when you don’t respond, they get angry.  Wow, when did we allow our business to creep into our personal lives?

This is Part 2 of my blog: Is Etiquette Back Again? In order to maintain respect from co-workers, your boss and/or your employees, and your clients/customers, here are 15 tips:

Always respond to callers (phone/written) within 24 hours. Even if you’re not interested in their proposal, a simple “Thank you but I am not interested” is best.  Unless it’s spam (unwanted emails from people you don’t know), you want to dissuade your caller without insulting them.  Besides, there are some crazy people out there and you don’t want them to retaliate. An email or text is okay even when they left a voice message for you.
 

Always inform the team or boss if you will not be able to meet a deadline in time for them to make different plans.  In other words, don’t tell them you didn’t do something when it’s due.  Instead, write a simple apology and give a realistic deadline that you know you can meet.
 

Always pick up the tab for business meals/drinks when you do the inviting. If you anticipate a struggle, pay in advance by giving your credit card to the waiter before your guest arrives.
 

Always be thankful when someone picks up the tab (even when it’s expected).  Follow up with a quick thank you email or text the following day.
 

Never order the most expensive entrée on the menu when your friends or colleagues are ordering moderately-priced items – especially if you’ve agreed to split the bill.  Likewise, order wine and drinks in the same price range as the meal. If they’re ordering appetizers, sides, and desserts, follow suit, otherwise you might feel cheated when it comes time to split the bill in half.
 

Never order messy finger foods like ribs and corn on the cob when dining with colleagues or business associates. Besides having food lodged between your teeth, your face will need washing and you’ll be quite the sight!  Stay away from carbonated drinks if you can’t control your burping.  There’s nothing more unappetizing than talking to someone who is trying to contain a burp!
 

Always use good table etiquette: salad fork on the outside, dinner fork on the inside. Spoon soup away from your body, and don’t slurp! Don’t hold your bread in your other hand and dip in the soup. Cut meat with your dominant hand and switch your fork to eat it.  Yes, this is controversial but when in doubt, go with American tradition.
 

Always maintain control of yourself while drinking with business associates.  Even though they may be socially drinking, if you can’t keep up with them, don’t embarrass yourself.  Drink plenty of water or ginger ale. Remember, they’re taking mental notes that will definitely effect their business decisions about you later. Think: This is a job interview.
 

Always dress for success. We all know that beauty sells (whether we like it or not) so put together outfits that make you stand out professionally. Make sure that your clothes are clean, pressed, and fresh. Brush and floss your teeth.  There’s no bigger turn off than a person with body odor or bad breath!
 

Never date co-workers — period. When the relationship ends, you’ll be miserable at work and the entire workforce will be watching both of you.  The way you handle the breakup will be public and your performance reviews will reflect both of your maturity and professionalism.  Besides, it’s nice to have separate work and personal worlds. They’ll give you time to recharge and appreciate one another.
 

Always smile and be charming. If you smile before you pick up the phone or write that letter, you’ll be received better. Use your charm to improve your workplace and you’ll be remembered for it.
 

Never use profanity in the workplace or in public. A potty mouth makes you look crass and unrefined. Use the dictionary to find words to better describe your circumstances and you’ll send a much clearer message and receive respect from colleagues.  Save cussing for private conversations to let off steam.
 

Always be clear about your intent for gift giving during the holidays and birthdays. By announcing several months in advance that you would like to or would not like to exchange gifts, you won’t hurt any feelings and you’ll avoid those awkward moments when you’re handed a gift that you aren’t prepared to reciprocate.  Besides, exchanging gifts between lots of people can rack up charges on credit cards that’ll be difficult to pay down.  So let everyone know our gift-giving plans ahead of time.
 

Always “pay it forward” because you could always use good karma! Let people go before you in line, and it will make their day.  It can turn sour people into grateful people. Besides, what if that person you wouldn’t allow to cut before you was your future client or boss?  What if that person was having a heart attack and needed to get the hospital? If you could spare 5 seconds, let others go first.
 

Always say “thank you,” “no thank you,” and “you’re welcome.”  Like paying it forward, it makes people glad they did something for you because they feel appreciated.  These are little things that can turn around bad days.  You can send this message in an email, text or call – better yet, say them face to face!

read more

Stuffy old English etiquette got the swift boot during the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1960s.  Boomers were burning their bras and going all natural.  This movement led to women entering the work force and enrolling in college — which opened doors for women to become independent and successful managers and entrepreneurs.  Somewhere between burning bras and donning tailored suits, however, etiquette got lost.  And writing formal letters on stationery became a thing of the past thanks to the speed and ease of sending emails, texts, messages and tweets.  As a result, respect and boundary lines have become blurred, creating awkward business interactions.

When your entire social life is displayed on Facebook or Instagram, your boss and your employees become privy to your private, personal life.  So when they tease you about your yoga pants or congratulate you for participating in a marathon, it sets a casual spin on your relationship and authority with business associates. When is it okay to inquire about what you see on social media with your boss or supervisor? Can you add emojis to internal business texts and still get respect from your colleagues?

According to Myka Meier, founder of Beaumont Etiquette School, “The most important thing about etiquette, especially in business, is showing respect.”  She offers etiquette classes at The Plaza Hotel in New York City that sells out fast. Why? Millennials feel inadequate because of their American casual culture and they know that turning on the charm, showing respect, and impressing their clients will give them the skills to close that deal. Yup! The way you hold and present yourself does have a profound effect on your business relations.

If you don’t want to pay New York rates for business etiquette classes, I’m blogging about business etiquette tomorrow! Check in to learn about 15 tips that every professional needs to know about etiquette.

[Source]

Now that most college application deadlines have passed, you’re probably wondering what you’ll be doing with all of your free time.  

After all, you’ve spent every free moment writing essays, completing applications, requesting letters of recommendation, and putting together portfolios or videos (art, film, and dance students) for the past 4 months!

And to think you did all of the above while taking a full load of classes your senior year.  Wow! Pat yourself on the back!

Before senioritis sets in, here are 5 things you can, and should, do to make sure your applications receive the best reviews:

1. Check your emails.  I know you’re receiving a ridiculous number of emails each day but pay attention to the ones from the colleges you’ve applied to.  If they’re missing something that you know you’ve submitted, it is YOUR responsibility to resend it.  So do check to see what they’re asking for.
2. Create portals.  If your colleges allow you to set up portals, do it!  You’ll be able to see where you are in the application review process and be up to date on anything they’re missing.  You’ll also see when they’re planning Admit Days where you get to meet other students who have been admitted for Fall 2016.
3. Email them with updates.  If you did a project, this is a great opportunity for you to give them an update.  Tell them the good news that’s taken place since you submitted your application.  You could even create an event to create more news! J
4. Organize a college tour of the colleges you’ve been accepted to.  Schedule this during spring break or on weekends before May 1^st. Try to set up an overnight at your top colleges so you can really get a feel for the college life.
5. Apply for outside scholarships.  While you’re on a roll with all of your essays, you probably can reuse some of the essays if the prompts are similar.  Check with your high school counselor to see what scholarships they think might work for you.  Ask your parents if their employers have scholarships available.

When you’re done with these 5 tips, then it’s time to enjoy the rest of your senior year.  You’ll have until May 1^st to decide where you’re going to college next year.  But, don’t forget: keep your grades up or you might lose your college admissions offers! 

So you can relax… to a certain extent!

The words we use determine what people hear.  Using the power of the word – linguistics – we can win back our democracy. By tweeting lies and repeating them over and over again, Trump reaches and influences millions of people who are too busy and stressed to vet out the truth. So to beat him at his own game using his skillful techniques, we shouldn’t attack and repeat what he says (because that just reinforces it in everyone’s minds), instead, we should state what the public needs and frame our message in terms of the public good.

I’m reading George Lakoff’s book Don’t Think of an Elephant to learn how to use linguistics to frame your message.  Lakoff sent his piece called “Understanding Trump” to the entire Clinton campaign management team and PAC (Political Action Committee) to help them understand Trump’s skillful brainwashing techniques last year – but nobody was listening. So now, I think the world is listening. 

Lakoff suggests that we do 2 things:

(1) Create a citizen’s communication network that lays out our values, and

(2) Train leaders and media how to frame their messages from a positive point of view.

What’s good for the public actually goes against everything that Trump is doing, so this will be easy to do. Read Lakoff’s book Don’t Think of an Elephant to better equip yourself whether you’re posting on social media or running for President of the United States.

[Source]

Today’s Guest Blogger is Pascal Costa, a high school student who is trying to change the world for the better. 

When I was 16, I decided to solve the biggest problem our world faces. Today our world contains so many people that we live alongside our own waste, as people wither away malnourished in underdeveloped countries, intelligent animals are abused to feed every mouth, and our climate deteriorates. Overpopulation is the most urgent problem we face; it aggravates every other issue people are trying to solve today, and ironically, it is one which receives little attention.

  To alleviate the stress on our environment and solve overpopulation, I founded my nonprofit organization, Preventing Overpopulation (P.O.P.). P.O.P. will educate the public about overpopulation and encourage them to pledge to have two children or less, link up with existing networks providing sexual education, and through this supply an education on overpopulation. We need a voluntary two-child policy and better sex education; P.O.P. will implement just that.   Through researching climate change, pollution, factory farming, third world social conflicts, and GMOs, I realized all these problems share one cause: overpopulation. There are 7.5 billion people in the world who could stop our rapid growth if they understood what overpopulation caused, the financial burden of big families, and the environmental benefits of small families. My initial goal was to educate the public by creating a website that provided the information I had found, so that they would want to participate in a two-child policy. I animated a whiteboard video, with characters and cartoons about both climate change and the financial implications of big families, to better explain P.O.P. But, despite my best efforts, there was no initial support. No matter how I tried to explain what I was doing, people did not understand that P.O.P. aims to educate the family planning process, not dictate it.    Social media became my soapbox as I continued to spread news about P.O.P., its progress, and how it could completely change our future. I reached out to organizations with similar missions and took P.O.P. to a global scale, calling Population Council, Expert in Family Planning, and Planned Parenthood. Much to my surprise, I was shut out. Both the head of public affairs and the events coordinator for the Planned Parenthood Bay Area refused to associate with P.O.P.; they did not want women’s free choice to be constricted by my organization.   Initially, I lost confidence, feeling I was overstepping. But, I realized that there was lack of understanding of urgency and of my own mission. If we continue to grow at our current rate, we have 35 years until we reach 10 billion people, a quantity our planet cannot sustain. But, we can cut our numbers by 1.5 billion in one decade, if everyone had two children and the death rate remained constant. Women and men all over the world need to understand not only this but also how three or four kids will financially affect them, how they will affect our planet, and therefore our future.    We need people to know that each one of them has the potential to solve or slow the problems we all face. Despite Planned Parenthood’s initial reaction, I called president Cecile Richards to pitch my idea of blending P.O.P.’s information on overpopulation and family planning with Planned Parenthood’s current sex education curriculum. No will not be an answer, and I will persistently search for my open window.   Today P.O.P. has 33 pledges, and I have been invited to speak at a TEDx event as well as on KSCO radio in the spring. With your help, we can change our future, by saving our world for generations to come. P.O.P has made some progress, but it is still a young organization, in need of more support. You can do just that by joining the P.O.P. movement. Go to www.popoverpop.com and pledge, even if you already have kids, you can still help. We may be individuals of singular value, but we are capable of exponential effects. I will start a voluntary implementation of a two-child policy and will continue to discuss a more complete sex education curriculum with Planned Parenthood.   Overpopulation is a problem that still needs to be solved. Progress has been made but there’s still a ways to go; I look forward to the journey ahead.

If you’re like most people, your To-Do lists can be daunting – and can actually have a negative effect on you.  You might completely ignore the list and binge watch Scandal with a big bowl of buttered parmesan cheese instead.  Or you’ll do anything else first, including cleaning out your closet, unless that was on your To-Do list!

So here are a few tips to help you check off those items on your To-Do lists:

1] Delegate tasks that you don’t want to do, to someone else.  This might entail trading tasks like chores, but it’ll make it easier to do when you have to do it for someone else.

2] Break down long-term projects into smaller tasks.  If you’re spring cleaning your entire house, create individual tasks that you can do in an hour.  Then spread them out over several weeks.

3] Block off time to complete each task.  By using a planner, you can first enter the routine tasks and responsibilities that you need to complete.  Then block off time to complete each of your tasks.

By organizing your evenings and weekends using a planner, you can control what you hope to get done each day.  Some tasks may take 15 minutes while others might take an entire day.  Having a To-Do List with a laundry list of things that will take weeks or months to finish, forces you to simply ignore it.  When you block off time to do each item on your To-Do list, you can decide when you’ll do it and how much work is enough each day.  With this system, you’ll be setting yourself up for success.  And, I always put a bonus at the end of the day – something to look forward to so I stay on track.  For me, it could be that big bowl of hot buttered popcorn or taking the pups to the beach.