Our company is celebrating "Diversity Week" this week with a host of activities and educational encounters. Today, one of our youn guys, Dan Baum, wrote the following note to all our staff. It's terrific and I wanted to share it with you: "Hi everybody, Today, while Angela, Alexi, Denise, Chris and John go visit the new Greensboro Museum, I want to remind you all to sign up for the pot luck on Friday and share with you the story of the South’s first integrated college basketball game, known now as the “Secret Game.” North Carolina is college basketball country, so it’s fitting that the South’s first integrated game would take place here. In 1944, the NCCU basketball team made...

I've been blogging on and off for about a year and I'll be posting more regularly in the future, which is either good or bad, depending on your world view. I've had a lot to say about the role of for-profit companies in today's communities and it occurred to me that readers of this blog have no real idea of how the company I work for operates. In other words, do I walk the talk? I know a good writer who has a blog about sustainable workplaces who recently posted some pretty cool stuff about our company -- The Redwoods Group -- and I thought it might frame some of my views for you. If it sounds like a commercial, I apologize. To be honest, virtually everyone who advises me about...

Liberal Democrats love to hate Joe Lieberman. I was on the White House lawn on Inauguration day as all our legislators assumed their seats. One by one and two by two, they walked from the building out onto the platform, each "announced" to the hundreds of thousands of spectators by the cameras, which projected their images onto hundreds of 30-foot screens all along the Mall. When the Republican leaders appeared, there were scattered boos and general grumbling but there was a palpable spirit of respect that day and virtually every negative utterance was met immediately with a forceful round of "Shhhh" from the crowd. That is, until Mr. Lieberman appeared. He was booed lustily...

As you now know, Senator Edward M. Kennedy has died. As is appropriate, much is now being said of the long life of public service Ted Kennedy led, (as one example, I’ve included below the email sent by the President yesterday about his feelings for Senator Kennedy.) Fortunately, much is also being made of his unique ability to collaborate with legislators of both parties to move ahead an agenda of social justice. Over the years, he co-sponsored bills with, among others, Bob Dole, John McCain and he worked closely with President George W. Bush to develop the “No Child Left Behind” education initiative. We can only imagine that the current debate on health care access would be more civil and more...

I could barely see the podium or the big screen last week in Washington, DC. It's not because we weren't close enough to either... in fact, we were pretty darn close to the action. It's because I couldn't stop crying the whole time. From Aretha (what a hat...!) to Reverend Lowery ("Let all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen...") the experience was transformational. I was honored and excited to be able to attend, of course, but I was not prepared for the emotion of the event. I have met Mr. Obama and I've been inspired by his words on many occasions. Jennifer and I were there in Denver on that beautiful August evening when he accepted his party's nomination...

...so Martin could walk. Martin walked so Barack could run. Barack ran so our children can fly. I have no crystal ball, but I feel strongly that we are about to witness an historic evening -- an evening that, even here in the United States of Amnesia, will remain an indelible memory for all of us for the rest of our lives. Many Democrats I know will be satisfied with nothing less than a sweeping rebuke of the 28 years of conservative ascendancy. They want, and expect, not only a 10-point Obama win, but also 60 seats in the new Senate. Neither is likley to happen. At the same time, most Republicans would be ecstatic with even the narrowest margin in a McCain win. Either way, tomorrow, we will...

The great unwinding of our governmental competence is finally complete. Having mis-managed the FDA, FEMA, the SEC, the war on terrorism, the Justice Department, and US-Russia realtions, just to name a few areas, this week we failed to respond to the global economic meltdown. We failed on many fronts -- we didn't see it coming, we exacerbated a bad situation by giving the financial markets more, rather than less, freedom -- but I never expected this administration (the one that invented the term "death tax" and presented the proposal to strip away meaningful environmental protections as "The Clear Skies Initiative") to lose a battle because they framed it wrong. Really...

"The global economic crisis was barely averted today by the courageous efforts of US Presidential candidate, John McCain, who selflessly set aside his campaign -- putting country first, while rival Barack Obama practiced for a debate -- to work around the clock with a breakaway group of maverick House Republicans to get them to back the $700 billion troubled assets purchase plan first offerred over the weekend by the genius, Henry Paulson, Treaury Secretary. Senator McCain, as he has done so often in his long and storied career of public service, used his experience to reach across the aisle and single-handedly negotiate the most important piece of legislation ever acted upon by the US government...

For 4 months, I have been thinking about the best way to blog. Frankly, I have quite a bit to say, but I want very much to hear from others as well. My previous posts, I'm told, are too comprehensive and leave little opportunity for response. As you might suspect, they're also hard to write while dealing with the demands of a normal life. I am not a professional writer -- as is obvious -- and I have not yet found the process nor the needed discipline to write regular, long, high-quality posts. I approached this weekend thinking I'd try to write more frequent, shorter and more open-ended posts... inviting a great deal more response. That's what I'm doing today, but, once again...

It's April 4, 1968. Dr. King has been shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee. A few hundred miles away, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, campaigning for the Democratic Presidential nomination, is scheduled to appear before a large crowd in a dangerous black neighborhood in Indianapolis. He is advised by his security detail not to go, but he goes anyway. On the ride to the event, he is quiet, lost in thought. Finally, the unimaginable occurs to him and he asks, "Do they know?" "No", he is told. The crowd has been gathering and waiting for many hours, they've had no way to hear the news. Bobby Kennedy realizes then that he, a white man of great privilege, will be the one to...