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Regular thoughts on the human condition and corporate social responsibility by the CEO of a "for-benefit"company.
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Our current economic model -- implemented all across the globe as the partner platform to advancing "democracy" in developing nations -- is not sustainable. The time has come for us to recognize that any model that is dependent on over-consumption and easy credit and that disproportionately rewards the rich at the expense of services for the rest cannot work over any long period of time. Capitalism alone is not the saviour of society. Since last August, the Federal Reserve Board Chair, Ben Bernanke, has told us that the "weakness" in the economy has been "contained". First, it was "contained" within the sub-prime mortgage industry. Then, in December, it...
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The war is coming to a close. There are deep divisions in the US between hawks and doves, between blacks and whites, between those who want the firm hand of a central government and those who believe in the autonomy of the states, between those who support the President and those in opposition. It is 1865. In Washington, DC, March 4 of that year is gray and blustery... not exactly the kind of day Abraham Lincoln had in mind for his second inauguration. Still, with the Civil War drawing to an end, there is hope and joy among the enormous crowds -- made up of wealthy Northern businessmen, a huge contingent of the Union Army, the entire US Government... the victors. Soon, they will have triumphed...
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Today we celebrate the life and contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King... now viewed -- in the words of biographer Harvard Sitkoff -- as "a moderate, respectable ally of Presidents and a facile spokesperson for the American Dream." Indeed, virtually every modern presidential candidate invokes the image of Dr. King as as model of peaceful, incremental change. This view is wrong and dangerous. 40 years ago, Dr. King's agenda was radical, not moderate. He preached the need for cataclysmic change. He was hated by many in the population, especially by the FBI and state and local governments all across the South. He was attacked, discredited, sent to jail and, finally, murdered. And...
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Tonight, it will be 19 degrees in Iowa, a dramatic improvement over last night. And about 120,000 Democrats will go into homes, schools and churches and choose, in full public view, the presidential nominee of their party. Across town, in a slightly different process, Republicans will do the same. All across the state, Iowans will have begun the essential process of healing our country so desperately needs. Most thinking people now admit that we have lost our way in the past 7 years. We are not a country that fights wars of choice. We are not a country that tortures. We are not a debtor country. We are not an isolationist country. We are not a country that leaves poor people on rooftops for days...
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