bm226 Dishwasher Pete on Work and Workers

In his quest to wash dishes in all 50 states, Pete Jordan was seeking freedom, adventure, free food and whatever peaked his interest. Many of his objectives have to do with the very human desire to find some form of freedom within a structured work place. In this podcast we talk about his experience with work, labor unions, different cultures, and more.

Pete’s website
His Book: Dishwasher

We discuss:

– Pete’s early thoughts on working
– Responsibility, avoiding it
– Freedom to think and quit
– Labor Unions for Dishwashers
– Decline of Labor or the Return of Labor?
– Cultural Differences in the workplace, Netherlands vs US

bm222 Responsible Investment, Where is Your Money?

Most people put money in the bank and figure it stays there waiting for them. But everyday banks take your money and invest it in industries that are actually destroying lives and the planet. In this podcast we talk about that investment; ways of getting banks and investment funds to behave responsably and what power the client has to determine what is done with their money.

My first guest is Jens Nielsen from Friends of the Earth Netherlands who talks about the recent report on Dutch banks and Climate Conscious Investing

Next guest is Robert Rubinstein, CEO and founder of Brooklyn Bridge and the TBLI group, who talks about global investment funds, their motivatioions and behavior, and getting them to adopt sustainable, responsible, long term goals.

Topics Covered in this program:
– Dutch banks, large and small
– Why banks invest as they do
– What can be done to make them act responsibly
– The global picture
– Investment funds like the Gates foundation
– short term vision
– power of the customer
– herding cats, farming for the long term
– Green real estate

 

Disc Around the World

A friend of mine, the man who introduced me to ulimate frisbee, started the first ever league in Liberia. Years later he would introduce the sport in Trinidad and last I heard he was in Madagascar surely throwing disc with the local population.

Over the weekend I’m sitting down to dinner after the first day of an exhausting tournament here in Amsterdam, and one of the more recent arrivals to our league started talking about his own experience. Having recently moved to the Netherlands from Colorado, he spoke about how confident he was that he wouldn’t feel alone or lacking in things to do since there would surely be ultimate in the Netherlands. Indeed I’ve noticed, just as he said, the fact that in a very short time, he has become a beloved member of the Amsterdam frisbee family.

And that’s the magic that made me want to write today… the global tradition that welcomes you no matter where you are. The social sport that transcends language and culture, giving you that sense of belonging even in a place where maybe you otherwise don’t belong.

Then there’s the typical statement you hear for all team sports… the bringing together of different people from different walks of life.. for a social meetup and sporting competition. Where conflicts are resolved peacefully on the field, and differences are embraced as something to be cherished and shared. Classic explanation of a sport, but as far I’m concerned, the world could use less talk of going to war and preparing to fight allegedly insane and dangerous “enemies” that are – of course – so different from us. If they only designated more parks and fields, and made more funds available for these kinds of activities.. then you’d see real conflict resolution and cross cultural understanding.

But of course, compared to the military business that helps make certain politicians and corporations unfathomably wealthy – encouraging a nonprofit peace enhancing sport is apparently bad business.

bmtv53 Amsterdam Pride 2007

The following is just a brief vlog entry as I cruised the canals of Amsterdam with good friends during Pride 2007 over the weekend. I was joined by Amy Joy and JaG among others. It was a lovely day and a great celebration, but my hope is that people don’t forget amidst all the celebrating, that equal rights have not yet been achieved in so many countries throughout the world, and that even in Amsterdam the LGBT community has recently been the subject of ongoing attacks and harassment, which must be stopped.

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Yearly Whatever

Lots of things happening in my professional life as well as the social life, as it seems all my good friends in Amsterdam are inviting me places lately. And behind all this, preparations have to be made for my upcoming talk at the Chaos Communications Camp which begins this week. I’m taking my talk extremely seriously this time, as I’m going not to represent myself, but rather to talk about the important work of New Orleans bloggers and grassroots net activists.

As I prepare this I notice lots… no.. excessive blog posting throughout the internet about a conference held by a dominant mainstream American blogger. It sounds like a lovely time, yet at the same time.. yet another conference to talk about how revolutionary they the bloggers are. The truth is, as an offshoot of one of the two corporatist political parties of the US, they are anything BUT revolutionary. More like the voluntary pawns of a political game that gradually moved online, yet the talking points remain the same.

This is what I was thinking about, along with all the other endless distractions and talk about nothing on places like facebook or twitter, as I listened to the latest Amsterdam Forum from radio Netherlands. The focus of the podcast was what the internet has done or not done for society, art, and information. Many of the participants spoke at length of the amount of useless conversation and endless new websites for alleged community building that are popping up all over on the internet. They also talk about book publishing and what will happen to that industry, and of course – the media – as one man goes on and on about the important of gatekeepers… which of course, I don’t agree with. (read the text)

What I like best about the program is that it brings up a very important fact — there’s alot going on with the internet today… but much of it isn’t FOR any particular reason. And why should it be? In my opinion, because there are many more important things that the people of the world are in desperate need of that we might be able to help with if we’d only stop using all the power and innovation for such shallow objectives.

In many ways.. just writing this post adds to the pile.

Radio NL On Zimbabwe

Much like I do on a daily basis in Amsterdam, this morning I hopped on my bike and rode into town here in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal. And much like I do in Amsterdam, I’m sure to load up my mp3 player with recent podcasts so that I can learn about the state of the world while weaving past crazy drivers… crazy being the operative word for Portuguese drivers.

The one recent podcast that I soaked up today was from the program Amsterdam Forum, focusing on the Zimbabwean crisis. While I’ve spoken about and spend a good amount of time learning about conditions and developments in that country, I still seek more and more explanations to understand not only how this happened but creative and potentially effective solutions. In this program Amsterdam Forum, yet another great production from Radio Netherlands, brings in alot of interesting voices who managed to teach me more and give me even more facts and history regarding why and how Zimbabwe got to where it is. There are even some interesting theories which I had never heard about why Mugabe has allowed the country to slip into such a terrible situation.

To hear the whole thing, and I do highly recommend it, go to the Amsterdam Forum website. You can either read or listen.. me I love to listen.