text: James Spencer - September 23, 2010 Honoring: Pointing Breeds By James B. Spencer POINTING BREEDSThis tip is from Jim Zelienka of Badger Kennels, N 707 County Rd. JJ, Coloma, WI 54930; (715) 228-4971; firstname.lastname@example.com. Jim has been training professionally for 33 years. He trains all sporting breeds for hunting, but specializes in training pointing breeds for hunting, hunting tests and field trials. He also offers a variety of seminars and demonstrations. He breeds English setters, English springers, cockers and Labradors.Honoring "The dog that honors, or backs, another dog's point won't interfere with the other dog's work," Jim said. "In other words, he doesn't knock birds, steal points or retrieve birds the pointing dog should be allowed to retrieve." Jim said that backing has two distinct levels. In the first, the handler simply stops his dog with whoa at the appropriate time. This is adequate for those hunting situations in which the dogs are never out of sight. In the second level, the dog stops automatically when he recognizes that his bracemate is on point. This is ideal for all hunting situations, whether or not the dogs are in sight. Although the backing dog should stop as soon as he recognizes that the other dog is on point, Jim acknowledges that most bird dogs seldom back from farther away than about 40 yards, no matter how far off they are when they first notice the other dog's point. "Still, I've often seen a dog come over a rise and immediately stop and back at 75 yards or more," he said. "What a beautiful sight!" Jim feels that the backing dog's posture, or style, is immaterial. He has seen too many dogs lose their intensity because their handlers fuss too much with them, trying to get them to assume a classical stance that their natures never intended. "Styling is an art, and to do it right, you have to know what you're doing," he said. Jim said that the prerequisites for training a bird dog to honor are as follows: He should be yard trained in basic obedience; he should have proven his desire to hunt and find birds; he should be steady to wing, shot and kill; and he should retrieve. "All these control drills put the handler in charge and set the tone for both handling and further training," he said. Jim uses silhouettes of dogs on point to teach a youngster to whoa at the sight of another dog on point. Initially he places his silhouettes in several semi-hidden places around the yard and heels the dog on lead from one to another, whoa-ing him as soon as he sees each one. When the dog begins to stop automatically at the sight of each silhouette on this "milk run" route, Jim discontinues the whoa command and "talks" to the dog through the lead. When he no longer must correct the dog with the lead, he moves out into the field. In light cover, he sets out a tethered bird and has an assistant handle the silhouette. He turns his dog loose in a place from which he cannot see the assistant or the silhouette. While the dog hunts, the assistant sets the silhouette up like a dog pointing the tethered bird. As soon as the dog reaches a place from which he can see the silhouette, Jim stops him with whoa. Then he picks the dog up, carries him to a position downwind of the bird and sets him down again. Thus, the dog gets a snootful of bird scent, which tells him what's going on. Jim stays with the dog and keeps him steady while his assistant walks in, flushes the bird and fires a blank shot. After a few repetitions, Jim starts placing his whoa-ed dog upwind and sidewind of the silhouette, where he can't scent the bird. When the dog is reliable as sight-honoring the silhouette, Jim begins using a variety of silhouettes simulating different breeds of dogs. Finally he has the dog honor other dogs on point. "As an added incentive, I often carry an extra quail," Jim said. "When my dog backs, I wait a few seconds, then dizzy the quail and let my dog see me toss it into cover where he can't smell it. This really adds to his intensity while honoring." As a final thought, Jim warned that you shouldn't hunt your trained bird dog with an outlaw dog that bumps birds, steals points, steals retrieves and so forth. "Even a well-trained and seasoned dog will put up with only so much of that before he starts taking liberties, too." GET THE NEWSLETTER Join the List and Never Miss a Thing. Sign Me Up


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That's one of the principle written in one of the chapters Wallace Wattles wrote in his personal development & success book The Science Of Getting Rich.
Which you can download at www.scienceofgettingrich.net or thescienceofgettingrich.com amongst others.
The chapter in question (Chapter 14) is titled "The Impression Of Increase."
What it basically says is that the Universe is a formless substance that is perpetuated by growth, evolution & increase.
So if you perform an act that promotes this "idea of increase" – aligning yourself with the harmony that IS the Universe – then you will find yourself exposed to & receiving more resources or opportunities to help you do more of these "acts of more" that promote the impression of increase.
Which is part of what the Universe, the "all of everything," is.
For example Wallace Wattles, & yes we're still talking about one of his books The Science Of Getting Rich downloadable here – suggests that we must give in use value than what we take in cash value.
It's the universal "give more than you take" principle.
Were he even refers to selling a hunting rifle to an Eskimo as opposed to selling him a painting.
The rifle is worth more value to him than a painting because he will use the rifle to get him the fur & food he needs to make him rich, not like a painting which won't do him, financially that is, any good by just hanging on his Eskimo wall.
This makes me think of what Robert Kiyosaki said in one of his books about the difference between an asset and a liability, assets being things that bring money IN your pocket, whereas liabilities are things that take money OUT of your pocket.
Like your house "own" for instance.
Many people think that their house is an asset when in fact it takes money OUT of your pocket, that's why you pay a mortgage on it.
It's only an asset to your banker because she's the one receiving the income every month from YOU, in the form of you paying off your house every month.
It only becomes an asset to YOU when you rent it out so that, after all the respective expenses, the tenant pays off the mortgage for you and you still have a profit left over, the profit that goes into your pocket.
Come to think about it I recommend you get a copy of Robert T. Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad Poor Dad" if you want to get an idea of how the mind of a rich women or rich men thinks via your local bookstores, a second hand (used) book outlet like the one we have here in Southgate Mall (even Protea Gardens sometimes has a temporary exhibition of books of this nature), friend, family, library or you can order it on Amazon.com.
It has come to my observation that depending on where you are in your life the effects that The Science Of Getting Rich has can vary from person to person, maybe it's because we all might not be going through the same things at that very point in time.
One woman took the practical principles contained in this book & after implementing them in her own life created an idea that cashed in for her millions of dollars, from reading it in just one sitting – with continuous reference to it throughout her journey to success.
And there was one guy I read of who read The Science Of Getting Rich through a number of times before he FINALLY GO IT!
Which led to him also getting a license for hosting a seminar about it.
Just writing about it now makes me want to go back to it and devour all the juicy richness of its wealth consciousness content and gaining more from it than I did from my last reading.
"When you read a book through the second time around you don't see in it something that you never saw before, but you see in yourself something that wasn't there before."
I got that quote, and have more in reserve, from an audio I listen to every time I get in my car and have on repeat, by Earl Nightingale which I downloaded from a Mark Victor Hansen website.
I want to end of this update by saying that success is a mindset and that it comes from the habits we partake in our daily lives and moments.
So are you current habits progressively driving you towards the financial success you want or are they keeping you in the spider-web of lack and limitation that is echoed by the company you keep?
I mean come on…you want to be rich but you surround yourself with poverty?
How does that work?
That's like going around in circles and thinking you are making progress.
"If you do the things you keep doing, you will keep getting the things you've always gotten."
So here I am asking you to be have an open mind in grabbing a copy of The Science Of Getting Rich that would allow you to take that very important first step towards the life you laugh about with your friends.
A life the other 3% of the people in the world, who make 97% of the money that is being earned in the world are living.

subset: commoncrawl


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Since the liberalization of the market, National Regulatory Authorities have endeavoured to become the safeguards of free and fair competition in the market. By combining our policy, economic and technical expertise with our regional experience, Salience offers a unique service to regulators in the region.
We support regulators in areas such as market analyses, price regulation, policy frameworks, cost Modelling etc. We also help regulators strengthen their management and organizational structure by designing optimal functions and processes. Salience customers such as the TRA in Bahrain are relying on Salience to define and implement a permitting programme for transmission towers, and CITRA in Kuwait to deliver the policy framework for the country.
Regulatory economics
In a context where the consumer demand for improved broadband services keeps increasing, it is more than ever necessary that government and regulatory policies provide the right incentives for efficient investments by all operators. Our team provides full support to regulatory authorities to establish a framework that balances the use of market forces and the protection of consumers' interest. Our experts have supported policymakers in Middle East and many countries by advising the development regulatory framework that address local specific circumstances
Cost modelling
Setting cost-oriented prices for the regulated market is considered as a remedy by most of regulatory authorities. Our experts have a strong track record in developing LRIC bottom-up cost models of regulated activities. Our expertise includes the costing different service such as mobile and fixed termination rates, access to active and passive infrastructure, Universal Services etc Our team consists of experienced economists who can develop creative and proficient quantitative tools to address the most complex problems of cost modelling
Market definition & competition
The competition among telecommunications markets is globally growing. Once the market is effectively competitive, ex ante regulation should be rolled-back and replaced by ex post regulation. Therefore, the competition law is increasingly consisting in identifying the relevant remedy for potential anti-competitive behavior after act rather than ex-ante regulation. Our team gathers a deep understanding of telecommunications markets and competition policy expertise and assist our clients, both regulators and operators by providing relevant and consistent analyses. These include market definition and competition assessment, merger analysis, abuse of market power, horizontal and vertical agreements, and state aid.
NBN policy
National policy may recommend that a single National Broadband Network (NBN) infrastructure to deliver ultra-fast broadband products and services is a preferable and efficient solution to enhance the development of broadband. This single network is owned by an entity that in some cases results from the legal or structural separation of the Incumbent. As advisers, we support Government and regulators in the establishment of a regulatory economic framework that accords with the objectives set in their national policies. We also assess existing regulatory regimes and recommend comprehensive changes to support the implementing an NBN or any ambitious programme for deployment of ultra-fast networks.
Regulatory process & capacity
The changes of the telecommunication markets have required the regulatory authorities to review the former remedies. For instance, the traditional tools of price control and obligations to supply are now complemented with new tools such as 'equivalence' of wholesale products or margin squeeze tests. Our team has supported regulators to design creative remedies that really take into account the broader regulatory situation. Our market analyses do not only consist of benchmarking international practices but are also focused on the local competitive environment to provide insight on the specific markets. We also provide support to operators by advising them on how to be compliant with the regulation.
Digital regulation
As network operators migrate to next generation networks, voice services are likely to be progressively replaced by software applications riding over the network and VoIP. During this transition, policy-makers are finding different paths to regulate the Over The Top (OTT) players in order to balance innovation, investment and competition. Our team has a strong understanding of the digital market and the network builders and operators' business model and can therefore support regulators in designing new regulatory tools that will fairly distribute the risk and revenues between network builders and operators and OTT player
Litigation support
Our team has worked with operators and provided economics support to litigants in arbitration and damages cases or when appealing key regulatory decisions. In all these cases, providing a robust economic analysis can be a decisive factor. Our experts' analyses provide evidence on the economic effects of the matter under dispute or quantify the economic and financial impact of anticompetitive practices for the assessment of damages claims. Our team has the capability of working with our client's legal advisers and present clearly credible and well grounded economic analyses.


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Limit of maps
Limit of maps is a three-dimensional map of a mythical world.
I've always enjoyed the moment when, looking at a map, you reach the edge to find the words 'limit of maps'. What lies beyond?
This work defies the concept that maps have limits – imagination allows a map to stretch out, boundless, taking us on an endless journey.


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Copyright © St Patrick's Church Patterdale 2019
Music at St Patrick's
St. Patrick's Church has a long tradition of music making. For many years there was a church choir, accompanied by the fine William Hill organ installed in 1891, rebuilt by Wilkinson in 1906 and rebuilt and enlarged by Andrew Carter of Wakefield, completed in March 2013. We have a series of concerts for the enjoyment of local people and visitors, as well as to raise funds for the renovation of the organ. In 2012 there have been 14 musical events in the church, including Schubert's Winterreise, David Hunt's 'Poetry & Piano' evening, a Tenebrae Service on Good Friday, the Russian Konevets Quartet, three of Bach's solo cello suites, 'O be joyful' with Carlisle Cathedral Youth Choir, concerts by Mike Town for Carlisle Deanary Mothers' Union and the Cumbrian Society of Organists, the local Jubilee Singers (twice), Millbeck Wind Quintet, Annie Mawson (voice & harp), The Wordsworth Singers and students from the Royal Northern College of Music. In 2013 we have so far had concerts by Rossendale Ladies Choir, music for Passiontide by the Herdwyck Consort, the opening recital on the rebuilt organ by David Goode and an Elton John tribute by Dan Bishop. A further 10 main concerts are planned for the rest of the year, plus 18 mini-


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Cess – Here We Go + Dark Night Rising feat. Big Fela
Here We Go (Produced By Cess) by CESSDark Night Rising ft. Big Fela (Produced By Cess) by CESS
Here We Go (Produced By Cess) by CESSDark Night Rising ft. Big Fela (Produced By Cess) by CESS
Pat Stay has done it again. Originally posted on CBC: here. Pat Stay wins rap battle put on by hip-hop heavyweight Drake Stay will appear in an Eminem reality TV Continue Reading
Jaymes Thomas ft. Cess – TYCO (Produced By Cess) by Jaymes Thomas
Torch feat. Big Fela, Skoo, & Al Boogie (Produced By Cess) by CESS FEAT. BIG FELA, SKOO, & AL BOOGIE
GET THE HD VERSION ON ITUNES HERE: http://itunes.apple.com/album/save-me-feat-brandy/id440096172 Pat Stay feat. Brandy Callahan – Save Me by AtlanticHipHop
We're bringing you another release this week; this time from Truro's own Joe Buck. The album was released as a limited run CD back in 2008 and now we're bringing Continue Reading
Out now from AtlanticHipHop.com's AHH Digital and Ghost Town Syndicate, this 15 song full length album from Halifax's SARS, features production from Ill Fated, Weapon X, Tut The Instrumentalist, Oscar Continue Reading
Artist: Arch NME Album: Body Harvest EP Release Date: 12/20/2009 Label Name: Stronghold Digital https://itunes.apple.com/album/body-harvest-ep/id347874946 Here's the Review for ArchNME's Body Harvest EP that was banned from being published in Continue Reading
Out now from AtlanticHipHop.com's new Digital Label AHH Distribution and Stronghold Digital, this 7 song EP from Halifax's ArchNME, Weapon-X, Morse Code, Produced by Al'Tarba with Cuts from Uncle Fester Continue Reading


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If I bind a JavaScript event to an element, then delete the element, what happens to the event?
If I bind a JavaScript event to an element, then delete the element, what happens to the event?
Let's say I have an element:
Then, after the DOM loads, I bind an event to the element, like so:
Later on, the element gets deleted:
What happens to the bound event? Is it deleted too? Does it linger around? Is it a good practice to clean it up?
According to the jQuery documentation for the
.html() method, the event handlers are removed.
This is done to prevent memory leaks.
.html()is used to set an element's content, any content that was in that element is completely replaced by the new content. Additionally, jQuery removes other constructs such as data and event handlers from child elements before replacing those elements with the new content.
Similarly, the same applies when using the
.remove() methods as well:
all bound events and jQuery data associated with the elements are removed.
If you want to retain the data and event listeners, use the
.detach() method instead. The
.detach() method is essentially the same as the
.remove() method except for the fact that it keeps all jQuery data associated with the removed elements (which means that you can append the same element after detaching it, and the events would still be bound).


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Wildland Truck
Designed and engineered as first responders, brush trucks, crash trucks and pumpers, this truck is one the most versatile fire apparatuses on the market. These extreme 4x4 platforms are "rugged done right" by world renowned platform specialist Howe & Howe Technologies Inc. Bumper sprayers, monitor nozzles, skid plates, drop bumpers and full tube chassis protection make our truck a best fit for a firefighting platform.
To view specifications or to submit a quote request click below:
2Door and 4Door spec sheets.
Bulldog 4x4 Firetruck
2,000 Gallons of Go Anywhere
MT4 Extrme 4x4 Medial Transport
6 litter 18'x8'x7' Box 4x4 Mass Casualty Medical Transport
Thermite Robotic Firefighter
Create standoff and save lives with 2,500gpm of robotic firing fighting capability.


text:
Western Bank crafts custom solutions with a rare combination of competitive features, local decision-making and truly personal customer service.
Western Bank realizes small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy. We also know that it can be a hurdle for a growing, small businesses to secure traditional bank financing. Let us help you with SBA 7(a) loans for new or expanding businesses, and 504 loans.
Routing #: 111323731
Western Bank is committed to ensuring that our website is accessible to everyone. We continually enhance the accessibility and usability of our website based upon standards recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in its Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0.
If you need further assistance or have any questions or suggestions regarding the accessibility of this site, please give us a call @ 877-301-2262 or email us at [email protected], and we'll help you out.


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Twitter Not Working On Iphone ? Dial Now 1-844-375-4111
Twitter has taken off recently with native iOS integration in Apple's latest firmware. The Twitter application is also obtainable for free on the Application Store, providing an easy way to entrée the repair on the go. Lately some users of the app have experienced an problem where the Connect tab does not show mentions.
Mash able explains that the secrecy bug is affecting Android customers, too. Although Twitter has not released a fix yet, there is a simple workaround that should resolve the problem on your iPhone. Reinstalling the application or rebooting your iPhone is not essential.
You should be capable to fix the attach tab by removing your Twitter accounts from the iPhone, then re-adding them. To create this work go after these instructions.
1. find the way to Settings Tab > Twitter and click your account name.
2. Tap Delete Account and confirm the remove.
3. Now that your account has been deleted, reconstruct the account.
4. Navigate to Settings Tab > Twitter Tab -> Create New Account Tab.
5. go into your in order in the fields and caress Sign Up.
If you are facing problem with twitter website, please attempt the following steps.
attempt clearing your cache and cookies for your device is mobile browser. You can clear cache and cookies from the settings menu tab for your browser.
revolve your phone off for 5 minutes to reset the link.
If the in excess of error troubleshooting guidelines did not resolution your problem, confirm the list below to make certain you arenot trying to right of entry a feature that does not exist on the web site.


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WizCon 2003
Last update: March 24, 2010
Click thumbnail to see a larger version and then click 'back' to get here.
|Us again, Crimson without his mask
|Me and Jaster Mareel from TDH. Boy was his daddy proud... kept going on and on about his son's work. Very sweet.
|Jeremy (Elder Boba Fett) Bullock
|Kev with Jeremy
|Zacheriah (Kit Fisto) Jensen. What a smile.. and th ehair! Gotta love it!
|Nice guy too, with a great Australian Accent!
|Ray (Darth Maul) Park
He was actually taller than I expected
|But he still made a comment about me being so much taller... *heh*
|Ray liked Kev's costume
|Me and Zam I Am from TDH... very cool to
finally meet her!
I need to work on my posture...
|Kev and I got to have dinner sitting next to David Prowse. He had so many great stories to tell! We had a blast...
|Kev and Kenny (R2D2) Baker
|Kev must have taken at least 30 + pictures with people in the 4 hours we were there.
|He was a great hit with most of the kids, asking questions about lightsabers and the Force
|And then there was this one who kept trying to beat him up - something about his dad... (That's Daniel (young Boba) Logan)
|Kev and Natasha as Obi-wan and Padme
|Obi-wan protecting Padme from Dooku
|Kev was laughing and I asked him why and he said, "Because he can't win."
Kev and Jaster Duel


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Founder of Pakistan Mr Mohammad Ali Jinnah, at a press conference in Kashmir in 1944, said that Ahmadiyas were Muslim, adding "Who am I to declare a person non-Muslim, who calls himself a Muslim?". On another occasion in 1947, Mr Jinnah was quoted as telling the Ahmadiya followers: "You are free. You may belong to any religion, caste, or creed. That has nothing to do with the business of the State".
In recent months, the Ahmadiyya community in Indonesia, where the great majority of the population are Sunni Muslims, has been subjected to repeated assaults. This unprecedented anti-Ahmadiyya wave is believed to be triggered by a fatwa issued in July by the official Council of Indonesian Ulamas, which describes Ahmadiyya, as well as liberalism and secularism, as anti-Islam. The fatwa and consequent events were viewed by many Indonesians, including President Susilo Yudhoyono, as a threat to the country's doctrine of 'unity in diversity' or Bhinneka Tunggal Ika. Abdurrahman Wahid, the former president and head of Indonesia's largest Muslim organization, Nahdhatul Ulama, and many other moderate politician and activists accused the government of doing little to protect Indonesia's tolerant, multi-cultural image and of being hesitant and scared of extremist forces. They also claimed that elements within the state's apparatus have been supporting and protecting radical Muslims.
The Ahmadiyya community in Indonesia, estimated at 200,000 members, was established in 1926 but formally recognised in 1953. The sect's strong hold, however, has always been in North India and Pakistan with a presence in 160 other countries. It claims of having 200 million followers worldwide. While they enjoy the right of self-identification and other freedoms in India, Ahmadiyas in Pakistan are denied such rights.
Some attributed this to opposition expressed by officials then representing East Pakistan, who were against turning Pakistan into a theocratic state. Others attributed it to Jinnah's view of Ahmadiyya and the latter's staunch support to the idea of partition and creation of Pakistan.
Jinnah, in a press conference in Kashmir in 1944, said that Ahmadis were Muslim, adding "Who am I to declare a person, who calls himself a Muslim, as non-Muslim ?". On another occasion in 1947, Jinnah was quoted as telling the Ahmadiyya's followers: "You are free. You may belong to any religion, caste, or creed. That has nothing to do with the business of the State".
Such an official view, however, changed with Islamist forces becoming more influential in the country, especially after the independence of East Pakistan (Bangladesh) . The beginning was with the constitutional amendment of 1974 placing the Ahmadiyya community among non-Muslim minorities. This was followed by other restrictions, particularly during the rule of President Zia-ul-Haq, all of which harassed Ahmadis and created an atmosphere of religious intolerance that contributed to violence.
In Bangladesh, where they number 100,000, the government has not officially declared them as non-Muslims. But in recent years, there have been several attacks in Dhaka and other cities on the community by Muslim extremist organizations, such as Khatme Nabuwat and Jaish-e-Mustafa. In a development reflecting the hardliners' growing influence, the government last year banned the publication and sale of all books on Islam published by the community, saying they might hurt the sentiments of the country's majority Muslim population.
But what is the Ahmadiyya? And why is it rejected by mainstream Muslims? The Ahmadiyya was established in Pakistan in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmed, from Qadian in Punjab, who claimed that he was the recipient of divine revelation in the manner of the Prophet Muhammad and that he had been sent into the world in the power and sprit of Jesus. Upon his death in 1908, he was succeeded by Maulana Hakeem Nooruddin whose death in 1914 marked the split of Ahmadiyya into two groups: the Qadianis and the Lahorites.
Ahmadis accept all the principal Islamic beliefs, including the oneness of Allah. But by claiming that Ghulam Ahmad is a prophet, they repudiate one of the fundamental tenets of Islam, namely the finality of the Prophet Muhammad. This is viewed by mainstream Islam as blasphemous and, therefore, has been used as a justification to declare them as non-Muslims.
Other controversies include the sect's belief that Jesus was crucified but then was revived, left Palestine to preach among the lost tribes of Israel, and eventually arrived in Kashmir, where he died at the age of 120. Ahmadis also reject jihad, saying it can only be used in the case of extreme religious persecution of one's faith. SAN-feature Service.
Dr. Abdulla Al-Madani, academic researcher and professor on Asian affairs, is based in Bahrain.


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Asia-Pacific Trade Indicators Portal (APTIP)
The Asia-Pacific Trade Indicators Portal (APTIP) was designed by UNESCAP to assist researchers, policymakers, students and other interested individuals in visualizing the link between indicators of inclusive trade and preferential trade agreements that have been signed in Asia and the Pacific in an intuitive and user-friendly manner. Users can customize results by choosing graph type, indicators, member states and time period.
Source: United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP)


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Acorn Energy has adopted me.
About three weeks ago, my grandfather met John Moore, found out that John was about to travel to China, painted what couldn't have been anything other than a hugely inflated picture of the work I did while I was living over there, and told John he'd be crazy not to take me out to lunch sometime.
John and I ate the lunch, talked about China, talked about Acorn, talked about my project, kept in touch, and, next thing I knew, I found a letter on the doorstep asking me to become Acorn's Entrepreneur in Residence.
It's a mind-bogglingly unfair deal if you ask me. I get an office, a paycheck, an opportunity to learn about investing in clean energy technology, and most of my time to work on my own project. They get a long-haired, unshaven raving lunatic pacing the hallway, drawing on the whiteboard, and ferociously banging on the keyboard all day.
They dig the project, though, and they believe in me, and it feels great to know that. Huge thanks to John, Christy, and everyone else for making this happen. I'm honored to be a part of Acorn, and I look forward to reciprocating the generosity however I can.
I must say, however, that we've created a bit of an unlikely partnership. Acorn is a publicly traded holding company looking to convince hedge fund managers to mix micro cap energy into their portfolios. My project is a prototype-stage internet startup looking to build a core user community out of hippy ducksqueezers that believe in grassroots democratic economics.
But maybe it's perfect. I am, after all, excited to have discovered today that there does exist, surprising as it may seem, a school of thought believing that equally important to electromagnetically de-icing power transmission cables is rigging them with wind channeling devices and thus preventing them from swinging, twisting, and galloping.
Note: I still can't get over the Entrepreneur in Residence title. Fancy fancy fancy. I mean I would have been more than satisfied with Assistant to the Regional Manager.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Acorn's New Nut
Acorn Energy has adopted me.
Posted by Jake de Grazia at 11:09 PM 6 comments
Reining It In
I spent about 48 hours offline a couple of days ago. When I came back on, I opened Google Reader, saw a mountain of unread items, and had a moment of online existential crisis. I was afraid that I might have to give up my RSS feeds.
A few minutes later, the panic subsided, and I regained some perspective. Rather than swear off reading, I decided I'd try honing my instant filtering skills instead.
The honing has been going on for two nights now. I'm feeling good about my progress. I suggest that everyone hone their instant filtering skills every so often. And I've made a potentially useful observation about myself as a feed reader...
Long articles, unless they strike me immediately as exceptionally relevant or exciting, get skipped. Short articles, even if their relevance is questionable, not only get read but get their links clicked as well.
Maybe this has to do with my particularly acute aversion to scrolling down, but maybe this is perfectly normal feed reading behavior.
I subscribed to the More Perfect Market feed and had a look. Not good: I've written a lot of posts that are dangerously long.
So the plan is to rein it in a little bit. I'll still get fired up sometimes and need to empty my brain, so I won't promise to completely eliminate the long posts. In general, however, I'm going to keep things shorter and simpler.
I'll try not to get logically jumpy. I'll try not to assume unrealistic levels of audience savvy. Ideally, I'll think before I write, break complex thoughts into two or three segments, and post the thoughts over two or three days.
If this makes me harder to understand or less interesting, however, please let me know. I'm far from a perfect judge of my own work, so if this new short post plan erodes the quality on here, I might need someone to tell me that.
One of the reasons I started blogging was because it was scary that I was suddenly the "Managing Director" of a real live startup project and scary that I didn't have people keeping their eyes on me. I wanted to ask the blog reading regulars to manage me and steer me away from bad decisions.
Consider this is my first attempt to do that. I realize I haven't given all that much blow by blow on the startup process yet. It will come, though, and when it does, keep me in line. Whether it's about blogging style or revenue models or interface design (I'm overdue on screenshots, I know), please please please feel free to comment or email and tell me what you think.
Posted by Jake de Grazia at 12:49 AM 4 comments
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
The Silly Season Rages On
I think I might be an Obama addict. I see that big O in a newspaper or on a magazine, and it's like a magnet: I drool a little bit; my body goes half slack; and my eyeballs yank me toward the headlines. It is a worry. I have psychoanalyzed myself, however, and I'm comfortable with the results:
A. As my ex-politician grandfather says, it's the Silly Season, and I'm a sucker for silly.
2. I like Obama, and I like him more and more. It's weird. I know. We are talking about a politician here: someone that gave up a perfectly prestigious and maybe even useful job teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago and decided instead to sell his soul to the ghost of Richard Daley and go into politics. The guy seems different, though. Maybe he has me fooled. Maybe the system is going to stifle him even if he doesn't have me fooled. But maybe he'll do something crazy. And maybe it'll be good.
D. I'm convinced that, one of these days, someone's going to rope a candidate or two into a meaningful discussion about the economics of our world's environmental situation. When that happens, I can't miss it.
I spent the day in Washington DC yesterday. The Washington Post was lying around. I saw an O on the editorial page. I read about it. And I think might have found a little preview of the discussion for which I've been waiting.
Sebastian Mallaby, a think tank economist and bi-weekly columnist, wrote a piece about Barack Obama and bad ideas.
In last Thursday's debate, Obama said: "Understand that what's lacking right now is not good ideas. The problem we have is that Washington has become a place where good ideas go to die."
Mallaby heard that and took issue. He thinks good ideas are exactly what we're lacking. And he thinks we have a particularly acute lack of ideas about how to address climate change. For example...
Hailing biofuels as our saviors? Bad idea. Converting forests and wild grasslands to industrial corn or switchgrass farms emits a whole lot of greenhouse gases. So much, in fact, that sticking with petrol is a cleaner alternative.
Kyoto's manner of involving developing countries in its carbon economy? Bad idea. Apparently, "China has deliberately designed factories to release prodigious quantities of greenhouse gases, then pocketed billions for redesigning them."*
Cap and trade systems? Carbon taxes? More bad ideas. There's no way to get all countries involved in a unified global system, so "import loopholes" will throw the whole thing out of whack. (Sorry for the unimpressive explanation here. This is something I don't really understand. I first read about these loopholes yesterday, and it looks like I need to get more familiar.)
Mallaby not only thinks Obama is wrong about the existence of good ideas, he also thinks Obama sounds like an unoriginal, pseudo-optimistic, "anti-intellectual" Washington hack when he says we're not lacking them. He thinks Obama ought to be screaming for debates about ideas. If he wins the Democratic nomination, he'll kill McCain on ideas. McCain will try to turn the election into a foreign policy experience conversation, and Obama should counter right back with reasonable, nuanced, well-presented economic policies that creatively address tough problems like climate change. He should counter back with ideas.
I agree that Washington hasn't offered the world any groundbreaking climate change ideas. I agree that Kyoto isn't perfect. And I agree that, when the time comes, Obama should challenge McCain on ideas. But my feeling is that Obama would agree too.
I think Mallaby misunderstood and overreacted. Obama didn't mean to claim that corn-based ethanol was a good idea. He meant to remind us that even very good ideas DIE in Washington. Making fuel out of plant matter is a perfectly good idea, but politicians take good ideas, water them down, and spit out garbage like corn-based ethanol. I think Obama meant to remind us that he'll do his best to keep the good ideas alive.
That's a tall order, and I'll believe it when I see it, but I think it was a perfectly acceptable thing to say.
*Note: I'm not ready to believe this yet. There is a frightening get rich quick attitude permeating the Chinese economy, so I totally agree that we should be on the lookout for system gaming. About 6 months ago, however, I asked a Beijing-based British carbon trader if she had ever heard of a Chinese factory upping its carbon emissions pre-inspection to earn more retrofit credits. She reassured me that that kind of behavior simply wouldn't fly. Carbon buyers won't touch suspect situations. Inspectors can spot deliberately bad design from miles away, and buyers have no interest in the credibility loss that would come along with a purchase of artificially saved carbon.
Another note: I couldn't help it with the A, 2, D list. I've been resisting the urge on this blog for a while now, but, as soon as I wrote the word "drool" in the first paragraph, I knew I had to follow my heart. The second time I saw Home Alone was in college, and A, 2, and D have been haunting me ever since. Watch it again if you haven't seen it in a while. It's an awesome movie, and it gives you lots of awesome home brew booby trap ideas.
Posted by Jake de Grazia at 1:37 PM 0 comments
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Comments, Corrections, and Community
Thanks so much to everyone that has left comments on this blog, and thanks so much to everyone that has emailed me thoughts and questions and criticisms about what I've written. Everything has been helpful. The first comment mentioned wild turkeys and led me to write about a pet turkey. And the most recent comment cautioned me not to get too excited about the one-lakh car and got my head spinning a bit about leapfrog technologies.
I would love for moreperfectmarket.com to evolve into as much of a conversation as possible. Blogs are to some extent tools designed for broadcasting. They're for quasi-journalists on soapboxes. But if the articles up here are my soapbox speeches, hopefully you'll use the comments function and the moreperfectmarket [at] gmail [dot] com address as rotten tomatoes, suggestion boxes, and backstage passes to talk to the band after the show.
A few days ago, Will, a Beijing-based journalist friend of mine, appropriately took issue with one of my posts. He wrote:
The idea of "enlightenment" you support so fervently in your blog seems to be directly at odds with your plan to leave out the negative on the section of your site that most people will see and hopefully take into consideration. How can you enlighten yourself and others without providing all the information you can get your hands on?
Will's right. I need to be much more careful with the word enlightenment.
When we launch our website, we don't want to highlight the horrible things companies do. We want to allow our users to bring them up and debate and discuss them. But, for our part, as moderators of the discussion and organizers of information, we don't think we should try to go the full enlightenment route right away. We want to approach it bit by bit and shoot for curiosity piquing partial enlightenment now. We want to build a community, earn its trust, and, as we do that, push enlightenment farther and farther.
Here's an attempted explanation:
Companies could see us as a potential friend, an opportunity, a way to learn what their customers want, an information exchange in which they can participate. Or they could see us as threat, an enemy, a target to be discredited and destroyed.
Ideally, obviously, the companies will see the opportunity. They'll want to participate in the discussion on our site. They'll want to contribute. And they'll want to learn which processes they can change and which investments they can make that will help them forge stronger bonds with their customers.
We'll definitely try our best to show companies that opportunity, but they'll still approach us with their hackles up. We are, after all, activists. We have an education agenda, a paradigm shift agenda. And, if we build and empower a community properly, we could cause big chunks of a lot of markets to start behaving quite differently.
And that could be seen as threatening.
Which means we need to tread very carefully. We need to emphasize the imperfection of our information, emphasize our humility, and emphasize the fact that we're not out for anybody's blood.
We're going to do the best we can to collect the best information that's out there, but the reality of the situation is that it's not all going to be great. The expert organizations from which we'll collect information will make mistakes. Our research people will make mistakes. Our contributing users will make mistakes. And our rankings will, at times, reflect something less than reality.
We'll design into our system ways for users to check experts, check us, check each other, and fix mistakes. Even so, however, we are going to give some undeserved gold stars, and we are going to fail to give some gold stars when they are deserved.
If we were to build anti gold stars into our system, we would run the risk of making false accusations as well, and I simply don't feel comfortable doing that. Negative information cuts deep. It turns more heads than positive information. It's more newsworthy. And while that makes it more powerful, it also makes it more dangerous. Deep cuts take a long time to heal, even if you stitch them up right away.
I'm not ready to deal in negative information yet. I don't want to spread false rumors. And I don't want to threaten. I'd love to enlighten and enlighten completely. I'd love to get all the information out there to all people. But I don't trust that information yet. I want to start with positive information, see how our community responds, see how they filter through it. And I want to get the companies participating, bring them into the community, and see if they, like Will, can become valuable voices that call me out and keep me in line.
Posted by Jake de Grazia at 9:21 PM 5 comments
Friday, February 22, 2008
The Great Green Home Show
Last Sunday, I was on the radio. My first time. WILM 1450 AM. Wilmington, Delaware.
Yep. Delaware. Exciting, right?
Not a whole lot going on in Wilmington. Corporate friendly tax laws. Credit cards. Senator Joe Biden. My family. Their friends. Friends' friends. And, of course, Paul and Doug, hosts of WILM's The Great Green Home Show.
We recorded last Thursday; it aired on Sunday; but I still haven't listened to the show. The station, you'll be able to tell from its website, is a little bit technically understaffed, and the audio files just went up online this afternoon.
I'm a little scared and a lot embarrassed, but, in the name of transparency, here's the link to The Great Green Home Show and its audio archives. February 17, 2008 segments 1, 2, 3, and 4. As I said, I haven't listened yet, but, if I remember correctly, I'm featured a tiny bit in segment 1, not at all in 2, and then prominently in 3 and 4.
The day we recorded, they led me into the studio, sat me down in between Paul and Doug, told me to keep my mouth close to the mic, and pushed the record button.
You'd think 8-10 minute segments would be heaps of time. Well they're not. I'm not convinced I finished a single coherent thought.
What's your connection to Wilmington? How did you get interested in saving the planet? What are you working on now? Why? How far along are you? Other than the site you're building, what are some other interesting green spaces online? How about China? What happens over there? Why were you there? What should we know about China that we don't? What's the environmental situation there? How are they going to fix it?
I tried to keep up with it, but I ramble, tell stories, pause dramatically, communicate with facial expressions, elaborate with my hands. Radio time doesn't wait for people like me.
Paul and Doug said it went beautifully. No second takes. No editing. Just pure, honest radio goodness. Have a listen and see what you think. Give me a couple of days, and I'll see if I can work up the courage to do the same.
Big thanks to Paul, Doug, and Brooke the producer. I think it's great that they are doing what they're doing. They have full time jobs and families and obligations, but, a few months ago, they decided to make the show happen. They wanted to give their community something simple, relevant, fun, and green.
It's local radio. It's got no budget. They find their guests by connecting through people like my uncle the farmer. And who knows if anyone's even listening yet. But they're on the air, figuring it out as they go, and having a good time doing it.
Posted by Jake de Grazia at 10:51 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Umair and the Edgeconomy
Umair Haque is the man behind Bubblegeneration. He's blogging for Harvard Business School. And he's building the Havas Media Lab, an advisory firm specializing in "radical management, business model, and strategic innovation."
One word that constantly crops up in Umair's writing is edgeconomy, "an economy characterized by cheap, ubiquitous interaction." According to one of his fans, Umair "describes an emerging culture of business as an edgeconomy where light beats heavy; open beats closed; free beats paid; and, good beats evil."
In this HBS blog post and the two minute video that accompanies it, he talks about the future of brands. He thinks brands as they exist today are in decay: they are vestiges of a past economy in which information wasn't easily accessible.
We don't need to compress information about the expected value of goods and services into this tiny little logo and to a 30 second TV spot, because interaction is cheap, and information is cheap.
And he thinks companies need to start paying attention.
If consumers are talking to each other much more efficiently than you can carpet bomb them with stuff, start listening to them instead of just talking at them.
Now imagine an economy in which those consumers talk about which businesses are having what positive impacts on the world. And imagine when companies start listening. I don't know if Umair has written directly about consumer demand for sustainability or corporate social responsibility, but I'll keep my eyes out. The connection feels inevitable to me, and I'd love to hear what he has to say.
Note: In his Bubblegeneration post today, Umair is predicting an Obama assassination. I'm hoping he's wrong. Have a look at my ridiculous comment on Umair's post to find out why I think Obama's gonna make it.
Posted by Jake de Grazia at 9:54 PM 0 comments
Monday, February 18, 2008
Notes from a Vocab Lesson
Ludovic sent me an article today about the definition of social entrepreneurship.
To tell you the truth, I thought the article was a little long and sleepy, so please read at your own risk, but it was semantically enlightening, so I'll pass along what I learned.
First of all, it introduced me to the term "suboptimal equilibrium." This is what a change maker senses and attacks. It's a market or some combination of markets and policies and culture that has created a persistent bummer of a situation.
Naturally, it made me think about the suboptimal equilibrium we're trying to break with our brand comparison project. It's a big one: suboptimal to the extreme. It's an economy in which consumers don't demand that businesses operate cleanly, honestly, and humanely. Consumers are inadequately educated about our market options, and businesses are offered inadequate incentives to get sustainable. I have a visual image of the equilibrium as a thick swarm of spinning, whirring feedback loops levying the edges of a morphing blob of liquid trouble. Reminds me that we have to attack the thing from lots of angles at once.
Apparently, according to the article, attacking the equilibrium from the enlightenment, knowledge dissemination, and education angle makes me something other than a social entrepreneur.
The successful social entrepreneur takes direct action and generates a new and sustained equilibrium; the social activist influences others to generate a new and sustained equilibrium; and the social service provider takes direct action to improve the outcomes of the current equilibrium.
I'm an activist.
It's a bit funny for me to think of things that way, especially given the recent post in which I claimed that I can't be an activist. I see the logic in it nonetheless. What we're doing is making consumers aware of the suboptimal nature of the current equilibrium and helping them define a better one. Hopefully, by doing that, we'll make market entry easier and market domination more plausible for the real, semantically proper social entrepreneurs.
As long as I'm contributing on the disruptive side of things, I'm happy.
Posted by Jake de Grazia at 11:05 PM 0 comments
Saturday, February 16, 2008
By the Community, For the Community
A couple of weeks ago, I read about a French entrepreneur named Loic Le Meur and his online video conversation community startup called Seesmic. I went to the site, told it I'd be interested in participating in alpha testing, gave it my email address, and a couple of days later, I got an email telling me I was invited back to play.
Over the past couple of weeks, I've gone to the Seesmic site a bunch of times, told a story, told a joke, spoken some Chinese, and peeked in on some unusual video conversation threads. It's been fun. I've watched a silly group of people interact. I've had ideas about using Seesmic's technology to enable video commenting on some future version of the LanguageCalls learning community. And I'm excited about the fact that I'm using the alpha version of what I think could become a very popular web destination someday.
Since Seesmic has been such a positive experience, I've been following Loic as well. On Thursday, he announced the close of Seesmic's first round of funding and revealed all participating investors.
Loic's enthusiasm alone makes the video version of the announcement worth watching, but his thoughts about community are what caught my attention most.
He said that Seesmic's revenue model is to grow a community. They're going the LinkedIn route, the Skype route: don't focus on making money until you have millions of people working or playing on your site. Build the space; get people interacting; and, then, once everyone's so happy that they're doing all your user acquisition for you, find ways to make money without interrupting their enjoyment. It is a standard Web 2.0 strategy, but when you're me and you're building a community focused, user generated content reliant website, and you're asked every day how you plan to make money, it's really nice to hear that there are people out there that are just as crazy and optimistic as you.
Loic also talked about openness. He wants this project to become the community's project. He talks to users every day. He writes about them on his blog. He asks them for advice. People post videos with ideas, and Seesmic employees jump into the conversations.
I am far from an active video poster. I've given a grand total of one suggestion. But I feel like I'm helping out a little bit. I get the feeling that Seesmic is grateful. And that makes me root for them to succeed. I can honestly say that after two weeks of sporadic Seesmic use, I want this venture to be wildly successful. Pretty weird, eh?
This connects to my project in two ways.
1. I want to go about building my community the way Seesmic is going about it. I want users to feel like the site is theirs. I want them to want to make it better. And I want to be sure to let each and every one of them know how grateful I am for their time and thoughts and suggestions.
Obviously, a space in which people try to figure out which companies do the best things for the world is quite different from a space in which people record video clips and banter about anything and everything. Seesmic is hugely open ended and has the word FUN tattooed on its forehead. I'm working on an education project that will need the core chunk of its community to be made up of deeply concerned people with intense desire to save the world. That limits me, no question about it. But, then again, there could be community-creation power in the heaviness and urgency of my mission. So who knows. The user-created model might work beautifully.
2. I'd love to see Seesmic engage with its users on a social and environmental responsibility level. I realize it's way early, and I understand that it would be very strange for Seesmic to donate or greenspend away a chunk of their precious investment, but I wonder what would happen if they told their users that as soon as they can afford it, they are going to become a sustainable web business with a serious philanthropic lean.
I'm guessing the users would dig it.
And I'm guessing they'd dig it even more the second Seesmic decides to buy carbon credits for all their air travel. And even more when they decide to run their servers on renewable energy. They could drink Fair Trade coffee. They could work at desks made from sustainably harvested wood. They could volunteer. Anything.
If they announced to the community every time they started doing something good, I bet they'd accelerate their viral spread. I'm just one person obviously, but the second they showed me they were serious about becoming a role model business, I would transform from guy that writes emails while he watches the baseball game on TV to fanatical chest painted lunatic starting the wave in the upper deck.
And let's not forget that they're a web business with no labor or manufacturing. They make internet fun, not freezers or doorknobs, and that makes getting sustainable a lot less complicated.
Seesmic is an open, community-focused project that's been well executed so far. For that, I think they deserve a round of applause: they're a great inspiration to those of us that want to do things with community and user collaboration. If they want to take that round of applause and make it a standing ovation, however, I suggest they take steps toward sustainability. I'd be interested to know if the rest of the Seesmic community agrees.
Posted by Jake de Grazia at 11:02 PM 0 comments
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Persuading for Enlightenment
I posted yesterday about Google.org, Al Gore, climate change, and the important distinction between enlightenment and strategic persuasion. Larry Brilliant, Executive Director of Google.org, believes that one way his organization can contribute to saving the world is by gathering and disseminating information (something for which Google has a special talent) and enlightening people about climate change. Al Gore, however, believes that enlightenment has lost the power it once had. The truth is now up against strategic persuasion campaigns, so the truth needs to strategically persuade back.
I ended the post wondering about my project and how it might fit into a world dominated by strategic persuasion. After continuing to wonder for a day, here's my attempt to condense my thoughts into something manageable...
Looking at the project from one angle, it's an intensely pure enlightenment initiative. We want to enlighten ourselves at the same time we're enlightening the people using our website. We want to help consumers identify the businesses most worthy of their support. Somewhat counterintuitively, however, we want to do that without claiming any authoritative knowledge about any individual business's worthiness. We want to gather information, organize it, present it, and participate in the ensuing discussion.
We're separating the world into consumer product categories. We're identifying the companies that do business in each category. We're collecting opinions from experts and consumers about which of those companies do things most responsibly (sustainably, humanely, transparently). And we're trying to make it easy for consumers to choose which products to buy based on which companies they want to support.
There's one very big reason I think it's essential that we operate this way...
In contrast to the climate change issue, there is no comprehensive scientific consensus on what it means to do business humanely and sustainably. The science and quantitative analysis is piecemeal. The information is disorganized and disputed. And opinions vary quite widely with the different angles from which an expert can look at a company: Company X might be managing their waste beautifully, for example, but they might be slack on vendor vetting and buy from suppliers that run sweatshops.
Everyone right now is to some extent unenlightened, so, as unenlightened people moderating an information exchange between unenlightened people, we have a responsibility be humble and agnostic. We have a responsibility not to strategically persuade.
All that said, however, there is persuasion inherent in the fact that we're building this website. We're not strategically persuading people to buy from Company X or Company Y, but we will, by virtue of existing, tell people that there is a meaningful difference between buying from Company X and buying from Company Y.
We are building this website because we think people need to know which businesses are more sustainable than their competitors. We don't think a capitalist economy works for the good of the people unless the values of the economy's businesses reflect the values of the economy's people, and we don't think those values match up right now. One reason they don't match up, we think, is that the businesses have insufficient incentives to follow their customers' moral lead. While people do consider values when they choose between family run bagel shops in their hometowns, they don't consider values when they choose between Pepsi and Coke, between McDonald's and Wendy's, between Nokia and Motorola. We think this is because they don't have an easy way to do it. So we want to try to help.
Basically, we think it's important that an enlightenment happens. Because that enlightenment hasn't happened yet, we're not enlightened, so we can't be activists: we can't strategically persuade. We do feel strongly, however, that we need an enlightenment, so, hopefully, building our website and inviting people to use it will be persuasive.
I could be wrong. Maybe the best way to approach this would be to fully enlighten ourselves first and then get cracking on grand persuasion strategy. I don't know. I fear that might take too much time. I wonder what Al Gore and Dr. Brilliant would have to say. Maybe I need to give Google.org a call.
Note: One more reminder to check out Sergey's pants.
Posted by Jake de Grazia at 9:55 PM 2 comments
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Enlightenment and Strategic Persuasion
I'm going to start with a little disclaimer. I'm self-interestedly pro-Google. They develop useful tools and let me use them for free. They read my email. They know which RSS feeds I read. They know when and where I'm having a meeting tomorrow. But I'm ok with that. If they think they can make money by keeping track of what I do online, then they have my permission to try.
Anyway, now that you all know how I feel about Google.com, I want to lay down a train of thought that begins with Google.org (while turning Google.org into a hyperlink feels totally normal, I just can't bring myself to do it with Google.com; internet neuroses strike again).
I recently read an article by Larry Brilliant, Executive Director of Google.org, about how he and his colleagues determined his organization's points of philanthropic focus. According to Dr. Brilliant, there are three reasons Google.org chose the five initiatives on which it is now working. One, Dr. Brilliant and his colleagues feel that each initiative has high potential to do meaningful things for the very weakest and very poorest people in the world. Two, they consider each initiative an idea big, scalable, and multi-faceted enough for Google's ambitious tastes. And, three, they think the initiatives are the kinds that will benefit especially well from support from Google technology, Google expertise, and Google people.
Thinking about this again now, I realize that there's nothing particularly unusual about those reasons. Perhaps simply because of my aforementioned affinity for Google, however, Dr. Brilliant's article intrigued me enough to pull me to the Google.org website.
I browsed around what is a very straightforward and non-frilly site. I read about each of the five initiatives. I linked for the first time to Hans Rosling's YouTube channel. I had a look at the Google.org blog. And I found some footage from the World Economic Forum in Davos a few weeks ago...
Two videos. The first is a panel discussion. Tom Friedman moderates Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Larry Brilliant as they talk about Google.org and climate change. The second is the Q&A session that followed the discussion. Al Gore, Van Jones, John Doerr, and others ask some very intense questions. And, in my opinion, Larry, Sergey, and Dr. Brilliant all sound both surprisingly candid and impressively knowledgeable.
I think you'll enjoy watching every minute of both videos, but I understand that asking people to watch nearly an hour and a half of discussion and Q&A is a bit much, so I'll give my highest recommendation to minutes 23-34 of the Q&A video.
At the center of those 11 minutes is Al Gore "gently" taking issue with the Google.org approach,"gently" taking issue with Larry Brilliant's faith in what Al calls the "enlightenment model:" the belief that when people have access to all the information, most of them will do the right thing. Al thinks the world used to work that way, but he thinks it doesn't work that way anymore. In his opinion, the rules of the game changed when the tobacco companies realized that they could use "strategic persuasion campaigns" to give everyone the impression that there existed a real scientific debate about whether or not there were health risks associated with tobacco. Cold, hard, well-disseminated truth alone doesn't do the job anymore. Exxon Mobil funds 40 front groups to "reposition global warming as theory rather than fact," and, according to Al, the truth can only win if it actively resists that repositioning, if it launches strategic persuasion campaigns of its own.
Have a look, and decide for yourselves, but I think Dr. Brilliant responds well. He's appropriately realistic. He says that Google.org wants to participate in solving the world's problems by contributing Google's core competency, and he reminds us that Google's core competency is information filtering and truth search much more than it is persuasion.
It's a fascinating discussion, and, of course, I can't help but wonder how my responsible consumption brand comparison project fits in. Am I about to launch an enlightenment model project in a world of strategic persuasion? Yikes. But there's enough going on in this post already, and it won't hurt me to spend another day thinking about it, so I'll stop here for now. Hopefully I'll have some grand revelations for you tomorrow.
Note: One more plug for the videos: Sergey Brin is not afraid to wear pants that are way too short for him.
Posted by Jake de Grazia at 3:01 PM 2 comments
Monday, February 11, 2008
If you all haven't read it yet, please read this article from yesterday's New York Times Magazine. It's short enough that it won't take more than five minutes to read, and it's a potential life changer.
It's about eating bugs, and I am both thoroughly amused and genuinely curious.
Apparently insects are nutritious: they "compare favorably to traditional livestock in available protein and fatty acids." Apparently they're safe to eat: while they "carry an abundance of microbial flora, they do not regularly harbor human pathogens like salmonella and E. coli." And, apparently, they "meet the test of environmental sustainability: they create far more edible protein per pound of feed than cattle."
David Gracer, writing teacher by day, insect chef by night, and the hero of the story, puts it nice and succinctly: "Insects can feed the world. Cows and pigs are the S.U.V.'s; bugs are the bicycles."
I appreciate the power of the metaphor: we need sustainable food production just as badly as we need sustainable transportation. And I'm totally open to the possibility that insects are part of the solution. But questions have started swarming around my head. Like gnats.
Where exactly will we raise the insects? Initially as secondary commodities on already existing farms? Flies on cattle ranches? Worms under tomatoes?
Will we need special spaces or enclosures? Or will the beehive model suffice?
How will we harvest them? Nets?
How are animal rights activists going to react? Will Peter Singer* weigh in?
What about our historical tendency toward factory farming? What would insect production run rampant look like? Waste management crises? Energy crises? Ecosystem interruptions? Plagues of feral locusts?
I wonder what E.O. Wilson will have to say.
I guess there's nothing wrong with a head swarming with ridiculous questions. As I said, I am thoroughly amused. If anyone has any answers, please let me know.
*Note: I first tuned in to the connection between food and sustainability in 2002 when I read an article by Michael Pollan about Peter Singer. In his book, Animal Liberation, Singer puts forth a surprising but persuasive philosophical argument hoping to convince us not to eat or otherwise oppress animals. Pollan gives Singer's argument a friendly but thorough critique (thorough for a magazine article anyway) and then justifiably complicates things by introducing a medium-scale, diversified, sustainable livestock production project, contrasting it with factory farming, and wondering if there's a way for people to be responsible omnivores. This article will take you significantly longer than five minutes to read, but I reckon it's still relevant more than five years later.
Posted by Jake de Grazia at 6:03 PM 2 comments
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Everything To Gain
After watching Frans Lanting the other day and wondering what kind of accent he had, my sister told me it was the Majora Carter TED Talk and especially Majora's last line that had inspired her the most. At the end of her talk, Majora called on the TED audience to use its influence to fight for environmental and economic justice. She asked that everyone demand comprehensive sustainable change and participate in bringing it about. And then, to make sure everything she said stuck, she gave a little reminder:
By working together, we can become one of those small, rapidly growing groups of individuals, who actually have the audacity and courage to believe that we actually can change the world. We might have come to this conference from very, very different stages in life, but, believe me, we all share one incredibly powerful thing: we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Nothing to lose.
Talking about Majora's pleas and watching her again made me think of the moment I first realized that I was about to start a business and build a website...
In late February 2007, Ludovic got in touch about a fellowship. He had an inside tie to a foundation, and they were looking to send a few people on two year world tours studying and writing about social ventures and their impacts. He wondered if I might I be interested.
I told him I'd quit my job and start tomorrow if they wanted.
Ludo was going to be back in Beijing in early March, so we set up a time to have dinner.
The time came. We went to the restaurant. And Ludo started interviewing me, which was weird. I was expecting dinner with a friend, not an interview. But I couldn't run away. I'd taken my coat off. We'd ordered. And I was hungry. So I went with it.
He asked me about my goals and long term orientation. I sputtered something about "the environment" and sustainable business. I mentioned Ray Anderson and Paul Hawken. And I said I wanted to work on harnessing greed, angling it in new directions, and seeing if we could get it to drag us off toward a happy, equitable, sustainable world.
Ludo seemed intrigued and asked me if I had any business ideas of my own. The next Interface maybe? The next Smith & Hawken?
Well, not exactly, I said, but there is this website I've been thinking about. It's all about choice. Real choice. Educated choice. Meaningful choice. Democratic economics. I want to be rooting for certain businesses to succeed and actively supporting them every time I buy something. But I don't know for whom I should be rooting. So I want a quick, easy website on which I can compare brands and make purchasing decisions.
Ludo asked why I wasn't building the website.
I went on a little rave about lacking skills and experience and needing to learn more and work for more great people. And then I gave him the real kicker and reminded him that I was only 25.
He told me I was making excuses. There's nothing wrong with being young and inexperienced, he said. The younger you are, the less likely you'll let conventional wisdom limit you. The younger you are, the more likely you'll listen to good advice. And, the younger you are, the less distance you'll have to fall if things don't work out.
Apparently, it seems, I've listened to Ludovic. We're building the website. We're building the business. And I'm not afraid of falling.
Part of my courage comes from the fact that I don't have any track record or reputation to protect. Part of it comes from knowing that there will be other projects, other jobs, and other academic opportunities. Part of it comes from my belief that, succeed or fail, there will be a whole lot of learning I can do in the process. But most of my courage comes from agreeing with Majora. I agree that, not only do I have nothing to lose, but WE, in a very big sense, have nothing to lose.
Our world doesn't have environmental and economic justice. We haven't made comprehensive sustainable change. There are amazing things about the world we've created (and shockingly amazing things about the natural world that created us), but that's no reason to get comfortable or complacent or inflexibly conservative. There remains so much room for improvement. There's so much we haven't yet achieved. To lose the world we have now is to lose an incomplete and inequitable success. We don't need to be ashamed of that success, but we shouldn't be satisfied either. We have better tools now, minds that are better connected, a better understanding of history. We can and should make a better world.
I think I've found a way, by building that website and providing a tool that consumers can use to figure out which businesses are worthy of their support, to actively participate in making it better right now. So I'm trying. I think Majora would appreciate the effort if nothing else.
Posted by Jake de Grazia at 2:23 PM 2 comments
Friday, February 8, 2008
Inspiration and Evolution
I had two great conversations yesterday and another today. New people. Connections through friends and friends of friends. People willing to take a little time, listen to me rave on about building a website to help people consume more responsibly, engage, and offer advice.
As usual, I walked away from each conversation a little more inspired, a little more excited to keep pushing this thing forward. It's amazing what a tiny new idea can do. What a little naysaying can do. What a little encouragement can do. What the thought that I have one more person wondering if I'm actually going to make the website happen can do.
It's really nice, as a young person trying to tackle a big problem, to know that there are people out there willing to throw a little wisdom at me. I appreciate it.
So I'm fired up about the project. And I'm fired up about inspiration. Might as well try and pass a little on...
TED Talks? Frans Lanting, maybe? A Lyrical View of Life on Earth. Photography, evolution, and a dude with very cool delivery.
"There are many ways to be a mammal."
Posted by Jake de Grazia at 1:04 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Unreasonably Great
I just read the Economist's review of The Power of Unreasonable People by John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan. It's actually more of an editorial than a review, but I love the Economist for that. Not afraid to speak their minds, and not afraid to let everyone know they're not afraid to speak their minds.
Anyway, the book is about what main stream businesspeople and policymakers have to learn from social entrepreneurs. The authors argue that it will be social entrepreneurs and their commitment to the unreasonable that will usher in the dawn of a new world economy. The Economist counters by dropping some facts and scientific data (sorry; couldn't help it) and reminding us that social enterprise hasn't made it anywhere close to big.
The review ends with this paragraph:
The greatest agents for sustainable change are unlikely to be the well-intentioned folk described in this book, interesting though they are. They are much more likely to be the entirely reasonable people, often working for large companies, who see ways to create better products or reach new markets, and have the resources to do so. Ratan Tata, with his one-lakh car, may improve more lives than any social entrepreneur has done. And he might even make money from doing so.
Fine. But someone's got to build the NGOs, start the green businesses, write the Congresspeople, change the consumer outlooks, and thus prime the markets. Someone's got to make the small changes that create the new opportunities that attract the attention of the Ratan Tatas of the world.
Does laying that groundwork make social entrepreneurs "the greatest agents for sustainable change?" It doesn't matter who we consider the "greatest" of the agents. What's important is that more and more of us participate, unreasonably or not, in making the change.
Posted by Jake de Grazia at 2:27 PM 7 comments
Monday, February 4, 2008
Blue Is the New Green
On Friday, I went to Brooklyn in search of Blue Marble Ice Cream, the story behind the creation of a small, sustainable business, and some recycling dioramas.
Jennie, one of Blue Marble's founders, is my friend Michael's sister, and, a couple of weeks ago, Michael visited Jennie and spent some time at the shop. While he was there, Jennie explained to him a mis- recycling problem they'd been having and tasked him with the creation of 3-D recycling instructions. He stuck some spoons through a bowl, taped some cups to a plate, took the written instructions off the recycle bins, and hung the dioramas instead. People instantly stopped putting the wrong things in the wrong bins. The visuals did the trick. Hans Rosling would be proud.
I happened to be in NY last Friday, so I figured I'd go see for myself.
And I couldn't be happier that I did. The ice cream is delicious. The flavors are simple but unique: strawberry that doesn't hide the fruit's sweet-sour combination, green tea that begged me to turn it into a milkshake, a frozen yogurt called culture that's not afraid to taste like yogurt, and many more. And the business is pretty cool too. Wind and water power the freezer. Small farmers with big respect for land, water, and animals produce the dairy. And recycled and sustainably sourced materials build the walls and furniture.
Jennie and I talked about the concept, the future, the money, the satisfaction. And there is heaps I want to write.
I want to write more about the visuals, share more of Michael's observations. I want to write about biodegradable spoons and corn production in China. I want to write about substituting clay for paint. I want to write about the balance Blue Marble will always be trying to strike, the balance their vendors try to strike, the balance any small business striving to be more sustainable tries to strike: the balance between righteousness and practicality.
But I want to keep this post a reasonable length, so I won't write it all. I'll give you one thought for now and recommend that you all go see Blue Marble yourselves...
I'm fascinated by the entrepreneurs, Jennie and her co-founder Alexis. They're betting big on Blue Marble: they mortgaged their houses to seed the project. At the same time, they're playing for the love of the ice cream, not for the money. Despite the risk they've assumed, they are significantly more committed to doing things right than doing things profitably.
I'm simultaneously inspired and terrified.
Blue Marble is less than 4 months old. If it grows comfortably through the winter and early spring and catches on in a serious way come ice cream season, a lot of good things will happen. The shop will buy more dairy from the man in the Hudson Valley that does things commendably, if not perfectly organically. Taste-seeking customers will learn about the Blue Marble philosophy and realize that it's totally reasonable to demand both quality and eco-friendliness. And Jennie and Alexis will feel validated in their approach.
But what if things don't go smoothly? Will the shop just disappear? Will it live on but abandon commitment to sustainability? Will skeptics chalk it up as "yet another failed experiment in green business" and use it to discourage others from straying from proven, exploitative business models?
In my opinion, Blue Marble needs to succeed. And, in my opinion, its founders should be looking to go as big as they can possibly manage.
First of all, it seems to me that the Blue Marble business model is one that relies heavily on volume of sales. They care about keeping prices down, and they care about buying from as sustainable a group of farmers, bakers, and biodegradable cutlery distributors as they can, so they can't rely on huge margins to keep them afloat. It might be the case that Blue Marble simply can't operate at enough of a profit to responsibly manage risk unless they take advantage of economies of scale.
Equally importantly, a highly successful Blue Marble would be a hugely positive thing for a lot of people. The world needs case studies. We need role model small business entrepreneurs. We need to see Jennie's and Alexis's attitudes and practices succeed, for we need to see how profitable those attitudes and practices can be. A lot more people know they want to make money than know they want to contribute to creating an ecologically sustainable economy. But a lot of people will realize that they do want to contribute to creating an ecologically sustainable economy if they see more evidence that there's plenty of financial opportunity in it.
My sense is that, in order to take Blue Marble big, the founders will have to spend some time and money on marketing: educate their customers about their business and convince people to support them. Their mission, to build a profitable, sustainable business, is a mission I want them to wear on their sleeves. If they show their customers who they are, convince those customers that Blue Marble is the community's ice cream shop and that Blue Marble's success is the community's success, then I think they will take it big, and I think everybody stands to gain from that.
Jennie and Alexis are going to keep playing for the love. And they should. Sometimes, however, you can play for a lot more love if you keep the money in mind. This might be one of those times.
Posted by Jake de Grazia at 2:19 PM 2 comments
Friday, February 1, 2008
Why I Love The Governator
As I'm sure most of you have already heard, Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed John McCain yesterday. Arnold says that he thinks McCain "has a great vision in protecting the environment and also protecting the economy."
I much appreciate that line, the proximity of those two words. One thing I like about both Hillary and Obama is that they intertwine their economic and environmental policies and, in doing so, tune in to the reality of the world. Maintaining healthy economies over the long term requires that we strive for environmental sustainability. The mindset that "the environment" is anything less than a core platform issue is irresponsible, exploitative, get rich quick thinking.
Hit and run economics? Think that one could catch on? Metaphors, baby. I love it.
Anyway, the point is: I think Arnold is a smart guy. I definitely question that conviction every time I remember that he spoke at the 2004 Republican Convention in support of George W. Bush. But I have seen Pumping Iron, and I have watched the bonus footage interviews about the making of Pumping Iron. Arnold is a natural born politician. He has an outrageously huge ego. He is one of a tiny minority of people that truly, sincerely approach bodybuilding as an art. And he is brilliant in his own ridiculous way. If you haven't seen Pumping Iron, I highly highly recommend it. It's fascinating.
Posted by Jake de Grazia at 10:05 AM 2 comments


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The Thankful, Grateful, Blessed Recipe Box With Cards comes with 50 cards for writing and sharing recipes with your mom, sister, best friend or others. The tin is beautifully decorated with an olive branch design.
- Tin Size: 5" (W) x 2.25" (L) x 4" (H)
- Card Size: 4 3/8" (W) x 3.5" (H)
- 50 Cards To Write and Share Recipes
- Individually Shrink-wrapped


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Global Books Indonesia - (https://global-books-indonesia.com)
THE Complete Guide To The TOEFL TestLEVEL: intermediate to advanced
Written by trusted test preparation author Bruce Rogers, The Complete Guide to the TOEFL® Test,iBT Edition offers instruction and practice that closely mirrors the actual TOEFL® test. This textwill help students master the skills necessary to achieve the best possible score on the TOEFL®iBT, preparing them to succeed in an academic environment.
[Global Books Indonesia]


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Water soluble confetti is fabulous. The fall on this beauty is amazing and we've had some of the best wedding photos using it. Widely used with wedding venues.
Our confetti mixes are sold in 1 litres. By purchasing 1 you will receive 1 litre. We test our confetti and also how many handfuls are in each mix. I would allow between 12-15 handfuls for this mix depending on how you choose to display your confetti.
Our confetti is biodegradable which is perfect for churches and wedding venues as it will disappear within a few days and is not harmful to the environment. This is now the only type of confetti allowed at most wedding venues.
Dollz confetti is perfect for packaging into cones, confetti poppers and cannons. There are some gorgeous pictures on Pinterest for displaying your confetti for guests on your big day.
Capturing 'that' confetti picture has become a new very popular trend, to make sure yours stands out ensure that you have the right confetti. Many confetti mixes are too heavy which drop far too quickly for a picture, even too fast for the professional photographers.
We've tested every type of confetti out there… Capture your perfect moment ♥


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We welcome improvements to this page. To edit this page, Create a Funtoo account. Then log in and then click here to edit this page. See our editing guidelines to becoming a wiki-editing pro.
Just like any other terminal emulator for UNIX-based systems, xfce4-terminal emulates the text-based terminal that you most likely see when your system is starting up. Although there are a plethora of other terminal emulators available for the X environment, xfce terminal offers several useful features :
- Multiple tabs per terminal window
- Most aspects of the terminal, including the toolbars, font, and scrollbar, can easily be configured by using the 'preferences' dialog window
- Support for both MultiScreen and Xinerama
If you have emerged the
xfce4-meta package, then you should have
xfce4-terminal installed on your system. If you are interested in using
xfce4-terminal with a desktop environment other than xfce, perhaps in a standalone window manager such as Openbox, you will have to emerge the program using the following command:
root # emerge xfce4-terminal
Chances are, if you are installing
xfce4-terminal in a window manager or desktop environment different from xfce, it will pull in some xfce-based dependencies that it requires to run. If you do not like the idea of cluttering up your lean system with a few additional packages, consider checking out something with fewer requirements, such as Xterm.
If you are using the xfce4 desktop environment and
xfce4-terminal is installed on your system, it should be located in your applications menu under the category "System." If you are not running the xfce4 desktop environment, launch the xfce terminal as you would any other application that you have installed on your system. After you launch the terminal, you will notice the terminal window has appeared on your screen (what a surprise, right?). You can now begin hacking away to your heart's desire from your newly installed terminal emulator.
Configuration Options
If something doesn't look right with the terminal to you, chances are, you can configure your problem away. To open the
xfce4-terminal preferences dialog, go to the menubar at the top of the terminal window and select the category "Edit." Then choose the subcategory "Preferences..." to launch the preferences window.
To change the default font that the terminal uses, navigate to the tab labeled "Appearance" in the preferences dialog. Then, select the first box that says "Font." After selecting this window, you will be able to choose from any of the fonts installed on your system to use as the default
xfce4-terminal font. For a really nice looking terminal font, consider emerging the package media-fonts/ubuntu-font-family and then selecting the "Ubuntu Mono" option from the font selection dialog. The font seems to look best between sizes 10 and 12 in the terminal.
if you are interested in having a transparent background to your terminal window, navigate to the "Appearance" tab of the preferences dialog and select the box below "Background." After clicking on this box, choose the option "Transparent Background." After choosing the option, a slider should appear below the box that allows you to set the alpha level of the background. The closer the value is to 1, the more opaque the background will be. The closer the value is to 0, the background will become more transparent. If you do not get the desired transparency effect after changing this value, you may not be running a compositor on your desktop, which is required to have active transparent backgrounds on windows like this one. For a fairly efficient, very customizable compositor, consider reading the page on Compton.
Scrollbar Location
To change where the scrollbar is located on the terminal window, open the preferences dialog. In the first tab, choose the second to last option. By clicking on the listbox next to the text "Scollbar is:" you can set the scrollbar location to either be disabled, on the left of the terminal window, or on the right of the terminal window.
Default Geometry
if you think that the
xfce4-terminal window is too small or too big when it launches for the first time, you can change its default size quite easily. To do so, open the preferences dialog for the terminal and navigate to the tab labeled "Appearance." Above the section titled "Tab Activity Indicator" are two text boxes next to one another. The first one from the left sets how many columns of text the window will have on launch and the second one sets how many rows of text the window will have. By increasing the number of columns, the window will become wider and by increasing the number of rows, the window will become 'taller.' To shrink the width or height of the window, decrease the value for columns or rows, respectively.
Command line options


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So often we rush through our day.
We don't connect with our feelings.
If we do experience:
- Anger
- Sorrow
- Fear
- Anxiety
- Joy
- Happiness
- Excitement
- Peace
We attribute it to what happened.
Or what someone else said or did.
Yet all feelings come from our thoughts.
Checking in with your feelings matters.
Everything we do or don't do is motivated by how we feel.
That is why it is useful to examine your feelings.
You can do this by asking yourself:
- What was the main feeling you experienced yesterday?
- What thought caused that feeling?
- What do you want to accomplish today?
- What is the feeling that will help you get that result?
- What thought will create that feeling for you?
If you would like help getting in touch with your feelings, just click Schedule My FREE Mini Session Now


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Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada have just released their latest figures for how recent changes to the Express Entry visa have affected those who were sent an Invitation to Apply, known as an ITA. The statistics concentrate on the period between November 2016 and May 2017.
Previously applicants who had a job offer in Canada constituted 38% of all people given ITAs, but this has dipped to around 10% after the changes. These changes to the selection system were to give priority to applicants who family members are already living in Canada. The changes reduced the number of points for a job offer to either 200 or 50 from 600. The points based on the
National Occupational Classification, which gives 200 points to people in senior management positions.
This shift in points also favored immigrants according to their age, academic qualifications, language aptitude in English and French as well as previous work experience. Other factors that can increase the number of CRS points given are whether the applicant has already spent time in Canada for work or study.
Even with these changes, applicants with a job offer in Canada are still more likely to be able to increase their number of CRS points. Also getting a job offer may be a quicker way to come to Canada than to take the time to learn French or English, or go back to university.
Applicants Studied at Canada
Applicants who have studied at a Canadian university are also awarded extra points either 15 or 30 CRS points depending on how long they studied. The Canadian government views international students who study in Canada as a valuable resource, as they are likely to be young, well educated, have excellent language skills and also comfortable with Canadian culture. Figures show that of the applicants who were issued with ITAs between November and May 32% of them had a minimum of two years university education from a Canadian academic institution. For applicants who have studied outside Canada, they must ensure that they have an Educational Credential Assessment, to check that their academic credential meets Canadian requirements.
Even if an applicant is still working towards their degree, they can add CRS points once they have graduated. Other changes included more points being given to immigrants with siblings already living in Canada and to those who have language skills in French.
Canadian Visa Reviews is a review site that provides up to date reviews of Canadian Immigration firms, and also provides the latest visa news. Our aim is to assist people planning on moving to Canada for work or study by giving an honest appraisal of immigration law firms and agencies, so that you can avoid being scammed. We do not offer immigration services ourselves.
Everything you need to know about getting to Canada
Hi! How can we help you?
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text:
Rose gold and diamonds, Gemporia*
31 comments :
Fabulous ring dear, love it!ReplyDelete
Have a great Sunday!
Pearl in FashionReplies
Awww thank you Pearl, so sweet!! ♡Delete
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You've taken gorgeous photos of it too
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I hope you feel better soon, hopefully your birthday being soon will make you feel a little bit better! <3
Julia xx
Last post: My Milan Photo Diary | http://juliaspeaksbeauty.blogspot.fr/2016/07/holiday-diaries-escape-in-milan.html
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This Girl Loves Chic xx
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Amy xx
Little Moon Dragon
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Lovely photos and a great read.
Jodie | www.hellojodie.blogpsot.co.uk
Instagram- @hello_jodie
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Gemma | www.touchofbelle.co.uk
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I'm glad you are feeling okay on citalopram. And I agree, depression is so physical. You feel it in your whole body!
Anyway, as always, hope you feel even better!
Much love,
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fourcatsplusus.co.uk | Amy x
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Crispin Schroeder is a pastor with over 2 decades experience in full time ministry. In addition to pastoring Crispin also is a musician/songwriter who can be found playing around the Northshore and New Orleans throughout the year. Crispin and Dina moved to the Northshore in the fall of 2009 with their daughter Tevia and son Ezra to plant Northshore Vineyard Church. Their desire is to create a hospitable community of faith that is built around living out the ways and teachings of Jesus and connecting with the Northshore through engagement in community, compassion, and the arts.
Who We Are