Recent Comments
- Tweets that mention Working Dads: Hidden Heroes in the New Fatherhood Movement | Snapler -- Topsy.com on Working Dads: Hidden Heroes in the New Fatherhood Movement
- dyulyur on Doug Oldham DEAD: Gospel Singer Dies At 79
- Addison Jackson on WATCH: Shakira Teaches Schoolchildren in Soweto to Dance ‘Waka Waka’
- Luis Howard on Childhood Obesity is a Social Justice Issue, Too
- Aaron Bennett on The Prince of Persia was a White Dude?!!
- Emma Johnson on Jennifer Beals: What a Feeling!
- Olson on In Defense of Andrew Breitbart
- Diego Gray on Students Fight To Make Sure Their Teachers Aren’t Fired
- Olivia Smith on Donors speak out on Fair Elections
- lee ann on Unemployment Extension: The GOP’s Nearly Unprecedented Deficit Demands
Archives
- September 2010 (999)
- August 2010 (3821)
- July 2010 (3856)
- June 2010 (2536)
- May 2010 (3775)
- April 2010 (3494)
- March 2010 (3670)
- February 2010 (2905)
- January 2010 (2430)
- December 2009 (1161)
- November 2009 (194)
Tags
America barack obama bill business care Congress country day government health home house life money New News New York night Obama oil party percent Post president President Obama press reform Senate Show state story time today U.S. United States video Wall Street War Washington way week White work world Year
Tag Archives: Bay Area
Macro Problems, Micro Distractions? Grameen America expands to D.C., Bay Area
With Jennifer Kampe
This year, Silicon Valley Bank, an investment bank whose clientele includes high-tech startups, life-science corporations, and premium vintners, expanded its operations to include a new class of clients: street vendors. Thanks in large part to a one million dollar partnership between SVB and Grameen America, Northern California borrowers below the federal poverty line – primarily women, typically street merchants and home-based producers of food and trinkets – will now have access to the Grameen Bank’s pioneering micro-financial services. Three months since that announcement, preparations for the Bay Area branch are still underway. Meanwhile, this April, GA issued a press release announcing that it had secured financial support for its next branch to be located in Washington, D.C. Though an undeniable boon to some borrowers, it remains to be seen if GA’s promise of a micro solution will scratch the surface of this country’s macro problems – or if it will merely distract from structural reform.
Posted in News, Original Content
Tagged America, Bank, Bay Area, branch, class, D.C., federal poverty line, Grameen, grameen bank, investment, Jennifer KampeThis, life science, micro financial services, Northern California, premium, press release announcing that, silicon, Silicon Valley, silicon valley bank, street, street merchants, street vendors, svb, valley, Washington, Year
Leave a comment
What Business Leaders Can Learn From Bhutan
Having spent the past 32 years in the Silicon Valley/Bay Area region, I guess I’ve grown accustomed to start-ups wreaking havoc in mature industries. Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Google, Facebook — they all were launched within a 15-mile radius of my alma mater, Stanford University, and they went on to revolutionize not just their industry, but they changed our relationship with technology and, frankly, in Facebook’s case, our relationships with each other.
So, it’s no surprise that I’m fascinated with a little, almost-mythical country in the Himalayas that is revolutionizing how world leaders are looking at the definition of success. Like The Mouse That Roared (a popular book and film from the late 1950s about an imaginary, bucolic country situated between France and Switzerland that becomes the admiration of modern society when it declares war on the United States), Bhutan is getting the kind of attention an off-off-Broadway play gets when you know it’s destined to be a hit. In 1972, the 17-year old King of Bhutan asked the blasphemous question, “Why are we so focused on Gross Domestic Product? Why aren’t we more concerned with Gross National Happiness?” For nearly 40 years now, Bhutan has been reinventing itself based upon the premise that the ultimate public good a leader can provide his or her people isn’t material possessions, but instead it’s happiness or well-being.
Posted in News, Original Content
Tagged Alma Mater, Apple, Bay Area, Bhutan, broadway play, country, country in the himalayas, facebook, France, google, Gross, gross national happiness, happiness, havoc, Hewlett, Himalayas, material possessions, mature industries, mythical country, Packard, region, Silicon Valley, stanford university, Switzerland, United States, wreaking havoc
Leave a comment
Don’t mention the climate debt
I just attended an excellent report-back from the Copenhagen climate talks fiasco. The speakers included Payal Parekh, climate director from my own organization, International Rivers, and representatives from other great Bay Area enviro organizations, 350.org, Rainforest Action Network and EcoEquity.
The packed room spoke to the interest in the topic even on an El Niño-sodden Berkeley night. Jamie Henn showed videos of the inspiring work of 350.org in catalyzing demos and media stunts around the world, displayed stats showing the unprecedented spike in global media coverage of climate issues in December, and spoke rousingly of the fabulous energy of the growing youth climate movement and of the huge climate justice march in the streets of Copenhagen. A theme of the night was that Copenhagen, while disappointing, had not been a total failure, and that the task now was to transmit the activist energy and huge leap in global public awareness forward to the next big UN climate jamboree in Mexico in late 2010.
Posted in News, Original Content
Tagged Bay Area, Berkeley, climate, climate issues, climate justice, climate talks, Copenhagen, director, energy, enviro, fiasco, global media coverage, henn, International, international rivers, jamboree, Jamie Henn, Mexico, night, night jamie, org, organization, own organization, Parekh, Payal
Leave a comment
Will Berkeley Be the Next Haiti?
Americans who have been shocked by the devastation in Haiti may be surprised to know that a similar catastrophe is coming soon to America–and virtually nothing is being done about it.
Nearly two million people lived near Port-au-Prince. Nearly seven and a half million people live within a few miles of the Hayward fault, which runs the length of the San Francisco East Bay hills. The Haiti earthquake, which killed perhaps as many as 200,000 people, was a 7.0 on the moment magnitude scale (the familiar Richter scale is not used for large quakes). The earthquake anticipated on the Hayward fault will exceed 6.7 on the moment magnitude scale. In both Haiti and the Bay Area, large populations live on dangerous faults.
Posted in News, Original Content
Tagged America, America--and, Bay Area, catastrophe, devastation, earthquake, East Bay, east bay hills, fault, francisco east bay, Haiti, Hayward, hayward fault, magnitude, moment, moment magnitude scale, nothing, Port-au, Port-au-Prince, quakes, richter scale, San Francisco, san francisco east bay, scale, two million
Leave a comment
What Lies in the Rubble of Haiti’s Presidential Palace
We are all captivated by the photo of the damaged Presidential Palace in Haiti. It shows us that the Haitian earthquake was powerful and overwhelming. After all, the seat of power in that impoverished country is in ruins. What must that say about the remainder of Port au Prince? Imagine what it would have done to the people of this country had it been the White House. This photo captures the incomprehensible destruction in Haiti, but below the surface, perhaps the ruin of the Presidential Palace offers a pathway forward with quiet whispers of a redeemed nation.
No place in the world is ever fully prepared for an earthquake with the intensity of the one that struck Haiti last week. In the United States In 1989, the Loma Prieta Earthquake struck California’s Bay Area. With a similar magnitude to the Haitian quake, the 1989 disaster killed 63 people, injured 3,800, and left 30,000 homeless. Despite being engineered to modern seismic standards, the infrastructure of the Bay Bridge was badly damaged. One of the most indelible images from that disaster is the collapsed upper deck of that bridge. Within a month it was patched up, but, as its collapse made it clear, the eastern span needed to be replaced. 20 years later, in one of the great cities of the world’s wealthiest nation, construction continues on the new eastern span. It won’t open to traffic for another three years, almost 25 years after the quake.
Posted in News, Original Content
Tagged Bay Area, bay bridge, Bridge, California, cities of the world, collapse, country, disaster, earthquake, eastern span, Haiti, indelible images, loma prieta earthquake, nation, Palace, photo, Port-au-Prince, Presidential, quiet whispers, seismic standards, span, United States, upper deck, world
Leave a comment