Ok, so we all have our parties that we like to vote for no matter what, well not me, but anyway… Whoever you vote in for Prime Minister as you exercise your Democratic Right, remember that if the senate is not balanced, then you won’t have a democracy you will have something that resembles more of a Dictatorship. So if you are planning to defend democracy this November tick wisely. Use your representatives, don’t just tick with a blinded, loyalist, party eye. Your senate vote might be more important than your vote for who will lead(?) the country. See these 2 links to understand the whole thing a little better.
House of Representatives
The Senate
Well I never thought that I would serve Chai in Urban Grind, not because I have anything against it, just because we do coffee, but then someone (I promise I will remember your name any minute now) introduced me to Calmer Sutra Tea. Wait till you see it, wait till you smell it… you will want to taste it. Either use it as a substitute for that 4th guilty coffee or consider it ok to invite your tea drinking friend to Urban Grind with you now. The no decaf policy still stands.
Firstly, I would like to point out that there is nothing ethical about our government making superannuation compulsory, when it is obviously just a way for big fat companies to take your money and make money from it, then charge you a fee. If it were a voluntary thing I wouldn’t have a problem, but as it is not it is a scam.
But the fact that these companies do play with large amounts of funds means that they can have an impact on trading. If they invest ethically they can help us towards positive change. At Urban Grind I have always encouraged the staff to use an ethical superannuation fund, like Australian Ethical.
If you have ever wanted to know more about ethical investment, Australian Ethical is holding a free Seminar in Bardon next week.
6:00pm to 7:30pm, Thursday 25 October
Acacia Room, The Bardon Center
390 Simpsons Road, Bardon
I will be trying to find the time to go.
Edit: I have just noticed that you need to book by sending an email to Adam.
I know that Greenpeace give them a hard time but I personally am proud to be an Apple lover because of their environmental efforts. If you have ever unpacked an Apple product you will know that they have a talent for using minimal packaging. Apple can put my entire computer into a single box. When I bought my first Apple computer it came in a box smaller than the box my friend’s new monitor came in. In fact my friend’s monitor box was so big at the time that they were able to use it as a dining room table. Apple was able to send 4 computers at the same volume a rival computer company could send a monitor. Anyway…
Apple is now offering to recycle your old computers, any brand for free in Brisbane on the 27th, 28th and 29th of this month. Find out more here. And while you are there check out the other pages about Apple and the Environment.
Oh and sorry for all the Apple talk but it is a very exciting time in the Apple world right now.
The joke on Apple users used to be that we only made up 5% of computer users world wide. The joke by apple users in response was that we were the top 5%. It seems that others want to be the best too. Apple users now make up 8% of computer users world wide.
Remember though that only one percent of people world wide are even computer users. It is still early days. Ever wanted to start a computer company? Might be a good idea… 99% of the market is untapped.
Just a quick note to let you know that we are doing fresh muffins now, but at this point it is only Monday to Friday. I am working on finding a nice local supplier for the weekend. I will keep you posted.
Now I know what you are thinking because I was thinking it too. You’re thinking ‘Hasn’t Michelle Pfeiffer has already done that one?’ Freedom Writers is one of those Female teacher saves the gang kids movies. As much as I kind of love those stories, I found myself side-stepping this one for weeks at the video shop, and to be honest if it wasn’t for $1 movie night and a choice between Freedom Writers and Mark Wahlberg in Shooter I still might not have got it out.
We loved it. It is a great story. So much more than we were expecting. It is inspirational and well acted (I thought). It is a heart string pulling tear jerker but personally I like a movie that moves me. I hope that you get to see it, especially you Micky. If any of you do happen to miss it I will be getting it for the shop, as I really do think it is worth it.
Urban Grind pays extra money to be carbon neutral by offsetting our emissions. If the money was there I would put Solar panels on the roof (if the landlord said I could). I am not actually a big fan of doing the wrong thing and then just paying some cash to a good thing. Is it not wiser to just do less of the bad thing?
On the weekend I was invited to give a talk with Emma from GWhiz on doing business for reasons other than to make money. Urban Grind for me is a community building exercise and a place where hopefully we can all exchange ideas on making the world a better place for the children. GWhiz car sharing is about changing behaviours. Car sharing services have the impact of taking cars off the road. For every car sharing car between 6-10 cars don’t have to be manufactured. Those using the service use the cars more efficiently than those that own a car that sits idle 95% of the time. And there are more reasons.
For years the message was that we should be recycling, but the message should have been Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Now the message is to Offset, but we still need to address Reduce and Reuse. One of the young people at the symposium that we were talking to asked Emma if GWhiz offsets it’s cars emissions and the answer was, ‘not at the moment, but we are looking into it’. The question was fair given the current thinking, but Emma’s answer could be seen as not quite doing enough given the current thinking, but until we start having the reduce and reuse conversation, GWhiz is not going to be recognised for these efforts. I still have a business model that contributes to the problem and says sorry later. Gwhiz has built a model around reducing negative impact on the planet, and it is not instantly recognised for that, because we are still not considering in our conversation the fact that recycling and offsetting should be coming long after you have made every effort to Reduce and Reuse.
Blog Action Day
180 PARKs in 47 cities worldwide, including:
- 58 PARKs in San Francisco, including 5 Sidewalk Plazas by Public Architecture.
- 45 PARKs in Los Angeles.
- 25 PARKs in NYC.
PARKs in major cities, including Washington DC, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, St. Paul, Boston, Austin, Salt Lake City, Tampa, Miami, London, Bremen, Utrecht, Barcelona, Valencia, Munich, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte (Brazil), Toronto, Melbourne, Brisbane (Australia) and Vilnius (Lithuania).
See the PARK(ing) Day website for more details.
Ok, so they lost me after the black album but Metallica is one of my favourite bands of all time. I have recently been listening to all the old (first 5) albums again and trying to get into the newer ones (no luck). I am Listening to Ride the Lightning now and I must say that it is by far my favourite.
But why the Metallica post? Metallica helped my through my teenage years. When my parents weren’t able to explore with me my feelings and frustrations Metallica was. Looking back I wonder how interesting it would have been for my parents to have listened to Metallica with me and talked with me about the lyrics. I have always been someone the listens quite deeply to lyrics and allow my self to be influenced by them. A lot of Metallica’s older stuff was quite deep. Some of it I could relate to, some of it I contemplated as they were new ideas being introduced to me and some of it I rejected. It gave me strength and often inspiration.
I have also thought that it would be great to study the lyrics of bands like Metallica in poetry class. I hated english at high school - it bored the crap out of me. But my teachers could have had my full attention had they said, “Today for poetry we are going to study Metallica and we are going to start with the lyrics to the song Dyers Eve (lyrics below).” If you read the lyrics below imagine that I am 14 years old always at odds with my parents and tell me that I could not have had a very interesting class discussion about this song. Consider that I was feeling these things and might have also benefited from the opportunity to process these concepts/feelings/ideas.
I have always said that I will listen with my children to the music they choose to listen to. I am nervous about this as I am not a fan of pop stuff. But maybe if I listen to this music with my children they may be able to show me the meaning they get from something that I thought was so shallow. Or maybe I will be able to teach them something. Either way it seems like a good way to engage with your kids and maybe talk about bigger things. I could be wrong, but if my parents were to ask me if there was something they could have done differently this would be my answer. Listen with me to the music that i was deliberately using to create a picture of who I was and who I wanted to be. I always had questions that could have been answered by an adult but instead I had to wait years before I could fully understand some of these things, and it should be noted that I understood a whole lot more than I was being given credit for.
Please do not mistake that last bit for unresolved anger. The human race faces it’s biggest crisis ever and we need to be able to work together, Father and Son, etc to solve it. The older generation is in need of fresh thinking and the younger generation will need the wisdom of those that have come before us. Both will need the humility to be wrong in the face of the other. They will need to be able to communicate. Personally I think that it is the duty of the adults to take responsibility for this interaction.
Continue reading ‘Metallica’
