Patti Wilson

NPR Breaks Story: Decline of Monarch Butterflies related to Monsanto's Roundup

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 03:53:00 +0000

I cannot believe it! Does the entire planet have to break down before we realize the destruction caused by the GMO crops and the Roundup sprayed on them?

Goodbye bees, butterflies, and we are next. Monsanto is the Darth Vadar of agribusiness.

Monarch Butterfly Population Falls To Record Low, Mexican Scientists Say

by Scott Neuman

March 14, 201312:32 PM

Monarch butterflies that once covered 50 square acres of forest during their summer layover in central Mexico now occupy fewer than 3 acres, according to the latest census.
The numbers of the orange-and-black butterflies have crashed in the two decades since scientists began making a rough count of them, according to Mexico's National Commission of Natural Protected Areas.
At a news conference Wednesday, the commission said the count was down 59 percent from December 2011 levels, when the insects filled 7.14 acres of fir trees in central Mexico.
"We are seeing now a trend which more or less started in the last seven to eight years," Omar Vidal, the head of the World Wildlife Fund's Mexico operations, said in an interview with . Although insect populations can fluctuate greatly even in normal conditions, the steady downward drift in the butterfly's numbers is worrisome, he said.
The Associated Press quotes experts as saying the decline in the Monarch population now marks a statistical long-term trend and is no longer seen as a combination of yearly or seasonal events.
Why is it happening?
Vidal points north, to the monarchs' summer home in the U.S. Midwest. The farmland there once provided plenty of milkweed sprouting between rows of corn and soybean. But the heavy use of genetically modified, herbicide-tolerant crops has allowed farmers to wipe out milkweed and eliminate the monarchs' main food source.
In an interview with the Times, Chip Taylor, director of the conservation group Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas, said the Midwest milkweed habitat "is virtually gone. We've lost well over 120 million acres, and probably closer to 150 million acres."

Taylor says the record-breaking heat in North America last summer was also a factor.

From Atlantic Magazine: What’s going on in the world today?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 17:46:00 +0000

What’s going on in the world today? It’s hard to keep up. Some facts are familiar to anyone who reads the news. Unemployment is high. Growth is slow. Shale gas is a big deal. But beyond the caps-lock headlines, subtler, but no less significant, shifts are changing the US economy and reshaping the global financial order. Here are 10 that have surprised—and might surprise.

You can read the full article here but below is my annotated summary of the top ten shifts:

1. Old Trend: Expensive solar, surviving only on subsidies.
New Trend: Cheap solar, disrupting old industries.

Solar is now competitive will have ramifications on big oil, fracking and gas drilling. But Shell, Exxon, Mobile, BP have always been ahead of the game and have made investments in solar and other alternative energy sectors. Don’t expect them to go out of business ever!

2. Old Trend: The Latinization of America.
New Trend: The Asiafication of America.

This one is my favorite as it will turn the anti-immigration movement on its head. What are they going to do build a fence across the Pacific? The argument that Asians will take jobs away from Americans is specious. They are job creators

3. Old Trend: The Chinese population bomb.
New Trend: The Chinese population bust.

This one is interesting as it will raise wages in China bring the average Chinese worker ‘s wages closer to par with workers in other countries.

4. Old Trend: Soaring US CO2 emissions.
New Trend: Plummeting US CO2 emissions.

This such a welcome trend thanks to the growth in gas. Will it be enough to save the planet? Highly doubtful as they are now saying we have reached a point of no return.

5. Old Trend: College is becoming more and more important.
New Trend: College is no more important than before.

Now this is a total crock of bull dung being promoted by the education industry actually. College is important as ever before, but it will be all those immigrating Asians who can afford the exorbitant tuition attending. The education industry wants to raise rates even more and privatize and commoditize the content delivery.

6. Old Trend: Americans drive more and more.
New Trend: Americans drive less and less.

Well this fits with the old axiom, “the beatings will continue until moral improve”. If you can’t afford the gas, you don’t drive right?

7. Old Trend: Skyrocketing health care costs, skyrocketing deficits.
New Trend: Creeping health care costs, creeping deficits.

Thank you Obamacare! Yes, socialized single payer systems work really well to suppress costs that shared across the population, limit big pharma and medical insurance industry greed, and support a healthy population. It’s the right thing to do. It is the moral thing to do.

8. Old Trend: The BRICs are conquering the world.
New Trend: China is the only BRIC in the wall.

Cute send up of Pink Floyd. But, China’s due is coming.

9. Old Trend: Active management rules the finance universe.
New Trend: Passive investment rules the finance universe.

We all wised up and realized that game is rigged and there is no point giving the robber barons more than the pound of flesh they are taking by playing the market at our expense. The fees and charges in this industry are egregious.

10. Old Trend: China is buying up all our debt.
New Trend: China is selling off our debt.

The article relays this information as a good thing that Americans are owning their own debt but it makes me nervous. What do the Chinese know that is being covered up? Another crash?

Blue Footed Booby Invades Northern California

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 19:26:00 +0000

Of course the naysayers would say this has nothing to do with climate change, but, increasingly, we see species inching farther and farther north.

In this is case the visit is benign and welcome, but in the case of the pine beetles northward march into Canada's pristine forests, the arrival is troublesome and unwanted.

Blue-footed booby makes unexpected stop in Monterey Bay

By Jason Hoppin

Santa Cruz Sentinel -- On a rocky shelf next to Sunny Cove, UC Santa Cruz student Abe Borker and some friends looked over the water Tuesday, scanning for an impossibility.

Yet there it was: the blue-footed booby, a subtropical seabird famed from the Galapagos Islands to the Sea of Cortez for its long, pointed beak, clumsy waddle and pastel-colored webbed feet, a combination that makes the bird look like it walked off a Pixar movie set.

"I was really excited," said Borker, who is working toward a doctorate in ecology and evolutionary behavior. "I'd seen one in Mexico earlier this year, but I never thought I'd see one in Santa Cruz."

Boobies are invading the coast of California with dozens of sightings recorded, especially in Southern California, something that that hasn't been seen since 1971. They have been spotted as far north at Point Reyes, according to bird trackers, and there have been several local sightings as well.

Most seem to be juveniles, which have yet to develop the telltale blue feet. They tend to dwell in flocks of brown pelicans -- another migratory seabird -- and the first local sightings began on Sunday.

"Huge excitement for birders," said Brian Sullivan, a locally based director of eBird.org, a project of the New York-based Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "Right now there's lots of birders out there to see and document this invasion."

Forbes Magazine Says: Yes, Apple Is Back In The Disruption Business

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 17:47:00 +0000

The naysayers on Apple's fading glory are premature:

Today’s superstar businesses are device companies, integrating hardware, software, services and connection. We don’t get much chance to stop and think what that new product model means to how you do R&D, product development and innovation. But Apple is showing us. While we were fixated on hardware, on the iPhone, the Cupertino company is disrupting radio with its new, to the smartphone, iTunes radio service.

read more

Nostalgia Becomes the French and Us

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 18 Jul 2013 13:52:00 +0000

Goodbye Old World, Bonjour Tristesse
Maureen Dowd,
Published: July 6, 2013

When reading this great NY Times article by Maureen Dowd, I couldn't help but think of the nostalgia ridden Baby Boomers wistfully dreaming of long, easy summer days without play dates, cell phones, and pressure cooker bombers. The world has changed and not all in a good way, but sometimes our psyches and hearts just don't catch up. Nor do we realize that, until we find the time to dial back, reflect, and wonder where it

PARIS — VERSAILLES lived again at haute couture week, as designers paraded their let-them-eat-cake creations, hand-stitched with gilt embroidery and trimmed with guiltless fur — frousfrous that no real women can wear and few can afford.

On Friday night, Christian Lacroix offered his homage to Elsa Schiaparelli, but even high fashion couldn’t lift Paris from its low mood. “Liberté, égalité, morosité,” Le Monde declared.

Joie de vivre has given way to gaze de navel. The French are so busy wallowing in their existential estrangement — a state of mind Camus described as “Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?” — that they don’t even have the energy to be rude. And now that they’re smoking electronic cigarettes, their ennui doesn’t look as cool. It’s not that they’ve lost faith in their own superiority. They’ve lost faith that the rest of the world sees it. The whole country has, as Catherine Deneuve says of her crazy blue moods, une araignée au plafond — a spider on the ceiling.

On Place Vendome, Christian Lacroix was dispatching models in black crepe chiffon peplum basques — whatever they are — while on Avenue Hoche, Lacroix’s dentist was bemoaning the black crepe City of Lights. Holding a cigarette in a waiting room filled with Picasso-print pillows, Dr. Gérard Armandou told how his patients, always prone to pessimism, are even more filled with malheur now as they sit in his chair contemplating tous les problèmes, including “not going anymore on holiday to Egypt.”

“Cocteau said the French are Italians in a bad mood, but now there is more morosity,” he said. “We are connecting with nostalgia. What is nostalgia? Where the present doesn’t agree with the hope that you got in the past.”

He said there are widening chasms between sectors of French society — old and young, natives and immigrants, “smokers and nonsmokers, homosexuals and non-homosexuals.”

“Enter conflict, where before there was none,” he said. “The French people, maybe they think too much. The happy stupid don’t see the problem.” People with joie de vivre, after all, are simply not paying attention.

“It’s not the end of the world,” Dr. Armandou said with a Gallic shrug. “It’s the end of one world.”

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on July 7, 2013, on page SR1 of the New York edition with the headline: Goodbye Old World, Bonjour Tristesse. Click the link to read the full article

Waldorf School and Windows 8

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 18:52:00 +0000

Julian walks us through Windows 8 and he's "free" errr, three!

My incredulity has never abated when I hear devotees of Rudolph Steiner's Waldorf School advocate living by candlelight, no electronics, and learning to read naturally when you get to 3rd grade.

According to Wikipedia, Steiner at the beginning of the 20th century founded a spiritual movement, Anthroposophy, as an esoteric philosophy growing out of idealist philosophy and with links to Theosophy. Theosophy actually designates a specific flow of thought...or tradition within the modern study of esotericism. Thus it follows the path starting from the more modern period of the 15th century onward (e.g... hermeticism,.. Rosicrucianism, Alchemy ...).

Rudolph Steiner spawned an anachronistic pedagogy that is as irrelevant to 21st century learning as Creationism is to Biology and Alchemy is to Chemistry. And for that matter, Freud is to modern psychotherapy.

The 3 year old doing the Windows 8 demo doesn't go to a Waldorf school that's obvious.

Top Business Moguls Choose Higher Taxes on Their Income vs the Fiscal Cliff

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 11:59:00 +0000

I am always amazed and the willingness and concessions that interested parties will make when they look over the abyss and see the long way down.
This article in the Canadian Globe and Mail is telling of the willingness of the US business 1% to actually give up some wealth to not lose all of it. Good decision but can they get the politicians to do their bidding?

As fiscal cliff nears, CEOs sound alarm and push politicians on a deal

JOANNA SLATER

NEW YORK — The Globe and Mail

Published Sunday, Oct. 14 2012, 7:17 PM EDT

Last updated Monday, Oct. 15 2012, 9:54 AM ED

Executives are speaking out in public and lobbying lawmakers about the dangers of failing to avert automatic spending cuts and tax increases looming at the end of the year. The more active role is a reflection of anxiety over the economic damage that those measures will inflict.

“We sure know what the consequence will be and it will be awful,” said Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., in a television interview Thursday. It’s “one of the major ways in which the slow recovery that we have could be completely derailed.”

A day earlier, Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co., told an audience in Washington that it was “terrible policy” to veer this close to the so-called fiscal cliff. The impact has already begun, he asserted. Businesses “start to make decisions at the margin,” he said. “Don’t hire, don’t build, don’t buy.”

The chorus is drawing public attention to the most pressing issue on the legislative agenda for the next president and Congress. In theory, the effort could help create the conditions for a future deal by giving skittish lawmakers comfort that the business community supports compromise – even one that involves higher taxes.

Mr. Blankfein and Mr. Dimon are part of a group of about seventy prominent chief executives who have joined a non-partisan campaign to fix the country’s debt. The initiative has raised $25-million (U.S.) and is ramping up its activities at the local level.

Time is short. After delaying for months ahead of the November election, lawmakers must race to ward off tax hikes and spending reductions that could knock the economy back into recession. Together the steps represent an “unprecedented” $800-billion annual reduction in the deficit, according to a recent Citigroup report. It predicts that over the course of 2013, the squeeze will cause unemployment to rise to 9.6 per cent as gross domestic profit shrinks by 1 per cent.

Some observers believe that the dire consequences guarantee that lawmakers will avert the fiscal cliff measures – or allow them to take effect only briefly before hammering out a deal. Such faith is possibly misplaced, warned Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator who co-chaired a deficit reduction commission.

Investors appear to believe that lawmakers will not drive the country off the fiscal cliff, he said. They “really believe honestly that no Congress could be this stupid, and by God, they can,” Mr. Simpson said in a recent interview on CNBC.

Joseph Stiglitz and Inequality in America

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 19:49:00 +0000

Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%

Illustration by Stephen Doyle in Vanity Fair, June 2012

Americans have been watching protests against oppressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet in our own democracy, 1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret.
Read the article

The vision is compelling and based on reality. Joseph Stiglitz's new book, The Price of Inequality.

Apple vs Samsung was Just the Beginning

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 19:48:00 +0000

100 year old Texas Courthouse

Jury finds patent on "look and feel" for online stores valid, infringed

MARSHALL, TEXAS—A long-dead dot-com business, revived as a patent-holding company called DDR Holdings, today has new life with a Texas patent victory. Two patents owned by the company, both of which cover a way of creating an online store that it says is widely used in e-commerce, were found valid and infringed.

The victory wasn't clear-cut though. The two defendant companies, Digital River and World Travel Holdings, were ordered by the jury to pay $750,000 each, for a total of $1.5 million. That's a lot of money, but it's less than 10 percent of the $16.2 million that DDR asked for. Putting on a patent trial can cost as much as $1 million, so DDR may not make much from this case.

The courtroom was silent and still while the verdict was read, although DDR's damages expert, Mark Chandler, briefly lowered his head and sighed after the relatively low damages figure was read out.

Let's hope that the patent wars don't get to the point that it stymies innovation, growth and progress. This is, for heaven's sake, a patent farm. Much like an investment banker or private equity firm, it has no intrinsic value except to make blood money.

Quaker Oats Guy and You: Time to Refresh Your Brand?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 18:59:00 +0000

image taken from Time Magazine, 2012

Younger, thinner, more interesting looking is the new oatmeal look. After 136 years, the Quaker Oats quaker logo has been undated to appeal to a new generation of young adults as well as appeal to aging phobic baby boomers. If you compare the two logos, yes the one on the right is the new one, it show an updated font style too that is a brighter white and not "old timey" looking.
According to the Time Magazine article, Quaker Oats owner PepsiCo introduced the changes in an effort to make the brand “fresh and innovative,” which might take a bit of doing, given that their product is a dessicated cereal grain.

You may not be going on 136 years old, but when it comes to staying viable in the global talent marketplace, well then consider an update on your personal brand.

How do you do that? Well it is less the wording in your content which focuses more on rebranding. Rebranding positions you for moves into new fields, business sectors, and industries. A brand refresh is gives your current brand a fresher appearance which more about image and look. At the warp speed of business and the Internet, a professional look evolves much more rapidly.

Digital Documents in 2012 look different from those in 1998
Well at least they should look different but some professionals still are using resume formats and layouts before the faxed resume. Resumes, websites, blogs, or social profiles should be built now to look great on a screen as that's where they are read. In fact, if you go to the Way Back Machine (Internet Archive) and check out early the Linkedin, Amazon, blogs sites, you will see how different and dated they look now.

The fonts, layout and design of resumes now must take into consideration how well a font renders online and on a screen. Modern sans-serif fonts look younger and fresher. Serif fonts like Palatino render better onscreen than the traditional Times Roman, making for a crisper, fresher look.

The older you are, the younger your photo style
Most executives use their photos provided by their company's PR department on Linkedin and for other business requirements. If you are over 50 and not working in government and financial services, this is not a good idea. More stable, traditional business sectors like seeing their executives in suits and business attire as does consulting services. There is a reason for the slang referring to "the suits".

Using photos taken outdoors, in natural light, preferably in business casual will create an image of health, vitality and youth as well. Business formal creates age aura. If you have substantial career credentials and achievements, then you don't need to look the part as well.

Take the photo one step further and be in dressy sports on a wind swept beach with a Golden Retriever. Lacking ocean, use a park and a poodle, or ski slopes, etc. Just don't look too much like you're into extreme sports. Remember how the category "interests" was put at the bottom of your resume and you got to list things like: biking, skiing, marathon running, etc etc? Well, one well done photos creates the better impression of you without the ubiquitous laundry list.

Update your look, wardrobe, and appearance
There is age discrimination and it is subtle, unconscious, and hard to prove when practiced in hiring and firing. In a media marketing driven, consumption based culture, we are manipulated by the image and look of products which are presented with an emphasis on sex, power, fun,and excitement. Yes, we like functional too, but we get sucked in by looks first. Think how many people wear those ergonomically uncomfortable, auditorially poor, and, basically, cheesy Apple iPod earbuds because they look cool and recognizable in white.

A style makeover may not be annually necessary but every five years it is mandatory. This includes product: skin care, hair care, and body maintenance. There is a reason sites like Dermatologistrx is thriving online, and why both men and women no longer consider facial peels and lifts optional. It is not about looking younger which may be hard to archieve, especially after a certain age, but looking fresher, more vibrant and vital.

The Quaker Oats guy looks thinner, healthier, and a bit younger and you should too!

Game of Thrones: Season II Game On!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 23:01:00 +0000

This is the second season for HBO's runaway hit series Game of Thrones. It is a combination of Lord of the Rings and the Arthurian legend. It is replete with magic, political intrigue, incest, dragons, weird weather, family ties, classic gamesmanship and war strategies. Just perfect for today's post-modern, war weary, politically fractured society. Nothing like a good fantasy, right?

HBO has apparently spared no expense on the series in making the series. The scenes of the Night Watch team's expeditions beyond the wall were shot in Iceland. The tropical palace settings were done in North Africa. The cast is solid, B-level actors familiar to us in other settings and movies.

What is interesting is the appeal of Game of Thrones to a cross-section of audiences including a wide age range, with sci-fi, fantasy, history, and drama buffs. There is a little bit for everyone and enough range in actor ages to create multi-generational heart throbs.

All in all, GOT should be up for more Emmy nominations and potential wins for this season.

Alexander McQueen's Camel Shoes?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 01:09:00 +0000

Alexander McQueen Shoes

What is it about fashion designers when they design clothing that is not only ugly but dammed uncomfortable? The late Alexander McQueen had a penchant for fantasy, fantastic, and far-out when it comes to women's clothes.

His dresses were mere preludes, little amuse-bouches in preparation for his shoes. What was he thinking in terms of sexiness, agility, or stability. Might as well bind your feet at birth and just forget it.

I have to admit that I tend to anthropomorphize the top row of shoes in the photo. Don't they remind you even a little of a camel head?

I saw Lady GaGa a few years back wear a pair of those and she had to be escorted, as in having someone hold her up and balance her, onto the stage. Interestingly, his basic style of very high spike heels, with platform bottoms like the blue shoe in the photo had taken over main street shoe stores. Please god make them go soon the way of the hip-rider, below the navel, butt-crack showing blue jeans. I just keep putting off that tramp stamp.

Google's Dynamic Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:42:00 +0000

Yesterday I was talking to a client seeking an executive position in India. We were sharing screens and browsing Linkedin profiles of potential connections for him. When I found the blog of an HR executive in Bangalore, I was dumbfounded with the cool simplicity, edgy design and fun functionality of his blogsite. It looked like a combination of Pinterest, Sliderocket, About.me, Flicker and GotoWebinar combined into one.

It was beautiful! It was the new blogger? I joined Blogger in 2003 when Google first launched it. I always had this have this penchant for joining things and trying new things, even though I don't always participate or stay involved. This has paid off online as I am inveterate cyberhoarder of data. I always grab my name with any new platform, service, etc . I have a common name and could have easily not gotten visibility in a Google search had I not bought pattiwilson.com/net/org/info.

Plus, having several email addresses and blog addresses in my name has helped organize information input and output for me. My inbox is empty of articles, newsletters, event invitations, and groupon notices. They all go to my Yahoo address. Personal email goes to Google mail and only client email goes to my company URL email.

This brings me back to Blogger. Back in 2003, I tried blogging on Blogger a few times and gave it up in favor of my emailed newsletter. In, 2005, my newsletter morphed into a Typepad blog that got pushed to my subscribers by Feedblitz. I finally added a blog to my website in addition to my newsletter in. I never returned to Blogger as I thought it looked clunky and ugly. Not anymore. The new dynamic layout is way cool and I am back.

Moral of the story, in 2003 I got pattiwilson.blogger.com, and I am resuming its use with this first post to a new, informal, and personal blog.