Lessons in leadership
2. Lead from the front - but don't leave your base behind
Open Society and Culture ...a CGI ant carrying a digital grain of rice...
Posted by
William Meloney
at
9:21 AM
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I am drawn to the tidiness of proverbs
little zingers
that make you nod
and think you have gotten to the pulp
of a thing
like how you can know a person
by the books they keep
but it’s not true
you know only the stomach
of their brain
a naïve hunger that tends
to want more
of the same
it’s like thinking you know
a bird
by the wire
he sits on
life is unkempt
people die
too soon
all there is to do
is pay attention to the litter
of minutes that fling from the day
and catch some
on your tongue
like snowflakes
each one
a tiny perfect story
a life written in ice
before it melts
and returns home
to the sea.
Posted by
William Meloney
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4:59 AM
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Posted by
William Meloney
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6:48 AM
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MYTH #1: 47% of Americans do not pay taxes.
Fact: All Americans pay taxes.
MYTH #2: The American people and corporations pay high taxes.
Fact: The US has the third lowest taxes of any developed country in the world.
MYTH #3: Cutting taxes creates jobs and raises revenue.
Fact: Tax cuts reduce revenue and are not associated with economic growth.
MYTH #4: The US tax system is very progressive because wealthy individuals already pay a disproportionate amount of taxes.
Fact: At a time of growing income inequality, the US tax system is basically flat.
When you take into account all of the taxes that individuals pay, the truth is that our tax system is relatively flat. The top one percent of income earners receives 20.3 percent of total income while paying 21.5 percent of total taxes and the lowest 20 percent of income earners receive 3.5 percent of total income while still paying out two percent of total taxes.
In other words, wealthy individuals pay a high percentage of taxes because they earn a highly disproportionate amount of income. This is a consequence of growing income inequality in the United States, which is at a level not seen since before the Great Depression.
MYTH #5: The “Fair Tax” or a flat tax would be more fair.
Fact: The “Fair Tax” or a flat tax would make our tax system even more regressive.
Posted by
William Meloney
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10:44 AM
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Gautham Nagesh for The Hill - Eight of the largest Web companies have endorsed an online piracy bill offered by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) as an alternative to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate counterpart PROTECT IP.
The OPEN Act would direct online patent infringement claims against foreign websites to the International Trade Commission, which would be authorized to order online ad networks and payment processors to sever ties with the rogue foreign sites.
Posted by
William Meloney
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12:18 PM
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Posted by
William Meloney
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11:19 AM
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Shards of spirituality
I'm touched by the idea that when we do things that are useful and helpful - collecting these shards of spirituality - that we may be helping to bring about a healing.
Leonard Nimoy
Join me on DIASPORA - a real alternative to Fazebook!
Posted by
William Meloney
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5:06 PM
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Posted by
William Meloney
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5:05 PM
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Posted by
William Meloney
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1:31 PM
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We have to create culture, don't watch TV, don't read magazines, don't even listen to NPR. Create your own roadshow. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you're worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered, you're giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told 'no', we're unimportant, we're peripheral. 'Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.' And then you're a player, you don't want to even play in that game.
You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-baked moron consuming all this trash that's being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.
Posted by
William Meloney
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10:54 AM
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A scaly foot sea snail. The scales are covered with layers of pure pyrite and iron sulphide. Photograph: David Shale
Denizens of the Dragon Vent – in pictures
Posted by
William Meloney
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5:32 AM
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CHEETA the chimpanzee, who starred alongside Tarzan from the movies of the 1930s through to the 1960s TV series, has died at the age of 80.
Posted by
William Meloney
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12:30 PM
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This strikingly coloured electric-blue European lobster was caught off the east coast of Scotland and spotted at London Billingsgate fish market in November 2011. It was sent to the Natural History Museum before settling into a new home at the London Aquarium.
Posted by
William Meloney
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8:44 AM
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