Can shopping save the world?

The Story of Change urges viewers to put down their credit cards and start exercising their citizen muscles to build a more sustainable, just and fulfilling world.

Happy 13th Birthday Catalyst House!

7-16-2012

When Appaji and I met with the President, Professor Agnaldo Silva, of the Filhos de Gandhy (Sons of Gandhi), Appaji asked him, “Why do you call yourselves the Sons of Gandhi and not the People of Gandhi?” The Professor replied, “We do have a movement called the Daughters of Gandhi that walk alongside the Sons of Gandhi during Carnival.” Appaji replied that Bapu did not discriminate between genders, he held them equal and empowered women. It would be more in line with Bapu’s philosophy to be all inclusive i.e., the People of Gandhi! The Professor turned to his colleague and said, “We have some work to do!”

As the conversation continued the Professor asked if Appaji would consider coming back next Opening of Carnival to join the Sons of Gandhi, it would be a big moment for them. This was the first time that a Gandhi had visited Salvador Bahia, Brazil. Appaji responded that if they would consider changing their name to the People of Gandhi, he would consider returning for the Salvador Bahia Carnival.

Also, in the course of the dialogue Arun explained to the professor that he is not a “peace builder” per’se, as some in Brazil had described – he emphasized that he is a “Peace Farmer”, planting his seeds around the world.

The photos with the Professor are at the end of the photo album.

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Lynnea Bylund is managing director of Gandhi Legacy Tours, Director of Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute, founder of Catalyst House and has nearly three decades of experience in administration, marketing and business development. She was a nationally recognized spokeswoman for the emerging alternative video and information delivery industries. She has a degree in holistic health-nutrition from the legendary and controversial health educator and activist Dr. Kurt Donsbach, she is the founder of two not-for-profit small business-based wireless trade associations and has lobbied on Capitol Hill and at the FCC where she has spoken out strongly against the cable TV monopoly, illegal spectrum warehousing and ill-conceived congressional schemes to auction our nation’s precious airwaves to the highest bidder.

Ms. Bylund is a founder and former CEO of a Washington DC telecommunications consulting and management company with holdings in several operating and developmental wireless communications systems and companies. In 1995 Lynnea became the first female in the world to be awarded a Broadband PCS operating permit – she was one of only 18 winners, along with Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon in the biggest cash auction in world history, raising a whopping $7.7 billion. Lynnea also spear-headed the successful effort to launch the first cable TV network in the South Pacific islands.
… > Follow Lynnea on:  LynneaBylund – Twitter – LinkedIn – FaceBook – Pinterest & YouTube

Rochester New York July 7, 2012 — Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, Dr. Arun Gandhi, visited Brazil the last week of June 2012.  He spent his seven-day tour visiting Salvador Bahia and Sao Paulo as well as talking with leaders from the Salvador Ministry of Education, Culture and International Relations, the Center for Support of Children with Cerebral Palsy (NACPC) a project recognized by UNESCO and UNICEF,  Teodoro Sampaio (Bairro Santa Cruz), Sons of Gandhi (Filhos de Gandhy), Residents de Sao Miguel Paulista, Institute of Democracy and Sustainability, and Fundacao Tide Setubal.

While in Brazil, Dr. Gandhi also enjoyed separate visits with Salvador Municipal Secretary of Education, Juan Carlos Bacelar and the leadership of Institute of Democracy and Sustainability and Fundacao Tide Setubal to discuss the current situation in Brazil and begin a dialogue on how Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophies of nonviolence and education can be implemented in the ongoing development work there.  Dr. Gandhi gave a 20 minute interview with the Redo Record de Televisiao News Network and held several press conferences.

(Read more…)

Arun Gandhi was invited by Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDS) to Sao Paulo to address the residents of Sao Miguel Paulista. During his time in Sao Paulo, he was invited to give a 20 minute interview on Record News, one of two Brazilian 24 hour news channels modeled after CNN.  At one point, I was on the news production floor, typing in copy for the staff, real time.

What a whirlwind trip this was! Whew!

Arun Gandhi Keynote at the Teatro Castro Alves theater in Bahia, Brazil

Arun Gandhi on the Cycle of Poverty in India

Arun Gandhi Interview in Sao Paulo, Brazil June 2012

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Lynnea Bylund is managing director of Gandhi Legacy Tours, Director of Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute, founder of Catalyst House and has nearly three decades of experience in administration, marketing and business development. She was a nationally recognized spokeswoman for the emerging alternative video and information delivery industries. She has a degree in holistic health-nutrition from the legendary and controversial health educator and activist Dr. Kurt Donsbach, she is the founder of two not-for-profit small business-based wireless trade associations and has lobbied on Capitol Hill and at the FCC where she has spoken out strongly against the cable TV monopoly, illegal spectrum warehousing and ill-conceived congressional schemes to auction our nation’s precious airwaves to the highest bidder.

Ms. Bylund is a founder and former CEO of a Washington DC telecommunications consulting and management company with holdings in several operating and developmental wireless communications systems and companies. In 1995 Lynnea became the first female in the world to be awarded a Broadband PCS operating permit – she was one of only 18 winners, along with Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon in the biggest cash auction in world history, raising a whopping $7.7 billion. Lynnea also spear-headed the successful effort to launch the first cable TV network in the South Pacific islands.
… > Follow Lynnea on:  LynneaBylund – Twitter – LinkedIn – FaceBook – Pinterest & YouTube

Highlights from Brazil trip, arrival in Salvadore Bahia, Monday June 25^th –

Appaji (Arun Gandhi) was welcomed at the Airport upon arrival with a big greeting from the ‘Filhos de Gandhy’, or  Sons of Gandhi , a non-violent activist group that began 3 decades ago as striking dockworkers and who are most famous for their Carnival street dancing and parades and striking blue and white attire.

As we got off the plane, we were greeted by our translators, they had a team, who went and gathered our luggage for us as the Sons of Gandhi approached with celebratory music and cheers for the Arrival of Appaji!  

We were immediately ushered into a room at the airport for a press conference, and Appa began by acknowledging the Sons of Gandhi as family. What a moving moment for the whole room.

Salvador Bahia, one of the oldest cities in all of the Americas, was settled in 1534. It is known as Brazil’s capital of joy and happiness. Salvador is declared a world heritage site by UNESCO.

The architectural landscape, culture, traditions and activities make the city a great tourist destination.  The Carnival in Salvador is the most popular festival of the world (bigger than Rio’s) joining nearly three million people.

That evening we dined Alfredo’s di Roma, arguably Salvadore’s best Italian restaurant, with Emilia Queiroga, executive director of Education in the First Place Forum and Bahia’s Secretary of Education & Culture João Barcelar

Alfredo’s has been around since the 1920s. Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks honeymooned in Bahia and dined there.  Many photos grace Alfredo’s wall of famous Brazilian and international celebrities, including Pele, JFK, Frank Sinatra, Sophia Loren, etc.   They wanted Appaji’s photo too, so they brought out a faux plate of pasta for the wall photo… So now his photo will be in this historical restaurant.

… more to come!

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Lynnea Bylund is managing director of Gandhi Legacy Tours, Director of Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute, founder of Catalyst House and has nearly three decades of experience in administration, marketing and business development. She was a nationally recognized spokeswoman for the emerging alternative video and information delivery industries. She has a degree in holistic health-nutrition from the legendary and controversial health educator and activist Dr. Kurt Donsbach, she is the founder of two not-for-profit small business-based wireless trade associations and has lobbied on Capitol Hill and at the FCC where she has spoken out strongly against the cable TV monopoly, illegal spectrum warehousing and ill-conceived congressional schemes to auction our nation’s precious airwaves to the highest bidder.

Ms. Bylund is a founder and former CEO of a Washington DC telecommunications consulting and management company with holdings in several operating and developmental wireless communications systems and companies. In 1995 Lynnea became the first female in the world to be awarded a Broadband PCS operating permit – she was one of only 18 winners, along with Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon in the biggest cash auction in world history, raising a whopping $7.7 billion. Lynnea also spear-headed the successful effort to launch the first cable TV network in the South Pacific islands.
… > Follow Lynnea on:  +LynneaBylund – Twitter – LinkedIn – FaceBook – Pinterest & YouTube

Mahatma Gandhi Grandson to provide Keynote Address at Brazilian Education Conference

Arun Gandhi to speak at Salvador Bahia Annual Forum: Education in the First Place 

Dr. Arun Gandhi

Dr. Arun Gandhi, noted peace and human rights activist and president of the Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute (‘GWEI’) has accepted an invitation introduced by Catalyst House, to provide keynote address from the Brazilian City of Salvador Bahia (Salvador da Bahia) at the City’s annual Education in the First Place Forum, it was announced today by Emilia Queiroga Barros its Executive Director.  Dr. Gandhi’s keynote opening entitled: ‘Education, a Legacy of Love will be given on June 26, 2012 at the Teatro Castro Alves complex.

Arun Gandhi, the fifth grandson of Indian leader Mohandas K. Gandhi, aka Mahatma Gandhi, is an advocate for nonviolence and has been a Washington Post columnist, has worked for 30 years as a journalist for The Times of India, and is the author of several books, including “A Patch of White” (1949) and Legacy of Love (2002). In 2011 Dr. Gandhi provided the keynote address to a gathering of 30,000 attendees at Dali Lama’s birthday event in Washington DC.

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As of this this week we have managed to survive four decades of US fiat money, and its anyone’s guess how much longer we can continue.  Recently we read that the average life expectancy of a fiat currency is 27 years.  The world’s oldest fiat currency, the British Pound, has survived nearly 318 years, but during this term it lost 99.5% of its initial value.

Given the undeniable track record of currencies, it is clear that on a long enough timeline the survival rate of all fiat currencies drops to zero.

And as Jeff Clark points out: History has a message for us: No fiat currency has lasted forever. Eventually, they all fail.

Since the ’70s gold has risen from $35 to $1740.

Edmund Conway at Daily Mail writes: On 15 August 1971, with the US public finances near broken by the cost of the war in Vietnam, Richard Nixon cut the final link between the US dollar and gold. Until then, the US Treasury was duty bound to exchange an ounce of gold with central banks willing to pay them $35. Suddenly, for the first time in history, the level of the world’s currencies depended not on the value of gold or some other tangible commodity but on the amount of trust investors had in that currency. Central banks were allowed to set monetary policy based on their instincts rather than on the need to keep their currency in line with gold.

It was one of those seminal moments whose significance has only gradually become apparent, obscured as it was at the time by Vietnam and then Watergate. But the more one examines economic history, the more obvious it is that this was one of the most important policy decisions in modern history.

The term fiat money has been defined variously as:

A- Any money declared by a government to be legal tender.

B- State-issued money which is neither convertible by law to any other thing, nor fixed in value in terms of any objective standard.

C- Money without intrinsic value.

D- All of the above.

(Read more…)

A Busy Week! From Lynnea Bylund’s Journal

Friday May 25, 2012 Fellow Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute (GWEI) director Scott Kafora and Anuradha Bhosale of AVANI in Kolhapur India arrive Los Angeles International (LAX) airport 4:04 pm. I ran extra late due to heavy holiday traffic. We had to rely on telepathic communications combined with faith and a sense of trust to connect given Scott was not traveling with a cellular telephone.

It was a real relief to see Scott and Anuradha on the airport curbside waiting.  I pull over, we greet, hug and then we load their belongings into my car. What a happy and exciting moment. We drove onward and discussed the trip highlights Anuradha has experienced her first time in North America, as well as the work GWEI is doing with AVANI as we cruised from Los Angeles to San Clemente, California.  

Anuradha and Scott received the real Los Angeles traffic jam (“carmageddon”) experience. We got off the freeway at the Beach Blvd exit in Huntington Beach and I drove them by my high school, Marina High (Vikings), my grammar school Haven View (Trojans), then we traveled along the coast through Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Corona Del Mar, Laguna Beach, and Dana Point showing them the homes along the hills of the Southern California coastlines.

There was less traffic at this hour of the day while traveling down the rugged coastline and it is such a breathtaking drive along Pacific Coast Highway. I showed them the Laguna Beach Upper Three Arch Bay home where I lived in the 90s. We finally arrive at my apartment/office in San Clemente, they meet Marcus ADMAX’s Marketing Director and one of the professionals who has been helping with In-Kind “Search Engine Optimization” (“SEO”) efforts for GWEI. Marcus has prepared a scrumptious Thai green curry meal and dazzled everyone. We enjoyed getting to know each other better, talking about our lives, interests, and joked overlooking the vast Pacific Ocean. Anuradha has a fabulous sense of humor and was mesmerized by the views.  I did not sleep a wink, I was deeply relaxed, wide awake with ample energy, did not feel tired at all.

(Read more…)

Lately, we’ve been putting Asana through its paces. Asana is essentially a very customizable cloud-based to-do list with a few tools that, when used intelligently, can bring order to a variety of projects.

But what exactly is Asana? It can perhaps be best described as a collaborative to-do manager for both individuals and groups. It’s heavily influenced by the “GTD” (Getting Things Done) methodology of David Allen.

Asana Features

Synchronizes with iCal, Google Calendars and Microsoft Outlook

Tasks can be assigned to individual team members

New work spaces can be created and managed for each group

Milestones allow the user to organize tasks into manageable goals

Project templates can be created and used on similar projects

(Read more…)

The camels came from Mountain of Attention Sanctuary, a remote meditation retreat center about 2-1/2 hours north of San Francisco for adherents of the Adidam religious movement started by Adi Da Samraj.  The retreat center has a herd of camels. As part of an effort to reduce the herd’s size, the traveling pair is being given to a organization through a “legal gifting process.”

Source:  ANDREW WIND | WCF COURIER

Phoenix and Sage make their selves at home for an overnight visit to Cedar Falls, Iowa Sunday, May 13, 2012. The two Bactrian camels are traveling 3,000 miles from the Sacred Camel Gardens in California to Green Chimneys School in New York state. (RICK CHASE / Courier Staff Photographer) 

Video: New York bound camels make stop in Cedar Falls

Two young, male camels are in route to the Green Chimneys School in New York as part of the Sacred Camel Gardens of California’s Fear-No-More Project. One of their stops included the home of Cedar Falls resident Linda Nebbe, who uses animal therapy to help special needs children.

(Read more…)

Source: Cloud9 Real Time

Cloud computing is growing rapidly. While still in its infantcy, the cloud sector of tech has experienced more than just explosive job growth in the past 36 months.

The latest data demonstrates that the cloud computing arena is establishing a new economic paradigm for many industries and businesses, generating opportunity and job growth well beyond the cloud service companies fueling the expansion.

In the next five years, cloud computing has the potential to add 4720,000 new jobs and $100 billion to the global economy, according according to a study, “Job Growth in the Forecast: How Cloud Computing is Generating New Business Opportunities and Fueling Job Growth in the United States,” by the Sand Hill Group and SAP.

Read SAP report (PDF) HERE

See also – Cloud Computing New Jobs Creation by 2015

The study says three industry megatrends are propelling the growth of cloud services and employment: the boom in mobile computing devices such as smartphones and tablets; the “social” trend in online services; and the growth of “Big Data” flows that require more data management services.

(Read more…)

A recent study from IDG Enterprise conducted a study among 1,600 IT and business leaders. It revealed that majority of these companies have spent more than a third of their IT budget to Cloud Computing. Further, almost two thirds of the respondents said they will continue to increase their spending in Cloud Computing in the next couple of years.

 – See also – ‘Together in the Cloud’ being released

They believe their investments now will eventually pay off either by providing the company a more efficient work system or by replacing other hardware and software recurring costs.

There is an onslaught of literature on the potential of Cloud Computing. It is also this very rich literature that makes it confusing for people to determine which is reliable and which is a baseless claim.

Robert J. Chandler, president of San Diego-based Cloud9 Real Time and author of the newly released ‘Together in the Cloud’ observes:

“I see the disconnect that business owners and accounting professionals experience trying to understand how the cloud will work for them. The advancements that this industry has made in recent years are astounding, and I truly believe that education is the first step to success in the cloud.”

(Read more…)

Actually, all matter has been noted to possess sentient intelligence – first noted scientifically by the great early 20th century scientist Chandra Bose, whose work the 1973 best-seller Secret Life of Plants was based upon.

After he proved that plants had a richer inner intelligence and even emotional life Dr. Bose went on to use much of the same instrumentation and testing protocol to demonstrate similar characteristics of seemingly innate matter, like slabs of concrete and beams of steel.

……

In his TED talk above, Stefano Mancuso, professor of horticulture at the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology in Florence, Italy, discusses the basis of a prove-able fact: plants are intelligent entities. To christen his research lab in 2004,  the only lab in the world dedicated solely to showing that plants are, in fact, intelligent entities, Mancuso decided to use the controversial term ‘plant neurobiology’ to reinforce the idea that plants have biochemistry, cell biology and electrophysiology similar to the human nervous system.

(Read more…)

Just in case you haven’t heard: Facebook is paying $1 billion to acquire photo sharing app darling, Instagram.  Huh?  How could Zuckerberg possibly think it’s worth anywhere near that much?  All Things Digital reported that assorted VCs assessed Instagram at $500 million before funding it with $50 million in venture capital.

“If you find it odd that in one room Instagram was negotiating a billion dollar sale, while in another closing a funding deal, you’re not alone,” writes Ron Miller at Fierce Content.

But it’s not half as odd as Facebook paying twice as much for Instagram as the companies providing that funding think it’s worth.  Was somebody else bidding against Facebook?

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In early March of 1930, in order to help free India from British control, Mahatma Gandhi proposed a non-violent protest march denouncing the British Salt Tax, continuing Gandhi’s national calls for civil disobedience.

Before embarking on the 240-mile journey from Sabarmati to Dandi, Gandhi sent a letter to the the British Viceroy Lord Irwin, forewarning him of their plans of civil disobedience:

“If my letter makes no appeal to your heart, on the eleventh day of this month I shall proceed with such co-workers of the Ashram as I can take, to disregard the provisions of the Salt Laws. I regard this tax to be the most iniquitous of all from the poor man’s standpoint. As the Independence movement is essentially for the poorest in the land, the beginning will be made with this evil.”

(Read more…)

Do you remember “Star Trek” and all the great gadgets the crew members used in each episode? Or the fancy gizmos from “The Jetsons” or “Minority Report?” Ever wonder when, or if, we’ll invent technology like what we’ve seen in the fictional universe? Satisfy your craving for fictional tech with The Fiction to Reality Timeline.

Its not a secret that the average American diet is in completely inappropriate for sustainable health, writes Mike Barret at Natural Society.

Consuming packaged foods, fast food, artificially enhanced products, and especially low quality cheap food is the norm, but is it any wonder that being overweight while also falling victim to a host of illnesses is also the norm? Being raised in this era of poor health makes it difficult to know what is truly healthy and unhealthy. Food has drastically changed since decades ago, and so parents often aren’t aware of the severe decline in food quality. Fast food in particular is one of the primary reasons for the drastic health decline seen today.

(Editor’s note: If you or a loved one is presently undergoing cancer treatment you MUST check out ChemoBites, the perfect whole food snacks for chemo patients! Beats sending get-well flowers!)

Social media networks are powerful tools for executives to use to build brand and revenues, as Gene Marks explains in a recent post at Deluxe for Business.

Take LinkedIn, for example – an entrepreneur could launch a brand profile as a part of his or her small business strategy and use it to garner fans and followers, which could later be tapped as potential buyers. This is similar to how a business would use Facebook – amass fans, then market new goods and services to them. is one of the few social sites that reach out specifically to professionals, and since there is no need to add any personal life information, you don’t have to worry about keeping one separated from the other.

Gene Marks: “Entrepreneurs can leverage LinkedIn in other ways. For business-to-business firms that have relatively small client bases, LinkedIn can enhance relationship-building. When it comes to making sales, establishing a relationship can go a long way – the more a business owner knows about his or her targets, the easier he or she can connect with them.”

(Read more…)

“There is a war against gold,” writes economist Gary North. North is the savvy speculator, who, like Doug Casey, hasn’t just been right about gold and silver and the economy in general – Gary North called it right 25 years ago when he urged his readers to invest in cellular license applications at the FCC. North is an economic visionary.

Related post: The Gold War Has Begun

North: “Politicians hate a rising price of gold. So do central bankers. A rising price of gold testifies against the politicians, who spend more money than they collect in taxes or borrow at interest, and it also testifies against central bankers, whose promises to stop rising prices is a lie that has not come true since about 1939.”

Source: GaryNorth.com

According to Gary North, politicians and central bankers do whatever they can to ridicule gold and gold buyers. They do whatever they can to drive down the price of gold – everything except the one thing that would drive it down: cease inflating.

(Read more…)

Lynne McTaggert

Only everybody-all-at-once can change the current chaos.” – Adi Da

Lynne McTaggart takes some intelligent stock of the middle class at her blog, asking “What on earth ever happened to public outrage? Or protest? Or any sense of anger translating into action?” What Kool Aid are they drinking?, she muses.

What would MK Gandhi do?

The figures continue to be bad around the world, notes McTaggert.  By way of example, the latest American figures show that half of all Americans are struggling to get by on low incomes. The financial markets continue to worsen, soon to eclipse those of the 1930s. Millions of people have been turfed out of their homes, surrounding homeowners have lost $1.86 trillion in home value, 13 million people are out of work, and the collective wealth of American households has dropped by $16 trillion.

As Thomas Frank, author of Pity the Billionaire, wrote, ‘If you had brought the world’s teenaged anarchists together in some great international congress and asked them to design an ideal crisis, they could not have discredited market-based civilization more completely than did the crash of 2008.’

‘If ever a financial order deserved a 30s-style repudiation, this one did,’ he adds. ‘Its gods were false. Its taste was bad. Its heroes were oafs and brutes and thieves and bullies. And all of them failed, even on their own stunted terms.’

Key Points from McTaggart –

– Most ordinary people today are taking all of this on the chin.

– In the 1930s, after four years of economic depression just like today, farmers across American radicalized and began to create roadblocks to farmers’ markets. In 1933, thousands of farmers marched on Washington to put a halt to farm foreclosures. Veterans marched on Washington to protest unpaid pensions. Violence erupted in the streets. Leaders like Huey Long and Father Coughlin incited protest – as did Labor unions and the Communist party, which held campaigns, boycotts, and hunger marches that immobilized entire cities.

(Read more…)

Going well beyond the bestselling Eat Pray Love, Tasting The Moon tells the story of a “no holds barred” pathway through life—from the author’s eccentric childhood, through the tumultuous 60s, to the ashram of Adi Da Samraj, her spiritual Guru whom she discovered in the 70s.

With disarming and raw candor, Meg Fortune McDonnell recounts the ego-deaths and transformations she went through as she followed her unorthodox teacher around the globe—and to uncharted spiritual dimensions not located on any map.*

 — *From the publisher

To connect her riveting confessions to current events, McDonnell draws on diverse references from “Vanity Fair” to “The Buddhist Bible” and Alanis Morisette to Ramana Maharshi, deftly tracing the recent epoch of our collective spiritual quest along with her personal adventures.

The three decades McDonnell spent under the tutelage of her enigmatic master were filled with sometimes hair-raising, sometimes hilarious, ultimately uplifting explorations of everything, including: what vampires tell us about the taboo against the spirit and what it really means to be “sexually liberated,” healing debilitating Oedipal wounds and thawing the icy character that freezes out love, uncovering new gender roles and empowering female strengths, dancing as tribal prayer for world peace, recurring and mysterious synchronicities, what true beauty is—in art, friends, & avatars, and blessing meant for everyone.

A fascinating life, masterfully told.

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The world economy may be crashing but these are exciting times for barter currency and exchange systems.  Since 2002 we’ve been saying that the economy is going to get a lot worse before it gets better… and the worse it gets the more importantly barter and those who facilitate its mechanisms will fare.  

On the 8th December the City of London, in conjunction with various U.K councils, NGOs and think tanks, commissioned a report from Y/Zen Group, the City’s prominent think tank, assessing the future scope and potential for trade, excess capacity exchange, and commerical barter to increasingly augment local and national economies. 

Surveyed barter exchanges, banks and industry professionals were asked to attend workshops and submit copies of their internal documents, audited accounts and plans to help provide some background industry information for this report.

Ormita Commerce 

With offices in 17 countries Ormita is appearing increasingly relevant where governments and industry envision the future of barter and money itself.

(Read more…)

Bitcoin, the virtual peer-to-peer currency that was launched in 2009 (see CAT blog June: Barter P2P Currency Gains Traction), had a meteoric rise in April-June of this year—but after a hacking attack on the premier bitcoin exchange, the currency plummeted, then rose again. Today it traded at $2.40, down from a peak of $30, but still way up from the pennies it priced at 18 months ago.

In a recent WIRED article Benjamin Wallace reports that –

In the public’s imagination, overnight the bitcoin went from being the currency of tomorrow to a dystopian joke. The Electronic Frontier Foundation quietly stopped accepting bitcoin donations. Two Irish scholars specializing in network analysis demonstrated that bitcoin wasn’t nearly as anonymous as many had assumed: They were able to identify the handles of a number of people who had donated bitcoins to Wikileaks. (The organization announced in June 2011 that it was accepting such donations.) Nontechnical newcomers to the currency, expecting it to be easy to use, were disappointed to find that an extraordinary amount of effort was required to obtain, hold, and spend bitcoins. For a time, one of the easier ways to buy them was to first use Paypal to buy Linden dollars, the virtual currency in Second Life, then trade them within that make-believe universe for bitcoins. As the tone of media coverage shifted from gee-whiz to skeptical, attention that had once been thrilling became a source of resentment.

(Read more…)

Preaching the message of peace and nonviolence at the recent Peace Conference in Palm Spring, California, Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson Arun Gandhi said, “Over the years we have been feeding the wrong wolf in us, and so we have seen this escalation of violence.” The conference was hosted by Rotary International at the Palm Springs Convention Center on November 13th.

Arun Gandhi at Palm Springs Convention Center. Photo credit: Wade Nomura

“Experts say 80 percent of violence we experience stems from anger,” Gandhi said, and “If you want to learn nonviolence and practice nonviolence, learn how to understand your anger and control it. Anger is like electricity. It’s just as powerful and just as useful, but only if we use it intelligently.”

Talking of the conference, Denise Wadsworth of Rotary International stated, “The goal is to give opportunities for people of many cultures to come together in a beautiful setting to promote peace and understanding.”

(Read more…)

Editor’s Notes: Our designated cloud accounting technology provider Cloud9 Real Time presented at Sleeter – Source: Catalyst Enterprise Solutions 

QuickBooks alternatives and cloud-based accounting were the main themes of Doug Sleeter’s opening keynote address at the Sleeter Group annual conference in Las Vegas recently. Sleeter stressed how the profession is clearly moving in new directions and accountants need to think about changing how they work, writes Seth Fineberg.

Doug Sleeter

Sleeter spoke to an estimated audience of over 700 at his 2011 Accounting Solutions Conference in Las Vegas.

“We found that most attendees have come here not just to learn about QuickBooks,” said Sleeter. “There are paradigm shifts all over the accounting technology world. The future is here, and it’s all about zero data entry and about how you work. A big feature of this conference is about turning the corner. Just providing tax returns and financials is not enough. We are here to help guide clients and use the numbers to help them make better decisions.”

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Attend the Palm Springs Rotary Peace Conference. Listen and participate in topics on Peace through Education. Hear the words of Arun Gandhi, Rotary International President Kalyan Banerjee and Rotary Peace Fellows. 

“Peace Through Education Is Possible” 

PALM SPRINGS, CA – Peace is Possible, and on November 13, 2011 Rotarians and peacemakers on the west coast will gather in Palm Springs at the Palm Springs Convention Center to discuss this very theme at the Rotary Peace Conference. This event, hosted by Rotary International Director Ken Boyd is one of a series that have taken place throughout the world.

“What is special about the event is our Keynote Speaker Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mohandas Gandhi, and the public is invited,” says Host Chair Dr. Garbis Der-Yeghian. “Mr. Gandhi, founder of M.K. Gandhi Institute, will share his views on non-violence with riveting and unique reflections on the personal and historical legacy of his grandfather, Mohandas Gandhi.

(Read more…)

QuickBooks hosting and beyond: Faster and safer and seamless, oh my!    

Catalyst client and service provider, Cloud9 Real Time, has announced the release of Simply Cloud9. The new infrastructure is set to change hosting as it is known today and will be released for general purchase beginning December 1st. President and CEO, Robert Chandler notes, “Our new technology will deliver seamless application streaming without the hassle of downloads! The new technology is faster, more secure and offers extra private labeling features to our clients.” Simply Cloud9 was debuted at the 2011 Cloud Summit and User Conference and received a standing ovation from attendees.

Simply Cloud9 is built on the foundation of all Microsoft 2008 R2 technology and offers clients increased security with 256-bit Encryption thru portal login. Additionally, the new technology allows for clients to embed a login page directly on their website for accountants and clients to access their Cloud financial and office applications.

(Read more…)

Brace yourself for the impending gold shortage. Gold shortage? Yes. With the launch of a flurry of dedicated gold ETF’s last year, total ETF holdings of the barbaric relic, now exceed total world production. South Africa suffered its steepest decline in gold production since 1901, falling 14%, to a mere 232tons. It now ranks only third in global production of the yellow metal, after China and the US. Severe electricity rationing, a shortage of skilled workers, and more stringent mine safety regulations have been blamed.

From Goldprice.org –

The world is running low on gold and here’s more reasons why.

As the standard of living in China and India increases more and more people there will be demanding gold. As an example, the Chinese middle class has been increasing and although is a tiny percentage of the overall Chinese population it is still bigger than the entire population of the US now. The Chinese government is actively encouraging their population to buy gold. This is a lot of gold demand in China alone. The same is happening in India and their demand for gold is continuing to increase.

This is on top of the extra demand by cautious and impatient investors who are not getting the results they expect from bonds and investments.

The world’s biggest gold miner, Barrick Gold has noted that finding more and more viable gold deposits is becoming harder. The chart above shows how gold deposit discoveries are rapidly declining and we know what that means. The value of gold, quite apart from the decreasing dollar, is going to go up as demand outstrips supply.

The gold war has begun

You may be asking yourself, did the central banks ever control the gold market? Yes, indeed they did!

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We first alerted readers of  the Las Vegas Tribune in 2005  of the insidious Codex that threatens our food and health freedoms.  We updated our concerns in a 2007 edition of The Catalyst! newsletter :

See Supplements Under Attack and FDA has Blood On Its Hands

Now filmmaker Kevin P. Miller examines the possibilities of a future where international government bureaucracies like the WTO and Codex Alimentarius — working in league with multinational corporations — control the food and medicine supply worldwide.

In 2004 we wrote a series of articles in the Las Vegas Tribune questioning whether the world’s central banks were cooking their books regarding the amount of gold they held and why.* Much of our story told of the efforts of GATA, Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, to expose the resultant gold-price manipulation that was occurring at the highest levels of the financial food chain.

*See: Where’s the Gold? and A Conspiracy of Gold

Now the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee and its secretary/treasurer figure heavily in a new edition of the television program “Brad Meltzer’s Decoded,” which examines the question of whether the U.S. government really still has any gold in the vault at Fort Knox, Kentucky. The program, to be broadcast on the History Channel, stresses the secrecy and unaccountability of the government in regard to anything related to gold.  Enjoy it here now!

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Lynnea Bylund is a director of Gandhi Worldwide Education Institute, founder of Catalyst House and has nearly three decades of experience in administration, marketing and business development. She was a nationally recognized spokeswoman for the emerging alternative video and information delivery industries. She has a degree in holistic health-nutrition from the legendary and controversial health educator and activist Dr. Kurt Donsbach, she is the founder of two not-for-profit small business-based wireless trade associations and has lobbied on Capitol Hill and at the FCC where she has spoken out strongly against the cable TV monopoly, illegal spectrum warehousing and ill-conceived congressional schemes to auction our nation’s precious airwaves to the highest bidder.

Ms. Bylund is a founder and former CEO of a Washington DC telecommunications consulting and management company with holdings in several operating and developmental wireless communications systems and companies. In 1995 Lynnea became the first female in the world to be awarded a Broadband PCS operating permit – she was one of only 18 winners, along with Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon in the biggest cash auction in world history, raising a whopping $7.7 billion. Lynnea also spear-headed the successful effort to launch the first cable TV network in the South Pacific islands.
… > Follow Lynnea on:  +LynneaBylund – Twitter – LinkedIn – FaceBook – Pinterest & YouTube

SYNOPSIS of THRIVE: An unconventional documentary that lifts the veil on what’s REALLY going on in our world by following the money upstream — uncovering the global consolidation of power in nearly every aspect of our lives. Weaving together breakthroughs in science, consciousness and activism, THRIVE offers real solutions, empowering us with unprecedented and bold strategies for reclaiming our lives and our future.

INTERVIEWS in THRIVE: Duane Elgin, Nassim Haramein, Steven Greer, Jack Kasher, Daniel Sheehan, Adam Trombly, Brian O’Leary, Vandana Shiva, John Gatto, John Robbins, Deepak Chopra, David Icke, Catherine Austin Fitts, G. Edward Griffin, Bill Still, John Perkins, Paul Hawken, Aqeela Sherrills, Evon Peter, Angel Kyodo Williams, Elisabet Sahtouris, Amy Goodman, and Barbara Marx Hubbard.

How Scared of Terrorism Should You Be?  Not very.  Do you even know how many Americans have been killed in terrorist attacks inside the United States since the September 11, 2001, attack?  You are four times more likely to be killed by a lightning bolt than by a terror attack.   Ronald Baily, a science correspondent at Reason.com has broken down the statistical basis for our post-9/11 terror hysteria.

It turns out that peanuts and bathtub drownings (the non-waterboard variety) are by far more dangerous to Americans than terrorists. “On this 10th anniversary, we will certainly remember those who died so tragically. But we should also recognize that terrorism is a hollow threat to which we should not surrender one iota of our liberties,” opines Dr. Baily.

FBI agents and CIA intelligence officials, constitutional law experts, Time Magazine, and the Washington Post have all said that U.S. government officials “were trying to create an atmosphere of fear in which the American people would give them more power”.

MS at The Economist posts:

“JEFFREY GOLDBERG disparages a Los Angeles Times piece in which an expert makes the familiar point that people’s reactions to terrorist attacks are overblown, given that (outside the Muslim world) roughly the same number of people die drowning in bathtubs as die in terrorist attacks by Islamic radicals. Mr Goldberg thinks this is a specious comparison: unlike bathtub drownings, terrorist attacks…

“… can have a profound effect on society and the economy. The deaths of ten people in bathtub accidents won’t cause people to fear leaving their homes; but imagine the impact of 10 deaths in a terrorist bombing of a shopping mall, or a movie theater. And imagine if it happens more than once. The economic impact could be devastating…And consider the impact of terrorism on the Constitution, and on our collective self-conception as an open and free society. Just look at the stress placed on our constitutional freedoms by 9/11.

“James Fallows correctly responds that Mr Goldberg is confusing an is with an ought.* Precisely because people are disproportionately and unwisely likely to respond to terrorist attacks by declining to leave their homes and by acceding to curtailment of civil liberties, it’s the duty of right-thinking (and statistically literate) people everywhere to persuade them not to overreact.”

Fear of Terrorism Makes People Stupid writes Washington’s Blog –

Sociologists from four major research institutions investigated why so many Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, years after it became obvious that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

The researchers found, as described in an article in the journal Sociological Inquiry (and re-printed by Newsweek):

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