heatherblue
eat my soliloquies [food for thought]So, I was a rockstar.
Yes, I was a rock star. Rock happened, on Friday, Dec. 4th, 2009, and it involved me. Oh yeah, and my voice.
It happened innocently enough, and it originated without my consent. One day while downloading my work emails, I got ‘the memo’ that I was to start practicing (singing) and I would be expected to perform in just a few weeks’ time.
The leader of my company’s annual holiday party ‘band’ asked me to do it, and so I did. It was fun…and I think the event broke down some of my personal boundaries, including my fear of um…singing in front of other people, my co-workers, my bosses, and strangers. My singing cohort (Deb) and I belted out first No Doubt’s “Spiderwebs,” then Blondie’s “Call Me” followed by Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” and finally B52’s “Roam.” Between these songs, we sang back up to songs such as Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ “American Girl,” The Grateful Dead’s “Sugary (Shake it..)” and Bad Company’s “Takin’ Care of Business.” It was all so fun, and went so furiously fast, I can’t wait to get back on stage and do some more public performance!
I know there is ample audio/video proof out there somewhere…as I saw so many flashes while I was on stage, I felt the paparazzi had crashed our small town holiday get-together.
So yeah, proof exists, but I do not think I should see it. Not yet, anyway. I would rather just remember the whole affair fondly from my not-so-sober, behind-the-mic perspective, and go on believing I really was as good as all those other not-so-sober co-workers said I was that evening. 
~ Yay for making lifelong dreams a reality, even as dreamlike as the reality may have seemed. ~
I officially lost 10 pounds in one month! Yippee! (Thanksgiving Special!)
Yes. So I started fresh “officially” on SparkPeople, for what? the umpteenth time, on October 25th, to really do it this time; to track my calories, and to limit them to the amount that would result in a 1-2 pound weight-loss per week. Well, today I have evidence that it is a success! (I actually lost 2.5 pounds per week on average; so far, so good).
I weighed (number has been withheld) on October 25, and this morning, November 26, I weighed in at (ten pounds less than the number that was withheld – hee hee). I am pretty happy about that. And thankful…for sure. I am fortified with determination, and I feel so encouraged to keep it up. And all from my own actions and control! I know this is only the beginning, but it is a milestone, and I want to mark it. *marked*
My pants are fitting loser, and I am feeling more ‘light on my feet.’ And although no one I know is really noticing yet, I notice, and my husband notices, and that is all that matters to me now. I am so thankful to SparkPeople friends, for being there, and making that place such a supportive environment to make change a reality. Peace & Willpower! – Heather
reBlog from sharisaxisoutthere.wordpress.com: Sharisax Is Out There
I found this blog today, which I found very easy to identify with, and very applicable to my last blog:
Back on July 1, I started to think about “managing” my online presence, i.e., putting some routine in place primarily to help me select where I wanted to make my Web contributions. So I wrote “How do you manage your Online Social Media presence?“sharisaxisoutthere.wordpress.com, Sharisax Is Out There, Jul 2009
You should read the whole article – and check out this blog! ~Brilliance!
The Ethical Entity of Patagonia, Inc.
[or] Props to Patagonia!
The Product, Company and Philosophy
When hearing the word “Patagonia” some may think of the beautiful Argentinean and Chilean landscape of South America, known for its diverse pristine environment and amazing opportunity for rugged adventure. However, others may recall the high-quality (and somewhat high-cost) line of outdoor clothing, gear, and adventure-sport/active-wear, inspired by and named after the location. The latter will be the topic for this analysis of an ethical organization and/or company in the real world of commerce: based on my findings, Patagonia, Inc. is a very good example of such.
Patagonia, Inc. designs and manufactures clothing and gear which meets a self-imposed definition of high standard and supreme functionality, embodying a handful of their greatly esteemed qualities, as defined on their website. Such qualities include strength and reliability, versatility, ease of care, and having as minimal an environmental impact as they know how to follow, in the making of their products. But Patagonia not only makes long-lasting, comfortable, and high-tech outdoor clothing and gear, they do it with an ‘environmental conscience’ and an ethical philosophy, and they have a reputation for taking this philosophy much further than the clothing rack.
Ethical Issues & Exemplary Conduct
Being a high-producer of fine outdoor clothing and gear, Patagonia competes with other companies who produce more for less, but who make substantial sacrifices of quality in their employee working conditions and end-product. Since Patagonia’s mission statement is to “Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis,” they work diligently to uphold such high ideals and expectations (Stamas). Just one example of how Patagonia has had to change an aspect of their product or business to fulfill this mission statement happened just after the company’s inception (and before the mission statement was fully defined). One of their top-selling first products was a piton, a tool used for rock climbing, and by its nature and design it “was defacing many landmark climbs,” and this incited the founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, to make the “bold decision to back away from the piton business, replacing it with aluminum chocks [which] climbers could wedge by hand instead of by hammer” (Stamas). In doing this, Patagonia realized their first of many ethical, value-based, profitable outcomes: they “promote[d] the ethic behind their new product – ‘clean climbing,’” and soon the chocks outsold the pitons (Stamas).
Worldview and Ethical Orientation
Patagonia’s worldview could be said to be one in the Zen Mahāyāna Buddhism tradition, as the company’s founder Chouinard is quoted as saying: “Profit is not the goal, because, as the Zen master would say, profits happen when you do everything else right” (Stamas). In following through on such a maxim, Patagonia promotes what they term (and have trademarked): Leading the Examined Life™. This philosophy and practice involves examining their “life and habits as a company” and giving “[their] practices some air and thought … to change habits often played out on an industrial scale, with concomitant effects” (Patagonia – Environmentalism: Leading the Examined Life™). They have “been in business long enough to know that when [they] can reduce or eliminate a harm, other businesses will be eager to follow suit” (Patagonia – Environmentalism: Leading the Examined Life™). Patagonia is certainly known for their strong commitment to preserving and protecting the environment, but also for their dedication to social concerns.
As a corporation, Patagonia believes strongly in social responsibility, thus they do things such as staff “a full-time social responsibility manager” to enforce the “code of conduct [which is] posted in all [their] factories that lays out … expectations as to what [they] consider safe, fair, legal and humane working conditions” (Patagonia – Environmental Initiatives 2008, p.17). The corporation goes above and beyond the norm when it comes to Corporate Social Responsibility, defining it not only as the standard of being the “broad-based movement in business that encourages companies to take responsibility for the impact their activities have on customers, employees, communities and the environment …[and] an obligation to include international labor and human rights standards” but they extend this to include, “taking steps to improve the quality of life for [their] employees and their families as well as for the community and society at large” (Patagonia – Corporate Social Responsibility).
There are pages upon pages of the official Patagonia Inc. website (www.patagonia.com) which illustrate and detail the many ways in which they practice and uphold their ethical principles and policies, on an organizational level. For instance, they extensively trace their overall “carbon footprint” and offer this information to their customers with the interactive Footprint Chronicles™ (at http://www.patagonia.com/ web/us/footprint/index.jsp). They also share their Paper Use and Procurement Policy (the direct document link is at http://www.patagonia.com/pdf/en_US/1549–patagonia_paper_procurement.pdf) and they share their Product Care Tips to assist customers in low-impact care of their products (http://www.patagonia.com/pdf/en_US/tips_garment_care5.pdf). As referenced earlier, they offer their annual publication Environmental Initiatives which lists their many Environmental Grants and describes their dedication to social responsibility, a dedication which has involved aiming for unprecedented levels of transparency in regard to producing and manufacturing their products (p.37). For instance, they conducted many on-camera interviews of “ workers, managers, owners, designers and auditors in an effort to identify both the good and bad of our manufacturing processes, which [they] then summarized on the site next to an image of the product itself” (Environmental Initiatives p.37). And if a consumer wants to get an idea of where their fleece pullover or jacket might have been made, he/she could look on the website at their published list of factories (http://www.patagonia.com/pdf/en_US/PatagoniaFactoryList.pdf).
In regard to environmentalism, Patagonia supports non-profits such as 1% For the Planet, by pledging “1% of [annual] sales to the preservation and restoration of the natural environment,” doing so since 1985 (Patagonia – 1% For the Planet). Through this program, Patagonia has given “more than $32 million in grants and in-kind donations to over a thousand organizations worldwide …[many who are] innovative groups working at the grassroots level, some too small or too in-your-face to get traditional corporate donations” (Environmental Initiatives, 2008). So Patagonia supports many grass-roots movements and organizations which share their fundamental environmental and socially-responsible ethics and concerns, which further the socially-conscious business ethic upon which Patagonia is built.
Doing all of this (and more) for the environment and in the name of social responsibility, Patagonia still remains profitable, and they have 35 years of healthy business history to prove that “good business can result from strong values” (Stamas, para. 6). As Rick Ridgeway, Patagonia’s VP of Environmental Initiatives and Special Media, said in speaking with the Rocky Mountain Institute’s business offices: “Do the right thing and it’s good for your business” (Stamas). Unlike some current businesses who are now trying to refresh and mask their previously questionable environmental ethics policies and practices, Patagonia is not just “green-washing” (SourceWatch.org), but rather – is being quite transparent. Ridgeway goes on to say, “We can market environmental initiatives without guilt, knowing that people will buy more of our stuff and we’ll be more successful — because the more successful we are, the more money we make to give back” (Stamas). Patagonia’s long-standing leadership in both areas of environmental preservation and socially-responsible practices are widely recognized by many in the environmental and scientific sectors, in business and education, as well as by marketing professionals.
Traditional Ethics Principles Applied
The corporation of Patagonia seems to embrace a deontological perspective, one that seems oriented in the categorical imperative theory, because based on what Patagonia has defined as their own “absolute moral truth” or imperative, they seem to believe their way could be applied to all (Shaw, p. 62). They seem to believe that as a company they must do what is right because it is right, (and encourage and inspire others to follow) but on the consequential side, because the results of an action are what seem to dictate what is right or wrong in the first place. (I.e., Patagonia believes hurting the environment is bad, so they change the design or manufacturing process of a product if that will then avoid hurting the environment.) There is also evidence that Patagonia has utilitarian leanings, because they seek to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people, but on the condition that it satisfies their environmental-protection agenda as well (Shaw, p.56-58). And of course, Patagonia’s efforts to be socially-responsible reflect Kant’s theory of “Humanity as an End, Never as Merely a Means,” especially in their attempt to have as responsible-as-possible working conditions for their employees and extended factory workers, illustrating their strong belief that as humans “[w]e must always act in a way that respects [the] humanity in others and in ourselves” (Patagonia; Environmental Initiatives 2008, p. 17 and Shaw, p. 64).
Conclusion
In reviewing Patagonia’s core values and mission statement, and seeing how they dedicate concerted time and resources to upholding that mission by being extremely transparent in their operations and going to great lengths to stay at the helm of environmental sustainability and social responsibility in business, it becomes easier to understand how and why Patagonia charges top-dollar for top-quality merchandise. The consumer pays more for the Patagonia product, because ultimately Patagonia gives back to the planet and the people we all need, know, and cherish. Since their humble beginnings until today, Patagonia has worked toward an ethically-strong, stable business, returning money and resources to its employees, its community, and to its planet. The Patagonia label is a mark of not only the highest in quality, but also the highest in moral standards.
References
Patagonia; corporate social responsibility. Retrieved February 8, 2009, from http://www.patagonia.com/web/us/patagonia.go?assetid=37492
Patagonia; environmental initiatives 2008. Retrieved February 8, 2009, from http://www.patagonia.com/pdf/en_US/Environmental_Grants_2008.pdf
Patagonia; environmentalism: leading the examined life. Retrieved February 8, 2009, from http://www.patagonia.com/web/us/contribution/patagonia.go?assetid=23429
Patagonia; 1% for the planet. Retrieved February 8, 2009, from http://www.patagonia.com/web/us/patagonia.go?assetid=1960&ln=32
Rarick, C. A. & Feldman, L. S. (2008). Patagonia: climbing to new highs with a smaller carbon footprint. Journal of the International Academy for Case Studies, Vol. 14 Issue 7, p121-124, 4p. Retrieved from Business Source Complete database (accession number 32513701).
Shaw, W.H., & Barry, V. (2007). Moral issues in business. United States: Thomson Wadsworth.
SourceWatch Encyclopedia. Retrieved February 8, 2009, from http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Greenwashing
Stamas, M. (2009). Weaving profits from values. Rocky Mountain Institute. Retrieved February 8, 2009, from http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid537.php
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CASE STUDY: THE ETHICAL ENTITY OF PATAGONIA, INC.
Prepared By Heather Rogers Thompson
Prepared For Personal Ethics in Organization
(For undergraduate class at Marylhurst University)
February 8, 2009
Sam Adams’ Sex, Lies, and More Lies: It’s a Sad, Sad Situation
Now, I voted for Sam Adams. I liked him, and I was quite happy for him, for the city of Portland, and for Oregon as a state when we voted the commissioner into office as the new mayor of the innovative and fresh city. I was proud that we were progressive and “cool” enough to vote for an openly gay man to be the mayor of our largest metropolitan city. I was stoked that we had this young, seemingly vivacious dude making all kinds of great things happen for the city of Portland, such as the Grey to Green initiative. (How cool is that!?)
And when I saw the unfortunate news in the Oregonian declaring that Adams lied about having a sexual relationship with a young man named Beau Breedlove (in the 2nd section of the January 21, 2009 Inaugural Issue, no less!), I was actually a little flippantly amused at first (and what does that mean?) but then grew to feeling stunned and bummed. Then later that evening, as I saw the relentless coverage of the story on the local news (KATU, primarily), I really started to get concerned. The “oh no…” factor started to have an effect on me. And then…some serious disappointment settled in. I started to realize Mr. Sam Adams may not be around much longer. Not in office anyway. (And I am actually starting to get worried that he may do something seriously bad…like…dare I say…commit suicide. He has not shown up for work in 3 days!)
Sam Adams had so much going for him, it appeared, and so much going for the Rose City. However, after the lies, cover-ups, subsequent admission of lies, and still more admission of other lies, I think it’s all over. The greater Portland community just doesn’t think they can forgive him this sin. Even Portland’s gay & lesbian magazine Just Out, denounced him yesterday, calling for his resignation. That kind of puts the clincher on it, in a micro-perspective way. I think this is a tragically sad thing, and I think all of this really does mean we have to say goodbye to Sam, because no matter what his sexual preference (or deviations), he should not have lied. Lying is bad. Rather than lie, he should have steered into the truth, and away from lying, and tried to be honest, without disclosing every detail. When the initial story came out about him and Breedlove during his campaign, he should have just said “my sex life is no one’s business” and left it at that.
Now he will forever be seen as a liar. And no one can have a career when the world knows you as a liar (not in smaller-demographic “worlds” such as Portland, Oregon).
And why now? Why did he decide to “come out” about his big lie at this time? I think there may have been some threat, either a blackmail-type threat, or even from a legitimate political ally who told him he better come clean before the truth came from somewhere else. Or perhaps, just maybe, the Obama administration caught word of it, and urged him to come clean, and have that “transparency” that they want to have? Who knows…
Final thoughts: Forget the fact that he’s a gay man who may have had gay sex with a minor (although the latest claim is that Mr. Breedlove – what a name, huh? – was of consenting age when the deed was done) he did have sex with a teenager (18 years old). The fact remains: he lied, and lying is a much darker mar on your eternal reputation than anything else. Hopefully the “world” will forgive him. But it may not be in our time.
I ask you: What do you think Sam Adams was thinking?! How could Sam Adams let us down? Did he let us down? Does it even matter what he supposedly “did?” Are “we” as a people getting to be just so naive and/or overly optimistic that we fall for a charismatic and “hip” political figure without thinking about what they may or may not do in their personal lives? Better yet, should we even know what a political figure does in his/her personal life? Isn’t that determined by the very definition of a “personal life?” Should we turn our heads away from the topic of morals if a political leaders’ ever becomes somewhat questionable? Is it our business?
I tend to think: No, this kind of thing is not necessarily our business, but condoning a lie is not our business either.
Obamicon Me (Make Your Own Obama-esque Iconic Art)
This is great.
I am worn out from watching the inauguration all day…so I am just gonna post this to spread it ’round.
Make your own!
ObamiconMe (Heatherblue's)
And this one…just cracked me up. (If you’re into LOL cats you’ll understand).
Lolcat. Obamicon-ized!
Meiko: The newest artist to hit my ears!
How do ‘new’ cool artist-people like this come into being? They seem to just spring up out of obscurity, and remind us that art is really a renewable thing. It is a perpetually originating phenomenon. Or, rather, it is a constantly recycling and regenerating element of the universe. There. Is that a broad enough, and all-encompassing enough description for something as ethereal as music and art?
Watch Taping of Meiko’s Live Radio Debut on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic
Year after year, new sounds, from new people, with awesome talent and haunting voices emerge on the ’scene’ and grab some of our attention.
Such as… this chick Meiko. I think she’s a great song-writer, especially for her age…you know…and her singing voice is real easy to listen to. She’s got just a slight Georgian twang that makes her song-voice sound so authentic and earnest. And because TV show producers now use fresh unknown indy songwriters’ work to add mood and ambiance to their episodes, Meiko’s sound already feels very familiar to me, because I probably heard her in the background of a Grey’s Anatomy scene. But until this morning, when I found her MySpace page and really stuck around to watch some videos, I didn’t fully “know” who Meiko was. (Duh).
I did catch a bit of Jewel’s influence in her style, maybe. That is not necessarily a good thing.
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And it just so happens…she was at Doug Fir last night, Friday Nov. 14th (Portland, OR). Damn. I missed it. (Thanks to Shelley, I think, who posted something about her or maybe just added Meiko as a Friend in MySpace, and I caught it in the “Updates” section.)
And this is why I love the internet.
It’s a day of celebration for lovers of liberty & democracy in action!
I don’t know how your town is handling election day, but in Hood River, today feels like a national holiday. People and businesses are really getting into the democratic spirit with at least four election parties happening at restaurants, brew pubs, pizza parlors, and theaters, and that’s just what I’ve heard of. For instance, Andrew’s Pizza & Skylight Theater is opening their 2 cinemas to the public to watch the election results for free tonight, and then there’s Double Mountain Brew Pub who is throwing an Oktoberfest-style street party , complete with an outdoor white-tent beer garden and a large-screen TV to watch the election unfold. (That’s where I’ll be.)
I waited until today to vote. Something about doing it on election day just ramped up my excitement, and made me feel that much more a part of the national experience.
So…I just got back from dropping off my ballot.
When I did it, I walked up to the drop off box with at least two other people right behind me. Cars were a bit congested on that street where the drop-off is, and there was a feeling of celebration in the air, akin to Thanksgiving or Christmas. When I slipped my green envelope ballot into the depository, I actually got goose bumps and nearly started to cry. I felt a rush of pride and joy which I probably haven’t felt since I was a devout person of a certain creed.
In a way…democracy, liberty, and justice for all has become my new religion. I used to be a member of a faith that did not take part in politics, and didn’t even “allow” its people to register to vote. But let me tell you, as sacrilegious as it may sound to those people I used to “worship” with, I have never, in my life, felt so emotional and moved by an election as I have in this one, and I accredit this mostly to the feverish campaigning of the last 22 months by all of the candidates, but especially-in my opinion-of one in particular, who used catch-phrases, slogans, and ideologies we could believe in. (Yes. We. Can.)
So yes, I feel a great pride welling inside my heart and mind. I feel a powerful appreciation of how wonderful this country can be…and is…if for nothing but our freedom to cast our vote for what we believe in. Voting is a privilege, and it is a right, and it is something I will never take for granted.
Get out the vote! (I already did mine.)
Our Rainy Day Funds Are Going Dry
Ok. So here we are. Experiencing what is being called a bear market, which some fear could rival the Great Depression. Yes, a bear market, a big hairy growling market condition in which the prices of securities are falling, and widespread pessimism is causing negative sentiment to be self-sustaining. Rawr! And every day we hear a new version of the “news,” with the talking heads telling us how the stock market is doing, or where the Dow Jones is at, or how the Senate fumbled for a week until they finally passed the $700 billion bailout – er – rescue plan from the government, something which we all mulled over as we laid in bed at night, which we then got angry about, and then figured we had no choice but to stand behind, even though it is bound to bite us in the behind soon. If you are at all like me, over the last few weeks you have begun to get just a little frightened of this bear, and you are wondering just how much it will ravage our economy.
But it’s not panic or despair we feel. No, at this point it is more a nagging worrisome voice in the back of our minds that whispers to us: “Mmm. Maybe you should check your 401k portfolio online.” But no, do not do that. Don’t look. In fact, look away, forget your online password, read a book, go out on a walk, organize your garage, but whatever you do, don’t look at your retirement fund. Not yet anyway.
I gave in to my nagging inner voice a week ago. I compulsively logged onto my retirement account, and sure enough, I had lost over 15% of my meager retirement funds. I felt for the first time what I haven’t felt in recent memory: I identified with those daily fear-inducing headlines. But, admittedly, I am probably just fine. I have only been participating in “the plan” for about 3 years, and I have many more years to “get it back” and then some. I shudder to think of how much money others have just lost, those who had their 20, 30, or 40-year retirement funds invested in the near-crashing market!
Not only do I identify with the national headlines these days, I feel something akin to weathering a storm within my community. Because, this wildly-fluctuating economy is very much like a natural disaster…isn’t it? It’s a financial hurricane, out of our control, which has taken most of us by surprise (though it surely didn’t surprise those who caused this mess), and most importantly it has made us reconsider how we live. And living amidst this national financial disaster, we must think in terms of “survival.” We must gather from the wreckage only what we need, and cut the frivolous spending, watch our bank account balances, and be very careful not to interrupt or overburden that paycheck to paycheck wheel we are doing the hamster-run on.
However, in the process of our day to day scrimping, we cannot let our local shops and eateries starve. We need to be frugal, conserve, and be sensible with our money, but we also need to support our local businesses so the economy of our small town survives. Yes, as little as we may be able to, support them we must. Those shop keepers with their salespeople; business owners with their clerks; pubs and restaurants with their wait staff and bussers; they all need to get through this disaster too.
I heartily consider how the many small restaurants and shops in my town need my patronage to survive. When I drive by those restaurants on my lunch break, I see those parking lots looking a little too empty, and when I go in for my once-weekly luxury of a non-brownbag lunch, I see their tables looking just a little too clean. I have taken more than a few moments to imagine these places no longer thriving, no longer there due to loss of steady business, due to this economic bear of a market, and I can’t bear that reality. So my husband and I still manage to go out, and we still support the pubs and coffee houses, and all the great places we love in our town.
So here it is a week after the economic tornado, and amidst all the media-spun doom and gloom, I see some headlines that give me a glimmer of hope for our economy, as naïve as that may sound. As we know, the U.S. not only passed a $700 billion rescue plan, but now they’ve injected an additional $250 billion in cash into our credit and banking system, and this could be just the transfusion it needed to keep its tender confidence up. And this brings up a very critical point: if Wall Street and its bankers don’t regain their confidence, we (in the local and global sense) will still be in a lot of trouble no matter how much money is injected into the system. As Robert Lenzner, national editor of Forbes Magazine said today on NPR’s Day to Day: “confidence comes before liquidity.” (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95734480)
Well, I don’t have confidence. And, I don’t have much liquidity either.
Final thoughts: It is a crying shame that so many banking executive fat cats essentially got away with screwing up the economy and our lives. So now we sit and hope that the market doesn’t get insecure again. And while we wait to see how Wall Street feels about all this help it’s getting from the fed, we will take one day at a time, hold on, try to re-build our portfolios, and save our precious dollars for the next rainy day…or storm.
