November 2012 - Dialogue - lists.wedgeblade.net

No one is going to believe this . . .
by James Wiegel 10 Nov '12

10 Nov '12

Our sons, the Wiegel twins, Dhondiram and Shanker, turn 35 today . . . I will pass on any wishes, stories, wisdom on life phases, etc. Also any wisdom on how to stop imagining my kids as kids, since they aren't kids any longer . . . Jim Wiegel Jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com Come quickly. You mustn't miss the dawn. It will never be just like this again. -- Georgia O'Keefe Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods: Feb 12-13, 2013, May 21-22, 2013, Sep 17-18, 2013 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday (1-4 pm) of the month Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details.

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No one is going to believe this . . .
by James Wiegel 09 Nov '12

09 Nov '12

I caught this video of Obama with his campaign staff, predicting the difference they will make in the future, wherever they may be as a result of the capacities they developed as organizers out of working on his campaigns. Reminded me to say a deep thanks to those of you who made up the EI, OE, ICA, etc. And all of its crazy campaigns, structures, models, jargons, songs, hand gestures, and especially people and work to do. You shaped, and continue to shape my life and the life of my family. Thanks. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-obama-emotional-video-20121108,0… Jim Wiegel Jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com Come quickly. You mustn't miss the dawn. It will never be just like this again. -- Georgia O'Keefe Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods: Feb 12-13, 2013, May 21-22, 2013, Sep 17-18, 2013 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday (1-4 pm) of the month Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details.

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11/08/12, Spong: The Birth of Jesus, Part I: Introduction
by Ellie Stock 08 Nov '12

08 Nov '12

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR The Birth of Jesus, Part I: Introduction Most of the portraits of the mother of Jesus that hang in the great museums of the world are dependent first on the biblical stories of Jesus’ birth and second on the presumed appearances of his mother at the foot of the cross. Take those two traditions away from the New Testament and the mother of Jesus almost totally disappears. Indeed, what remains is mostly negative. She is portrayed in Mark (chapters 3 and 6) as thinking that Jesus was “beside himself,” that is “out of his mind” and she, along with his brothers, moves to “put him away.” He had, this story implies, become an embarrassment to the family. In the Fourth Gospel, in the narrative of the water being changed into wine, the mother of Jesus is portrayed as inappropriately pushing Jesus to act and she receives from him the rebuke, “Woman, what have you to do with me, my hour has not yet come?” She is also not present at the cross in the writings of Paul or in any of the earlier gospels of Mark, Matthew or Luke. Only with the appearance of the Fourth Gospel at the end of the first century did anyone think to portray her at the foot of the cross. These biblical facts force us to recognize that most of the ideas we have about the mother of Jesus are late developing myths that make assumptions the Bible does not make. The birth stories are found first in Matthew, the dating of which is generally between 82 and 85, and second in Luke, which is generally thought to have been written about a decade after Matthew. This means that the New Testament’s accounts of Jesus’ birth are both products of a time 52-65 years after the life of Jesus came to its earthly end and some 82-95 years after the time of his birth. This is not eye witness reporting. Clearly the tradition that was built around the mother of Jesus is both late developing and continues to grow with the passing of years. Once the time of the writing of the New Testament has passed, however, the mythology that developed around the mother of Jesus apparently knew no bounds. The virgin mother of the birth narratives became in successive generations, first, the permanent virgin, thus redefining Jesus’ siblings, referred to by name in both Galatians and in Mark, and referred to in John simply as “his brothers,” as half brothers or cousins. Next she was declared to have been a “post-partum” virgin, which suggested that even the birth of Jesus did not disturb her virginal hymen. In the service of that idea the “Fathers” of the church even searched the scriptures for biblical texts that would support this growing conviction. They settled on two. First, they looked at the writings of a sixth century BCE prophet named Ezekiel, who in the first verse of the 44th chapter wrote these words: “This gate shall remain shut; it shall not be opened and no one shall enter by it, for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered by it; therefore it shall remain shut.” Without either apology or embarrassment, they leaped on these words to claim that the “post partum virginity” of the “Blessed Virgin Mary” had actually been predicted by the prophets! The second text was found in the resurrection story according to the Fourth Gospel. In that narrative the disciples were in hiding in an upper room with the doors and the windows closed and locked and Jesus came and stood in their midst. If the risen Christ could pass through walls guarded by locked doors, they argued, it was no great stretch to imagine the infant Christ passing through the birth canal of his mother without breaking the hymen. Mythology always does strange things to facts and to reality. By the 19th century, devotion to the mother of Jesus became so strong that the Roman Catholic Church, in which this devotion was most encouraged, declared that she, unlike all other human beings, had been “immaculately conceived.” That is, her mother had been miraculously cleansed of the sin of Adam, which was believed to have infected all human beings and to have been passed on from generation to generation. For Jesus to have been born without sin, his mother would have to have been especially prepared for this birth. This necessity also reflected the fact that in the early years of the 18th century, the discovery had been made that women have an egg cell and therefore that the woman literally contributes half of the genetic makeup of every person who has ever been born. Prior to this the assumption was that the woman simply provided the womb that nurtured the male seed to maturity. Like “Mother Earth” into which the farmer planted the seed, the woman’s role had been seen as simply to bring to birth the life that came from the male. When the egg cell was discovered, the realization dawned on the leadership of the church that the mother of Jesus was, like all women and indeed like all people, a child of Adam and so the sinlessness of Jesus was compromised through his mother’s line. That had not been a problem in the old view of reproduction. The Immaculate Conception addressed that theological problem demonstrating once and for all that even “infallible” doctrines are forced to adjust to new discoveries. The final chapter in the mythological development of the mother of Jesus came in the 20th century when Mary was declared to have been bodily assumed into heaven. Since she was born without sin, she was not required to go through the passage of death, since death, according to the story of the Garden of Eden, was punishment for sin. Carl Jung rejoiced in the Vatican’s declaration of the bodily assumption of the mother of Jesus into heaven because in his world of symbols this meant that the feminine had finally been lifted into God and the patriarchal tyranny of a God conceived of in only masculine terms and always addressed as “Father” had finally been tempered. In this new series of columns over the next few months, I want, first, to get underneath the mythology of the ages and second, the development found in the New Testament itself, so that we can look at Jesus, the mother of Jesus and the entire Christian story with a set of eyes honed by scholarship and tempered by the facts of history as we can demonstrate them. I trust it will be an illuminating and worthwhile story for my readers. If the familiar biblical images of the mother of Jesus are late developing, what do we have that is original and perhaps trustworthy? That is the question we will address as this series unfolds. I begin with some statements of fact that I will pursue in detail going into each of them deeply before any conclusions are reached, probably some time in February. For now, I simply file them as bullet points for your consideration. As the Book of Common Prayer in my church states these bullet points are designed to be “read, marked, learned and inwardly digested.” This series will provide the time to do just that. We can now date the life of Jesus with some degree of accuracy. Recent discoveries have made it possible to fix the life of Jesus between the years of 4 BCE and 30 CE. We get to these dates first by the discovery in ancient Roman records that King Herod died in 4 BCE and since the clear New Testament tradition is that Jesus was born when Herod was the king so we fix the date of Jesus birth at 4 BCE. Second, we learn, once more from secular records, that Pilate was the procurator of Judea for the Roman Empire between the years 26-36 CE. If, as each of the gospels asserts, the crucifixion occurred under the authority of Pilate, then the crucifixion has to happen some time between those dates. Roman records also provide us with some other facts in the life of Pilate that have to do with the reasons for his removal from office. Since they appear to have happened well after the crucifixion we can squeeze those dates a bit closer to perhaps 28-32 as the time of the crucifixion. We then split the difference and settle on 30, with the knowledge that we might be off two years in either direction. So for our working purposes, we set the life of Jesus between 4 BC and 30 CE. We have nothing preserved in writing anywhere of anything concerning the life of Jesus before the year 51 CE. That is a silent and dark historical tunnel, which can be illumined only by speculation. It is filled in only by what we call “the oral tradition” that we have almost no way of recreating, entering or capturing. Paul the first writer, whose work was destined to be included in the New Testament, did all of his writing between the years 51 and 64. Not all of the epistles attributed to Paul are authentically from his hand. The ones about whom a consensus of the certainty of Pauline authorship exists are I Thessalonians, Galatians, I and II Corinthians, Romans, Philemon and Philippians. This means that II Thessalonians, Colossians, Ephesians, I and II Timothy, Titus and Hebrews are not considered to be from the hand of Paul. Nowhere in any part of the authentic Pauline corpus is there a reference of any kind to the birth of Jesus, nor is there any mention of the mother or father of Jesus. There are in Paul, however, several references, mostly in Galatians, to James, the brother of the Lord. Our study of the birth of Jesus will therefore start with Paul, the earliest writer in the New Testament. That means that we will start our investigation in the sixth and seventh decades of the Christian era. I hope that whets your appetite. We will continue the drama in subsequent columns. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Ed Branthaver, via the Internet, writes: Question: You have been a long time favorite author of mine ever since I read Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism. I have every one of your books in my personal library. I grew up in the tradition of a liberal Church of the Brethren to which I still hold some loyalty. However, in all my years, I was never able to understand much of the biblical language or teachings. I was in my 60th year before I discovered you and your writings. Let me say you are the first person who has helped me understand what for a long time has confused me. Recently, I came across a small book by Anthony Freeman, God in Us. He claims that his use of the term God (instead of referring to a supernatural being) refers to the sum of all values and ideals in life: Positive values like goodness, love, knowledge, wisdom, power (used rightly), etc. and negative values like freedom for the fear and tyranny of death, of suffering, etc. He says, “Do you believe in God? is like asking “How long is a piece of string? Just tell me what sort of God you have in mind and I will tell you whether I believe in him (her, it.)” He labels his philosophy, Christian Humanism, and his call to “radical insecurity” which carries an element of uncertainty, sure sounds a lot like your recent call to “Think Different, Accept Uncertainty.” Could you call the New Christianity for a New World Christian Humanism? Answer: Dear Ed, I have known and admired Anthony Freeman for a long time. He was an Anglican priest until the Anglican hierarchy decided that his view of God was not sufficient for him to represent that church as one of its ordained servants. I would never have made such a judgment. No person’s view of God is the same as God! I’m not at all sure that the view of God reflected in those Anglican hierarchical figures is a view of God that is sufficient for them to remain in their respective positions of authority either. They simply validate tradition while Anthony has challenged the adequacy of that tradition. Only time will tell which attitude is closer to the truth and history has consistently shown that those who stand outside the traditional theological lines are harbingers of the future majority. Does this mean that I believe that Anthony’s view of God is complete? No, but neither is the view of his hierarchical theological judges or my view of God. What ecclesiastical heresy hunters never understand is no human mind and no religious tradition can ever fully embrace or express the truth of God in any human words or in any established doctrines and dogmas of any church. Churches are always pretending that they possess the ultimate truth of God. I think that is nothing short of idolatry. I believe I experience God and I can talk about my experience. I do not believe I can define God, nor do I believe anyone else can. I find the phrase Christian Humanism to be an appealing one. The opposite of humanism is not the lack of or the inability to embrace the reality of a supernatural deity. The opposite of humanism is to be inhumane! I think Jesus is about expanded life and expanded consciousness; about calling us into the fullness of lour humanity. Humanism shares that goal, but would probably not embrace my definition. Humanism is thus not my enemy, but my ally. I think of myself as a Christian Humanist, but I want both of these words to carry equal weight. I hope this helps. ~John Shelby Spong Announcements Any questions or concerns, please contact us at support(a)johnshelbyspong.com or 503-236-3545. Copyright © 2012 ProgressiveChristianity.org, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you have a membership at our website. Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 3530 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Unit 1 Portland, OR 97214 Add us to your address book If you are a paying subscriber, you may login and cancel your account. Sent to elliestock(a)aol.com — why did I get this? unsubscribe from this list | update subscription preferences ProgressiveChristianity.org · 3530 SE Hawthorne Blvd. · Unit 1 · Portland, OR 97214

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Re: [Dialogue] Bob True, how are you & other NY-NJ colleagues?
by LAURELCG＠aol.com 07 Nov '12

07 Nov '12

Your message brought tears, Bob. If we want to send a donation for Sandy relief, where do you think it would do the most good. Grateful you're safe, Jann McGuire In a message dated 11/6/2012 6:15:43 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, icatrue(a)igc.org writes: It has been quite a journey over the past week. Lynn , Nelson, and I are fine – enduring our relatively minor hardships compared to many others. When I am asked where I live I reply, “on the Hudson River”. At the beginning of the week I would have had to reply, “in the Hudson river.” The city and our office has been shut down. Many of my staff including my partner, have had to endure prolonged power outages, home damage, and isolation , that still persist at this point. Fortunately none of us has suffered any injuries. Everywhere I go I am struck by the randomness of who and what is sparred vs destroyed. The finest human bonding moments for me have been standing in the line with my gas can and visiting with my fellow survivors, endurers, and mutualists. We have seen many examples of intelligence, respect, and practical concern and action on the part of individuals and government officials from both parties in response to the crisis. Sandy has taught us to appreciate so much that we take for granted and on the other hand our capacity as human beings to make do and help one another. Thanks for thinking of us. Best Regards, Bob

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Question about the social process triangles . . .
by James Wiegel 07 Nov '12

07 Nov '12

I got this question from a fellow I know who is intrigued with the Social Process triangles. Any responses?? He said: I think there are very few people who currently care about the Social Process Triangle as a tool to be used for social transformation. Can you point me to someone is promotes it's use, trains others on at least an biannual basis using it, or has tried to implement it in a recognizable or tangible manner other than the Jenkins? Short mentions in books on other topics is, for my purposes, great, but is there anyone you know using it daily, weekly, or monthly to train or manage something or anything? Jim Wiegel "Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it like you find it.. You got to change with it." Woody Guthrie 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods Coming in February. Ask about an inhouse course ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday of every month Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details.

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Change of e-mail address
by sandra rafos 07 Nov '12

07 Nov '12

Hi All, Please change my e-mail from rafos(a)interlog.com to sandyrafos(a)gmail.com. Thanks---we still want to stay in touch with everyone:) take care, Sandy

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Video of Carol Pierce's Memorial Service—Saturday, October 20, 2012
by David M Dunn 06 Nov '12

06 Nov '12

Colleagues. Carol Pierce's Memorial Service on Saturday, October 20, 2012, was videoed by Jim Wiegel and edited by Tom Wray, ICA Communications office. Here’s the link for the video on YouTube: http://youtu.be/97yDkmnCln4 Mary Laura Jones mljones2022(a)gmail.com [forwarded for Mary Laura] David Dunn 740 S Alton Way 9B Denver, CO 80247 -- dmdunn1(a)gmail.com 720-314-5991

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Re: [Dialogue] Question about the social process triangles . . .
by Bill Schlesinger 05 Nov '12

05 Nov '12

I've done a ROUGH adaptation as a worksheet for a meeting where we need a baseline agreement on the state of the Presbyterian Church USA as the participants see it. We'll go on with a modified Town Meeting format on vision, challenges, action steps. Bill Schlesinger Project Vida 3607 Rivera Avenue El Paso, TX 79905 (915) 533-7057 x 207 (915) 503-1014 FAX pvida(a)whc.net www.projectvidaelpaso.org _____ From: dialogue-bounces(a)lists.wedgeblade.net [mailto:dialogue-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Ellie Stock Sent: Monday, November 05, 2012 11:36 AM To: dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net Subject: Re: [Dialogue] Question about the social process triangles . . . Gene, By Food Banks are you referring to local food security/food soveignty/seed banks/local organic farms and gardens? Ellie elliestock(a)aol.com -----Original Message----- From: Gene Marshall <jgmarshall(a)cableone.net> To: Wayne Nelson <wnelson(a)ica-associates.ca> Cc: Jean Watts <jeanwatts(a)cox.net>; Colleague Dialogue <dialogue(a)wedgeblade.net>; Jan Sanders <janetasanders(a)hotmail.com>; Herman Greene <hfgreene(a)mindspring.com>; Bill & Nan Grow <billgrow(a)verizon.net>; James Wheeler <jimandjo(a)sbcglobal.net>; Leonard Hockley <LenH(a)efn.org>; vinodkamalaparekh <vinodkamalaparekh(a)gmail.com>; Larry Philbrook <icalarry(a)ms69.hinet.net>; Larry Ward <Larry(a)thelotusinstitute.org>; Nelson Stover <stovern(a)bellsouth.net>; Larry Loeppke <larrydloeppke(a)mchsi.com>; Marianne and Clancey Mann <cmann(a)umuc.edu>; James Addington <InaRja(a)comcast.net>; steve har <stevehar11201(a)gmail.com>; Bob Fishel <thefishels(a)earthlink.net>; david <david(a)mirrorcommunication.com>; Terry Bergdall <bergdall(a)gmail.com> Sent: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 10:57 am Subject: Re: [Dialogue] Question about the social process triangles . . . Dear Wayne, et. all., I wonder if the social process triangles are more important for our own thinking as teachers than they are as explicit content for most of our various courses. What interested me most right now about these triangles is how they can help revolutionary leadership be more comprehensive in their thinking. The whole progressive movement needs more unity and inclusivity. I have recently been brainstorming whistle points over against my latest version of the social process triangles. I will attach it to show what I mean, Gene On Nov 4, 2012, at 8:59 PM, Wayne Nelson wrote: I ask similar questions. I think we could make a lot more use of it in our consulting work. There are a couple of very simple reasons for low level use. They may not be universally valid, but they are operating images. One is that wrapping people's heads around yet another mental model in a 2 day event is a bit much if you are not going to use it throughout the event. The other reason is, I think, simply time. To use them in any real depth takes time - more than most clients will commit. A more substantial reason we aren't using them, I suppose, is what people ask us to do with their groups. We are not often asked for results that really require a social process analysis. Requests tend to lead us to use the Workshop Method; so we are more inclined to gestalt without interposing a screen. A very well targeted focus question provides a screen of its own and helps people find meaningful patterns. We do teach the Social Processes in our Organizational Transformation course. In the same course, we also use the version developed by Priscilla Wilson, Joel Wright et.al. They are expressed in clear, non-academic terminology that people in organizations grasp immediately. I think they are brilliant. We teach the course 2- 3 times a year. Perhaps our most dramatic use of the social processes was in a major consultation about Distance Education in Alberta. We used the triangles to cluster concerns, trends and directions related to distance education. That work identified areas of major attention. Those areas were used as the foundation for a large scale strategic scenario building process. I think that could be one it's most powerful uses. One of the random thoughts that has passed my mind recently is that there is more activity to be seen in the dynamical interactions than in the processes themselves. It is, I believe, the dynamical relations that show the nature of the imbalances most clearly. We can easily see the major imbalances as we described them. It is in the way these processes relate to each other that twists them out of shape. I think an analysis of the relationships would reveal the depth and texture of our social function and dysfunction in ways we may not be seeing it. It's brilliance is in it's ability to take us out of our familiar social narratives - the tapes we play in our heads. \\/ - - - - - - - - - - Wayne Nelson wnelson(a)ica-associates.ca O - 416-691-2316 M - 647-229-6910 _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net

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39 Reasons for Obama
by John Cock 04 Nov '12

04 Nov '12

VOTE: 1. The first bill President Obama signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, to help women fight back when they don't get equal pay for equal work. 2. His Recovery Act supported millions of jobs and helped to stave off a second Great Depression. 3. He pushed for and won middle-class tax cuts that benefitted every American worker, and saved the typical family $3,600 in taxes over the last four years. 4. President Obama rescued the auto industry, and now GM and Chrysler are healthier than they've ever been. The American auto industry has added nearly a quarter of a million jobs since June 2009 -- and they most likely wouldn't exist right now without President Obama's leadership. 5. He doubled funding for Pell Grants, helping to make college more affordable for nearly 10 million families. 6. His student loan reform ended billions in subsidies to banks serving as middlemen and reinvested those savings directly into students. 7. The President established the American Opportunity Tax Credit, worth up to $10,000 over four years of college. 8. His Race to the Top Initiative helped spur nearly every state to raise academic standards. 9. His tax cuts, social-welfare programs, and economic policies lifted nearly 7 million Americans above the federal poverty line in 2010. 10. President Obama has signed 18 tax cuts for small businesses since taking office. 11. We've seen 5.2 million new private-sector jobs over the last 31 months. 12. The unemployment rate is at the lowest level since President Obama took office. 13. Health care reform -- passed after decades of failed attempts by every previous President -- provides affordable health coverage to every American and will lower premiums by an average of $2,000 per family by 2019. 14. Obamacare expanded access to lifesaving preventive care such as cancer screenings and immunizations with no out-of-pocket costs for 54 million Americans. 15. Obamacare ends insurance discrimination against the 129 million Americans with pre-existing conditions. 16. Because of Obamacare, over 3 million more young adults have health insurance today than would if the new law hadn't passed. 17. The parents of over 17 million children with pre-existing conditions no longer have to worry that their children will be denied coverage. 18. President Obama has ordered the overhaul of federal government regulations to make them smarter, practical, and more efficient. Just a fraction of these commonsense initiatives will help save businesses $10 billion in the next five years alone. 19. His historic investments in clean energy have helped more than double the amount of electricity we obtain from wind and solar sources and helped increase biofuel production to its highest level in history. 20. President Obama is doubling fuel efficiency standards, which will save drivers more than $8,000 at the gas pump, not to mention lessen the impact of automobiles on our environment. 21. President Obama has taken unprecedented action to address climate change, reaching historic international agreements to curb carbon emissions, and taking action here at home to reduce carbon pollution from our vehicles and promote clean energy production. 22. He has taken historic action to protect our environment -- signing one of the largest expansions of protected wilderness in a generation and putting in place standards to reduce toxic air pollution that will save thousands of lives. 23. President Obama fought for and won landmark Wall Street reform that reins in the abuses that led to the financial crisis and ends the era of taxpayer bailouts and "too big to fail." 24. Wall Street reform created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the nation's first federal agency focused solely on consumer financial protection -- and the Bureau is already protecting families from unfair and abusive financial practices from Wall Street banks and shadowy corners of the financial industry. 25. As part of President Obama's commitment to transparency, the White House has posted its visitor records online for the first time ever. 26. President Obama's all-of-the-above approach to energy has helped cut the United States' dependence on foreign oil to its lowest level in 20 years. 27. President Obama responsibly ended the war in Iraq. 28. He announced a plan to end the war in Afghanistan and transition security responsibility to the Afghan people. 29. President Obama sent the largest security assistance package to Israel in history and funded the Iron Dome system, which is protecting Israeli homes and schools from rocket attacks. 30. President Obama rallied the international community to implement the toughest sanctions on Iran in history. 31. Through the President's historic increases in Veterans Affairs funding, he has expanded and improved healthcare and job training access for our returning veterans. 32. President Obama negotiated the New START Treaty with Russia to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in both countries. At the same time, he also secured commitments from dozens of other countries to lock down nuclear materials. 33. His administration naturalized 11,146 military service members as U.S. citizens in 2010; more than in any year since 1955. 34. President Obama set a bold new plan for the future of NASA space exploration, using the skill and ability of the private sector for short trips to the International Space Station, while building a new vehicle for exploration of distant space, and doing everything in his power to support the economy on Florida's Space Coast. 35. President Obama recognizes that tourism is one of America's largest economic engines; he's worked to encourage international visitors to come here, maintaining our security while keeping millions of Americans in good, paying jobs. 36. He has affirmed his personal support of marriage equality, directed the Justice Department to stop defending DOMA in federal courts, and took the practical and compassionate step of extending hospital visitation rights to same-sex partners. 37. He fought for and won the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, allowing gay and lesbian members of the military to serve openly for the first time in history. 38. When Congress failed to fix our broken immigration system, his administration did everything in its power to improve it, streamlining the legal immigration process and announcing a policy that lifts the shadow of deportation from hard working young immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. 39. Oh, and he gave the order to send troops in after Osama Bin Laden -- and has decimated al-Qaeda's senior leadership. --From Obama team <https://my.barackobama.com/page/o/55c1a608/5075db99/28ea11e01/1253361b/3698 455307/open.gif>

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Re: [Dialogue] Question about the social process triangles . . .
by jlepps＠pc.jaring.my 04 Nov '12

04 Nov '12

Hello Jim. Have this friend look for Clancy Mann's book, Borderless Business: Managing the Far-Flung Enterprise (Mann & Goetz, Westport, Conn., Praeger Publishing, 2006) chapter 7 in which he lays out the Social Process Triangle as a basis for Managing Country Risk. Clancy's chapter in Bending History II is also a good "promotion of its use." I currently teach a graduate business course through University of Maryland University College in which the SPT is presented and used as a basic method for analyzing a country. You could say that I use it at least weekly, and have for the past 10 years. Roughly 350 students have taken the course and they generally love it as a comprehensive tool for analyzing a country's business environment. It's far better than Porter's Diamond, which is the standard business method for the purpose. John At 08:10 PM 11/3/2012, James Wiegel wrote: >I got this question from a fellow I know who is intrigued with the >Social Process triangles. Any responses?? > >He said: I think there are very few people who currently care about >the Social Process Triangle as a tool to be used for social >transformation. Can you point me to someone is promotes it's use, >trains others on at least an biannual basis using it, or has tried >to implement it in a recognizable or tangible manner other than the >Jenkins? Short mentions in books on other topics is, for my >purposes, great, but is there anyone you know using it daily, >weekly, or monthly to train or manage something or anything? > >Jim Wiegel > >"Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it >like you find it.. You got to change with it." Woody Guthrie > > >401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 >+1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel >jfwiegel(a)yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com > >Upcoming public course opportunities: >ToP Facilitation Methods Coming in February. Ask about an inhouse course >ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 >The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday of every month >Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation >program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 >See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and >website for further details.

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