Friends and Family : 2009

COUSIN AKIRA’S WEDDING

Listen to Ken on World Talk Radio December 30th at 5 PM - Turning Your Dream Into A Brand

Wed 5 PM PT on World Talk Radio Variety Channel

We’re living in a brand-driven world, and the ultimate focus of personal vision is turning it into a global brand that can drive multimedia attention. Dr. Ken Atchity will discuss how his management and motion picture production company has evolved into a company that focuses on helping entrepreneurs focus Learn More >>

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MITSUMATSUS MODEL CHRISTMAS GIFTS

MERRY CHRISTMAS

CAREFUL CHRISTMAS DECORATING [via Erin Calmes]

Well, there is good news and bad news about my Christmas decorations.

The good news is that I truly outdid myself this year. The bad news is that I had to take them down after only two days.

I had more people come screaming up to my house than ever. Great stories. But two things made me take it down. First, the cops advised me that it would cause traffic accidents as they almost wrecked when they drove by. Second, a 55 year old lady grabbed the ladder and almost killed herself putting it against my house and didn't realize it was fake until she climbed to the top (she was not happy). She was one of many people who attempted to do that.

My yard couldn't take it either. I have more than a few tire tracks where people literally drove up my yard.

I think I made him too real this time . But it was fun while it lasted. ;

Christmas at the Queen Victoria in Cape May, New Jersey [via Richard Rappaport]

Photograph Courtesy of the Queen Victoria

Koji's Kids!

STEVEN KATES REFLECTS ON AGE

Comments Made in the Year 1955! That's only 54 years ago!

'I'll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are, it's going to be impossible to buy a week's groceries for $20.00.'

'Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won't be long before $2,000.⁰⁰ will only buy a used one.'

'If cigarettes keep going up in price, I'm going to quit. A quarter a pack is ridiculous.'

'Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging a dime just to mail a letter?'

'If they raise the minimum wage to $1.00, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store.'

'When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 29 cents a gallon. Guess we'd be better off leaving the car in the garage.'

'Kids today are impossible. Those duck tail hair cuts make it impossible to stay groomed. Next thing you know, boys will be wearing their hair as long as the girls.'

'I'm afraid to send my kids to the movies any more. Ever since they let Clark Gable get by with saying DAMN in GONE WITH THE WIND, it seems every new movie has either HELL of DAMN in it.'

'I read the other day where some scientist thinks it's possible to put a man on the moon by the end of the century. They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas ....'

'Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for $75,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn't surprise me if someday they'll be making more than the President.'

'I never thought I'd see the day all our kitchen appliances would be electric. They are even making electric typewriters now.'

'It's too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married women are having to work to make ends meet.'

'It won't be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work.'

'Marriage doesn't mean a thing any more, those Hollywood stars seem to be getting divorced at the drop of a hat.'

'I'm afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business.'

'Thank goodness I won't live to see the day when the Government takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to congress.'

'The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I seriously doubt they will ever catch on.'

'There is no sense going to Lincoln or Omaha anymore for a weekend, it costs nearly $15.00 a night to stay in a hotel.'

'No one can afford to be sick anymore, at $35.00 a day in the hospital it's too rich for my blood.'

'If they think I'll pay 50 cents for a hair cut, forget it.'

If you know any friends who would get a kick out of these, pass this on!
Be sure and send it to your kids and grandkids

Halarious! [via Vincent Atchity]

US | December 08, 2009
Sidebar: The Turducken Approach to Privacy Law
By ADAM LIPTAK
After an appeals court dissent's colorful metaphor for a tangled area of law, the Supreme Court may intervene.

TRUE SAINTS STORY FROM EUNICE COUSIN SAM CORMIER

A man had 50 yard line tickets for a NEW ORLEANS SAINTS game. As he sits down, a man comes down and asks if anyone is sitting in the seat next to him.

"No," he says, "The seat is empty."

"This is incredible," said the man. "Who in their right mind would have a seat like this for the NEW ORLEANS SAINTS, the biggest sporting event in the world, and not use it?"

He says, "Well, actually, the seat belongs to me. I was supposed to come with my wife, but she passed away. This is the first SAINTS game we haven't been to together since we got married in 1987."

"Oh ... I'm sorry to hear that... That's terrible. But couldn't you find someone else, a friend or relative, or even a neighbor to take the seat?".

The man shakes his head. "No they're all at the funeral!"

GEAUX SAINTS! WHO DAT . . . 12-0 who dat we dat nation !

AT COUSIN DAVID'S CAKESHOW IN LAKE CHARLES

FAUSTO'S MENU, KINDER, LOUISIANA

UNCLE WILBUR AGUILLARD AND COUSIN SAM CORMIER REMOVE THE FRIED TURKEY FROM THE BOILER

New Orleans Opera Trip

Crawfish etouffee at Café des Artistes in Breaux Bridge

Grilled oysters at Acme Oyster Bar

Claryan [via Mary Calhoun]

Heaven on Earth [via Vicki Hake]

BREAST CANCER AWARENESS [via Lecke Brown]

Emily Somers, created, directed and choreographed this in Portland for her Medline glove division as a fundraiser for breast cancer awareness. atch on and they all had a lot of fun doing it.

When the video gets 1 million hits, Medline will be making a huge contribution to the hospital, as well as offering free mammograms for the community. Please check it out.

JIM WHITE DISCOVERS RHONE RED

Piemonte, Italy

When you cross the Tanaro River, north of vineyards in Barolo and Alba, you leave the prized production zone known as the Langhe and enter a wine region called Roero. It’s a bit like leaving Napa Valley proper and heading to Sonoma county.

And just as Napa Valley has done such a great job at marketing its wines to the world, so locals in the Langhe want you to think of Roero wines as coming from “the other side of the tracks.”

As it turns out, one of my favorite wine discoveries in Piemonte was a Roero wine – and even more shocking, it was white.

The wine was the 2008 Malvira Arneis Trinita, which I scored 93 points. This lovely, lemony, fruited wine comes from Malvira, a strikingly modern winery owned by Roberto and Massimo Damonte, two brothers whose families own the vineyard where the Arneis grape was first planted in – are you ready for this? – 1478.

READ FULL STORY HERE

LA YOGA MAGAZINE Features YOGA GIVES BACK

GO KARMA

We’ve been continuing a tradition in the November issue of LA YOGA that we focus on Karma Yoga, seva and selfless service and all the ways that we can and do give back, pay it forward and give to each other. It’s a powerful practice, and we’re participating on November 22 with Yoga Gives Back, a nonprofit founded in Los Angeles by Joel Bender, our teacher profile in this issue: and filmmaker and yogi Kayoko Mitsumatsu, people who wanted to give back to India,Kayoko's Story the birthplace of Yoga, since Yoga has given so much to them. Read how they’re facilitating changing lives in India in Kayoko’s story and join us for a team-taught Yoga practice (with LA YOGA editor Felicia Tomasko, Kasey Luber, Gary Margolin, Chris Stein , John Sahakian and Tara Judelle) where the donations will support Yoga Gives Back. November 22, 10:00 A.M. -12 Noon at Yogaglo in Santa Monica.

Campaign To Help India's Poor

Yoga Gives Back

Written by Kayoko Mitsumatsu

From Posture To Power: Microcredit Changes Lives On Both Sides of the Ocean

We can talk about making change. But affecting real change in the world comes from impacting the lives of individuals. It comes from empowering people to be independent and able to make a living on their own while at the same time being fully integrated in our interdependent global community. Sometimes it takes something that seems to be radical to make this change, but these shifts can be deceptively small. They can be even as small (or as large) as the cost of a Los Angeles Yoga class.

How could this be? In the practice of microcredit, lending seemingly small amounts of money to small-scale entrepreneurs allows them to succeed and change their circumstances. This is the fundamental basis of microcredit’s transformative power; it’s a revolutionary concept in finance. This practice shifts the emphasis from financial transactions being focused only about large loans and large scale businesses, which are out of reach of many one-person operations, institutions and organizations – to lending practices that actually make a positive difference in a person’s life. Microcredit practices based on social justice and empowerment operate through a combination of small-scale loans based on trust and community support, with structured repayment plans and programs that encourage savings. In these situations, people actually have the opportunity to solidify long-term change in their lives.

Dr. Muhammad Yunus and the Yoga Gives Back Team: Joel Bender, Leslie Hendry, Dr. Muhammad Yunus and Kayoko Mitsumatsu (left-right)

In 2006, economist Dr. Muhammad Yunus and the institution he founded, the Grameen Bank, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This award was in recognition of their revolutionary efforts to create this micro-credit model, support sustainable economic practices, and provide an alternative to what were exploitive norms. When a person is caught in a cycle of poverty, they may become trapped in the system, particularly since large banking institutions have historically ignored people without assets or credit histories, who are just starting out and who may not have already proven themselves. Most banks prefer to lend large sums of money that represent a greater profit margin and are set up only for large loans in order to make a profit themselves. And even making it more challenging, people at the bottom of the economic scale worldwide have had to rely on moneylenders charging usurious terms and interest rates to obtain funds to plant the next crop, buy inventory of new equipment, or upgrade a business in any way. Institutions such as the Grameen Bank and their affiliates are offering another approach. It’s one that has significantly impacted millions of people.

As Dr. Yunus described in an exclusive interview with Yoga Gives Back in May, 2009, “We started in 1976, and today within Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, eight million people borrow micro loans, ninety-seven percent of them women.” This represents an enormous potential for change and empowerment that just did not exist on a large scale in this form prior to 1976.

There is a social cycle in economics, and Dr. Yunus explained this: “Poverty is not inside the person. Poverty is forced from outside. Poor people are as capable [a] human being as anybody else. They have the same power and energy, same potential. But they are denied such facilities. They cannot express themselves. Money is one of the most important items missing in their lives. You need a dollar to catch a dollar. You cannot catch a dollar with an empty hand. So, that first dollar, nobody has given to her. So she remains dependent on someone else. She has to be hired, to slave; she has to work to make food available on the table. What we have done, we have put that first dollar into her hands as a banking proposition. Conventional banks never come to the poor people. They go to rich people to make more money. The person who does not have a dollar – she cannot get it. So we did it. We did it in a way that is affordable to her. Because we do not insist on collateral. There is no collateral.”

While that may seem like a radical concept, the Grameen Bank has proven that their success is much more than ideological. Dr Yunus cited statistics for us, “The repayment rate is almost 100%, without collateral or anything. This is the strength of microcredit which is now spread all over the world. There are by now at least 150 million borrowers in the world today. Bu it is still very small comparing to the need. We need more microcredit organizations in the world so that more people can be reached.”

Yoga Gives Back is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization begun in LA, with the goal to provide a way for Western Yoga practitioners to give back to India, the birthplace of Yoga, which has given us so much. We’re heeding Dr. Yunus’ call to reach more people through expanded opportunities for and awareness of microcredit and have targeted India and Indian families, women, and would-be entrepreneurs, who would be otherwise stuck in the cycle of poverty that Dr. Yunus described. Yoga Gives Back supports microfinancing operations in India, through the Grameen Foundation, headquartered in Washington, DC. Donations go directly to Grameen Koota, Bangalore, South India and our YGB awareness campaign focuses on the real stories of how poor women are changing their lives with small loans from Grameen Koota.

Ms. Vinatha M Reddy

Grameen Koota was started by visionary teacher and philanthropist, Ms. Vinatha M Reddy (pictured, above) in 1999, who learned about Nobel Peace Recipient Dr Muhammad Yunus’ microfinancing and immediately began exploring ways of replicating his work in her hometown. In 2000, she started providing small microcredit loans, averaging $25.00 a month, to fifty local women. Today, Grameen Koota’s work is reaching out to over 280,000 women in Bangalore, Mysore and many areas of Karnataka state, in South India, making real impact on these women’s lives as well as on the local economy.

Yoga Gives Back

The Los Angeles-based Yoga Gives Back has a worldwide reach and began out of the inspiration and dedication of my Yoga mentor Joel Bender and me. Our group has suddenly started growing almost daily and our mission is shared by a quickly expanding and loving Yoga community.

When I was growing up in Japan, which is a very middle-class society, I had never experienced or seen any real poverty, especially growing up in Tokyo in 1960s and 1970s, when Japan's post-war economic miracle was taking place. Then, I had a chance to live in Brazil in the late 1970s for two years, where as a teenager, I saw the divide between poverty and wealth, the reality of the real slums, kids on the streets begging every time you stopped the car at the traffic light, all very much like India. Social injustice hit me hard.

Once I started Yoga practice and feeling my life being so enriched by it , I felt a need to use my resources to help others. I was producing a documentary on Social Entrepreneurship and learned about microfinancing. I shared this information with Joel [featured in the teacher profile in this month’s issue of LA YOGA] who had been looking for the way he could give back to India since his first visit there – so we teamed up.

When I think about the growth of Yoga Gives Back thus far, I give a lot of credit to the entrepreneurship and volunteer spirit of Americans, willing to embrace and support a new grass roots campaign like ours.

Kayoko Mitsumatsu, co-founder of Yoga Gives Back, is a documentary filmmaker whose films deal with social justice issues, including First They Killed My Father a memoir of a Cambodia’s Killing Fields’ survivor.

A Life Changing Story of Microcredit: Jayashree

Jayashree

Jayashree lives in the suburbs of Bangalore and is married and the mother of two children. We visited her at her humble dirt floor one room home for the first time in 2007. We were touched by her warm smile and most generous hospitality, serving us hot tea and cookies.

Jayashree was born into a very poor family in Bangalore. When she was a child, her family’s financial situation became so severe that she had to drop out of school and work at a garment factory. She toiled throughout her childhood and after she got married at fifteen, her meager earnings had to support her ailing in-laws. She had two children. Her husband’s rickshaw business was not enough to pay her sons’ education or secure food for the family.

In 2007, Jayashree learned from her neighbors about Grameen Koota’s microcredit program and applied for her first loan. She was granted a first loan of 7,000 rupees ($175), and immediately bought her husband’s auto rickshaw. Owning their own rickshaw business increased their income significantly.

Jayashree was able to pay back her entire loan in one year and became eligible for her second loan in 2008. Having proven her diligence, her second loan amount doubled to 15,000 rupees ($375). This time, she bought a sewing machine and started stitching bags. The family’s earnings have now tripled and she is earning 150 rupees ($3.75) a day. In addition, she opened a small shop next to her house to sell her products which is earning her an additional 100 rupees ($2.50) a day.

She is sending her elder son to a medical school. Her son dreams of becoming a doctor and thanks his mother’s business for providing his education, their own home and daily food.

To participate in a Yoga practice where the proceeds support Yoga Gives Back and directly impact the transformation of not only your own life, but that of someone in India, start your Thanksgiving week at Yogaglo, Sunday, November 22, 10:00 A.M. - 12 noon. Some of the teachers include John Sahakian, Felicia Tomasko, Alexandra Aiken and Ally Hamilton; more to be announced. Yogaglo.com; yogagivesback.com.

For more information on Yoga Gives Back or to host a Yoga Gives Back class at your own studio or location, visit: yogagivesback.org or contact yogagivesback@earthlink.net.