Green as the New Red, White, and Blue

A community member recently forwarded this Pop!Cast video clip to me. In it, Thomas Friedman, op-ed writer for The New York Times, speaks about the correlation of the price of oil with the amount of freedom throughout the world. In his remarks he states that we are in essence funding terrorism with our energy purchases. He makes a call for us to redefine green as, “geopolitical, geostrategic, capitalistic, patriotic… green is the new red, white, and blue.”

Regardless on where you stand in the opinion spectrum of this topic, it is well worth the 20 minutes of viewing time to get some additional perspective on issues that will most certainly define our generation.

View the clip here.

Act on An Inkling

All great ideas were once inklings.

I should remind myself of this often but rarely do. In every instance there must have been some magical point in time where a someday great idea started as the tiniest twinkle of inspiration in some unsuspecting mind. What makes these inklings unique from most others is that they were acted upon and often quite deliberately.

I’d like to do a better job of acting upon inklings and determinedly pursuing some of the ideas that come from them. I love to think, imagine, and test new ideas in my head but I don’t develop them nearly as much as I could. I enjoy considering ways in which my life and the lives of others around me could be improved simply or even dramatically. The challenge is that moving forward with an idea often forces one to place themselves in a position of the risk of being misunderstood, criticized, or even of having to face a sense of failure. This is scary stuff, especially when coming from a culture where security and safety are among the most highly regarded values.

Thus, I start this blog with the intention in mind that here is a place where I will post inklings and ideas of my own and others to share and develop. We shall see where they go…