HI STAN AND ANN HOW ABOUT THEM COWBOYS WEREN'T THEY GOOD. WE WENT TO THE FIRST CHRISTEN CHURCH AND MET LAURA FOR DINNER. WE TOOK FANNIE T00. IT WAS SURE GOOD, I HAD 2 BIG CHICKEN AND FREDA HAD CHICKEN BREAST IT WAS BAKED, MINE WAS FRIED, AND FANNIE HAD WINGS. WE ARE DOING OK AS FAR AS I KNOW. I LIKE HEARING FROM YOU. UNCLE IVAN
reminder... Uncle Ivan's email is ... not what his email says.. the correct email for him is ivanmoffat@sbcglobal.net. If you hit reply to his email, it will not go to him.. thanks.. dad...
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
World Livestock Auctioneer Championship
World Livestock Auctioneer Championship
Southwestern Regional Championship
The Southwestern Region Championship is up next on the road to the World title. Top auctioneers from across the Southwestern United States will vie for a spot in the 2007 World Livestock Auctioneer Championship and the title of Southwestern Region WLAC Champion.
This competition promises to be one of the toughest yet. Log in to LMAAuctions.com for all the contest action.
Wednesday - October 25th - 12:00 pm - 5:00 pm (CST) - Southwest Region Championship - Live from the Sulphur Springs Livestock & Dairy Auction, Sulphur Springs, Texas.
Southwestern Regional Championship
The Southwestern Region Championship is up next on the road to the World title. Top auctioneers from across the Southwestern United States will vie for a spot in the 2007 World Livestock Auctioneer Championship and the title of Southwestern Region WLAC Champion.
This competition promises to be one of the toughest yet. Log in to LMAAuctions.com for all the contest action.
Wednesday - October 25th - 12:00 pm - 5:00 pm (CST) - Southwest Region Championship - Live from the Sulphur Springs Livestock & Dairy Auction, Sulphur Springs, Texas.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Actually took this cuz the crow was flying by... I thought... but upon looking closer, it is a buzzard gaining altitude to circle overhead... whom... wonder if this is a sign of things to come??? Jake... this is supposed to be funny.. haha... be sure to click on the photos to see them larger.. and then wait a minute and you can put your mouse in the bottom right corner of the second photo and wait a second and then click on the brown button that appears and it will make it bigger yet.. amazing how clear these are... have a great day!!
Stan Moffat
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Ms. Kaitlyn had her second birthday celebration yesterday and we all attended, even Greatgrandma Moffat made the two hour trip to share in the special day! A great time was had by all and Ms. Kaitlyn opened some great gifts and then shared her very special and really tasty birthday cake with all of us. Happy Birthday Kaitlyn Brooke Moffat, hope your second birthday was awesome and wish you the best life has to offer in the coming years... and many many many more!
Stan Moffat
Saturday, October 21, 2006
More fire trailers... Kevin puts a rider on his trailers when they are delivered, the buyer has to furnish back to kevin a photo of the trailer on site.. kind a cool huh... haha... and when you drive by my office, this is the little white building to the west that looks like a white barn, and has not signage on it at all.... nothing to let you know what is going on behind it or in it... wow... and Kevin is one of the most modest men you will ever meet. He was a dog food customer of ours at our old feedstore for all the years we sold feed... and we had not idea how good he was, other than he was a welder and he drove a 300 year old smallish truck out to get his dog food... and that he truly loved his dogs as he spared no expense for food!
Stan Moffat
Cousin Loren and familys... OKLAHOMA'S OFFICIAL CENTENNIAL MAZE
P Bar Farms MazeOKLAHOMA'S OFFICIAL CENTENNIAL MAZE
Click here to see a video of the maze as featured on Oklahoma Horizon
(Requires Quicktime plug-in)
Corn MazeOpen September 2nd through November 18th
The Maze - intricate networks of twists and turns carved into a 7-acre cornfield.
The 7-foot-high puzzle contains more than 95 decision points, 300,000 corn stalks and 3.5 miles of twists and turns. Most maze-goers will require about one hour to discover the one exit, though the correct pathway can be walked perfectly in only 20 minutes.
Haunted Maze
Open Every Night (Except Sunday) October 19th through October 31st
Join us at the Maze for some safe and scary Halloween fun. Haunting begins each evening after dark October 19 - October 31. Our spooks will insure that this will be a Halloween you won't soon forget! Spooks will not touch or chase customers. We ask customers not to wear costumes or masks in the Maze.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Aspen was awarded an award from the AKC... Aspen is received an ACE award, Awards for Canine Excellence, as a Service Dog for Katherine Huggins. Some of the close family know Katherine, who is the artist who painted many of the paintings in our home! We are so proud of her and her accomplishments, and Aspen too. I uploaded photos from the event that was held in Enid, OK. last weekend. The photos were taken by Mr. Harold Mace of Stillwater. Mr. Mace is Ann's former boss. Katherine used to work in the same office as well.
Stan Moffat
urge.com
OK kiddos.... heres the newest and baddest deal on net for music I think...
urge.com cost 14.95 a month and you can download unlimited songs and albums to your computer or to your mp3 player as long as it is NOT an ipod... and play them till the cows come home! about the price of a cd a month, but you can download thousands of songs... all genres... it is the combination of mtv, vh1, and cmt. enjoy the day!! you do have to download the latest windows media player also and it's free. it is a big program so if you use it on the computer, it is hard to "work" on computer while listening... haha.. just fyi..
urge.com cost 14.95 a month and you can download unlimited songs and albums to your computer or to your mp3 player as long as it is NOT an ipod... and play them till the cows come home! about the price of a cd a month, but you can download thousands of songs... all genres... it is the combination of mtv, vh1, and cmt. enjoy the day!! you do have to download the latest windows media player also and it's free. it is a big program so if you use it on the computer, it is hard to "work" on computer while listening... haha.. just fyi..
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Photo in the News: New Bird Discovered in Colombia
Photo in the News: New Bird Discovered in Colombia: "Photo in the News: New Bird Discovered in Colombia
October 10, 2006—This is one rebel that's been tied to a very serious cause.
The fist-size bird with punk-rock plumage is a new—and possibly threatened—avian species that makes its home in the last remnants of a remote Colombian cloud forest.
Dubbed the YariguÃes brush finch, the small bird was first found in 2004 in an isolated region of the eastern Andes mountain range known as the SerranÃa de los YariguÃes. The region and the finch are both named for the YariguÃes, an indigenous tribe that once inhabited the mountain forests and reportedly committed mass suicide rather than submit to Spanish colonial rule in the 1500s.
Over the past three years researchers Thomas Donegan and Blanca Huertas have regularly hiked into the remote Andes forests to help document avian species diversity. In a paper submitted in February to the Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club, Donegan and Huertas describe finding a bird that differs from other known brush finches because it has a solid black back and no white markings on its wings.
During further fieldwork in 2005 the scientists were able to capture one of the birds and take photographs and a blood sample before releasing it back to the wild. The images and DNA analysis cemented the finch's status as a new species.
'There are about two to three new birds found in the world every year,' Donegan told the Associated Press. 'It's a very rare event.'
And the d"
October 10, 2006—This is one rebel that's been tied to a very serious cause.
The fist-size bird with punk-rock plumage is a new—and possibly threatened—avian species that makes its home in the last remnants of a remote Colombian cloud forest.
Dubbed the YariguÃes brush finch, the small bird was first found in 2004 in an isolated region of the eastern Andes mountain range known as the SerranÃa de los YariguÃes. The region and the finch are both named for the YariguÃes, an indigenous tribe that once inhabited the mountain forests and reportedly committed mass suicide rather than submit to Spanish colonial rule in the 1500s.
Over the past three years researchers Thomas Donegan and Blanca Huertas have regularly hiked into the remote Andes forests to help document avian species diversity. In a paper submitted in February to the Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club, Donegan and Huertas describe finding a bird that differs from other known brush finches because it has a solid black back and no white markings on its wings.
During further fieldwork in 2005 the scientists were able to capture one of the birds and take photographs and a blood sample before releasing it back to the wild. The images and DNA analysis cemented the finch's status as a new species.
'There are about two to three new birds found in the world every year,' Donegan told the Associated Press. 'It's a very rare event.'
And the d"
Nobel Peace Prize Goes to Micro-Loan Pioneers
Nobel Peace Prize Goes to Micro-Loan Pioneers
Stefan Lovgrenfor National Geographic News
October 13, 2006
They call him the "banker of the poor." Now Muhammad Yunus can add Nobel Peace Prize winner to his resume.
The Bangladeshi economist and his Grameen Bank won the 1.4-million-U.S.-dollar prize on Friday for pioneering a new category of banking known as micro-credit, which grants small loans to poor people who have no collateral and who do not qualify for conventional bank loans. (Related: Nobel winners in medicine, physics, and chemistry.)
Enlarge Photo
Email to a Friend
RELATED
Africa Farms Get Massive Pledge to Spur "Green Revolution" (September 15, 2006)
Bangladesh: Photos, Map, Facts, and More
U.S. Forgives Multimillion-Dollar Debt to Aid Guatemala Forests (October 10, 2006)
The program has enabled millions of Bangladeshis, almost all women, to buy everything from cows to cell phones in order to start and run their own businesses.
Similar micro-credit projects have helped millions around the world lift themselves out of poverty.
In 1997 fewer than eight million families had been served by micro-credit worldwide, according to the 2005 State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report. By the end of 2004 some 3,200 micro-credit institutions reported reaching more than 92 million clients, according to the report.
"Muhammad Yunus is a revolutionary in the best sense of the word," said Sam Daley-Harris, director of the Microcredit Summit Campaign in Washington, D.C. "He has promoted independence, not dependence, among millions of poor people."
Seed Money
Yunus, 65, founded the Grameen Bank, which means "rural bank" in Bengali, in 1976.
The idea was kindled two years earlier, as the South Asian country was suffering from a famine. (Related photos: Bangladesh's deadly monsoons.)
Working as a young economics professor at Bangladesh's University of Chittagong, Yunus lent the equivalent of U.S. $27 from his own pocket to 42 women in the village of Jobra who had a small business making bamboo furniture (Bangladesh map).
Since then, the bank he founded has made an estimated 5.7 billion dollars in loans to more than six million people in Bangladesh, 96 percent of them women.
Anyone can qualify for the loans, which average about U.S. $200.
Nobel Peace Prize Goes to Micro-Loan Pioneers
nobel peace prize orginal copy Page 2 of 2
One of the bank's most notable success stories has been its so-called "village phone program."
Women obtain loans to acquire phone systems built from simple handsets and solar chargers, which function as pay phones in rural areas.
Enlarge Photo
Email to a Friend
RELATED
Africa Farms Get Massive Pledge to Spur "Green Revolution" (September 15, 2006)
Bangladesh: Photos, Map, Facts, and More
U.S. Forgives Multimillion-Dollar Debt to Aid Guatemala Forests (October 10, 2006)
The concept of "village phone lady" is now known throughout Bangladesh and has spread to other parts of Asia and Africa.
Repayment is driven by social pressure. Loan recipients are placed in groups of five. Members can only apply for future loans once the group catches up on some of its outstanding debts.
That system encourages social responsibility and has a repayment rate in excess of 98 percent, the bank says.
"No one is more motivated than the poor to get out of poverty," said Alex Counts, who worked with Yunus in Bangladesh for six years and now heads the Grameen Foundation USA in Washington, D.C.
"A hundred dollars in capital may be the only thing that stands between them" and getting out of poverty, he said.
"You give them a fair deal—not a subsidized loan but a market-interest loan—and they're able to put their motivation, skills, and business savvy to work."
Preventing War
Yunus's strategy has been to do the opposite as conventional banks, says Daley-Harris of the Microcredit Summit Campaign.
Accordint to Daley-Harris, Yunus "would say: 'If the banks lent to the rich, I lent to the poor. If banks lent to men, I lent to women. If banks required collateral, my loans were collateral free. If banks required a lot of paperwork, my loans were illiterate friendly. If you had to go to the bank, my bank went to the village."
The bank even runs a project called the Struggling Members Program, which works with up to 80,000 beggars in Bangladesh.
Many people had expected that the Nobel Peace Prize would be awarded to someone involved in peace negotiations.
However, in its citation, the Nobel Peace Prize committee, which is based in Oslo, Norway, said, "Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty."
Daley-Harris agrees, saying achieving peace is about more than stopping war.
"A key part of preventing strife is that people have a stake in their communities and are empowered to care for their children," he said. "This is what micro-credit programs have been able to provide."
Stefan Lovgrenfor National Geographic News
October 13, 2006
They call him the "banker of the poor." Now Muhammad Yunus can add Nobel Peace Prize winner to his resume.
The Bangladeshi economist and his Grameen Bank won the 1.4-million-U.S.-dollar prize on Friday for pioneering a new category of banking known as micro-credit, which grants small loans to poor people who have no collateral and who do not qualify for conventional bank loans. (Related: Nobel winners in medicine, physics, and chemistry.)
Enlarge Photo
Email to a Friend
RELATED
Africa Farms Get Massive Pledge to Spur "Green Revolution" (September 15, 2006)
Bangladesh: Photos, Map, Facts, and More
U.S. Forgives Multimillion-Dollar Debt to Aid Guatemala Forests (October 10, 2006)
The program has enabled millions of Bangladeshis, almost all women, to buy everything from cows to cell phones in order to start and run their own businesses.
Similar micro-credit projects have helped millions around the world lift themselves out of poverty.
In 1997 fewer than eight million families had been served by micro-credit worldwide, according to the 2005 State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report. By the end of 2004 some 3,200 micro-credit institutions reported reaching more than 92 million clients, according to the report.
"Muhammad Yunus is a revolutionary in the best sense of the word," said Sam Daley-Harris, director of the Microcredit Summit Campaign in Washington, D.C. "He has promoted independence, not dependence, among millions of poor people."
Seed Money
Yunus, 65, founded the Grameen Bank, which means "rural bank" in Bengali, in 1976.
The idea was kindled two years earlier, as the South Asian country was suffering from a famine. (Related photos: Bangladesh's deadly monsoons.)
Working as a young economics professor at Bangladesh's University of Chittagong, Yunus lent the equivalent of U.S. $27 from his own pocket to 42 women in the village of Jobra who had a small business making bamboo furniture (Bangladesh map).
Since then, the bank he founded has made an estimated 5.7 billion dollars in loans to more than six million people in Bangladesh, 96 percent of them women.
Anyone can qualify for the loans, which average about U.S. $200.
Nobel Peace Prize Goes to Micro-Loan Pioneers
nobel peace prize orginal copy Page 2 of 2
One of the bank's most notable success stories has been its so-called "village phone program."
Women obtain loans to acquire phone systems built from simple handsets and solar chargers, which function as pay phones in rural areas.
Enlarge Photo
Email to a Friend
RELATED
Africa Farms Get Massive Pledge to Spur "Green Revolution" (September 15, 2006)
Bangladesh: Photos, Map, Facts, and More
U.S. Forgives Multimillion-Dollar Debt to Aid Guatemala Forests (October 10, 2006)
The concept of "village phone lady" is now known throughout Bangladesh and has spread to other parts of Asia and Africa.
Repayment is driven by social pressure. Loan recipients are placed in groups of five. Members can only apply for future loans once the group catches up on some of its outstanding debts.
That system encourages social responsibility and has a repayment rate in excess of 98 percent, the bank says.
"No one is more motivated than the poor to get out of poverty," said Alex Counts, who worked with Yunus in Bangladesh for six years and now heads the Grameen Foundation USA in Washington, D.C.
"A hundred dollars in capital may be the only thing that stands between them" and getting out of poverty, he said.
"You give them a fair deal—not a subsidized loan but a market-interest loan—and they're able to put their motivation, skills, and business savvy to work."
Preventing War
Yunus's strategy has been to do the opposite as conventional banks, says Daley-Harris of the Microcredit Summit Campaign.
Accordint to Daley-Harris, Yunus "would say: 'If the banks lent to the rich, I lent to the poor. If banks lent to men, I lent to women. If banks required collateral, my loans were collateral free. If banks required a lot of paperwork, my loans were illiterate friendly. If you had to go to the bank, my bank went to the village."
The bank even runs a project called the Struggling Members Program, which works with up to 80,000 beggars in Bangladesh.
Many people had expected that the Nobel Peace Prize would be awarded to someone involved in peace negotiations.
However, in its citation, the Nobel Peace Prize committee, which is based in Oslo, Norway, said, "Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty."
Daley-Harris agrees, saying achieving peace is about more than stopping war.
"A key part of preventing strife is that people have a stake in their communities and are empowered to care for their children," he said. "This is what micro-credit programs have been able to provide."
Standing Tall
UPLIFTING: In July, Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah will receive the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, once presented to Muhammad Ali.
Standing Tall
By Mary Anne Potts
UPLIFTING: In July, Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah will receive the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, once presented to Muhammad Ali.
When a letter from Ghana landed on the desk of Bob Babbitt, 53, co-founder of the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF), he was moved. Born without a right tibia, Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah, 29, was writing to ask the CAF for a bike to pedal 370 miles (595 kilometers) across his country in order to dispel the stigma that Ghana's disabled are incapable of more than begging. When Yeboah's 2002 ride stirred a media frenzy, Babbitt contacted Lookalike Productions about the remarkable story starting to unfold. The new documentary, Emmanuel's Gift, narrated by Oprah Winfrey, has won over audiences at screenings across the country. Here Babbitt—who is also co-founder of the Muddy Buddy Ride and Run Series, a seven-city, Adventure-sponsored event benefiting the CAF—talks about Yeboah's impact.
Yeboah received a $25,000 grant from Nike (matched by the CAF) and won the attention of Oprah Winfrey and fellow Ghanaian Kofi Annan. Did you foresee such a reaction?
Not at all. But the difference between hearing someone's story and seeing it on film is immense. With his grant money, Emmanuel is sending disabled kids in Ghana to school and providing them with opportunities. Those kids will start to change the Ghanaian perception of disabled people. Even though no one would question it if Emmanuel stayed in the U.S., he wants to be in Ghana. He's galvanized the disabled individuals of his country.
How did Yeboah get his prosthetic leg?
After his cross-country ride, we invited Emmanuel to do the 56-mile (90-kilometer) biking portion of the CAF triathlon in San Diego. He'd never left Ghana before. We then explored whether he was a candidate for a prosthetic leg. In Ghana, people who have amputations don't live, or they get a useless prosthetic. After Emmanuel had the operation in the U.S., he did the CAF race again, cutting his time from seven to four hours. He also did the Muddy Buddy in 2003.
Disabled athletes are encouraged to enter the Muddy Buddy race, which kicks off in San Jose, California, in June. Do they inspire other racers?
The impact is remarkable. Sandy Dukat, a skier sponsored by the CAF, came out to the Chicago Muddy Buddy in 2003. Just before she got to the mud pit at the end of the race, she pulled out an Allen wrench, unscrewed her $36,000 prosthetic leg, held it above her head for the racers at the finish line, and dove in. The crowd went wild.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Muhammad Yunus, famously known as the Banker to the Poor, is this year's Nobel Peace Laureate
My greatest challenge has been to change the mindset of people. Mindsets play strange tricks on us. We see things the way our minds have instructed our eyes to see. --Muhammad Yunus
Inspiration of the Day:Muhammad Yunus, famously known as the Banker to the Poor, is this year's Nobel Peace Laureate. The Bangladeshi economist and the revolutionary bank he founded will share the prize. The Grameen Bank provides credit to "the poorest of the poor" in rural Bangladesh, without any collateral. It has 6.6 million borrowers, 97 percent of whom are women, and provides services in more than 70,000 villages in Bangladesh. Many people have argued for a long time that the Nobel needs to have a prize for development, and this selection confirms that the Nobel committee recognizes global development as fundamentally connected to the promotion of peace.
Grameen Founder Gets Nobel Peace Prize
Earlier today, microloan pioneer Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace prize. Many people have argued for a long time that Nobel needs to have a prize for development, and today's selection confirms that the Nobel committee recognizes global development as fundamentally connected to the promotion of peace.
Andy Carvin describes this as significant in this way:
"Perhaps what's most exciting about this Nobel selection is that the people of Bangladesh can rightfully claim that they as individuals have won a share of the Peace Prize. Approximately 94% of the bank is owned by its 6.6 million borrowers - the farmers, the women entrepreneurs, the beggars - while the remaining six percent is owned by the government of Bangladesh, which of course represents the people. No matter how you slice it, this years Peace Prize has been rewarded to the Bangladeshis themselves. Muhammad Yunus may be the one standing in Oslo this December - and rightfully so - but he will be standing on the shoulders of millions of Bangladeshi citizens, each of whom must be swelling with joy this day."
Here is Grameen's work in the words of the Nobel Laureate: Comments
Posted by: Alejandra Alvarez at October 13, 2006 10:21 AMIt is fascinating that a person and a program as the Grameen's banks got awarded in this times of individualism, mis-trust, impotence, poverty at large, etc. It gives a strong sense of hope, trust and conviction that we as humand kind are not doing so bad. Thank you Nipun for share this news with us. It give me back some trust in the Nobel prizes if they can giveit to somebody that work to support poor people to stand up by them selves. Alejandra
Posted by: David Green at October 13, 2006 03:48 PM
In one of the NYT articles, Prof. Yunus is quoted:
The 65-year-old economist said he would use part of his share of the $1.4 million award money to create a company to make low-cost, high-nutrition food for the poor. The rest would go toward setting up an eye hospital for the poor in Bangladesh, he said.
Best, David
Posted by: Tom at October 13, 2006 04:21 PM
Yunus quotes ...
"It's not people who aren't credit-worthy. It's banks that aren't people worthy."
"Conventional banks ask their clients to come to their office. It's a terrifying place for the poor and illiterate. ... The entire Grameen Bank system runs on the principle that people should not come to the bank, the bank should go to the people. ... If any staff member is seen in the office, it should be taken as a violation of the rules of the Grameen Bank. ... It is essential that [those setting up a new village Branch] have no office and no place to stay. The reason is to make us as different as possible from government officials."
"The Grameen loan is not simply cash. It becomes a kind of ticket to self-discovery and self-exploration."
Posted by: Deidre Newton at October 14, 2006 06:08 AM God bless him! What an inspiration. I want to know how he started. I would love to do the same thing here in the US. The banking system is backward , the people who need it the most are the ones most use it the least.
Inspiration of the Day:Muhammad Yunus, famously known as the Banker to the Poor, is this year's Nobel Peace Laureate. The Bangladeshi economist and the revolutionary bank he founded will share the prize. The Grameen Bank provides credit to "the poorest of the poor" in rural Bangladesh, without any collateral. It has 6.6 million borrowers, 97 percent of whom are women, and provides services in more than 70,000 villages in Bangladesh. Many people have argued for a long time that the Nobel needs to have a prize for development, and this selection confirms that the Nobel committee recognizes global development as fundamentally connected to the promotion of peace.
Grameen Founder Gets Nobel Peace Prize
Earlier today, microloan pioneer Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace prize. Many people have argued for a long time that Nobel needs to have a prize for development, and today's selection confirms that the Nobel committee recognizes global development as fundamentally connected to the promotion of peace.
Andy Carvin describes this as significant in this way:
"Perhaps what's most exciting about this Nobel selection is that the people of Bangladesh can rightfully claim that they as individuals have won a share of the Peace Prize. Approximately 94% of the bank is owned by its 6.6 million borrowers - the farmers, the women entrepreneurs, the beggars - while the remaining six percent is owned by the government of Bangladesh, which of course represents the people. No matter how you slice it, this years Peace Prize has been rewarded to the Bangladeshis themselves. Muhammad Yunus may be the one standing in Oslo this December - and rightfully so - but he will be standing on the shoulders of millions of Bangladeshi citizens, each of whom must be swelling with joy this day."
Here is Grameen's work in the words of the Nobel Laureate: Comments
Posted by: Alejandra Alvarez at October 13, 2006 10:21 AMIt is fascinating that a person and a program as the Grameen's banks got awarded in this times of individualism, mis-trust, impotence, poverty at large, etc. It gives a strong sense of hope, trust and conviction that we as humand kind are not doing so bad. Thank you Nipun for share this news with us. It give me back some trust in the Nobel prizes if they can giveit to somebody that work to support poor people to stand up by them selves. Alejandra
Posted by: David Green at October 13, 2006 03:48 PM
In one of the NYT articles, Prof. Yunus is quoted:
The 65-year-old economist said he would use part of his share of the $1.4 million award money to create a company to make low-cost, high-nutrition food for the poor. The rest would go toward setting up an eye hospital for the poor in Bangladesh, he said.
Best, David
Posted by: Tom at October 13, 2006 04:21 PM
Yunus quotes ...
"It's not people who aren't credit-worthy. It's banks that aren't people worthy."
"Conventional banks ask their clients to come to their office. It's a terrifying place for the poor and illiterate. ... The entire Grameen Bank system runs on the principle that people should not come to the bank, the bank should go to the people. ... If any staff member is seen in the office, it should be taken as a violation of the rules of the Grameen Bank. ... It is essential that [those setting up a new village Branch] have no office and no place to stay. The reason is to make us as different as possible from government officials."
"The Grameen loan is not simply cash. It becomes a kind of ticket to self-discovery and self-exploration."
Posted by: Deidre Newton at October 14, 2006 06:08 AM God bless him! What an inspiration. I want to know how he started. I would love to do the same thing here in the US. The banking system is backward , the people who need it the most are the ones most use it the least.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Always and Never!
"Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use.
- Wendell Johnson
--
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)"
- Wendell Johnson
--
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)"
Monday, October 09, 2006
then all that was left to do was push the table together... and they were done... and we watched MK open her presents and the kiddos play .. and headed home. All in all, it was a good night, good food, good family times, and then we said goodbye to Jake and he was off and it was time to get ready for another work week... Enjoy the day!
Stan Moffat
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Yesterday, Ann and I went to a land auction to take some pics for the website that I keep up for Pickens Auctions. the gentleman in the black shirt talking with Gregg Pickens, Owner of Pickens Auctions and Gregg Pickens Real Estate is Chris McCutchen. Chris is owner of Goober Drilling Company in Stillwater, and did in fact end up the high bidder at the auction. He bought 358 acres for $5,550.00 an acre, which is a total price of 1,986,900.00. This is the price of the property without mineral rights!
Stan Moffat
Saturday, October 07, 2006
BLIND PHOTOGRAPHER IS A MAN OF VISION
BLIND PHOTOGRAPHER IS A MAN OF VISION
- Delfin Vigil
Sunday, February 27, 2005
It wasn't until after Pete Eckert went blind that he really started to see things.
"I can see lots of ... really weird things," Eckert says, slowly lifting his left hand toward his face and gazing directly at it. "I feel light so strongly that it allows me to see the bones in my skeleton as pulsating energy, or like in an X-ray. At times I can sort of see sound. Sometimes I can even see things from the back of my head."
With eyes in the back of his head, you'd figure Eckert might make a good schoolteacher. But that would be too easy.
Wearing jeans, a leather jacket and aviator sunglasses and standing more confidently than Uzu, his giant Bavarian shepherd guide dog, Eckert, 48, gives the impression that he likes a challenge. So after the former carpenter went blind from retinitis pigmentosa six years ago, he did the first thing he wasn't supposed to be able to do.
He became a photographer.
"The idea of a blind guy taking photos just cracked me up," Eckert says as he and Uzu visit Eckert's art photography exhibition at Varnish Fine Art studio on Natoma Street in San Francisco. The exhibition runs through Saturday and he's preparing for another in April at the Badé Museum in Berkeley next month.
About five years ago, when Eckert was still coming to terms with his loss of sight, he was cleaning out a drawer at his Sacramento home and found a camera with infrared settings. He thought about how invisible wavelengths might influence a blind person trying to use the camera. A lightbulb came on in his head, and it made him smile.
"I'd have my wife and my friends take me out in the middle of the night so I could shoot photographs," Eckert says. "Of course, they thought I was crazy, which was fine by me."
It wasn't the first time someone took Eckert for a nut.
Eckert was 28 when he was deemed legally blind, meaning that, from 20 feet, he could see less than what a person with perfect vision could see from 400 feet.
"At first, I freaked out," Eckert says. "I had two immediate fears: that I wouldn't be able to take care of myself and that I wouldn't make any money."
Eckert spent the next decade earning several degrees, including one each in sculpture and ceramics at the Art Institute of Boston and one in design and industry from San Francisco State. He also became a black belt in tae kwon do.
He was so good in the self-defense arts that he started to teach a class. When some of his students didn't believe that he could fight at full speed, Eckert picked a few of the more experienced troublemakers in the class and scheduled a day to spar. To prepare for the match, Eckert memorized the room. He took mental notes of how sounds bounced off each corner and where light and warmth entered into his blind picture. He kicked the students' butts.
"If I can learn this much about one room," Eckert says he thought, "why not do the same in the rest of the world?"
Eckert implemented that idea directly into his photography. With his brain rewired in a way that light allows him to see the skeletal structure of parts of his body, Eckert says, he paints with light and navigates through touch while listening to sounds.
"Imagination fills in the details," he says.
After completing a photo shoot, Eckert develops contact sheets, has friends give verbal feedback and then memorizes each print before choosing the final slide. Sometimes he draws on the film to add effects. He credits Time- Life Books on camera techniques and some very friendly and very patient experts at his local camera store for helping him fine-tune his craft.
He often returns to places that he frequented when he was younger and could still see well.
"Saloon" was shot at the old Saloon on Grant Avenue in North Beach, once a favorite hangout. Relying on his hazy memories of past drinking days, Eckert entered the Saloon, scoped out a spot in the back and waited for tourists to fill up the bar and create sounds of the room. He then snapped the pictures in about the same time it took to drink a Manhattan.
Blind photography is not a gimmick to Eckert.
"My pictures make you question the limits blind people face," Eckert says as gallery visitors admire the work without realizing that the blind man standing nearby is the artist. "Look. I'm competing with sighted artists."
So what's next? Driving a car?
"No way. I only ride motorcycles," he says seriously. "But just in my backyard."
- Delfin Vigil
Sunday, February 27, 2005
It wasn't until after Pete Eckert went blind that he really started to see things.
"I can see lots of ... really weird things," Eckert says, slowly lifting his left hand toward his face and gazing directly at it. "I feel light so strongly that it allows me to see the bones in my skeleton as pulsating energy, or like in an X-ray. At times I can sort of see sound. Sometimes I can even see things from the back of my head."
With eyes in the back of his head, you'd figure Eckert might make a good schoolteacher. But that would be too easy.
Wearing jeans, a leather jacket and aviator sunglasses and standing more confidently than Uzu, his giant Bavarian shepherd guide dog, Eckert, 48, gives the impression that he likes a challenge. So after the former carpenter went blind from retinitis pigmentosa six years ago, he did the first thing he wasn't supposed to be able to do.
He became a photographer.
"The idea of a blind guy taking photos just cracked me up," Eckert says as he and Uzu visit Eckert's art photography exhibition at Varnish Fine Art studio on Natoma Street in San Francisco. The exhibition runs through Saturday and he's preparing for another in April at the Badé Museum in Berkeley next month.
About five years ago, when Eckert was still coming to terms with his loss of sight, he was cleaning out a drawer at his Sacramento home and found a camera with infrared settings. He thought about how invisible wavelengths might influence a blind person trying to use the camera. A lightbulb came on in his head, and it made him smile.
"I'd have my wife and my friends take me out in the middle of the night so I could shoot photographs," Eckert says. "Of course, they thought I was crazy, which was fine by me."
It wasn't the first time someone took Eckert for a nut.
Eckert was 28 when he was deemed legally blind, meaning that, from 20 feet, he could see less than what a person with perfect vision could see from 400 feet.
"At first, I freaked out," Eckert says. "I had two immediate fears: that I wouldn't be able to take care of myself and that I wouldn't make any money."
Eckert spent the next decade earning several degrees, including one each in sculpture and ceramics at the Art Institute of Boston and one in design and industry from San Francisco State. He also became a black belt in tae kwon do.
He was so good in the self-defense arts that he started to teach a class. When some of his students didn't believe that he could fight at full speed, Eckert picked a few of the more experienced troublemakers in the class and scheduled a day to spar. To prepare for the match, Eckert memorized the room. He took mental notes of how sounds bounced off each corner and where light and warmth entered into his blind picture. He kicked the students' butts.
"If I can learn this much about one room," Eckert says he thought, "why not do the same in the rest of the world?"
Eckert implemented that idea directly into his photography. With his brain rewired in a way that light allows him to see the skeletal structure of parts of his body, Eckert says, he paints with light and navigates through touch while listening to sounds.
"Imagination fills in the details," he says.
After completing a photo shoot, Eckert develops contact sheets, has friends give verbal feedback and then memorizes each print before choosing the final slide. Sometimes he draws on the film to add effects. He credits Time- Life Books on camera techniques and some very friendly and very patient experts at his local camera store for helping him fine-tune his craft.
He often returns to places that he frequented when he was younger and could still see well.
"Saloon" was shot at the old Saloon on Grant Avenue in North Beach, once a favorite hangout. Relying on his hazy memories of past drinking days, Eckert entered the Saloon, scoped out a spot in the back and waited for tourists to fill up the bar and create sounds of the room. He then snapped the pictures in about the same time it took to drink a Manhattan.
Blind photography is not a gimmick to Eckert.
"My pictures make you question the limits blind people face," Eckert says as gallery visitors admire the work without realizing that the blind man standing nearby is the artist. "Look. I'm competing with sighted artists."
So what's next? Driving a car?
"No way. I only ride motorcycles," he says seriously. "But just in my backyard."
You can become blind by seeing each day as
You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It's just a matter of paying attention to this miracle. --Paulo Cohelo
Friday, October 06, 2006
Between stimulus and response, there is a space.
Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. --Viktor Frankl
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
The discovery of song and the creation of musical instruments
The discovery of song and the creation of musical instruments both owed their origin to a human impulse which lies much deeper than conscious intention: the need for rhythm in life ... the need is a deep one, transcending thought, and disregarded at our peril. --Richard Baker
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