Planet Empathy Is People Empathy

The video at the bottom of this post is unavoidably set to autoplay, so before I commence this post may I request you pay attention to the hired commercial messaging that the PR person is repeating from an earlier prepared script? He's telling you the 'water is clean'. Never mind about the damned millions of fish dead in the harbour. That's what commercialism does. Changes the subject....Now on to my post.

No software or pair of sneakers is going to enlighten the human spirit enough for us to elevate ourselves to a point where we can prevent the poisoning of the oceans that is now leading to whales and dolphins beaching themselves, fish turning up dead in their millions in harbours around the world and birds falling from the skies.

I have no personal issue with any of you who are locked in to a career of consumer materialism to pay bills and plan for the future. My argument is with consumer materialism and the stupidity of banking (planning?) on a future that isn't there. You may not be responsible for the system but until you break away from it the only important question to ask yourself is 'are you part of the problem or part of the solution?'.

And let's face it. Between you and I, even going out of your way to make an appallingly bad ad isn't going to make a damn bit of difference. That's how capitalism works. Triangulating forces by pitting workers against corporate executives, with capital calling all the shots. I'm all for empathy. But commercialised and selective empathy isn't working out.

Did The Coca-Cola Recipe Just Go Open Source?

I love Coca-cola and have worked on their business in Asia. It's one of my favourite drinks and yet like McDonalds it's a brand I've tried to persuade of their potential for doing more good in the world than just sugared water/fast food. Their distribution in some cases is better than the United Nations world health organisation (WHO). It's a no brainer when selling the vitamins in sugared juice to suggest that instead of shouting about giving vitamins to healthy Hong Kong and Chinese kids who don't really need it, that instead Coca-cola could own the idea of distributing those vitamins to much more needy and remote places where Coca-cola merchandising makes it but essentials don't.

However I think the days of grasping great opportunities like that are over as we increasingly see that one after another the closely guarded secrets of 20th century material capitalism emerge into the daylight. Case in point is Coco-cola's secret recipe which may have just gone open source. A point not without irony when when noting the radio show it occurred on. This American life.

In case you're wondering about the above graphic, I have mentioned before that Coca-cola won where the U.S. marines failed in Vietnam. If that's still obscure for the younger ones out there here's the original seminal  Chief of Police Nguyen Ngoc Loan execution picture.  Another U.S. ideological warfare casualty.

The Lost Gospels - The Vatican's War Against Enlightenment

The Roman Empire Catholic Church through the Vatican has pursued a vicious and ugly agenda over millennia including anti-nature, anti-women anti-mystery and pro-ignorance. The Gospels that were chopped out of the Bible are by definition of their censored status, more important than the one's retained. This documentary like the Da Vinci code doesn't hold back on talking about the sexual relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. In the gospels removed from history this Jesus is unrecognisable from the white skinned, hand lotion McJesus sold by Rome. The Vatican then portrayed the image of Mary as a whore when by many accounts she was Jesus' equal.

This was not widely know even ten years ago.