Category: News

You should save your receipts. I have a great system. I stuff them all into my back pocket. Then, before I wash my pants, I pull them out and let them gather in a pile on my desk. Then, as the pile spills over onto my keyboard, I throw them in the garbage. It’s not quite when I had in mind when I drew up the system. As with most tasks, getting organized is easier when you do it all digitally. It’s one reason why I’m starting to use ProOnGo Expense. It’s an application that makes it easy to save receipts while still throwing them away.

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Every year people are lost because others did not know how to help, don’t let this be you. Teach your children today how to respond if there is an emergency near them.

It is important to teach your kids when and when not to call 9-1-1. Share with them reasons they may call and make sure they know that this number is not something to joke around about. No calling just because they get grounded, etc. My son did that when he was 5 or 6 years old, his preschool teacher only told them to call 9-1-1 when they got in trouble.

Why call 9-1-1:
– a fire
– someone has got hurt badly
– someone is passed out
– someone is unresponsive
– stranger trying to come in the house
– kidnapping, etc

Make sure they know what falls under an emergency, but more important if there is someone in the family with some type of medical issue then they too should know how to help that family member just in case they need to help one day.

Imagine someone dropping to the ground from a heart attack. Would you kid know to drop a Bayer aspirin (low dose) under their tongue and to call 9-1-1? I discussed this with mine today after their dad started complaining about heart pain and shortness of breath. I now have a bottle of it in my purse.

Here’s a few stories of children thinking quickly:

– 5 year old saves her daddy’s life. This little girl called 9-1-1 when her dad went into a diabetic shock. When help came this little girl even looked out a window to make sure it was help and not just some random stranger, so as you can see she knew exactly what to do.

– 10 year old finds mom unconscious on floor, unsure what happened he quickly dials 9-1-1 and saves her life. He was given an award this past week. Congratulations not only to this boy but his mom.

– Two 10 year old girls save toddler from icy water – two little girls just saved a toddler that fell through the ice. One ran to call 911 and one got an adult to help her fish him out. It is important that children know that ice is very tricky and should be very careful on it or around it.

Hopefully your child doesn’t need to use any of these, but just in case wouldn’t it be nice to know they knew what to do?

Post from: Blisstree

Teach Your Kids to Respond to Emergencies

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell said he is “not sure we will ever have a table-games bill” come next month.

The state desperately needs the casino-related bill to pass in order to draw in more revenue and create 1000 new jobs.

Inquirer:

Gov. Rendell yesterday upped the ante in his bid to balance the state budget, saying that without a table-games bill he would have to close the State Museum of Pennsylvania and some state parks in addition to laying off at least 1,000 more government employees.

The bill – the final unresolved part of the state budget the governor signed in October after a 101-day impasse – would bring in $250 million in license fees and taxes that Rendell said is necessary to keep the government running.

“I’m not sure we will ever have a table-games bill,” said Rendell.

Read more >

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Just In Time: Dubai Opens $8.5 Billion Casino In Vegas
• Clinton’s Plea: Buy A Web Ad In Pennsylvania
• Meet The Man Who Blew $127 Million And Most Of His Family’s Fortune Gambling In Vegas

As we finish up the year, I’m really pleased with the progress the Startup Visa gang is making.  I started thinking about, writing, and working on this on 9/10/09 when I wrote the post The Founders Visa Movement.  One quarter later, we’ve:

• Put together a core group of entrepreneurs, angels, and VCs who are working on this.
• Received a tremendous amount of positive feedback from entrepreneurs and investors who have struggled with this issue.
• Verified that this is a real issue, there is no current solution under the existing visa system, and even though there are plenty of immigration lawyers who say “no problem, I can get around this”, there aren’t clean solutions.
• Engaged with a number of Congressmen in both the house and the senate.
• Found a member of the house who is sponsoring a bill addressing the issue.
• Talking to several folks on the senate side to find a sponsor.
• Codified a first clean draft of language around this.
• Build lots of grassroots support and enthusiasm.
• Gotten plenty of discussion going in the blogosphere and mainstream media.

Shortly after I started talking to people in Congress about this it became clear that this wouldn’t be a 2009 legislative issue given the massive financial and health care reform issues being worked on in Congress.  So – we decided to use Q409 to “figure this out” with a goal of launching aggressively in Q110 with the goal of having this be part of whatever immigration reform activity happens next year, especially in the context of a renewed push for job creation activity in the US.

In addition to the Startup Visa OpEd that Paul Kedrosky and I wrote and published in the Wall Street Journal, several other high profile thinkers have written great essays on this issue.

The Startup Visa And Why The Xenophobes Need To Go Back Into Their Caves: Vivek Wadhwa (Visiting Scholar at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke University) wrote a great piece in TechCrunch.

Immigrant Scientists Create Jobs and Win Nobels: Susan Hockfield (MIT President) wrote a WSJ OpEd that – while not talking directly about the Startup Visa – clearly supports that overall effort and also reinforces my belief that any graduate with an advanced degree from a US college or university should get a green card stapled to his diploma.

While there are plenty of other articles in the mainstream media swirling around, ones in CNN Money such as Want to create jobs?  Import entrepreneurs does a good job of laying it all out.

Many of you have asked how you can get involved.  Look for a variety of easy ways to do this in Q1.  And – a huge thank you for everyone out there that has helped in any way so far.  In the mean time, feel free to add to the Wikipedia page of American Startups with Immigrant Founders.

Après des mois de négociations,Ford vient de confirmer avoir trouvé un accord pour la vente de Volvo au chinois Geely,accord qui devrait être signé d’ici mars.

Après l’accélération vécue ces derniers jours par le dossier Saab,c’est donc au tour de l’autre scandinave,Volvo,lui aussi mis en vente par sa maison mère américaine,de voir son sort se dessiner.

Ce matin déjà la télévision suédoise et le Financial Times annonçaient que les négociations pourraient aboutir aujourd’hui.Selon Ford,lorsque les dernières questions financières et administratives auront été réglées,Volvo passera entièrement sous le contrôle de Geely.Soit au deuxième trimestre de cette année.Ford en aura donc fini de ces interminables négociations,la vente de Volvo s’étant révélée bien plus complexe pour la firme américaine que celle de Jaguar et Land Rover à l’indien Tata.

C’est l’air de rien une grande première,puisque c’est le premier constructeur occidental de renom à passer sous la coupe d’un industriel du nouveau géant économique chinois.Sur ce terrain,la politesse leur avait été grillée par l’Inde,avec Jaguar et Land Rover donc.L’inde dont on sous-estime souvent la montée en puissance en se focalisant sur la Chine.

Geely s’est imposé malgré les autres propositions en lice,notamment des cadres de Volvo et élus suédois.Pas étonnant puisque Ford en faisait son favori officiel depuis octobre.L’américain recevra donc 2 milliards de $ du chinois qui l’aideront bien dans cette période troublée pour lui.

Ceci dit,une fois de plus les génies de la finance américains ont fait fort; Volvo a été acheté plus du triple par Ford il y a 10 ans tout juste.Mais quand on voit l’état de délabrement des filiales de GM,comme Saab,ou celles qui ont disparu,Pontiac et Saturn (en cours),on ne peut pas jeter la pierre à Ford,du moins si on n’en a qu’une en main…d’autres ont fait pire et Volvo,fort d’une gamme cohérente et originale,n’est pas en miettes comme Saab.

On ne sait pas ce qu’il va advenir maintenant  de la marque suédoise,Geely précisera certainement ses intentions dans les semaines et mois à venir.On imagine bien entendu que la méfiance sera de rigueur chez les employés de Volvo.D’une part,la vision de l’homme dans l’entreprise en Suède est à l’exact opposé de ce qu’elle est en Chine,et d’autre part,la délocalisation ne peut que faire planer son ombre sur l’avenir de la marque.

D’un point de vue commercial non plus,pas de pistes.Volvo va-t’elle se concentrer sur de nouveaux marchés au premier rang desquels la Chine,ou sur ses marchés traditionnels? Par ailleurs,sur ces derniers marchés,comment sera vécue par la clientèle le passage de leur marque fétiche sous la coupe chinoise?

Excellente affaire potentielle en tout cas pour le chinois.Excellente parce que Volvo est une marque mondialement reconnue sur le segment « premium »,qu’on y pratique une culture de la qualité et de l’innovation dont on ne pourra que s’inspirer chez Geely qui a 30 ans de retard dans ce domaine,si ce n’est plus,excellente enfin pour le réseau de distribution bien implanté dans les pays qui comptent.Potentielle car Volvo n’est pas une grande habituée des bénéfices…

Coup dur au moral des suédois qui en deux semaines voient passer 75% de leur industrie automobile sous la coupe chinoise; Volvo et la moitié de Saab.Quant-aux 25% restants,on sera vite fixés maintenant.Si toutefois il en reste quelquechose dans 10 jours.

–> Retrouvez les dernières nouvelles de Saab ici

Nouveau: pour profiter facilement et rapidement des notifications de nouveautés sur le site,pensez à vous abonner via Twitter.Chaque modification,nouvel article ou nouvelle vidéo sur notre chaîne Youtube,fait l’objet d’un Tweet immédiat!

 

This time of year, you see a lot of “best of the decade” or “best of the year” lists, and of course we take part as well.

Among the most striking we’ve seen is this one at China Daily on the Top 10 Real Estate Debacles Of 2009.

The funny thing about it is that China’s property market is experiencing a monster boom.

A list from the US would be all about the various commercial real estate deals gone bad — Stuy-Town, The Union Square W, etc. — but there it’s all about the toll of a country that’s gone mad, building as much property as it can, as fast as it can.

So the stories are about peasants lighting themselves on fire to protect their homes, or, of course, the infamous Chinese apartment building that just fell sideways, because the construction was so shoddy.

Anyway, if you have the time, you really should read through the list of stories >

(Image via ChinaDaily)

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• AGAIN: Chinese Man Self-Immolates To Protest Eviction
• Chinese Lady Self-Immolates To Protest Destruction Of Her Home
• Shanghai Redefines Subprime Construction: Building Just Falls Over

Any type of surgery has its risks, even so-called minor surgeries. But some surgeries are riskier than others and even more so for certain groups of people.

Seniors, those aged 65  years or older, often undergo surgery for various ailments that have either been neglected over time or have developed over the years. And, as the population ages, more surgeries will be done in that age group. According to a study just published in the Archives of Surgery, every year, approximately two million seniors have abdominal surgery.

Abdominal surgeries, any type of surgery that involves the abdomen, are particularly risky for seniors, say researcher from the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, Washington. The researchers were looking at complication and death rates of 101,318 seniors who underwent common abdominal procedures such as cholecystectomies (gall bladder removal), hysterectomies (removal of the uterus) and colectomies (removal of part of the colon).

Seniors often have multiple medical problems, which could add to surgery risk, and the researchers point out that the seniors may also have a lower ability to tolerate the stress of surgery and any complications that may result. For this reason, the researchers found a complication rate and death rate of:

• 14.6% and 2.5% for patients from 65 to 69 years
• 16.1% and 3.8% for patients from 70 to 74 years
• 18.8% and 6% for patients from 75 to 79 years
• 19.9% and 8.1% for patients from 80 to 84 years
• 22.6%  and 12.6% for patients from 85 to 89 years
• 22.7% and 16.7% for patients who were 90 years or older

~~~

Image: PhotoXpress.com

Post from: Blisstree

Abdominal Surgery Higher Risk for Seniors

Q: I have been told by my mother and others that under no circumstances should seafood be stored directly on ice, but rather that there should always be a barrier (i.e. fish in plastic bags nestled on ice; fish on metal tray on ice), since direct contact with ice/water will degrade the texture of the seafood.

Yet I often encounter seafood placed directly on ice in markets or at the fishmonger. Can you clear this up for me?

Sent by Catherine

Read Full Post

Filed under: Motorsports, Mercedes-Benz

All clearances given, the BBC is reporting that Michael Schumacher is officially a driver for the Mercedes-Petronas F1 team. The deal is understood to be a one-year agreement, with Schumacher being paid £6.2 million ($9.82M U.S.) and having an open door at the end of the year to carry on if it all works out.

Mercedes is said to have its eye on Sebastian Vettel when his contract is up in 2012. Theoretically then, if Michael remains Michael behind the wheel, he could drive for the Three-Pointed Star and collect trophies, and perhaps Championships, until then. That’s an immense theoretical, however: Prost and Lauda took time off, came back, and won the whole show again; Jacques Villeneuve, well, not so much.

And as much as Ferrari respects the times it had with Schumacher, we have a feeling Luca di Montezemolo has already called Alonso to tell him, “You know what you have to do…” On the other hand, if Alonso doesn’t work out at Ferrari, and Michael does well and only has a one-year deal with Mercedes…

[Source: BBC | Image: Clive Mason/Getty]

He’s Back: Schumacher reportedly signs with Mercedes-Benz F1 for 2010 originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I used to write a blog called Offbeat Homes, which was awesome fun, especially at Christmas because I’d highlight kooky crazy gingerbread homes. I sort of miss that so I thought I’d post one of the coolest organic homes I featured in years past – the gorgeous organic GingerLotus by one of my old school favorite architects Michelle Kaufmann.

If you’ve got some free time today or tomorrow then this is a special and fun project made with organic goods, and beautiful lines, much like Kaufmann’s real homes were.

If you don’t have quite so much free time on your hands than some good, and still gingery cooking projects include…

• Organic ginger snap cookies
• Vegan Honeypot Ginger Cookie
• Organic Gingerbread
• Vegan Chocolate Pumpkin Gingerbread
• Apple and Ginger Cake – use organic apples!

PS – if you’re interested in seeing those kooky gingerbread homes I mentioned, then no worries, because I’ve gathered them up below. You will be blown away by these tiny structures so take a look!

• The World’s Best Offbeat Gingerbread Homes
• Offbeat Gingerbread Homes 2008 – Part One
• Offbeat Gingerbread Homes 2008 – Part Two

Post from: Blisstree

Bake an Organic Gingerbread Lotus House

Digital Inspiration is an oft-linked blog here at Lifehacker, and its author is a very savvy digital worker. That said, Amit Agarwal learned a lot about safety precautions when both his Gmail and Google Apps accounts were hacked into.

Agarwal’s not entirely sure about how his accounts were broken into, given that he had strong passwords on them. After a few moments’ panic and some back-and-forth with the Google team, he regained control over his accounts. If he had to go through it again, he’d wish he had a whole bunch of backup and verification procedures on hand. Here’s one item that jumped out at us, despite having gone through a similar experience, as something neither we nor most Google/Gmail users probably have ready:

#3. Take a paper and write down the following information about your Google Account. You will need this to verify your identify to Google in case someone else takes over your Google Account and the secondary email address associated with your account.

* The month and year when your created your Gmail / Google Account.
* If you created a Gmail account by invitation, write the email address of the person who first sent you that invite for Gmail.
* The email addresses of your most frequently emailed contacts (the top 5).
* The names of any custom labels that you may have created in your Gmail account.
* The day/month/year when you started using various other Google services (like AdSense, Orkut, Blogger, etc.) that are associated with the Google account that you are trying to recover. If you’re not certain about some of the dates, provide your closest estimate.

Be sure to read the full Digital Inspiration post for more tips and advice on preparing for, and recovering from, hacked Google accounts, and share your own hack/spam recovery experiences in the comments.

More information [Digital Inspiration]

Talk of the euro replacing the dollar has diminished lately, what with the realization that Euro Area economies face massive financial risks of their own.

Bloomberg: “If you start having serious problems credit wise with the likes of Spain, then the issue for the euro’s credibility and its pricing against other currencies becomes a much bigger issue,” O’Neill said in an interview with Bloomberg Radio in New York today.

Thus it's interesting that Russia and China are now investigating the Canadian dollar as a U.S. dollar alternative.

Business Week: Canada’s Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said China, with the world’s largest currency reserves of $2.3 trillion, may be poised to buy Canadian dollars as it seeks to shield its reserves against the U.S. dollar’s decline.

“It does not surprise me that China and Russia would take greater positions in the Canadian dollar than they have previously,” Flaherty, 59, said during an interview in his office in Ottawa. “I would expect countries looking around the world to invest in market currencies that are reliable.”

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• The Euro Breakup Will Be THE Story Of 2010, As Analyst Expects Ireland And Greece To Leave The Union
• Time Bomb For The Euro: Greek Debt Poses Threat To The Common Currency
• Skype's Niklas Zennstrom Pitches VC Firm, Bullish On Euro Startups

Crude oil futures neared $75 a barrel ahead of an expected decline in U.S. oil inventories, Bloomberg reports.

China makes another move to ensure energy supplies, signing a deal with Venezuela to help develop offshore oil fields, in the WSJ. With Iraqi elections looming, the country has another chance to put its oil wealth at the service of its citizens, writes a former oil minister in the WSJ.

Who was really to blame for the meltdown in Copenhagen? China, without a doubt, says Mark Lynas in an insider’s account of how Beijing sabotaged the climate summit, in The Guardian: “The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful ‘deal’ so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame.”

In any event, the Copenhagen Accord is coming under increasing fire, with the very developing countries who helped draft it now criticizing the agreement, in the FT.

The real lessons from Copenhagen weren’t in the summit, but in Denmark’s ability to chart a new energy course, writes Tom Friedman.

If cleaning up the electricity sector is so hard, why not target oil instead? By focusing on the transportation sector—and expanding the use of alternative fuels—the rich and poor world alike would benefit, in Foreign Policy.

Copenhagen didn’t kill the chances of the climate bill in the U.S. Senate—the health-care debate did. That’s the take from both sides of the aisle (except the always optimistic John Kerry) in Politico.

The clean-tech sector regroups after the disappointment of Copenhagen. Luckily, there are plenty of local, state and national clean-energy policies that could be more important than vague global agreements, in the WSJ.

And the Copenhagen fiasco amounts to a stay of execution for coal-fired utilities, which seem undervalued by the market, in the WSJ.

Finally, Whole Earth founder Stewart Brand talks with Yale’s Environment 360 about the new generation of environmentalists and the allure of nuclear power.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner seems to think job growth will return when the snow has melted and the birds are chirping again.

———————————————-

AP: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says he believes it’s reasonable to expect “positive job growth” by spring and that people should have confidence about an improving economic climate.

In an interview broadcast on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Geithner  also said he believes many banks around the country still have work ahead of them to regain the public’s faith. He said, “They need to work very hard to shore it up” and said he wasn’t certain that “all banks get it.”

Geithner’s stewardship of the Treasury has come in for criticism on occasion. He said Wednesday, “I think most people would say the economy actually is strengthening now going into the end of the year,” but that the key is to regain lost jobs.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Don’t Blame Citigroup For The Latest Outrage–It Was Tim Geithner’s Fault
• Tim Geithner, Meet Your Replacement
• Half Of State Unemployment Programs Are Broke

Marbridge Daily reports that Zhang Zhijiang, GM of China Unicom’s technology division revealed that China Unicom is buying twice as many Windows Mobile handsets for 2010 that iPhones.

The announcement was made at the 2010 Communications Industry Technology Annual Conference currently underway in Beijing, where he said 8% of their 3G handset procurements will be Windows Mobile handsets, while 4% will be iPhones.

China Unicom is the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in China, where the handset has been rumoured to be struggling to hit sales targets.

Read more at Marbridge Consulting here.

It’s now official, the final release of Firefox 3.6, the next iteration of the open source browser from Mozilla has slipped into the coming year.

Download Firefox Beta 3.6 [Mozilla]

After having a few conversations yesterday about the Startup Visa, I realized that I never posted the Wall Street Journal OpEd on the Startup Visa that Paul Kedrosky and I wrote and had published on 12/2/09.  I don’t know the rules about reposting OpEd’s – I assume that since we wrote it I can republish it.  If that’s not true, I’m sure some one will tell me.  In the mean time, here it is:

Start-up Visas Can Jump-Start the Economy

Immigrant entrepreneurs are an engine of jobs and growth. We need more of them.

While fast-growing companies have long been the main source of new jobs and innovation, this country makes it outrageously difficult for immigrants to launch new companies here. This doesn’t make any sense. After all, Google, Pfizer, Intel, Yahoo, DuPont, eBay and Procter & Gamble are all former start-ups founded by immigrants. Where would this country be today without their world-changing innovations?

Immigrants have not only founded big, well-known companies. Foreign-born residents made up just 12.5% of the U.S. population in 2008. But nearly 40% of technology company founders and 52% of founders of companies in Silicon Valley.

Yet we don’t seem to care. We send recent, foreign-born university science and engineering graduates back to their own countries after their student visas expire—unless these creative sorts are willing to spend some of the most entrepreneurial years of their lives working in a big company under an H-1B visa after they finish their studies.

For those who studied elsewhere, but who nonetheless want to bring their job-creating ideas here, American policies treat them—the job-creating, trouble-making innovators that they are—as a cross between deadbeats and queue-jumpers. Why can’t they wait in line like everyone else to get a visa in five years or so? What’s their hurry?

Their hurry is Joseph Schumpeter’s hurry: They want to hustle out and disrupt markets when the opportunity arises.

In the 21st century those opportunities don’t wait for our interminable, employment-based visa programs. As a result rather than saying "Come and create jobs here" we, in effect, tell them to shove off. Come back when you have a few million in sales— at which point they will be rooted elsewhere and creating jobs somewhere else.

That needs to end now. Immigrants who come here to create companies create jobs. We need the jobs.

One good idea to make this process easier is to create a new visa for entrepreneurs, something that is increasingly being called by venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and angel investors a "start-up visa." It might work like this: If immigrant entrepreneurs want to start a company in the U.S. and are able to raise a moderate amount of money (perhaps as little as $125,000) from an accredited U.S.-based venture capital firm or qualified U.S.-based angel investors, we should let them start a company here. It could be a couple of founders with an idea—that’s it. We would give visas to the founders and welcome them in to our country.

Would it work every time? Of course not. It would fail more often than not. Start-ups often fail.

But having failed, the immigrant entrepreneurs could try again, and again. And as long as they are trying, raising money, creating jobs, and making sales, we would let them stay here. Founders of new companies are precious for a vibrant economy, and we should welcome them. Indeed, the country would be better served to find more of them.

Some will say a start-up visa program will be abused. They will say that it will become a way to end-run immigration rules, to jump the queue if you have money.

There are at least two answers to these objections. First, to get such a visa you would have to raise money from real investors. Second, Canada and other countries already allow entrepreneurs to start a company in their country. Shouldn’t the U.S. stop worrying so much about keeping these people out, and start worrying about bringing them in?

We also think science and engineering graduates should get visas stapled to their diplomas. You complete your higher education here, you get to stay so that you can get out and create jobs, innovate, and grow the economy. Uncle Sam wants you, if you’re a prospective entrepreneur.

The U.S. remains one of the most attractive countries for entrepreneurs. It has a culture of risk taking, capital formation, and an economic dynamism that is the envy of the world. This gives us a competitive edge that we should not let slip through our fingers.

Challenging The Past blog (Marsia Sfakianou Bealby)

Current Research in Egyptology XI will be held in Leiden (Netherlands) this year from 5th to 8th January 2010 and the full programme is now available at the above blog site.

One of the principles of anticipating the future correctly, separating out what will happen from what we think-hope-fear will happen, is to consciously factor in the principle that fundamental human needs don’t disappear. They are bundled, interpreted, and served one way in the present, and this may change in a new era as technologies advance and relationships and associations change. But needs are forever. And often the future goes ‘backwards’ to old, archetypal models that served needs before.

Witness the uptake of ‘feudal’ protection in a competitive, recessionary marketplace, where Wal-Mart is offering rental space insde a new Chicago store to neighborhood businesses. Apparently tenants already include a dog groomer and a fried chicken outlet, and Wal-Mart is going to be inviting in barbers, manicurists, and other local small businesses.

Regional general manager Rolando Rodriguez told the NY Times: “We want the same resurgence of the community…”.

It’s not all about community of course. Wal-Mart is seeking counter-PR to endemic criticism (and evidence) that their megastores kill mom-and-pop shops on which many local jobs and services depend, and is hoping the gambit will revive its six-year stalled bid for the city’s approval of proposed Chicago stores.

Anyway, as one observer, Marissa Johnson, said of the new arrangement: “It’s like sharecropping.”

Yes, this is the return of a feudal model. The lord owns the land and the small guy works his patch, offering a regular tribute. And small guys will jump at it because — in the absence of fundamental challenge to an iniquitous system — having the protection of a lord is better than not having it.

Another need that’s not going away, merely being reinterpreted (ironically back to pre-feudal organization) is our need to mark the darkest night of the year with ritual. Yule is the pagan winter solstice rite centered on a December 21 dusk-to-dawn vigil. It was absorbed into Christmas and not widely practiced for centuries. But now, as reported in the big UK media Christmas pregame show, there’s been a great surge in Yule festivities and attendance. By how much depends on who is quoted but nobody is denying the trend — which more or less mirrors the decline in formal Christian Christmas (secular, gift-giving, tree decorating Christmas is alive and well.)

The need is a constant. The rituals will change, often mining the past.

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