Monthly Archives: December 2009

2010 – Year of The Tiger

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New Year’s Eve is upon us in Japan and in our house that means a quiet evening, a bottle of wine and occasional glances at NHK’s annual ‘Red/White’ singing contest on TV. (Susan Boyle is scheduled to sing live during one of the breaks.)

But I won’t be spending hours glued to the screen watching Enka and J-Pop artistes do their thing. Some time’ll be spent kneading the visionary dough for my 2010 goals and beyond.

Speaking of bread, we popped into a very crowded Isetan department store food hall this morning and picked up some delicious bread for this evening’s meal from Andersen’s Danish Bakery.

andersen-bread

The in-store leaflet has a mouthwatering summary of their Christmas bread ideas.

But what really caught my attention was discovering that they’re not Danish at all – this is a Japanese business begun by Mr. Shunsuke Takaki after WW2.

The company’s story is succinctly told on its web site (see the English language section in the link above), where the reader can get a sense of the owner’s vision for Danish bread and lifestyle as time went on.

What I find really visionary about Andersen’s business model is a sentence from the company’s ‘Quality Bakery’ statement:

“No matter how much the world changes, I believe every person strives for improvement and progress in their lives.”

The entire article is worth reading for anyone looking to develop and take action on a vision statement for their own business or life.

“Improvement and progress” can take many forms but I particularly liked how Andersen took their Danish bread business into overseas markets…

… especially into that of Denmark, itself!

Read this link from the Danish government’s “Invest in Denmark” web site (Oct 2011 update: broken link), describing how the “Andersen Bakery (is) exporting the concept back to its ‘spiritual homeland’.”

Food, indeed, for thought.

A Happy New Year to You and Yours.

- Mark McClure

Merry Christmas! We are All Connected…

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“To each other, biologically.

To the Earth, chemically.

To the rest of the universe, atomically.”

For the first time since starting to earn a living in 1982, I’ve worked on Christmas Day. Shock, horror!

But all things considered, it was just fine. Especially, as I was teaching a course on a topic close to my heart – “Science, Society and the Search for Meaning.”

While the movie adaption of Carl Sagan’s riveting novel, “Contact,” formed the centerpiece of this course, we occasionally diverged into areas such as Special Relativity, Religious Fanaticism and the paucity of female role models for aspiring scientists in Hollywood’s commercial world view.

This post opened with a quote from one of the inspiring video clips on John Boswell’s website, symphony of science.

Taken to heart, these three statements could profoundly influence the future of humanity for the better (IMHO), as we enter this second decade of the 21st Century.

- Mark McClure

Volcano Acrostic Poem

Image

Here’s an acrostic poem I wrote a few days ago:
Volcano Acrostic Poem
2009-12-01

Violence from the Underworld
Overcomes the peaceful earth.
Love is melting,
Creating scars of ash and tears.
Actions, once forgotten
New magma erupting
Only cinders whisper here.

Mount Fuji, Japan, dormant volcano, acrostic poem

Mount Fuji, Dormant Volcano, Japan

For a first attempt, I’m quite pleased with it.

But what really delights me is how I was (mostly unconsciously) influenced by the style of the narration in the previous post – Lost Generation.

As a pleasing by-product, try reading the first word of each line from top to bottom.

Kinda, sorta works, doesn’t it?

Only New Actions Creating Love Overcomes Violence

However, going up the page flows nicely:

Only New Actions Creating Love Overcomes Violence.

- Mark McClure