Global Cooling?

Labyrinth in Mendocino built by David Chamberlain, David Singer and Walter -July 24, 2005.

An introduction to Kindness by Piero Ferrucci by His Holiness the Dalai Lama -May 2004 "This is a book after my own heart. Piero Ferrucci has drawn on both his broad experience as a psychotherapist and what I think of as fundamental human values to write on the importance of kindness. What I particularly appreciate about his presentation is that he makes kindness the starting point, the fount from which flow so many other positive qualities, such as honesty, forgiveness, patience, and generosity. It is a compelling and encouraging approach.

I believe that if we stop to think, it is clear that our very survival, even today, depends upon the acts of our birth, we are under the care and kindness of our parents; later in life, when facing the sufferings of disease and old age, we are again dependent on the kindness of others' kindness, why then in the middle, when we have the opportunity, should we not act kindly toward others?

Kindness and compassion are among the principle things that make our lives meaningful. They are a source of lasting happiness and joy. They are the foundation of a good heart, the heart of one who acts out of a desire to help others. Through kindness, and thus, affection, honesty, truth, and justice toward everyone else, we ensure our own benefit. This is a matter of common sense. Consideration for others is worthwhile because our happiness is inextricably bound up with the happiness of others. Similarly, if society suffers, we ourselves suffer. On the other hand, the more our hearts and minds are afflicted with ill will, the more miserable we become. Therefore, we cannot avoid the necessity of kindness and compassion.

On a simple, practical level, kindness creates a sense of warmth and openness that allows us to communicate much more easily with other people. We discover that all human beings are just like us, so we are able to relate to them more easily. That generates a spirit of friendship in which there is less need to hide what we feel or what we are doing. As a result, feelings of fear, self-doubt, and insecurity are automatically dispelled, while at the same time other people find it easier to trust us, too. What is more, there is increasing evidence that cultivating positive mental states like kindness and compassion definitely leads to better psychological health and happiness.

It is tremendously important that we try to make something positive of our lives. We were not born for the purpose of causing trouble and harming others. For our life to be of value, as Piero Ferrucci amply demonstrates here -and I am grateful to him for expressing it so clearly -we need to foster and nurture such basic good human qualities as warmth, kindness, and compassion. If we can do that, our lives will become meaningful, happier and more peaceful; we will make a positive contribution to the world around us."

A leading transpersonal psychologist reveals the unexpected secret to a happy life: behaving with kindness. Piero Ferrucci calls it "global cooling," a phenomenon of chilly human relations. Communications are hurried and impersonal. The drive for profit and wealth has become a cherished value. And warmth and genuine presence have all but dissolved into a sea of materialism and self-interest.

The Power of Kindness is a stirring examination of a simple but profound concept. Piero Ferrucci, one of the world's most respected transpersonal psychologists, explores the many surprising facets of kindness and argues that it is this trait, and this trait alone, which will lead not only to our own individual happiness and the happiness of those around us, but will guide us in a world that has become cold, anxious, difficult, and frightening.

Not an ordinary self-help book, The Power of Kindness is instead a blueprint. Being kind, Ferrucci argues, does not mean becoming a human doormat or a cloying hand servant. And "Heaven save us from the fakes," Ferrucci writes-self-interested politeness, calculated generosity, superficial etiquette, and even kindness against one's will.

Instead, kindness is composed of many elements, including qualities not immediately associated with it: flexibility, honesty, a sense of belonging, gratitude, attention, forgiveness, and more. In eighteen interlocking chapters, each devoted to a single aspect of kindness, Ferrucci moves seamlessly from tales of myth and legend to personal anecdotes to scientific research and philosophical treatises. He reveals that the kindest people are the most likely to thrive, to enable others to thrive, and to slowly but steadily turn our world away from violence, self-centeredness, and narcissism, and toward love. Writing with a rare combination of sensitivity and intellectual depth, Ferrucci shows that, ultimately, kindness is not a luxury in our world, but a necessity for us all.

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In Pursuit of Emptiness: Philanthropic Travel

John Perry Barlow is a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness. - Chuang-Tzu (350 B.C.)

Chuang-Tzu had it right. No more need be said. But such is human nature that the more succinctly we state the truth, the better we become at ignoring it. So, despite the completeness of the above homily, I'll proceed, hoping that my volume may insinuate into your world view what Chuang-Tzu's brevity might not.

Here's what I believe. I believe that extolling the pursuit of happiness was a toxic stupidity entirely unworthy of my greatest American hero, Thomas Jefferson. Indeed, it is a poison that sickens our culture more wretchedly every nanosecond. I wish he'd never said it.

It produces a monstrous, insatiable hunger inside our national psyche that encourages us ever more ravenously to devour all the resources of this small planet, crushing liberties, snuffing lives, feeling ourselves ordained by God and Jefferson to do whatever is necessary to make us happy.

And yet the American people are miserable. Or so it would appear.

A bit of anecdotal evidence (of which I could supply a thousand more examples). At the beginning of this year, my lover Lotte and I decided to start counting the number of spontaneous smiles we might observe in the upscale organic supermarket we frequent in San Francisco.

Since then, we've seen thousands of faces, nearly all of them healthy, beautiful, and very expensively groomed. We have so far counted seven smiles appearing on them. In 11 months. Seven smiles. (And at least three of these were insincere.) I am not kidding about this.

I also spend a lot of time in American airports. The same expression of troubled self - absorption has become a nearly universal mask worn by my people. Rarely do I hear laughter in an airport, despite there being plenty in an airport to laugh about, however darkly.

What am I to think of my people, who, during the year 2000, while feeding at the greatest economic pig trough the world has ever slopped forth, also ate 13.4 billion dollars worth of Prozac and other anti-depressants (up 18% from the preceding year)? Better living through chemistry? I don't think so. Of my legion friends and acquaintances who have become citizens of Prozac Nation. I have never heard any of them claim that these drugs bring them any closer to actual happiness. Rather, they murmur with listless gratitude, anti-depressants have pulled them back from The Abyss. They are not pursuing happiness. They are fleeing suicide.

Actually, it is unfair to single out America in this regard. The pandemic of longing may have started here in the land of infinite possibilities, but it seems to have spread now to every part of the world where industrial economy and the religion of science have taken deep root since Jefferson, Voltaire, Locke, and their other practical colleagues kicked it off a quarter millennium ago.

The smiles per mile rating is only a little higher in Geneva, Brussels, Washington, Paris, or the other capitals of the Rich World than it is in dour San Francisco. But at least the rest of G8 have not declared happiness to be the kind of patriotic obligation it has become in the country literally founded on its pursuit.

Here we suffer the tyranny of fraudulent bonhomie. Big Brother has arrived as the great Smiley Face. I think I probably sensed this early, since I came from a family where nearly everyone drank themselves into oblivion during times like Christmas when happiness was most pathologically pursued.

But not until I turned 30 was it made obvious to me that my wariness of the pursuit of happiness might be a subtle form of treason. Like many of my generation, I hadn't really expected to live to such an age. I really didn't trust anyone over 30 - and remain reluctant to do so even now - but since I was about to be one, I figured I ought to at least take a stab at graceful adulthood. At least it seemed clear that I would no longer be able to excuse my peccadilloes on the basis of youth.

So I spent the night before my 30th Birthday composing a list of advisories to myself that I called "Principles of Adult Behavior." Most of these were blandly inarguable, the sort of platitudes Polonius liked to lay on Hamlet. Stuff like " Expand your sense of the possible." And, "Tolerate ambiguity."

"Avoid the pursuit of happiness. Seek to define your mission and pursue that."

Despite the safely Puritan kicker, this homily actively pissed off the broadest range of folks you can imagine. Whether hippie, cowboy, redneck or debutante, practically everyone who read my list thought there was something threateningly wrong about this. It was... why, it was downright un-American! I even got this from people who were ashamed to be Americans.

Openly agitating against the very pursuit of happiness was considered a sedition of the most insidious hazard. Because nearly everyone feels its weird invisible pressure - driving them to the fatigue that is despair, in order to acquire possessions that possessed them, money that turned their friends monstrous, addictions that turned them monstrous - nearly everyone feels that secret shame of not trying hard enough to be happy.

To have someone tell them they should just stop trying felt like a threat to the oath they'd taken with their lives. They had sworn, sometime during adolescence, that they would pursue happiness, and, by raw will, that they would catch some. When you've sacrificed so much to a creed, having it disappear turns your sacrifices into stolen goods.

So Jefferson's gentle aspiration had become law. The right to do something counter-productive - pursing something that flees in absolute symmetry with your desire, pursuing happiness - had become an obligation, as surely as charity became entitlements. If we were not pursing happiness - whatever the hell that meant to whom-the-hell-ever - we were not part of the Great Work of America.

Yet even as happiness became our American due, the inner sense that we deserve to be happy seems to have generally withered. Kant spoke of "making ourselves worthy of happiness." It seems to me a rare American who behaves as if he has done so.

I don't know where the disease arises, but I think there's an epidemic of self-loathing in this country that is, besides the folly of the pursuit itself, the greatest barrier to contentment in most hearts. I can't count the number of people I've known whose misery amidst plenty seemed to be a suspicion of joy rooted so deeply in their personalities that it had to have been planted during infancy. It's not simply the sensible awareness of cycles - that the natural price of magic is tragedy and that life actually is fair. If only it were that wise.

Rather it seems a sense of one's own unremembered original sin, the hazy belief that by failing some early test in life, the wretch has made himself forever unworthy of any earthly paradise he might accumulate around himself. I've had two friends commit suicide rather than accept their own successes, and I'm sure there are more of their kind out there.

Get over it. No matter how bad you are, you deserve some happiness. Just don't consider it either a right or an obligation.

Let me be clear. I like happiness. Hell, I think I am happy most of the time. (I know. Most Americans, when polled, will tell you the same thing, but I look happy most of the time, which cannot be said of most Americans.)

And when I'm happy, why am I happy?

Never because I pursued it. Rather because I let it pursue me. To me, it seems that the more you ignore it, the more it will come looking. Swami Satchidananda put it better:

"If you run after things, nothing will come to you. Let things run after you. The sea never sends an invitation to the rivers. That's why they run to the sea. The sea is content. It doesn't want anything. That's the secret in life."

I'm not sure what would happen to our economy if everyone took this dictum to heart, but I have a feeling it might come to look like Satchidananda's. But would that be as bad as it sounds? While I'm not ready to move to India, my experiences in Africa make me wonder if I wouldn't be happier moving there.

I've spent a lot of time in Africa over the last several years and, wherever I go in that supposedly dark continent, I am continuously amazed by how happy most people seem to be. Despite living with pandemic AIDS, starvation, filth, disease, and ghoulish little wars where children dismember one another, most Africans grin and wave as I pass through their villages. They seem to mean it, too. They would probably not have a similar experience were they to pass through our suburbs.

The apparent happiness of Africans, against all horror, seems to derive from a sense of connectedness, or as the Zulu put it, "ubunto." This word is often translated to mean community, but one of them gave me what I think is a more accurate definition: "I am because we are; we are because I am."

In other words, their pursuit of happiness seems more successful than ours because it is not a solitary endeavor. African happiness is a joint enterprise, something that can only be created by the whole. I am happy because we are happy. Much contentment arises from a sense of family, community, and connectedness.

Such virtues are in dwindling supply in America. Two thirds of all our first marriages end in divorce. The war between children and parents has never been uglier (since it is now concealed, rather than public as it was in the '60's). We think AOL and the local mall are communities. We think that Disney, the corporation, is a story-teller. And, to the extent, we are connected at all, it is largely by mass media like television, which, as Bertrand Russell pointed out, "allows thousands of people to laugh at the same joke and still remain alone."

Imagine an evening spent peering through the suburban windows of America. Think of the faces you would behold within, lit pale by the flickering blue bath of electrons Big Content blasts out for their "entertainment." Slack-jawed and silent, one hand gripping a Bud, the other in a bag of Fritos, they watch other "people" pass through contrived "ordeals" and imagine themselves pursuing happiness.

But they are not pursuing happiness. They are seeking what I call The Zone, a mental and emotional condition where nothing happens. Nothing can happen except for the most rudimentary necessities of life and manufactured entertainment. When Zoned, they are left alone. They are being granted a twisted kind of peace.

By this I don't mean that The Zone is a halcyon and serene mental condition. It's only correspondence to those states aspired to by Oriental mystics is outward dispassion. It's more like being in an iron lung than any condition you'd achieve by sitting Zazen. Rather than being detached from the illusory world of perceptions, one is painfully separated from a world which seems quite real. Absolutely no one likes being in The Zone. What's peculiar is that not only do we allow it to exist, we encourage it in practically every venue of our lives, whether it be in our workplace cubicles, our commuting cars, our Sisyphean Stair-Masters, our Generican landscaped landscapes.

While Zoned, one is under no obligation to care about anything more enduring than, say, who wins the football game, and it appears that many of us would rather not.

If we can't entertain ourselves into happiness, what about buying it? I skirted the issue earlier, but I suppose that something does need to be said about wealth and happiness. After all, Jefferson's dangerous statement of the essential liberties was preceded by John Locke's "Life, Liberty, and Property." Given the similarity of these two phrases, it's only natural that a certain conflation would take place. And it has.

Almost everyone in American seems to regard wealth and happiness as though they were practically interchangeable. Even the wise Bessie Smith is reported to have said, "I been rich and I been poor, and let me tell you, Honey, rich is better." Maybe. But let's define our terms.

If, as I suspect, she was talking about dirt poor vs. modestly rich, I would agree with her. But most Americans in pursuit of material happiness are attempting to move from modest poverty to filthy riches, and, having watched scores of my friends come down with what Stewart Brand calls "toxic wealth" over the last decade, I wouldn't trade places with any of them. (Not even now, when my own recent wealth has evaporated...) I feel I have enough money to stave off terror, but hardly enough to put me in the grip of paranoid anomie and the paralysis of purpose that seems to have afflicted most of them. And I never have to wonder whether anyone actually loves me for my money.

I suspect that the greatest benefit of the DotBoom and subsequent DotBust will turn out to be that more people have experienced great and ephemeral wealth at an early age than ever before in history. There is now among us a very large number of young people who know the emptiness that can only come from three Porsches in the garage and two bimbos in the bed. There are a lot of smart kids who are now more dedicated to making a difference than making a dollar. At least most of them now know, in a deep way, that money doesn't buy happiness.

Alright then, if you can't pursue happiness, how can you make yourself a fertile place for happiness to grow of its own? Happiness being the most subjective of states, I can only speak for myself. I have found four qualities that I believe naturally enrich the ecology of joy. When I'm capable of sustaining them, they sustain me and continue to do so even in these strange days. They are: a sense of mission, the casual service of others, the solace of little delights, and finally, love for its own sake.

Having a sense of mission has served me extremely well, even better than I thought it would when I wrote Adult Principle Number 15 and bound myself to purpose rather than its by-product. Often I would have been hard-pressed to define mine and it has certainly taken on many different manifestations in the course of my careers, but I have taken a lot of happiness from a sense - often grandiose and sometimes illusory - that I am, by my various actions, helping create a future that will be more free, more tolerant, more open, and more just.

My primary ambition is to be a good ancestor, and though, by definition, I will never know if I've succeeded, I am pleased to believe that I'm giving it my best shot.

Connected to the happiness of mission is another joy that can no more be pursued than grace itself: the gift of creation. I've been blessed by the opportunity to let art pass through me on occasion. Whether songs, or essays, or interestingly designed haystacks, these manifestations of beauty, for which I take no more credit than the faucet should take for the water, have been wonderful gifts.

The sense that one has become the instrument of invention is so satisfying that I find it truly stupefying that anyone one would claim that artists are motivated to create primarily by the money they might get from such miracles. Not to say they shouldn't be paid. Paying them provides them with more time and liberty to channel art. But it's a rare artist who's in it for the money. A real artist creates because he has no choice. He is pressed into the involuntary service of art, and thereby, humanity.

Which brings me to another solace cheaply available to all. Consider the joys of service. As a few leaders, ranging from Jimmy Carter to the Dalai Lama, demonstrate with their lives, we can become happy through the exercise of compassion. But following the training we receive in schools and workplaces, we have come to regard service as self-suppressing obligation rather than a self-fulfilling responsibility. It doesn't have to be that way.

I think a related problem is that we tend to approach service the same way we approach exercise programs, in lunges and spasms of temporary idealism. We raise the initial bar too high. We fail to see that they also serve who, while not quite heading off to Calcutta to comfort dying lepers, merely treat the strangers miscellaneously at hand with a little humor and kindness. You don't have to be Gandhi to be a good guy. There are few things that make me happier than successfully resisting the impulse to snarl at some idle transgressor and elevating myself into an actively benign stance. Such opportunities arise almost hourly. (Not that I always rise to them.) The habit of small kindnesses is immensely rewarding.

Which brings me to another under-appreciated fountain of happiness: the common little joys the universe leaves lying around for the truly casual observer. I think of something Kafka - that noted happiness-hound - wrote:

"It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet."

He is not talking about the pursuit of happiness. He's not even talking, as one might easily and incorrectly conclude, about lying in wait for happiness. He's talking about making oneself genuinely available to it. He is talking about opening one's senses to the little delights - the sunsets, the lilac-scented breezes, the hilarious bartender jokes, the quick flash of anonymous smiles, the inside straights, the large purring cats, the click of stiletto heels, the popping of bubble-wrap, the liquid song of the meadowlark, the shrug of a New York cop - the granular texture of unsolicited joy. There have been many hard times in my life - including the present - when I took refuge in reduced focus, comforting myself with the glorious filigree of immediate existence. Even a man facing a firing squad can appreciate the dawn that also arrays itself before him.

Finally, and always, there is love. By this, I don't mean that economic bargain that often passes for love these days. I don't mean that I will love you if you get good grades, or that I will love you if you'll sleep with me, or that I will love you ifŠanything. I mean what I mean when I say, "I love you." Period. Without expectation, condition, term limit, codicil, or obligation. To say that - and to mean it in that way - makes me happy.
What makes me happiest of all is when someone says "I love you" to me - meaning it as unconditionally as I intend to mean it - and I simply accept it. Learning to accept unconditional love has been the most demanding part of my education. It requires me to love myself as much as I am loved, which is not easy, since I like to pretend that my loathsome short-comings are invisible to all but me. Still, when I love without goal and accept love without doubt, I am happy. In this, I am not pursuing happiness. I am becoming it.

- John Perry Barlow

(A shorter version appeared in the December 2001 Forbes ASAP.)

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I just wanted you to know about it: Philanthropic Travel

War is the antithesis of Philanthropic Travel -David Chamberlain

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." -Thomas Paine.

"In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together." - President Eisenhower - January 1961

You shall not murder. -Ten Commandments

"Raw and unadorned! A live hand grenade brought home from a distant battlefield."
- David M. Halbfinger, New York Times

'That Is Not What I Meant At All': Negotiation Project researchers ease difficult everyday conversations -HARVARD GAZETTE

The Seattle Times came out with an editorial calling for Watada's conviction. Lt. Watada faces not only charges of missing movement but also several "Conduct Unbecoming" charges stemming from speeches he gave. It has been a while in America since somebody went to jail for giving a speech, but that is the situation with Lt. Watada. Give a speech, go to jail. One of the "criminal" speeches he is charged with giving was to a veterans convention. We start off with that speech. You be the judge; hear the speech and decide if a crime was committed. I sincerely doubt if the editors at the Seattle Times who called for Watada's conviction had even heard the speech, or seen it in print. Yet there they were--aping, chanting for a conviction like a Greek chorus of harpies. We present the speech, uncut. Be inspired, we were. http://www.thankyoult.org http://www.couragetoresist.org

We follow this up with footage from the FTA tours that occurred in the early 70s. Donald Sutherland, Jane Fonda, Holly Near, Country Jo McDonald, and others who I can't think of right now toured throughout the Pacific, performing for thousands of soldiers at each stop. I helped organize one of these shows, and it was truly a high point in my life to be in an auditorium, filled with thousands of American GIs all singing "We love Ho Chi Minh." It was sort of like GIs today singing we love Saddam, except there WAS something to love in Ho Chi Minh. Nonetheless, it was a rare moment in human history, to have so many soldiers clearly identify with the so-called "enemy." There was a different song from those shows, sung by Rita Martinson that we are including on "Indymedia Presents #235," called "Soldier We Love You." I hear that the song can be found on the new version of the "Sir! No Sir!" DVD. I didn't take it from there, but rather from a tape one of the producers gave me for safe-keeping years ago. For many years this material was not available at all except from copies of the tape this producer had surreptitiously made to preserve the legacy of the FTA Show. The soldiers of the Viet Nam generation DID stop the war. If the soldiers of Watada's generation can do the same, it might as Lt. Watada says in his speech, a really long time before the US will be able to do another frivolous invasion of somebody else's country. This song, "Soldier, We Love You," is for Lt. Watada.
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Wisdom, Love & You

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Are you a New Radical?

David Chamberlain on one of the 2300 stupas at Bagan, Burma

Philanthropic Travel: We are the New Radicals by Julia Moulden

New Radicals have different motivations, have taken different journeys, and have reached different destinations. But they share some common qualities, notably compassion for people and our planet, a deep belief that change is possible, and an enthusiasm for expanding the scope of their work at midlife. Each New Radical also reports a feeling of exhilaration about what lies ahead, as well as a surge of energy that comes from exploring unfamiliar terrain and flexing their muscles in new ways. We are indebted to these pioneers for creating new maps and models, and for helping the rest of us take our places in this global movement.

If you stop to think about it, you probably know a New Radical. You may even be wondering if you might become one. The fact that you're reading this means the answer is probably "yes", but why not take this quiz to see if you're ready to cross the threshold into this exciting new territory?

Are You a New Radical?

THE NEW RADICALS: HOW BOOMERS ARE REINVENTING THEIR WORK TO HELP SAVE THE WORLD (AND HOW YOU CAN, TOO) by Julia Moulden, will be published by McGraw-Hill in 2007.

If you agree with ten or more of the following statements, you're probably a New Radical-in-the-making.

I'm a baby boomer.

I'm in good health.

I see the time after 50 as bonus years.

I intend to keep working throughout my life.

I'm eager for a second career.

I like learning new things.

I want work that is personally meaningful.

I'm concerned about the state of the world, and believe it's possible to make a difference.

I tend to be optimistic about the future.

I want to be an active part of my community.

I'm eager to learn about role models for working later in life.

I want to leave a legacy.

I want to do more than write a check: I want to do something.

I have a good sense of what I can contribute, and think I can leverage my skills and resources in a new role.

I think it's possible to change the world one act at a time.

I'm wondering what to do with the rest of my life.

I want to pursue - or uncover - my passions.

I have dreams I want to fulfill.

I want to discover my calling.

I believe my greatest contribution is yet to come.

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Palm Beach Life Magazine: Philanthropic Travelers

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Coutourism: Custom Clothes and Philanthropic Travel

Floating near the Hoi An Market in Vietnam by David Chamberlain

Half way between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and minutes from Da Nang, Hoi An has changed little in centuries. The French colonial houses, pagodas, and Chinese assembly halls in the city's Old Town are intact and have earned it a place on UNESCO's World Heritage List.

Now, Hoi An has become known for its tailors. More than 200 silk shops crowd the bustling grid of streets downtown, and the fact that just about everybody speaks English makes shopping a breeze. Vietnam's economy is booming -the country's growth is second only to China in Asia -and Hoi An is securely aboard the bandwagon. Located on the Thu Bon River, the city's early fortunes rose due in part to its strategic location. Fifteenth- and 16th-century Chinese and Japanese merchants left their mark on local architecture and trade in silk and porcelain.

By the time the French colonized Vietnam, starting in 1858, Da Nang had taken over as the country's main port, leaving Hoi An frozen in time, with some 600 historic houses located along the city's three main streets. Tours are offered at several of the traditional Chinese homes in Old Town, along with the small Museum of Trade Ceramics, housed in an immaculately restored ironwood house. But the main event here is shopping -for everything from silk lanterns to shoes, lacquerware, and clothes. You can't walk without being stopped by smiling shopkeepers singing out, "Madam, Madam, come see, very cheap!"

Coutourism: Custom Clothes and Philanthropic Travel
Leslie Fredon, a New York, New York lawyer, philanthropic traveling for the first time, had done her homework. "I'd talked to friends who'd been to Hoi An, so I knew what to expect," she said. She not only came with pictures of outfits she wanted made, she also brought a few of her favorite garments to be copied exactly. Two days and $400 later, Amo was thrilled with the more than 30-piece results of her shopping expedition. "I had a camel wool full-length coat made, an exact copy of one I saw at Neiman Marcus for $500, for $38. It's gorgeous," she said.

Not all shops have the same quality and workmanship. Some are tiny holes in the wall, which make trying on clothes, especially when it's hot, a chore. Thu Thuy is the oldest and largest shop in town. Named for its owner, Thu Thuy has been in business since 1989 and employs more than 200 tailors, who work around the clock to deliver clothing within 24 to 36 hours of measurements being taken.

The process is simple: first, you get measured up one side and down the other. Next, using your own designs, or choosing from fashion magazines and pattern books, you select the outfits you want made. Then a consultant takes you around the store, which is covered, floor to ceiling, with colorful bolts of raw silk, wool, chiffon, polished cotton, and knit.

Prices are reasonable -starting at $10 for skirts and shirts, $10 for pants, $38 for dresses, $50 for women's suits, and $180 for men's suits. While almost everything is negotiable in Hoi An, Thu Thuy stays firm with its published price list (though they will give a discount on large orders ). Attention to detail, smiling service, and pleasant surroundings -including a coffee bar and free Internet access -make waiting for your appointment a pleasure.

There are plenty of ways to pass the time while you await your first and second fittings. Visit Miss Ly Cafeteria, one of Hoi An's many excellent restaurants featuring the local specialty "cao lau," a steaming bowl of wheat noodles topped with pork, fresh herbs and vegetables , and strips of fried wonton, which costs less than $1. For more upscale fare, try Mango Rooms, where chef/owner Tran Thanh Duc concocts delicious Latin American/Vietnamese fare. You can pamper yourself at the four-star Resort Hoi An , with its pool, outdoor spa rooms, restaurant, and garden-view rooms. When your clothes are ready, seeing your choices come to life is a thrill. Best of all, there's no size on the label . It's just a perfect fit.

Learn more:
Philanthropic Travel: Vietnam
Le Vietnam Experience: 2006
Angel Investors and Travelers: Vietnam
Hanoi, Vietnam: The Sofitel Metropole Experience
Halong Bay, Vietnam: Unesco World Heritage Site
Water Buffalo Donation Hoi An, Vietnam
Understanding Philanthropic Travel

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Jane Kaye-Bailey: Philanthropic Traveler

Jane Kaye-Bailey and friends in Mukuni Village, Zambia

Exquisite Safaris is the pioneer in private, luxury, philanthropic travel worldwide. We support the work of visionary venture philanthropists like you who travel with the intention to seed new and existing humanitarian projects in Africa, Asia, India and South America. We share the following philanthropic travel success story in the hope you will one day join us for your own family philanthropic adventure.

Pay it Forward: a philanthropic traveler's story.

The Butterfly Tree Project started after a business incentive trip, staying at the beautiful Royal Livingstone Hotel in Victoria Falls, being wined, dined and entertained in sheer luxury. On our 'day off ' we chose to go to Mukuni Village, and I came away totally disturbed to learn that out of 1000 pupils, 450 were orphans. Having been fortunate to do a great deal of traveling around the globe I decided it was time to give something back. I told my husband that I was going to do something to help them and mentioned it to the other members of our party. By the time we left I had raised over $10,000 and hence the start of my 'mission'.

Vigilant about where the money would go, my husband sponsored my son and I to return to Zambia to give the money directly to the Village. I had a contact with one of the teachers. Three weeks later armed with medical supplies, educational material and clothing for the orphans we returned to Livingstone.

After a very successful week getting to know the school and health center staff we learned of their hardships and what would be the best projects to raise money for. Their dedicated Head Teacher explained that the only way to overcome their problems was though education. Top of the list was to raise money for a 3-bay classroom to enable the school be upgraded to a high school as many children had to leave before time. This we helped achieve, the school inspectors have approved it and it will open in January 2007. We are very proud of this as it's the first village high school. We also funded the completion of a teachers' house and saw two families living in it and funded renovations to their health center.

Since my return to the UK my family and I have raised a further $40,000. I have also started an orphan sponsorship program and to date we are educating 37 of these children. My husband and I have just returned from Zambia and it was wonderful to see the progress that had been made. We also spent much of the time visiting 'our' orphans and assisting them to a certain extent. One little girl, aged 9, is HIV positive and we are also sponsoring her brother. They live with their grandparents, who have lost three children and now have 15 dependents, this was just one of many sad stories. We are also funding a 'feeding' program, as the WHO (World Health Organization) food supply was inconsistent and the poorer children were only getting one meal a day, many of them walking over ten miles each way to school.

We have lots of new projects in the Victoria Falls area to raise money for which include desperately needed toilets for both the pupils and teachers, a woman's shelter and funding of the pre-school and teacher salary which is on the verge of being closed due to lack of funds. So as you can see, we have set our selves quite a task. However I am determined to continue my support and would like to stress that this is a totally self-funding organization, we pay for all our own expenses, including travel and do not deduct any administration fees. I have direct access to the school's bank account, they send me the receipts for the work they undertake we have trusted relationships who oversee the projects on a full time basis. The school has very little government funding and the health center, although funded by the government, is totally inadequate.

We have recently sent out 19 boxes of medical supplies, sports equipment and clothing for the orphans. As you can imagine I am dedicating all my free time to helping these wonderful people. Naturally, like most African communities there is so much more to be done. However, I really feel that these people are ready to move forward and have some dedicated staff who are prepared to work hard to improve their situation.

Jane Kaye- Bailey lives near Warwick, England and is the visionary Founder of The Butterfly Tree Project serving the Makuni Village, Zambia project and Victoria Falls region. To join her efforts, click here.

Mukuni Village is sometimes mis-spelled Makuni.

Learn More:
Financial Times/FT.com: Exquisite Safaris Philanthropic Travelers
What Should a M/Billionaire Give -and What Should You?
Strategic Wealth Planning Best Practice: Philanthropic Travel
Friends of Ngong Road Schools: Philanthropic Travel Kenya
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Now is your Moment: Philanthropic Travel
TheGlassHammer.com Philanthropic Travelers
Vacationing in Generosity: Philanthropic Travel
Life Changing: Philanthropic Travel
Your First Philanthropic Travel Experience
DailyOm

Philanthropic Travelers:
John Legend: Philanthropic Traveler
The One's Who Do: Philanthropic Travelers

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Ladies Only: Tango Diva Philanthropic Adventures

Tango Diva and Himba ladies sharing a moment -Namibia

Tired of sitting at home alone watching Friends re-runs?

The bridge club, yoga and Tai-Bo sessions aren't quite what they used to be?

The closest you've been to some real excitement and foreign culture is a double latte at Starbucks listening to NPR?

Want to escape the daily drain of commuting, working, stress, meetings and maybe even HIM -if only for just two weeks of splendid alone time!?

Are you ready to find some like minded ladies that share your zest for living, ready to sample exotic locations, philanthropic adventures, coutourism and cuisine the world over?

Longing to leave the nest -but don't always want to fly solo?

Tango Diva Philanthropic Adventures for single women travelers powered by Exquisite Safaris.

Time waits for no woman, Tango Diva philanthropic adventures powered by Exquisite Safaris are your passport to leave it all behind! Give yourself a philanthropic adventure without having to worry about where you're going, your security along the way and what the heck you'll do once you get there.

Tango Diva philanthropic adventures powered by Exquisite Safaris Philanthropic Travel have been described as turning points for some and represent milestones for others. Lifetime memories of joy with sisters, mothers and newly found friends. Misty morning landscapes dotted with genuine laughter, caring companionship and evenings of understanding with kindred spirits.

The success due each Exquisite Safaris Tango Diva experience begins with your vision for exploration. Our contribution is to provide you with a streamlined and casual itinerary in spectacular, charming and sometimes even rustic settings.

Who might you meet on a Tango Diva Exquisite Safaris philanthropic adventure? Interesting women from the world over.

First timer's choose Tango Diva Exquisite Safaris to try something a little more interactive, challenging, and personally stimulating than would otherwise be possible. Art workshops, cooking classes and hiking in the Swiss Alps can be a bit tough to get through with the kids screaming and your husband itching to move on to the next 'objective' right?

Returning customer's represent a large percentage of our business. They tend to reflect on their first Tango Diva Exquisite Safaris experience as the primary reason for their subsequent returns. Constant comments reflect confidence in our trip leadership, our efforts to create a hassle free experience, and the lasting friendships created during our unique activities. The smooth schedule and personable service provided by the Exquisite Safaris staff also receives high marks.

The Tango Diva Exquisite Safaris woman is active and independent whether married or not. Approximately 50% are married. Tango Diva Exquisite Safaris ladies are not intimidated by change, or by traveling somewhere new. They are resilient and easily adapt to constantly changing environments and hope to meet other women who will share those same flexible qualities.

Tango Diva Exquisite Safaris women are typically between 35 to 70 and non smokers. The majority are around 50 who have a wide variety of interests outside of work. Tango Diva Exquisite Safaris women are the kind of people who go places, do things, get involved and encourage others to do the same. They are active with friends as well as with family from community to sports to business. They are more likely than not to be the primary care-giver to the children and elderly in their families and have decided they need/deserve a break! (The guys have their fishing trips don't they?)

Many are the decision makers within families who manage their own personal and professional lives as well as influence those around them. They have direction and know what they want, and what they don't know, they tend to make the effort to learn. They are more likely to be leaders than followers, givers than takers, supporters rather than 'otherwise'.

Learn more:
Angelina Jolie: Philanthropic Traveler
Teresa Williamson: Philanthropic Traveler
Oprah Winfrey: Philanthropic Traveler
Jane-Kaye Bailey: Philanthropic Traveler
Karen Jacobsen: Philanthropic Traveler
Understanding Philanthropic Travel

Traveler Funded School Victoria Falls, Zambia
Personal Openings and World Travel
The Fable of Stone Soup
Giving while Living: The Deeper News About the New Philanthropy
Affluent Parents Dedicated to Instilling Philanthropic Values in their Children
Why Exquisite Safaris?

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British and American plans to bring democracy to the Middle East

Robert Newman gets to grips with the wars and politics of the last hundred years - but rather than adhering to the history we were fed at ... all school, the places oil centre stage as the cause of all commotion. This innovative history programme is based around Robert Newman's stand-up act and supported by resourceful archive sequences and stills with satirical impersonations of historical figures from Mayan priests to Archduke Ferdinand. Quirky details such as a bicycle powered street lamp on the stage brings home the pertinent question of just how we are going to survive when the world's oil supplies are finally exhausted.

Related Links:
Philanthropic Travel: Vietnam
The War on Terror is the antithesis of Philanthropic Travel
Bombs
ATTEN -TION!: Ba'Quba, Iraq: November 2004
Iraq Veterans against the War
Retired Generals Against Iraq War
US vs. them: US Military costs $550 Billion a year.

No Borders - No Fear
Money and Soul: The Great Divide?
Personal Openings and World Travel
Poetic Medicine: Humility and Power
My First Philanthropic Travel Experience
Understanding Philanthropic Travel
Personal Openings and World Travel
The Fable of Stone Soup
Cindi's Story
Giving while Living: The Deeper News About the New Philanthropy
Affluent Parents Dedicated to Instilling Philanthropic Values in their Children
Why Exquisite Safaris?

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