Quiet and Unquiet Heroes -Labor Day 2013 Reflections

I am grateful for all of the sacrifices of those that stood up to massive wealth and formed our labor unions. There are many heroes that marched together (often at great peril) so that we could enjoy holidays, weekends, competitive salaries and benefits.

The massive wealth (such as the Koch Brothers and the WalMart/Walton heirs) that are continuing to buy Congress and State Governments (Rick Perry, Scott Walker, Rick Scott, etc) -in order to undo collective bargaining and eviscerate unions are weakening America faster than any terrorist organization could. The erosion of the middle class (which was the driving force behind the strength of the American economy) continues to threaten the economic health of America -and leads us to trade our long term future for short term needs.

While labor needs to modernize and align with the overall goals and objectives of American society -without them our children would be staring into a future of flipping burgers for minimum wage until they turn 70 and their retirement security is replaced with a job as a greeter at WalMart.

So for the AFL-CIO, the SEIU, AFSCME and all other labor unions in America and around the world -I celebrate this day with you -and hope we can celebrate far more in the upcoming 2014 and 2016 election cycles!

alonovo and Netroots Foundation ...

alonovo research, inc. announces 501c3 fiscal sponsorship agreement with Netroots Foundation.

Sacramento, CA, February 10, 2012 - alonovo research inc. has announced the signing of a fiscal sponsorship agreement with Netroots Foundation. The agreement will provide the operating structure for alonovo to pursue it’s mission -to create consumer and institutional procurement demand affinity with products and services offered by companies that are evolving to embrace a triple bottom line.

George A. Polisner, Executive Director at alonovo research, inc. stated “The agreement will allow us to focus on the identification, acquisition and integration of trusted corporate social behavior (more commonly, corporate social responsibility or ‘CSR’) data, educational content and media creation all in parallel to raising donations and sponsorship to support our work. We have deployed a publicly available prototype at alonovo.com. We are very excited to be working under the auspices of Netroots Foundation and have deep appreciation for their work in the areas of justice, equality, economics and participatory democracy.”

alonovo research, inc. is dedicated to providing trusted, easy-to-understand grades relating to real corporate performance on labor, environment and social responsibility areas such as workforce stability, executive pay ratios, lobbying practices, polluting emissions and waste. The alonovo mission is to catalyze a constructive relationship between an informed market demand and the business supply and distribution chain. This accelerates the "race to the top" among businesses that are working to balance life, planet and profit. It has evolved from the alonovo.com concept that originated in 2005.

Netroots Foundation brings together online citizens across America, injects progressive voices into the national conversation and advances the values of justice, equality and community in our nation’s politics. With technology, the information revolution and online communities changing the very nature of civic engagement, we seek to accelerate the understanding and support of this fundamental shift in participatory democracy.

For further information about alonovo research, inc. phone 916.822.4155, or email alonovo@alonovo.com.

alonovo 1.2 Soft Launch

We hope you enjoy the updates to the alonovo site as we move forward with a major rewrite that we will launch later this year. While some of the changes are cosmetic, we will be adding some new functionality that (with your help) will create more revenue share for our family of beneficiary organizations.

As always we are very grateful to all of you that use the service and help us grow.

A note to friends at NASA CoLab

I'd sent the following in email to a dear friend (I won't name names, let's just call him "Andrew" for now) who continually counter-balances my Andy Rooney-ish tired crankiness with youthful optimism and intelligence. He was an early mentor on what was to eventually become alonovo.com and helped connect me to some amazing people at CivicSpace Labs. While I'm not deluded (enough, yet) to think that my notes are all that interesting, he encouraged me to blog this, so here it is ...

The more I think of some of the discussions we had at the Thai restaurant with your parents the more I understand how badly society needs to look up into the sky and dream about what is possible again.

The science and technology that once gave all people hope --that if we could walk on the moon, anything is attainable as a society or within the framework of our own lives --has taken a backseat to war, corporate profit and bling.

While the current administration hasn't totally cast us back into the dark ages yet, they have certainly diminished our educational infrastructure through lack of funding (beginning with the Reagan years). Early childhood education is where the spark of exploration (the desire for knowledge and understanding) begins with well resourced schools, talented, caring teachers and parents that have not totally been beaten down by a system of economic tyranny.

There is mountain of work for the NASA CoLab team ahead, (ironic we originally met in Mountain View?) however the intellect and optimism from that group holds great promise.