I just read an article on CNN about a coffee shop that took the "mormon angel" - a figure I am not familiar with- and drew him drinking coffee. In response, " The church informed Beazer that the angel's image is a registered trademark." - a direct quote. Registered trademark. Are there any other religious symbols out there that are trademarked? Registered trademark means it is a creation from the mind of man, invented and therefore registered to protect the inventing party's interests. I wonder if the coffee shop pays them a copyright fee they will let him use it. This idea of registered trademarks in religion is odd to me. I will definitely need to think about it.

social networking

In my work, I am realizing that I can become a specialist in the things that interest me. I am very interested in studying new social networks and online social media, as well as the shift to a creative economy and its effect on business structure. Because this information and phenomenon is so relatively new, it began about 10 years ago and only within the last five years has really taken off, there is no college or university for me to attend to learn. So i am practicing new social networking and media and conversing with othrers about the new creative economy. I recently read this blog and a comparison with the pettiness of high school interests struck a cord with me.

It is quite obvious when a child is young that they imitate their parents. As they grow and their world expands, so do the number of influences on their behavior. Whether teens like to admit it or not, their parents still influence them into adulthood.

Does it stand to reason that teens in high school that form cliques and social hierarchies are merely reflecting what they see in the adult relationships around them? Specifically parents' work environments?

We all remember watching our parents coming home exhausted from work, and a work social structure that chews people up and spits them out. Does this example communicate subconsciously to teens and translate into social actions?

As teens are we trying to protect ourselves from this work exhaustion by forming cliques that provide stability and a measure of safety from persecution?

Also, do teens subconsciously play out the adult roles they will soon take on like small children play house?

So if the adult social network begins to shift, will teens adapt and become more like the new demoratically structured organizations forming in the work world?

Or perhaps, as is a true sign of all things purely emerging and starfish-like, perhaps it is the teens who are adapting before the adults to new forms of social networking and media, and the change is bleeding upward?

I can only hope that someday high school will not represent the ugly social hell that historically it has for so many.

As I walked along the sidewalk today I had a thought. One of those thoughts that simmers for quite awhile before you actually become conscious of it. It lurks in the back of the mind and escapes like a gas bubble trapped under melting ice. The global warming debate holds two major thoughts:

a. mankind is causing the current climate change and we need to do what we can now in order to minimize it or we are toast.

b. the planet has cooled down and heated up over the eons, we are witnessing the transition between two natural states.

The thought that came into my head was, if this is a natural change, wouldnt we want to stop it anyway? From what I have seen and heard, it doesnt really matter if it started naturally or artifically, it is happening and it doesnt look good for humans.

My thought also posed a question: if this change is natural do we have the right to change it? We have assumed the right countless times in the past to change our environment, why shy away now?

The very people who say leave the earth/environment alone, global warming is a natural event are also the ones that support exploratory oil drilling, deforestation, and wholesale suburbanization. These things change the earth/environment tremendously. What is the difference between the two?

The answer to that is easy enough. It is the answer to a lot of hard questions.

Inconvenience vs. Convenience