Sunday Funnies and the Sisters of St. Francis

Posted on November 13, 2011 by lmsinca



These gals prefer to actually occupy the boardrooms of Wall Street.

In 1980, Sister Nora and her community formed a corporate responsibility committee to combat what they saw as troubling developments at the businesses in which they invested their retirement fund. A year later, in coordination with groups like the Philadelphia Area Coalition for Responsible Investment, they mounted their offensive. They boycotted Big Oil, took aim at Nestlé over labor policies, and urged Big Tobacco to change its ways.

Eventually, they developed a strategy combining moral philosophy and public shaming. Once they took aim at a company, they bought the minimum number of shares that would allow them to submit resolutions at that company’s annual shareholder meeting. (Securities laws require shareholders to own at least $2,000 of stock before submitting resolutions.) That gave them a nuclear option, in the event the company’s executives refused to meet with them.

Unsurprisingly, most companies decided they would rather let the nuns in the door than confront religious dissenters in public.

“You’re not going to get any sympathy for cutting off a nun at your annual meeting,” says Robert McCormick, chief policy officer of Glass, Lewis & Company, a firm that specializes in shareholder proxy votes. With their moral authority, he said, the Sisters of St. Francis “can really bring attention to issues.”

Sister Nora and her cohorts have gained access to some of the most illustrious boardrooms in America. Robert J. Stevens, the chief executive of Lockheed Martin, has lent her an ear, as has Carl-Henric Svanberg, the chairman of BP. Jack Welch, the former chief executive of General Electric, was so impressed by their campaign against G.E.’s involvement in nuclear weapons development that he took a helicopter to their convent to meet with the nuns. He landed the helicopter in a field across the street.

Filed under: Wall Street | Tagged: , | 30 Comments »

Occupy DC Field Report

Posted on November 13, 2011 by yellojkt

I was in DC today doing tourist-in-your-town stuff and had some time to kill before my dinner reservation, so I wandered over to McPherson Square to see for myself the scope and magnitude of the Occupy DC protests.

I arrived at dusk but it was clear that the entire park had been taken over by the protesters with tents randomly placed everywhere except for one big wedge of green space on the southwest section of the park. When I arrived there was music playing with some people dancing on the grass. Later there had been some sort of evening meeting and people were dispersing with cooking equipment while others lingered to talk and kids played.

The center of the park has a statue of James B. McPherson, a Civil War general who had been killed in the Battle of Atlanta.

Ringing the statue were a wide variety of signs espousing various ODC positions in a range of detail from simple slogans to long treatises.

Beyond the vast number of tents, there were all the trappings of a semi-permanent encampment. There was a headquarters tent with a daily schedule as well as a medical tent.

Additionally, there was a large area set aside to boxes filled with clothes. I couldn’t quite figure out if it was a donation collection point or a distribution center or both. There was also an organized recycling center.

Around the encampment there were a variety of semi-official activities going on. Under one tent, after a human megaphone announcement, there was a lightly attended class at the ODC ‘university’ while on the other side of the park were the archetypal drummers.

But for the most part, people were just milling around enjoying the pleasant evening. Some people seemed to be reluctant to have their picture taken while others just took it in stride. And I was not the only person using the spectacle as a photo-op.

I really hadn’t know what to expect. There was far more infrastructure than I had imagined despite the tent city being a rather disheveled mish-mash of camping gear and tarps and canopies. What impressed me most was the casual sense of community. People were there with purpose. And they didn’t look like they were leaving anytime soon. You can see higher resolution versions of these photos as well as others in my Flickr set.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 33 Comments »

Bites & Pieces (Saturday Night Food Edition) — An Absurdly Simple Soup

Posted on November 13, 2011 by okiegirl

I’m more of a “country cook” than a gourmet cook. I toyed with posting my mom’s fabulous chicken-and-noodles recipe, which is at least 70 years old. Talk about comfort food! But it is laden with sodium and takes a long time to make unless you substitute store-bought ingredients for homemade ones (in which case you might as well just buy already prepared chicken-and-noodles IMO).

The soup recipe below is nothing fancy, but it tastes great, it’s healthy, it’s quick and easy, and I always have the ingredients on hand. It’s one of my favorites on a work night when I’m too tired or busy to cook because it’s ready in less than 30 minutes, not much more time-consuming and certainly healthier than heating a canned soup. It also lends itself well to adaptations with whatever flavors sound good at that moment or with whatever you have on hand (e.g., I sometimes substitute squash for the carrot and often add to the vegetables). Oh yeah, and it sure fits Michi’s penchant (which I wholeheartedly share) for not much in the way of required measuring. Add a salad or a baked potato and you have a nice supper.


Chicken & Spinach Soup with Fresh Pesto
(from eatingwell.com)

Ingredients
2 teaspoons plus 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1/2 cup carrot or diced red bell pepper
1 large boneless, skinless chicken breast (about 8 ounces), cut into quarters
1 large clove garlic (or to taste), minced
5 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 1/2 teaspoons dried marjoram or oregano
6 ounces baby spinach, coarsely chopped
1 15-ounce can cannellini beans or great northern beans, rinsed
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/3 cup lightly packed fresh basil leaves
Freshly ground pepper to taste
3/4 cup croutons for garnish (optional)

Preparation
Heat 2 teaspoons oil in a large saucepan or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add carrot (or bell pepper) and chicken; cook, turning the chicken and stirring frequently, until the chicken begins to brown, 3 to 4 minutes. Add garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant. Stir in broth and marjoram or oregano; bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is cooked through, about 5 minutes.
With a slotted spoon, transfer the chicken pieces to a clean cutting board to cool. Add spinach and beans to the pot, bring to a gentle boil, and simmer for 5 minutes to blend the flavors.
Combine the remaining 1 tablespoon oil, Parmesan and basil in a food processor (a mini processor works well). Process until a coarse paste forms, adding a little water and scraping down the sides as necessary. [Substitute store-bought pesto if you must, or any other pesto recipe you prefer.]
Cut the chicken into bite-size pieces. Stir the chicken and pesto into the pot. Season with pepper. Heat until hot. Garnish with croutons, if desired.

5 servings, about 1 1/2 cups each

Nutrition
Per serving: 204 Calories; 8 g Fat; 2 g Sat; 4 g Mono; 29 mg Cholesterol; 16 g Carbohydrates; 18 g Protein; 6 g Fiber; 691 mg Sodium; 529 mg Potassium [NOTE: Cut the sodium drastically by using homemade salt-free broth and/or homemade salt-free cooked beans]
1/2 Carbohydrate Serving
Exchanges: 1 starch, 1 vegetable, 2 lean meat, 1 fat

Filed under: Bites and Pieces, food, Uncategorized | Tagged: | 17 Comments »