Daniel Lubetzky

This awesome article in INC. Magazine, titled, “The Way I Work,” features Daniel and captures exactly how our CEO works! We are super proud that Daniel was featured in INC. and are even prouder that he is the fast paced, driven, successful worker that the article describes!

by Adeena Schlussel

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Could it be that President Obama has a long lost twin from my hometown?

I was surfing through TIME Magazine’s Top 10 Everything of 2009 list. While many of their choices seem random and uninspired at best, some gems hidden among their finds included their choice of Adam Lambert’s "Mad World" among their top songs. I read the lyrics several times, pasted below, and listened also to the original Tears for Fears performance (also below). 

When I was a kid in San Antonio, Texas, newly arrived from a sheltered upbringing in Mexico City, I enjoyed the song but didn’t relate to it – or understand why it resonated so much among American kids who "had it all." 

In Mexico City, in every corner on popular streets there was an indigent kid begging for alms and struggling to survive, so kids that had a home and a family didn’t generally question their lot.  Why then, would kids who could eat American cereals for breakfast and go to Malibu Grand Prix feel deprived? 

In retrospect, this song hits such a chord with the alienation and loss of meaning that many feel in modern society, primarily in the developed world.  Serious challenges of course are faced every day by struggling kids. But much of it also has to do with the framing of those challenges.  "How bad do I have it relative to the 30,000 children who literally starve to death every day?" 

The search for depth and meaning, and reaffirmation of our special fortune amidst so much wealth and excess, and of our role and duty to find our own way to make this a better world for others, are critical to the health and happiness of future generations.

In very real ways, thinking of others and kinding others (ie, doing conscious acts of kindness for others) gives us meaning and fulfillment.

Mad World lyrics
Songwriters: Orzabal, Roland;

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Goin’ nowhere, goin’ nowhere
Their tears are fillin’ up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dyin’
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
‘Cause I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad world, mad world
Mad world, mad world
Children waitin’ for the day they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sits and listen, sits and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what’s my lesson?
Look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dyin’
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
‘Cause I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad world, mad world
Mad world, mad world
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dyin’
Are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
‘Cause I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad world, mad world
Mad world, mad world
A raunchy young world
Mad world
© ROLAND ORZABAL LIMITED;

Here is an interview about OneVoice, PeaceWorks, and "my life" (the title and theme of the show, Hayati) that aired on the Arabic TV Network Al Hurra.

It is painfully funny to watch how chubby I was…

His face is so calm
Full of love and tranquility
How blessed we are
to have warm shelter and peace for him.

How hard and how painful
for the millions upon millions
who lack peace, or water or heat,
who may not have bread or milk to give their children.

How hard and how painful
for the parents who’d lose a baby to a missile
or the babies who’d lose a parent to a bomb
and the nations who’d lose their innocence along the way.

That juxtaposition gives me anxiety:
the peaceful nap of our little baby
against the horrors and hatred brewing around our world,
whether a few blocks up, or 7,000 miles away.

For my baby’s peace cannot be guaranteed
his Spring cannot be counted upon
so long as babies anywhere else in our globe
are suffering, being targeted or killed.

It is for our baby here
that peace must be waged there.

If you do nothing else today, make sure you view this – The Story of A Sign – La Historia De Un Letrero – it is well worth it.

http://en.zappinternet.com/video/nilSqaMboM/HISTORIA-DE-UN-LETRERO

(and it happens to be shot in Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico, a town my Mom is from)

For those that can read Spanish, below is an excerpt from an article by Leo Zuckerman, an excellent Mexican columnist (who happens to be married to the smart cousin in the family .

For those that can’t read Spanish, just a quick synopsis: The Iranian regime is not content with suppressing their own people, or blowing up embassies and community centers in Argentina or trying to procure nuclear weapons, or trying to be a spoiler to efforts by the Palestinian and Israeli Heads of State to achieve a peace agreement. 

Now they are also trying to impose their censure on artists exhibiting art in Mexican Museums.  They began bullying an artist and museum threatening to issue fatwas against them if they do not bring down a display.  The art at stake by a Moroccan artist is a homage to French painter Gustave Coubert and is based on photographs of human vaginas covered by a contour that resembles a temple.  The Iranian Ambassador was incensed at this and began threatening everyone he could. 

At issue is not whether you or I like the art at sake – I have never seen it.  But whether a retrograde regime that imposes censure on its own people, persecuting homosexuals and lashing out against women who don’t wear a hijab or banning all sorts of open behavior or jailing people that disagree with their views – should have the gull to seek to impose their views on the citizens of Mexico also!!!

I think there is great validity to the view that artists should exercise their judgment and be sensitive to certain core tenets of religions.  The Danish cartoons that infringed on the Islamic ban of portraying the Great Prophet Muhammad (let alone doing so in an offensive fashion) in my opinion were exceedingly insensitive to a noble religion and it is very regrettable that such bad judgment was displayed by those who organized a "contest" about this. 

But the answer is not to use or threaten violence, and it is also certainly not to censure all forms of expression that may offend precisely because artists some times need to be able to express themselves against the injustice or inhumanity of a status quo condition, government or religion and, while it is very sad when people feel they need to offend others, it is far more harmful to prevent all forms of expression that offend those in power.

Now to add insult to injury the Iranian Ambassador seeks to impose his censure in a peace-loving and modest country thousands of miles away from his.

Excélsior / Juegos de Poder
Aquí no, señor embajador

Leo Zuckermann / Martes 27 de noviembre del 2007

Gracias a una oportuna y completa nota de Juan Pablo Proal en Proceso me enteré de que el embajador de Irán en México está exigiendo el retiro de una exposición artística en Puebla. La historia es la siguiente. En la capital poblana se está exhibiendo la obra El origen del mundo del artista marroquí Fouad Bellamine. En ella hay una serie de fotografías de vaginas humanas cubiertas por un contorno que asemeja una mezquita. De acuerdo al autor, la obra es un homenaje al pintor francés Gustave Coubert que en el siglo XIX mostró una vagina desnuda que fue censurada: “Con ese antecedente, el marroquí intentó también hacer una deferencia estética a la vagina por ser una fuente de vida, explica la curadora”.

El embajador Mohammad Hassan Chadiri Abyahen fue invitado a la inauguración del Festival Internacional de Puebla y visitó la exhibición. En cuanto la vio, se indignó, consideró las obras como “superpornográficas” y exigió que fueran inmediatamente retiradas. El artista le explicó que el símbolo de la mezquita al frente de las vaginas “era meramente espiritual y podría interpretarse como una Iglesia católica o judía”. Pero el iraní se enojó más y le reclamó que no tenía derecho a ofender a ninguna religión. Al parecer, la Secretaría de Cultura de Puebla, con la anuencia del artista, decidió desmontar la exhibición de inmediato, lo cual, por fortuna, no ocurrió. Fue entonces que el embajador iraní mandó una carta que vale la pena citar:

“Mientras el mundo musulmán está lleno de auténticos artistas representantes de su propia cultura, invitar a un maniático, vulgar e ignorante y a pesar de todo llamarlo artista a presentar la cultura y arte del mundo musulmán, resulta muy extraño.

“Usar este tipo de fotografías pornográficas, no tiene nada que ver con la cultura y el arte del mundo islámico, fotografías que pueden representar una parte vulgar de algunos ambientes, muy corruptos de algún país del mundo occidental. Una exposición que no es posible exhibirlo en ningún país islámico.

“El autor debería explicar al Mundo del Islam la razón de su acto ofensivo. Es natural que el mundo islámico no existe tolerancia, acerca de insultar a los asuntos Sagrados, por esto es mejor que no se repita esta situación, y es lógico y humano respetar el credo religioso de otros”.

La misiva, además de mal redactada, amenazó con “boletinar” a Bellamine como “enemigo del Islam”. Y ya se sabe qué significa esto como lo ha atestiguado el escritor Salman Rushdie quien ha tenido que vivir prácticamente en la clandestinidad.

La embajada iraní sigue presionando para que se retire la exhibición. Dice estar dispuesta a una crisis diplomática con México. Sería un grave error que el gobierno de Mario Marín e incluso el federal de Felipe Calderón accedieran a las demandas de Chadiri Abyahen. México es un país occidental donde constitucionalmente está protegido el derecho a la libertad de expresión. Si a los religiosos les disgusta este tipo de exhibiciones, pues que no vayan a verla.

Eso es muy diferente a ordenar la censura como efectivamente sucede en los países islámicos. En este sentido, el embajador iraní es un buen representante de su nación donde se piensa que el Estado, dominado por los ayatolás, debe ser intolerante con los “asuntos Sagrados” y decidir qué sí y qué no puede ver la gente. Pero aquí, señor embajador, las cosas son diferentes. En México los artistas tienen el derecho de exhibir sus obras, aunque sean una basura, lo cual lo decide cada quien de acuerdo a su criterio personal.

Irán es un país fundamentalista que, como este caso demuestra, pretende exportar sus creencias. Qué peligroso que estos religiosos intolerantes estén a punto de tener armas nucleares.