Richard E Kelly

I just finished reading The Green Collar Economy, and I can’t ever recall reading a book that changed my way of thinking so dramatically. Now I believe it’s possible to reverse the current economic free-fall and at the same time make the world a better place for my six granddaughters to raise their children.

The book’s author, Van Jones, presents a well-written, substantive, and viable first-draft plan for solving what I believe are some of the biggest issues facing our country today. These include repairing the failing economy, eliminating our foreign oil dependency (a major threat to national security), and efficiently reducing our reliance on fossil fuels with clean and renewable energy.

I think the author may have tried to appeal to too many constituents because I felt the first 77 pages of the book dragged a bit and I was suspicious that this was just pie-in-the-sky stuff. When I finished reading the book in its entirety, however, I was a believer.

Am I getting soft in my old age? I don’t think so. I’m still a capitalist at heart, a business man who wants data, facts, and numbers, not wishful thinking. Continue Reading »

“The genie of religious fanaticism is rampant in present-day America, and the Founding Fathers would have been horrified,” so reports Richard Dawkins early on in his best-selling book, The God Delusion.

He also shares the following 1981 quote from the father of the USA conservative movement, Barry Goldwater: “There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this Supreme Being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of these political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who think it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I’m warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism.” Continue Reading »

During the last fifteen years of my work life, I was a strong believer and fervent practitioner of Continuous Improvement as a business strategy. So earlier this year when I suggested to my friend John Hoyle that he consider using CI to make http://JustOneOpinion.com, a news Blog that we co-edit, a more informative, entertaining experience, and to offer a broader range of topics to its readers, he figured he had no choice in the matter and agreed to try it.

While it’s true that I made the initial suggestion and recommendations on how to accomplish this goal, I had no idea how excited and energized John would become with the process of CI. Ever since that discussion he has been a human dynamo in implementing new ideas and testing new techniques.  Now, after several months of trial and error, we are prepared to share our improvement plan with our readers.

Our first and most important move will be to add four, or possibly five, additional contributors to our writing staff. These men and women are all published authors who share a down-to-earth, common sense view of life.  Our common goal will be to share well-thought-out opinions on a broad range of interesting, relevant, and timely topics that each of us feel passionate about. Continue Reading »