ODE The Trim Tab Magazine

An inscribed stone above the grave where R. Buckmister (Bucky) Fuller and his wife are buried reads "Call Me Trim Tab, Bucky." Fuller, the inventor and visionary, noticed as a small child that a big ship has a small rudder within its larger rudder. It's called a trim tab, and its job is to turn the large rudder so that the large one can turn the huge ship. Bucky dedicated his life to being a trim tab - someone who would do small things that in turn could help improve society.

I've always liked that metaphor, and I feel that ODE Magazine, in reporting on positive possibilities, is a trim tab magazine. In it, each of the possibilities reported are in themselves trim tabs. One good example of this is ODE's reporting of the trim tab work of Muhammad Yunus, who began the simple practice of micro-loans and micro-credit to aid impoverished people and eventually earned the Nobel Peace Prize. (See ODE's article "Turning Poverty into Peace".)

Another trim tab story that recently buzzed across the news wires and the Internet is that of Dr. Dorian Paskowitz, an 86 year old surfer. After hearing about how two Palestianian surfers had to share one old surf board, he helped raise funds to buy a dozen surf boards which he then personally brought to Gaza's small surfing community. Dr. Paskowitz, a Jew, and a co-founder of Surfers for Peace, said he was doing this in the name of peace. That's a trim tab action.

I like reading such stories because they show that often it's the simple levers that need to be turned in order to transform a system, and that's why I so look forward to each issue of ODE - the trim tab magazine that abounds with such stories.