Ted Burnett
Philosopher and writer
Summary: An American thought leader, a trailblazer on the subjects of human, organizational and societal development and health, the role that integrity, dignity, sanity plays, spirituality, faith, freedom, happiness, problem solving and risk taking.
Motto: To living life without limits.
Born: April 1971 (40), Tuscaloosa, AL
Graduated:
University of South Alabama (USA), M.A. Community Counseling (2006-incomplete), Mobile, AL
Auburn University, B.S. Forestry (1995), Auburn, AL
McGill-Toolen High School (1990), Mobile, AL
Current city:
500 Lincoln Street, Apt. B-105
Daphne, AL 36526 USA
Email: tebjr1@yahoo.com
Twitter: tedburnett1
Website: www.toxicnation.blogspot.com
Since February 2007, I have been living life as a philosopher and writer. Each month, I produce a commentary on business, political, social and spiritual matters. My following has grown to over twelve thousand contacts including heads of state, their foreign ministers and their ambassadors to the U.S., attorneys, business executives, clergy, major foundations (John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur, Open Society Institute and the Soros Foundations Network, Peter G. Peterson Foundation, Pew Charitable Trust, Charles and Helen Schwab and the Turner Foundation), state and federal judges and lawmakers, media and Washington DC policy institutes of which eleven thousand are PhDs teaching at more than seventy colleges and universities, in ten countries -- the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Included are eleven nationally top-ranked university professors -- Emory University's Patrick N. Allitt, PhD (UC Berkeley), University of Toronto's Kenneth R. Bartlett, PhD (Toronto), University of Pennsylvania's Thomas Childers, PhD (Harvard), University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's Bart D. Ehrman, PhD (Princeton), University of Virginia's Gary W. Gallagher, PhD (U.Texas @Austin), Emory University's Luke Timothy Johnson, PhD (Yale), University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's Lloyd Kramer, PhD (Cornell), University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's Jodi Magness, PhD (Penn), Oxford University’s Daniel Robinson, PhD (CUNY), University of Pennsylvania's David B. Ruderman, PhD (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), University of Pennsylvania's Jonathan Steinberg, PhD (Cambridge).
Among the schools are thirty-eight world-class universities with over nine thousand physicians, professors and researchers at Harvard College, Harvard Business School, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School (over 1,600), Yale College, Yale Law School, Stanford, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford Law School, UC Berkeley, UC Berkeley School of Law, Princeton, Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Columbia, Columbia Business School, Columbia Law School, Penn, The Wharton School (Penn), Penn Law School, Penn Medical School, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Chicago, Chicago Booth School of Business, Chicago Law School, NYU’s Stern School of Business, NYU School of Law, Emory, Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill, Virginia (UVa), UVa Darden School of Business, UVa Law School, Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management, UCLA Anderson School of Management, UCLA School of Law, USC Marshall School of Business, USC School of Law, Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service, Tufts' The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Cambridge, Cambridge Faculty of Law, Oxford, Oxford Faculty of Law, London Business School, London School of Economics, Trinity College Dublin, École Normale Supérieure-Paris (ENS-Paris), École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), Amsterdam Faculty of Law, Leiden, ETH Zurich, Freie Universität Berlin, Toronto, McGill, British Columbia, Australian National University, Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland. Among the eight thousand professors, my retention rate exceeds 99.8% (as of 9/11).
I have produced over sixty thought provoking essays on matters ranging from Alabama politics, gay rights, Middle East peace, freedom and slavery, our government’s treatment of our soldiers and veterans, Jesus' hijacked message, global warming, abortion, capital punishment and the U.S. Supreme Court, original sin, freedom, free will, free markets, America’s lost virtues – truth and freedom, crime and society’s role, self-governing, democracy, the current economic crisis, success, the genius of Forrest Gump, corporate consciousness, health care reform, an email to Alabama's Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb on the state's overcrowded prisons, the 1915 Armenian massacres, Ashoka.org, the tools for living, Woodrow Wilson Center fellowship proposal, taxes, tax policy and our attitudes towards them and my own spiritual journey for the past twenty years.
I have consistently received high marks for the quality of my writing, as well as, for the insightful content. In 2009, three of my essays ("Business as Usual?", "Corporate consciousness" and "An invitation to David M. Walker the President and CEO of The Peter G. Peterson Foundation") were submitted to the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) by its Chair, Harvard Law Professor, Elizabeth Warren, a member of this audience. Each time, I received notification from her congressional committee.
In 2010, I began adding heads of state (10), their foreign ministers, (and their ambassadors to the United States). The names of the respective chancellors, presidents, prime ministers (PM) and foreign ministers (FM) are Australian PM Julia Gillard, FM Kevin Rudd (Hon. Kim Beazley), The Ambassador of Brazil to the U.S. Hon. Mauro Luiz Iecker Vieira, Canadian PM Stephen Harper, FM Lawrence Cannon (Hon. Michael Wilson), President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso, The European Union Ambassador to the U.S. João Vale de Almeida, The French FM Alain Marie Juppé (Hon. Pierre Vimont), German Chancellor Angela Merkel, FM and Vice Chancellor Dr. Guido Westerwell (Hon. Klaus Scharioth), Taoiseach (PM) of Ireland Enda Kenny, Tánaiste and FM Eamon Gilmore (Hon. Michael Collins), The Italian FM Franco Frattini (Hon. Giulio Terzi di Sant'Agata), The Netherlands PM Mark Rutte, FM Uriël Rosenthal (Hon. Renée Jones-Bos), New Zealand PM John Key, FM Murray McColly (Hon. Rt Hon Mike Moore), Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, PM Vladimir Putin, FM Sergey Lavrov (Hon. Sergey I. Kislyak), Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Hon. Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, the President of the Swiss Confederation Micheline Calmy-Rey (Hon. Urs Ziswiler), the United Kingdom PM David Cameron (Her Majesty's Hon. Nigel Sheinwald) and Venezuela President Hugo Chavez (Hon. Dr. Angelo Rivero Santos). All are members of the G-20 (the world's twenty largest economies). With the exception of Brazil, Italy, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, I have a strong faculty presence at their top-ranked universities.
I have steadily received accolades from the likes of business executive Joe Bullard, U.S. Representative Jo Bonner (AL-R), Capitol Hill's Roll Call newspaper, Jan Love, Dean and Professor at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University and Norman Fischer, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Clark-Atlanta University, both, are located in Atlanta, GA, Alabama state senator and Mobile, AL attorney Ben Brooks, Fairhope, AL attorney Jay Cooper and from many friends. In response to my essays, I routinely receive correspondence from the office of U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (AL-R) in Washington.
Here is what some in my audience are saying about my work.
"Thank you for the kind reply. The essays you have published on the status of governance and law enforcement is both insightful and thought provoking. I enjoyed it.
My very best,"
-- Alexander Mirtchev, President
Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) International
Washington D.C.
November 15, 2011 an email response to my essay -- “Law enforcement and political corruption (Mobile, AL) in the 2003 cover up of a notorious child molester, Fr. Norman Rogge.”)
“Hello,
I was forwarded your recent commentary by a clinical staff member at Perelman School of Medicine. I am currently taking a graduate course on Faith and Reason. I would like permission to use some of your insights and comments in my final paper for the class. I am planning on discussing in the paper the relationship, or lack of, faith and reason with healthcare.”
-- Cindy Diogo, C.O.T.
Clinical Care Coordinator for Oculoplastics and Ocular Oncology
Scheie Eye Institute
University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine
Philadelphia, PA
October 25, 2011 an email response to my essay -- “To: The Bazelon Center’s Exec. Director Robert Bernstein, PhD and its Board of Trustees ”)
“Read your letter to Bazelon. Wow. Just wow. Powerful, elegant yet skull cracking insight and incinerating critique. Wow.”
--David Ruben, Senior Executive Producer/Director of Audio Task Force at Talk Radio Network
Medford, OR
October 7, 2011 (an email response to my essay -- “To: The Bazelon Center’s Exec. Director Robert Bernstein, PhD and its Board of Trustees ”)
"Dear Mr. Burnett, Thank you...for forwarding your piece to Professor [Michael E.] Porter...we found it interesting thinking and a good read."
--Stacie Rabinowitz, Research Associate
The Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness
Harvard Business School
Cambridge, MA
June 21, 2011 (an email response to my essay -- “Re: How would you reinvent Capitalism? (Corporate consciousness)”)
"Ted, I admire your perseverance. Things tend to work out for those who keep plugging away. Your stuff is solid. Good luck and best..."
--Steve LeVine, Contributing Editor
Foreign Policy magazine
Washington, DC
April 5, 2011
"You should turn this into a novelette..." "...a great read!"
-- John Crider
Daphne, AL
February 20, 2011 (an email response to my essay -- “Is the whole the sum of its parts?”)
"Hi Ted,
Thank you for contacting me. Wow…you have quite a story and I appreciate you taking the time to forward it to me."
-- Carole Bennett, MA
Family Recovery Solutions
Santa Barbara, CA
December 11, 2010 (an email response to my essay -- “Updated Post with 9-page introduction -- Dear Dr. Robert Shiller -- Financial Reform Laws Didn't Resolve Key Problems (Huffington Post)”)
"...you are -- of course -- correct..."
-- David Rosenbloom, Law Professor
New York University School of Law
New York, NY
October 3, 2010 (an email response to my essay -- “Dear Jay Ambrose (his op-ed opposing tax increases)”)
“Thanks for writing. You have an impressive opus…” “[I] would be happy to receive further correspondence.”
-- Paul Gibbons, Founder and Director
Future Considerations
London, UK/Madison, WI, USA
June 13, 2010 (an email reply to my resume and essay –- “Ashoka Foundations”)
"Great commentary and analogy thanks for the insight and sharing...keep it up Ted, always good to hear from you...tony"
--Tony Oglesby, Attorney
Daphne, AL
September 10, 2009 (an email reply to my essay -- "the genius of Forrest Gump")
"Hey Ted, Hope this finds you well. I want to let you know that we’ve featured your letter on the homepage of Exec Digital today. Thanks for writing in and for reading our magazine. Great blog too!"
--Dean Tsouvalas, Editor in Chief,
Exec Digital Magazine, www.ExecDigital.com
August 31, 2009 (an email reply to my essay -- "A Letter to the Editor: Is Corporate Social Responsibility Good for Business?")
"I loved the “Why is your life so empty?” piece. It was brilliant..."
-- Raegan Perea, Atlanta, GA
August 12, 2009 (an email reply to my essay -- "Why is your life so empty?")
"Hi Ted, I enjoyed browsing in your site..."
-- Jake Lynch, Associate Professor and Director, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies
The University of Sydney (Australia)
May 5, 2009 (comment made in an email exchange.)
Added to audience in December 2008
"Love your blog. Always thought provoking…" "Keep up the good work."
-- Norman Fisher, Associate Professor of Philosophy
Clark-Atlanta University, Atlanta, GA
January 29, 2009 (an email in response to my essays -- "Business as Usual?") and "Success!")
Added to audience in January 2008
"…There is serious talent there."
-- Joe Bullard, President of Joe Bullard Automotive, Mobile, AL
April 17, 2008 (a comment made to a mutual friend about me.)
Added to audience in August 2007
"…You obviously have a flair for writing as well as a keen perspective on the ever-changing Mobile and Alabama…"
-- U.S. Representative Jo Bonner,
1st Congressional District of Alabama
March 19, 2008 (an excerpt from Bonner’s hand-written note in response to my email to Mobile, AL Chamber of Commerce President Win Hallett -- From the desk of U.S. Congressman Jo Bonner...)
Added to audience in November 2007
"Thanks for sending this essay, Ted. I am sharing it with the director of our Course of Study, Rev. Beth Luton."
-- Jan Love, Dean and Professor of Christianity and World Politics Emory University Candler School of Theology, Atlanta, GA
January 15, 2008 (an email in response to my essay –- Freedom and Slavery - A Cycle of Life)
Added to audience in January 2008
"It's a great piece..."
-- Amy Carlisle, Features Editor, Capitol Hill's Roll Call newspaper, Washington, DC
August 31, 2007 (an email in response to my essay -- Our Soldiers, Veterans and the U.S. Government: A Real Dereliction of Duty)
"Thank you for sharing your essay with me. You have obviously given the subjects much thought."
-- Ben Brooks, Alabama state senator and Mobile, AL attorney
May 31, 2007 (an email in response to my essay –- [Alabama State] Senate Rules!)
Added to audience in May 2007
Other notables receiving my essays include the former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who served in the Clinton Administration (1997-2000), and is currently a Professor of International Relations at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service, Ray Anderson -- Chairman and former CEO of Interface Global, Boston University's Dr. Andrew Bacevich, Tufts University President Lawrence S. Bacow, Retirement Systems of Alabama CEO Dr. David Bronner, economist and former Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Dr. Alan Blinder of Princeton University, Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger, Senior Fellow at American Enterprise Institute and Fox News contributor John Bolton, civil rights leader, social activist and professor at the University of Virginia - Dr. Julian Bond, Philip J. Burguières - Vice Chairman of the NFL's Houston Texans, College Board President Gaston Caperton, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and New America Foundation President Steve Coll, former three-term New York Governor Mario Cuomo, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, Harvard University President Drew G. Faust, WorldBlu’s Founder and CEO Traci Fenton, National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Executive Director Michael J. Fitzpatrick, Sue Gardner -- Executive Director of Wikimedia Foundation, U.S. Presidential advisor and Harvard Professor David Gergen, University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann, paleontologist and MacArthur 'Genius' grant receptient Jack Horner, Arianna Huffington -- co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) President and CEO Paula A. Kerger, Princeton economist and NYT columnist Paul Krugman, Yale University President Richard C. Levin, University of Sydney's (Australia) Dr. Jake Lynch, New America Foundation Fellow and Fox News contributor James P. Pinkerton, Harvard ‘University’ Professor Michael E. Porter, Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, Clinton Administration Labor Secretary and UC Berkeley Professor Robert Reich, Republican campaign consultant/advisor and CNN Senior Political Correspondent Ed Rollins, Dr. Larry J. Sabato's Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, Northwestern University President Morton Schapiro, Howard Schultz -- Chairman and CEO of Starbucks, investor Charles Schwab, Tiffany Shlain - an American filmmaker and founder of the Webby Awards, Newsweek and National Journal contributing editor Stuart Taylor, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Cynthia Tucker, R.E. "Ted" Turner III, founder and former Chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting, philanthropist and Chairman of the Turner Foundation, former Special Advisor to President Barack Obama - Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren, Ashoka President Diana Wells, Judy Woodruff -- Senior Correspondent at The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and the University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer.
I continue to pursue a fellowship with a national foundation while growing my audience with plans to add government leaders and faculty from top universities around the world. Hopefully, this effort will lead to opportunities to one day lecture and vacation across North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
All my essays can be read online on my website -- www.toxicnation.blogspot.com and I can be reached directly at -- tebjr1@yahoo.com.
Last updated - 12/11
Copyright 2007-2010. By Ted Burnett. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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