g. When I worked as an editor at a major newspaper in the Netherlands, I saw the need for responsible reporting on stories that give us reasons to hope -- but are rarely published.

I believe it IS news when:

· Natural and organic nutrients are shown to cure diseases better than commercial pharmaceuticals do.

· There are breakthroughs in using safe, renewable sources of energy, while oil prices continue to rise.

· People in villages and cities in “third world” countries stand up for their own culture, their own hopes and their own future – when they oppose the juggernaut of multinational corporations seeking to take away their resources and hard-earned profit.

Here are two reasons why our mainstream media doesn’t agree with me:

· Bad news sells - cynical news editors sum it up in the phrase, “If it bleeds, it leads…”

· All major media in the US is owned by large, wealthy, multinational corporations, with huge investments in keeping the status quo.

You might ask, so what? Does it matter that, say, NBC is owned by General Electric, which builds nuclear power plants? My answer is “yes”. The men who run these companies - and almost all of them are white men -- hobnob with other big business types, out of touch with the problems of regular Americans, let alone the plight of billions of poor people the world over.

And American business has an especially hard time looking ahead and investing in long-term solutions, because American shareholders measure the value of a company by the profits it reports every three months.

We will only turn around the great problems of our world when we plan and invest five, ten years, 50 years into a better future.

And we all need to tell each other about every breakthrough idea, invention and real-life practice - anywhere and everywhere such real-world research and development is happening.

This is what Ode is all about.

And I want to give you a 6-issue MINI SUBSCRIPTION to Ode, so you can get a full dose of positive news - for the extraordinarily low price of just $10.

Why just $10? Because we know from our readers in Europe, and more recently the U.S., that the best way to get you turned on to Ode is to let you read it.

We don’t want to waste paper on massive junk mail campaigns - and we don’t want to pollute the airwaves with silly Ode commercials. We want you to experience the excitement and joy of reading Ode.

Along with my wife, and Ode cofounder, Helene, and all the Ode staff, I decided it was URGENT to share the joy and excitement with American readers. We want you to know about stories like these:

· A mushroom farm produces 25% more mushrooms a day, since it quit using pesticides. How? By dosing the soil with natural bacteria, fungi and yeast, the farmer increases yield and improves his own health - and the planet’s.

And this is not in some boutique farm in California, or a converted barn in Vermont. This is in rural Thailand, where villagers grow cucumbers, tomatoes, corn, rice, mangoes fish, and more - using micro-organisms instead of chemicals to feed their soil and keep pests at bay. At half the price of the chemicals.

· A Canadian professor of electrical engineering went to climb Mt. Everest, and was inspired to invent lights for the Nepalese school-kids he saw trying to read in dark classrooms. He convinced a Japanese firm to make light-bulbs out of tiny light emitting diodes that use 1 watt of electricity apiece. Now whole villages power all their light bulbs with small windmills, solar panels and - in a pinch -- pedal generators. AND the city of New York has just installed the same LED bulbs in all its traffic lights, saving enough electricity a year to prevent another blackout!

“Meanwhile, our capital city of Washington DC is full of 25 watt bulbs in 100 watt sockets - you see ‘em interviewed on TV every night!” --Jim Hightower, former Texas Agriculture Commissioner

· And in the frigid but very modern city of Reykjavik, Iceland, buses, offices and factories are running on hydrogen-powered fuel cells. Norway and Britain are installing turbines in the ocean, generating electricity out of the ebb and flow of the tides. While Dick Cheney and his friends in the American fossil fuel industry scoff at the idea that renewable nature can power a modern economy, Europe is leaping ahead in sustainable energy production.

Ode is about empowering and inspiring the reader to make a difference. With factual reports like those I’ve summarized above. And IDEAS.

IDEAS like the British group Taking Children Seriously that advocates bringing up children “entirely without doing things to them against their will…” Everything we learn, they say, comes from considering causes and effects in the world around us. Any coercion subverts the child’s rationality – TCS parents don’t insist on anything, they explain, but never coerce.

IDEAS like Moroccan author Fatema Mernissi’s proposition that Western women are kept in a harem by the Western male fantasy of the perfect woman’s body – that of a teenage girl. “We Muslim women have only one month of fasting,” she writes, “but the poor Western woman who diets has to fast 12 months a year.”

And IDEAS about the fundamentals of life – about our collective search for meaning beyond the frenzied chaos of everyday living. Ode explores the human spirit, and what has become almost an underworld – the world of spirituality. People the world over have discovered the healing powers of the mind, of light, of confronting what we glibly call “negative emotions”, of art, and of exploring the spiritual dimension --whether through established religions or through pathways recently revealed.

Ode brings you the cutting edge of positive changes from all over the planet. Yes we carry advertisements, but we pick and choose – we want to present products and services that are socially responsible. If that means we don’t carry many ads, that’s the way we like it.

Our newer American edition is for American readers – still partly written and edited in Europe, so you see how the world looks from across the Atlantic.

In fact, Ode is a global magazine. We are about bridging the ever-widening gap between the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

As you’ve seen, we present cutting edge reports and ideas, many of them by exceptional writers like Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, American linguist and political dissident Noam Chomsky, and our own often regarded Tjin Touber.

All this in a magazine with award-winning design that will leap off your coffee table and grab the attention of anyone who might visit your home – whether that’s your next door neighbor, your mother, your brother-in-law, or a visitor from the other side of the world.

And, as I said, I want you to spend just $10! (About the cost of a single movie ticket.) Ten bucks to experience one of the most compelling and ground-breaking magazines from anywhere in the world today.

Take a moment now to subscribe to this special offer, and you’ll see what all the fuss is about.http://www.subscriptionsdepartment.com/ode/subsoffer.cfm?O=p1

Do it for yourself, your family, your future, and the planet… Take a look at Ode, and I promise you’ll join our worldwide family of readers with enthusiasm and HOPE… can you think of a better way to spend $10?