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This will probably be the last post of the year. To all (four) of you who read this meandering revue, thanks for your interest all year. I wish you all a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Eide Ramadan, or whatever celebration you make around the winter solstice. I wish you a happy year end and best of the New Year.
If there were one thing I would ask for as a Christmas present, it would be this:
If you like what you read, please tell a few others and/or post a link to something here. If you are registered on LinkedIn, find me and connect, and, if we happen to have worked together in some way and you can find it in yourself to say something nice, I wouldn't complain about an endorsement or two.
So long for now.
When I was a kid, I read (yes, as bizarre as it sounds, I read) the Oxford English Dictionary. I took books from my father's library and bought books with titles like "Power Talk" and "Seven Days to a Bigger Vocabulary." I grilled myself using the "Word Power" vocabularly builder game in Reader's Digest each month. All with the intent of at least appearing erudite with the right word if not a bon mot at the appropriate moment. When I was a kid, a large vocabularly (and the ability to use it correctly) was admired and desired; it telegraphed wit and intellect. So much has changed -- and not for the better.
I was successful. My vocabularly is large and if it weren't for the early-onset Alzheimer's I would have the exact right word for every occasion. It's a little easier when writing because there's typically a time lapse between thought and publication which provides an opportunity to double-check for a more appropo expression. Synonyms (Oh yeah, I'm a big fan of Roget's Thesaurus as well.) are a big part of the equation when trying to control nuance. Consequently, I have a lot of four-syllable words (like the one starting this sentence) at my disposal. It bothers many people.
Understand that using a large vocabulary -- at least in my case -- is not always (at least for me) an attempt to talk over people or throw five-dollar words around when perfectly serviceable twenty-five centers will do. It might just be that the situation calls for an expensive word. Doesn't matter. Where I'm headed is here: I'm tired of continually being told outright to "dumb it down" for people who should not be that "dumb." I'm tired of being snidely put in my place for using those fancy words. I'm tired of apologizing for refusing to pepper my language with Valley-girl all-purpose words and inaccurate descriptions because it is today vogue to reduce ourselves to the lowest common denominator.
If I am putting you off, dear reader, well . . . go somewhere else. In my little world we try to drag the lowest upward to the middle, creating a new low someplace higher, repeatedly. In my world we rise not fall. We aspire to be better individually and as a group. I don't believe in the nail theory whereby the nail that stands the tallest gets pounded down the hardest. In my world all the nails would be reaching skyward and the hammer would be idle. As Jed Bartlett said in one episode of the West Wing, responding to this very problem, "Tell 'em to buy a dictionary."
I mean not to send you away or put you off. I want you here. But here we play by my rules. Strunk & White is the standard by which clear writing is judged. And, yes, they do make a point of keeping it simple and clear and using the simpler of two words or expressions. It is advice precisely consistent with Ockham's Razor: when two alternative explanations for a phenomenon are presented, the simpler is to be preferred (or something like that). But neither prescribes not using or accepting something complicated or sophisticated in the appropriate place. I try to write and speak by that.
All simple language is not the same. My choice is to have simple language in the sense of clear, direct, and precise. The alternate read might be to have simple-ton language which attempts to get the message across with high-frequency, mono-syllabic words. Do what you feel is best.
All right, I feel exorcised. Now off to exercise.
Evo Morales, (former) coca farmer wins Bolivian presidential election. Story from BBC: All eyes on Evo Morales' next step.
Am I the only one who sees the Canadian election issues and leader badgering in an entirely new light today?
With the full official results not due for some days, it became apparent early on that Evo Morales had won a convincing victory and will next month become Bolivia's first indigenous president.
More on what's going on in Israel and the Middle East. Not surprisingly, Israel is concerned about Iran (Israel raises alarm over Iran).
JERUSALEM -- Israel called yesterday for the international community to wake up to the threat posed by Iran after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the Holocaust was a "myth" and suggested the Jewish state be relocated outside the Middle East.The outlandish statements come amidst growing debate in Israel over the need to prepare for a pre-emptive strike to ensure Tehran doesn't develop nuclear-weapons capability.
I am a Liberal and a liberal. I am also fairly right wing, and my views tend to be not readily categorized -- on any consistent basis, anyway. Moreover, I -- like many other Canadians -- have no broad description of the party agendas and plans to review and try to make sense of some complicated, or simply complex, plans. So, at the risk of having my own (party's) glass house crumble around me as I begin pitching granite, I have to make the following observation.
Stephen Harper, leader of the Conservatives, has been making a lot of noise on two fronts. To begin, he is pandering in the typical Conservative way: tax cuts. Leave money in people's pockets. Which is, in no uncertain terms and at first blush, the political high ground. Who would rationally argue for or elect to have more taxes? After all, the government is not only incompetent, it's wasteful with our money. Remember it is OUR money until it's taxed away. Everybody knows that we, the people, know best what to do with our money.
Let's not quibble on the need for and broad appreciation of infrastructure (defence, roads, communications, international trade and relations, etc.) and government services (health care minimums, employment insurance, welfare, development subsidies, education, etc., etc.). Let's stop short of everyone's -- even The Fraser Institute's Michael Walker, I'm sure, in his less indulgent moments -- ultimate admission that in this day and age (or any day and age, actually), government is essential. It is not feasible to have any sort of nation without governance. So everyone grudgingly admits that taxation is required. What we disagree over is the level and how it should be administered. [Reminds me of a joke: Guy walks up to a lovely young lady in a bar and asks, "Would you sleep with me for $1-million?" She looks him up and down, and despite his rumpled appearance and odor, says, "A million dollars? Absolutely." He immediately responds with, "Well how about $25?" She, infuriated, retorts, "What do you think I am, a whore?" "We've established that," says the man, "We're haggling price now."]
But, reducing taxes is only one half of Harper's equation. He's also committing to another political point-getter (among so many others): he'll spend more on defense. If you're getting an 80s flashback to The Gipper, it makes perfect sense. Next, I'm sure we'll hear about trickle-down economics as the answer to it all. But, I get ahead of myself. In any event, the sum is that Harper's going to spend more on the important stuff like defense because it's essential to our national sovereignty. [He has gone to great pains to point out that he would not have supported Canadian military contribution to the American Iraq war . . . because we were incapable of fielding a team.] So this is another hard to beat position. Everybody knows that our defensive capabilities are abyssmal; that our military men and women are under-equipped for today's conflicts; that we've got three submarines that can't sub-marine and helicopters that do their best work on the ground.
Here's the point. As the title says, SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE. At least the name-calling of the Liberals ("Tax and spend Liberals") makes logical sense. "Don't tax and still spend" is simply idiotic or magic. But what I know about magic by religiously watching and reading Penn & Teller is that it's all an illusion: the product of decidedly ugly mechanics. That's what we're working against.
The arguments will continue about whether the Reagan years were good or bad. What we really know is that they changed the American nation -- its psyche and tilt -- profoundly. It also left behind a massively larger financial hole in the form of a debt that may very well be unrepayable ever. In short, it did not achieve the bedrock philosophical objective of self-sustenance and living within your means while saving/investing and creating weath that is espoused by the most ardent of Republican conservatives. It was, in that respect at least, a failure IMHO.
Suffice it to say that recycling this magic for a new audience appears to be the campaign strategy of the Harper machine. Let's all think about this twice and ask for just a little integrity. What's going to give Stephen?
You've got to be kidding me. Iran's President calls Holocaust a 'myth'.
The Iranian President previously expressed doubt that the Nazi destruction of six million European Jews during the Second World War had occurred. But Wednesday was the first time he publicly denied the Holocaust.But it gets better:
"This is our proposal: if you committed the crime, then give a part of your own land in Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to them so that the Jews can establish their country," he said, developing a theme he raised in Saudi Arabia last week.
I love this kind of stuff. Here's a little item out of Pakistan about SMS messages disappearing after being read. Marry it with bulk (list) SMS sending capabilities and you have all kinds of new opportunities for indictment-free slander. Story from the Daily Times: Text to vanish in 40 seconds.
I have a friend who's become a little cynical recently. She's just recently begun to see the inner workings of large organizations and her naivity is being rubbed away rapidly. These are the things they don't teach at business school. Over the next little while, I'm going to periodically serialize our discussions and here discoveries about the realities of the organization that has taken her in so she can fulfill her dreams and ambitions.
A bit of background. The company that she works for is large and well established. It has thousands of people and multiple divisions, which would create a bit of a traffic jam if the organization weren't rigorously structured and didn't have a religion around established method. She's told me that some of the published methods and processes carry the same weight as Scripture. Although it makes perfect Smithian sense, I know that it can be frustrating in the extreme -- to me anyway. But the degree of faith in self-regulation that would be required to not default to standards to keep the business under control just hasn't made its way to the executive suite yet.
She is relatively low positioned but ambitious. Graduated well in her class and has always been considered a "comer" in everything she tried. She has -- until now -- sailed through everything she's tried. But this seems to be different: there are just so many people. While they seem to be intelligent and capable, they are generally different than she. And she feels it. My friend is not shy nor is she retiring. One might generously call her "direct" and open. More about this at another time when we get to more back story.
Today what she found out was that her future has little to do with how well she performs. Through a conversation with a longer-tenured colleague she learned that her future and the fulfillment of her ambitions is firmly held by the fraternity of executives who perform communal review and rating. Gathering annually like the College of Cardinals, the top several layers of management review the personnel in the layers beneath them. Cloistered for several days, they emerge with . . . binders. Binders that contain the fate of everyone for the next year. A 3-ring thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Just like the papal election by the cardinals, no evidence is left behind.
Well, if it's good enough for the Catholic church . . . On the surface, there is again perfect sense to the process. Determining the next generation of leaders is an important task, best not left to the whim of any one person -- or HR. Ironically, the consistency with the papal election continues as these erstwhile corporate cardinals damn more than they elevate.
What she found out was that during the judgment days of the commercial bishopric, she and others would be ranked and rated, and that one nay vote could capsize her career boat for the year. Like Freemasons, one black ball does it all. "How is that fair," she wondered aloud to me. I don't really think it is, but that's neither here nor there. What's important is: that's how it is. So what does it mean and how does that affect her?
Critical point one: organizations are, not unlike biological bodies, self-perpetuating machines. The drive of all things alive is to stay alive and to perpetuate its species. The goal of the collective mind in an organization is to preserve itself. So, as you can expect, the first mandate of a group in selecting potential replacements is to make them in their own image. The implication is, of course, that to become one be like one. That's not so bad if the executives are smart, fast, nimble, honorable, and so forth because that could be something to aspire to. If, for whatever reason, there is reason to not respect that group then it might be less than ideal.
Critical point two: in a situation where a few negative reactions could be damaging then it is critical to not have any negative reaction potential. How do you do that? Well, first and foremost, don't give anybody any reason to have anything negative -- or positive -- to think about you. Huh? That's right. Be beige. In such a circumstance you can't afford a single enemy to rally a very few others against you. The only way that could happen is if you stand out say by having done something. On the other hand, nobody will vote against you if they have no idea about you or what you may have done or not done. So, all you need is a supporter or two because there is no resistance. Which leads to . . .
Critical point three: it is much harder to get any support in a closed group like that if you have to be fought for. It's the politics of the situation and the pressure on the participants. Face it, nobody is going to gain by supporting you for a promotion, but they could suffer a little bit by it. If there's opposition you go right back to points one and two. Its a no-win situation in the room and you fall off the table. So, don't be difficult. There should be no reason for anyone to oppose you for any reason. Good luck
What a weird fall it's been. I've been (happily, for the most part) quite unusually busy at work, beavering away on some strategic redevelopment for one of the Corporation's forthcoming lines of business. [Should I have mentioned that? Is it public? Not sure, but I'm relatively certain that it's neither (a) a bad thing to publicize nor (b) going to be "secret" for long.] In any event, blogging and other personal writing has been spotty and light because I've been writing business stuff. Now I'm involved with a local election campaign (for my American friends, we're having another federal election right now).
I've become the (un?)official Web guy and blogger/blog-hostler for Michael Gaffney's Liberal campaign in Nepean-Carlton. So far, so good. But it's just getting started.
Anybody in the neighbourhood that would like to blog for Gaffney, we're a big tent with a desire to have a genuine choir of voices to converse with the constituency. Join us.
I love disconnected headlines on the same day, and while the real fun is seeing them in the same newspaper, I'll take what I can get. Here's a set that you can read how you will. Without deeply reading the articles themselves, my take is that consumers are protecting themselves more online BUT the threats continue to expand. The question is whether the cure -- or innoculation -- is sufficient. Here are the links:
Consumers improving security, but gaps remain (The Register)
Security Threats Up Nearly 50% (Information Week)