The "B-HAG," or so-called "Big Hairy Audacious Goal" is a particularly fascinating one to me right now because it has gained currency among a relatively small, but definitely significant group that I am close to. A couple years after Tom made it part of the corporate zeitgeist, these folks have discovered it, and are putting it to work. They've undertaken to identify some B-HAGS, and set about getting busy to achieve them. This, I find curious.

Big -- Well, enough said. Big is . . . well . . . big. Nobody has any trouble -- at first -- getting big. What happens after the glow of goal-setting is over and everyone leaves the meeting or retreat or facilitated strategy session is another matter altogether. I'm sure we've all seen, "the native hue of resolution / Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, / And enterprises of great pitch and moment / With this regard their currents turn awry, / And lose the name of action.

Hairy -- This is the "Tom Peters-ing" of the idea. I guess "Hairy" is to connote gorrilla or Sasquatch-like size and such. It has absolutely no meaning other than that unless, of course, the goal is being set by the executive at Super-Clips.

Goal -- I'm skipping a word to get this equally obvious one out of the way. The goal is the objective, the end, the purpose, the desire. Without it -- the noun -- there is nothing except a bunch of adjectives. And, while they add marvelous colour, adjectives are not things. We need things or we have no-thing.

Here it is. The money word. The adjective that actually means something and has significance in this phrase. Audacious. I love it. It's a great word: sounds spectacular in the string, with a vague sense of the outlaw or charismatic devil to it. It has the sound and feel of defiance and affront about it. The rebel with a cause. Here's where I have the most problem with the B-HAG in most corporate instances though.

Consider the meaning of audacious (from the OED): "1 daring, bold. 2 impudent." If anybody can point to any group of executives, anywhere but especially in an old, established, large and bureaucratic firm, that hasn't had any genetic or pre-disposed audacity bored or beaten out of them, I'll pay for the information. The entire notion of audacity is counter-corporate. It's as romantic as the idea of "Rambo," the lone-wolf, renegade, or maverick soldier. Soldiers -- and successful corporate executive -- do not act impudently. Those that do, do not become (successful) corporate executives or senior officers. Although I suppose impudence is as much in the eye of the beholder as would be daring and boldness, I think they are substantially different things. No matter.

Of course the scale is the thing. What constitutes daring and boldness to one might be pedestrian to another. Again, long-successful, large and established, bureacratic, F500 firms are typically, by their very nature, political and incrementalist. Neither characteristic is consistent with boldness, daring, or impudence. No act of boldness, even if successful, goes unpunished.

In suburban homes and in rural communities, clusters of ‘seekers’ have resurrected the religion of the Ancient Maya. I stumbled upon them by accident and -- perhaps because of my ambivalence -- have been given access to their story. They have chosen me to raise their pleas to stop the persecution by the people they work with and by the government they elected. The Maya demand equal right to come out of the shadows and live in the open with every other citizen.

The Mayan civilization was very successful for generations a millennium before Europeans found the ‘New World.’ Given their advanced development of writing, mathematics, and astronomy, one could hardly argue that the Maya were not a superior race and maybe if not for a surprise, instantly eradicating cataclysm, their civilization could easily have dominated the Americas. With so much to admire in the Mayan civilization, fin de siecle North Americans chose to emulate them vigorously. Abuses during the last century, however, forced them into hiding. Today, seeing the American Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms liberating minorities of every kind, they’ve decided to now shine a light on their beliefs, to demand fairness and equality. Moreover, they are confident that once we see the beauty and power of the Mayan option, we will embrace it ourselves.

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The surviving civilizations and their primary religions have remained fundamentally unchanged over the centuries. Mayan devotees are thus certain that the Mayan religion, too, would have survived intact. And so it is the foundation of belief that defines who they, the Modern Maya, are today. They keep faith with this timeless, contextless truth and wisdom of the ages. As a simple matter of spiritual integrity, they have no choice but to uphold all symbols and rites, catechisms and rituals of their glorious forebearers. It is critical to both individual well being and to their organization’s strength.

Sadly, they have long-suffered hostile, anti-Maya persecution throughout Canadian and American society. Canada, in particular, deeply disappoints them. Canada, the one place in the world where any and all deeply historic rights and the freedom to practice a religion are not merely accepted but incorporated into society for all. Even in Canada though, too many others gawk, critique, and then interfere in Mayan ceremonies, customs, and recreations. Try as they might to privately and separately uphold their religion in all its forms, the New West persecutes them. Consider a few examples.

Male Maya are unjustifiably stopped from enjoying public transportation and many public places while carrying the ceremonial Maya Machete -- despite their taxes supporting these facilities. A man’s identity and his lifelong pact with the Sun god is bound in that instrument, and although the machete was a practical tool in the harsher Ancient time, today it is a critical symbol, utterly essential to religious conformance. The men don’t make a display of this burden and duty, typically concealing the Machete except for when it must be drawn in the cause of piety. Still, no go from Air Canada, Via Rail, or Parliament. All kinds of people get on with guns that have no religious significance, and others are cut slack for their spiritual symbols. Why, the Maya want to know, must a Mayan man give up a critical part of his identity just to ride the bus? After all, they were -- the Maya, that is -- here long before anyone else.

The rituals that Maya carry on throughout their lives -- rituals that existed a thousand years before Canada and the United States -- are sacred and, in their faith the root of their enduring strength. Unlike many other common religions in North America, the Mayan belief system is tied inextricably to nature and the power of the natural world. Rites are conducted in harmony with nature and in large open, typically public, spaces. But they are stopped from enjoying public spaces for these ceremonies.

As a young man comes of age, before taking his place among the wise warriors and carrying a Machete, he must prove his readiness by a test of his faith. The high priest takes the young warrior-to-be and, after opening the skin, drives a three-foot wooden shaft through both shoulder blades pinning the stick firmly across his back. The boy is then attached to a post to stand facing the sun for seven days. The Sun god blesses the faithful and strong young man, and on the seventh evening the shaft is pulled out of the proven warrior’s back and he is presented with his custom-made Machete. The family and community bestow other symbols of great admiration on him. Today’s Maya emulate the rite as best as possible. A hockey stick or javelin is used instead of a sapling trunk and the boy is attached to a flagpole on the family’s property, not in the middle of the community. Yet, unless the Maya conduct the ceremony in hiding, Child and Family Services always shows up to interfere and disrupt the Sun god’s work.

As far back as the Mayan memory will extend, nature has been appeased by sacrifice. The traditional approach to keeping mother Earth happy, made more horrific than beautiful in movies like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, was to rip out the heart of an enemy warrior or mature virgin at the edge of a live volcano vent. The priest would eat the heart as it still beat and the sacrificial body would be cast into the earth’s fire. That’s a little harder to do here, now. Finding an eighteen year old virgin is almost impossible and in place of valiant warriors the Maya have to use lawyers or accountants. And because volcano vents are uncommon in the top half of North America, the Maya make do with manholes. But they do it and, based on the ‘before’ and ‘after’ environmental conditions, it seems to work. In any event, it is mystic religious ritual that the dominant North American culture does not understand, can’t possibly appreciate, and will not respect. So it does everything it can to stop the tradition.

It may not be well known that Maya women belong to the family, one defined by the spiritually-dominant Maya warrior. By custom, women are blinded upon maturity so that they see the world through the family, making the family and the whole community stronger. The women understand this; they like and prefer it. Being blind makes it much easier to live a virtuous life in the decadent and often immoral Western world. One Maya woman, standing with her husband and his brothers nearby for support, told a group of neighbours how much easier life is when the difficulties and complexities are in the rightful hands of the spiritual warrior Sun god. Thoughts of the time before she saw through the eyes of the Sun god, her warrior and the family, make her weep. As figurative tears flow from the sockets where eyes once were, neighbours hurled abusive language at the Maya men. Why, they asked me later, do these people -- their friends mostly -- judge and interfere with others’ historical beliefs? Why do they impose their own culturally-based laws on a perfectly proper way of life?

Even simple things like the games they play are tortured. Hockey players draw blood and maim opponents in fights, and boxers beat each other into comas, but the Maya play one game of community basketball and the police get involved. The Mayan game of basketball has deep historical and religious import. Not only is it a pastime, but it tests the important character traits of a man: strength, endurance, commitment, team play, and unswerving belief. A true, god-fearing man is prepared to die or to kill for his team. So what if the losing team is literally slaughtered? It’s tradition and part of the game.

The Maya are tired of living with these double-standards. Islamic fundamentalists will martyr themselves in suicide bombing, and ‘terrorism’ scares everyone. More security, more precautions, less liberty for all is not accepted but welcomed. That’s OK. Still nobody stops Muslims from being Muslims and doing Islamic things. In fact, Islamist living is cosseted to preserve their culture and religion as perfectly as we can make it here, both actually and spiritually far away from the Prophet Muhammad’s stomping grounds. Yet when the Mayan ball players play an ancient game, the only ones getting hurt are them, the law demands that they stop and give up their religious belief. What’s wrong with just not playing? Stay out of their game if you can’t understand it, they say.

Ultimately, the Maya only want to be treated with the fairness of other religious groups. They want the Charter and Constitutional rights afforded to everyone else for practice of their religion. They want only that the prevailing system and those who follow it altered to accommodate their admittedly unusual but crucial needs. Pretty simple stuff. It’s not like anyone is demanding that the traditional human altars be erected at the centre of every village for the sacramental eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood. That would be asking too much, they concede.

Copyright 2005-6, Timothy Grayson

Please, if you have that personal experience or know somebody who's suffered that trauma, I would love to hear from you.

Thanks

It's all about choices and survival. Of course those things are not always consistent with social mores or particular moralities. Off the top of my head, I can think of about seven vectors (note how I got the virology reference in?) for an argument to substantiate the position that those with the highest probability of survival and most value to provide in the future should be protected in priority to others. But, I am also abundantly aware that H5N1 has peculiarities with regard to what conditions are best to incubate it (i.e., health, etc.) such as the apparent fact that people already sick with lowered immune systems are more likely to survive this flu than those who are robust and healthy. Look it up.

In short, it's guaranteed to be complicated. And, the science-based prevention and treatment courses should be determined on scientific bases, not on the basis of morals and social mores.

What a place to restart (!) this thing.

First, his assessment comes in the wake of a meeting with the US Homeland Security Secretary. The context of that meeting, it should be understood, is wound licking. Don't mean to be off-putting, but the newly elected Conservatives want to kiss and make up with the States, and will do it by acquiescence by and large. So be it. Just understand that international politics are at work as much or more than any safety considerations. Moreover, it hasn't gone through the gauntlet of opposition from civic rights activists, predominantly led by privacy zealots.

Second, look at this quotation:

"I don't know if we'll call it that, but we want good, law-abiding people to have smooth and quick access at all border points - not just North American, but international."

Unless, of course, it's not just about getting across borders faster and easier . . .

Stricter requirements will help "ensure the identity of individuals applying for a driver's licence," Transportation Minister Harinder Takhar said in a release yesterday.

The new measures, which come into effect Jan. 23, mean drivers will need two pieces of identification to get a licence. Acceptable identification includes passports, immigration documents, Ontario Heath Cards and Canadian and U.S. birth certificates and driver's licences.

"This ruling sets a new standard, CIS owner Robert W. Kramer was reported by press agencies as saying. "Gross abusers of e-mail risk exposure to public ridicule as well as the economic death penalty."

"It's a victory for every e-mail user and every responsible ISP. It's proof our courts and Congress are committed to protecting the public."

Despite the huge size of the award, Kramer is reported as being doubtful that he will receive any of the money. This raises questions as to whether this case is really much of a blow against these spammers, or US-based spammers in general.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?