Thursday, July 31, 2014

Art Break: Sheridan



Art Contrarian looks at the work of John E. Sheridan.

Accent Reduction Training

How long would you have to think before concluding that a "Southern Accent Reduction  Training Program" might not be a good idea, especially in Tennessee?

From FindLawThe class, which was to meet for 90 minutes a week for six weeks in August and September, was advertised as being designed to "give employees a more-neutral American accent, and be remembered for what you say and not how you say it."

Now if they'd offered a class to teach people to sound like Shelby Foote, that'd be another story.

[HT: Fred Stork]

Making Teenage Mistakes the Rest of Your Life



I remember being 16 and sitting in a windowless room at my school in Carluke (Lanarkshire, Scotland) with the school career advisor. She was a middle age lady with messy hair who clearly wasn't much interested in me or my future career. As if reading from a script she said "...I think you should get an apprenticeship at Ravenscraig as a turner or draughtsman...". Now the "Craig", as we all knew it, was a great place (long gone and much missed steel works); my Grandfather worked there and a couple of my friends were keen to do apprenticeships. However, this suggested career direction didn't make any sense to me. I was studying the 3 sciences, was hopeless at mathematics (I got a C "twice" in my exams) and metal work and technical drawing were terrible distant memories - of confusion, nasty teachers and failure. Why on earth would I want to be an engineer?


Read the rest at McArthur's Rant.

The Thrill of the Law


There is a gap between what people think lawyers do and what they actually do. 

FutureLawyer has the picture.

"Turtles All The Way Down"


Possible origins are cited at Wikipedia. My favorite:

After a lecture on cosmology and the structure of the solar system, William James was accosted by a little old lady.
"Your theory that the sun is the centre of the solar system, and the earth is a ball which rotates around it has a very convincing ring to it, Mr. James, but it's wrong. I've got a better theory," said the little old lady.
"And what is that, madam?" Inquired James politely.
"That we live on a crust of earth which is on the back of a giant turtle,"
Not wishing to demolish this absurd little theory by bringing to bear the masses of scientific evidence he had at his command, James decided to gently dissuade his opponent by making her see some of the inadequacies of her position.
"If your theory is correct, madam," he asked, "what does this turtle stand on?"
"You're a very clever man, Mr. James, and that's a very good question," replied the little old lady, "but I have an answer to it. And it is this: The first turtle stands on the back of a second, far larger, turtle, who stands directly under him."
"But what does this second turtle stand on?" Persisted James patiently.
To this the little old lady crowed triumphantly. "It's no use, Mr. James---it's turtles all the way down."
—J. R. Ross, Constraints on Variables in Syntax 1967

New Marketing Techniques


Type A:

  1. Send an unsolicited email.
  2. Follow-up the next day with an email chastising the recipient for not responding.
Type B:

  1. Don't send an email the first day.
  2. Send an email the next day wondering why the recipient has not responded.
There must be some research which shows that criticizing sales prospects is effective.

Quote of the Day

Seek simplicity, then distrust it. 

- Alfred North Whitehead

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

And Then


It is getting late and I'm in the zone. 

The house is quiet. My wife has gone to bed. I am working on the content of an online class. Reviewing scads of material. Checking out conflicting opinions. Thumbing through outlines. Typing in portions on specific points. Feeling good that I've finally hit on the right order and flow. 

Feeling calm.

And then the dog slips into my office and clears her throat behind me.

As soon as my heartbeat is normal I'm going to bed.

Entertainment Break

The trailers for:

Crashing Tablets and Competing with Amazon

See the interview with Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly.

Top Schools


Check out Forbes' list of America's top colleges. Also check the cost.

Great Moments in Journalism

"Israel's incursion into the Gaza Strip triggered a bloody war." 

- From a Spiegel Online article on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

I wonder how they might have covered other stories:
  • "Polish military action against German troops triggered a bloody war."
  • "American naval fire on Japanese planes triggered a bloody war."
  • "Union firing from Fort Sumter triggered a bloody war."

To the South of France




I'm going to get up every morning and shave over a basin and then put on a suit. Sharp. I'm going to walk down a street made of little stones. There will be baskets of flowers depending from iron hooks mortared into the stuccoed buildings. The dogs will lift their heads but not bark as I pass by. I will have a cane, for no particular reason. I will buy a newspaper in the wrong language and a baguette, and pay with some form of coin. No matter what it costs, it has to be paid for with coins.

Read the rest at Sippican Cottage.

Smells to Reassure



I read this list at Cultural Offering and decided to make a pot of coffee.

Undercover


  • He had hair down to his shoulders and sported a large mustache along with faded and torn blue jeans, sandals, and a yellow Mickey Mouse t-shirt which hadn't seen soap in weeks. Most of the rest of us in that room were well-scrubbed Army officers dressed in starched Vietnam era khakis. One old dog, a civilian, looked like George Smiley and smoked a pipe. We asked questions.
  • The bar was on a quaint cobblestone street. They were in a dark corner speaking flawless German and blending in nicely with the locals. We ignored them.
  • The two greasy-haired giants covered with sweat and grime and with chains for belts slowly explained what can go wrong very quickly in a biker bar.

Why?



"Why do we do A?"
"Because Alex was a big fan of A."
"Who's Alex?"
"Alex was the VP in Cleveland."
"Why don't I know him?"
"He left around five years ago."
"So why are we still doing this? Alex is gone and we're in Dallas."
"True, but Alex was very close to Ellen, if you know what I mean, and Ellen is still here."
"Where? I've never hear of her."
"She dropped the Ellen and now goes by her initials: E. A."
"But I take it she also dropped Alex."
"That's true. But she oversees our area and a few others."
"And she likes A?"
"We don't know but Alex might have gotten the idea from her and so...."
"And so we're still doing it."
"Yes."
"And you're worried that she might get mad if we stop doing A?"
"That's about the size of it."
"Isn't that crazy?"
"Perhaps. Do you think we should stop doing it?"
"No."

Quote of the Day

The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem. 

- Theodore Rubin

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Art Break: 1930s Illustrators



Art Contrarian looks at the work of some noted illustrators of the Thirties.

The 500-Pound Sprinter



I talked to a man the other day about entering a 500-pound sprinter in a track meet. 

He didn't realize that was our topic. He thought it was about getting a board to take on a new task. My point was that even if you give great pep talks and provide the best running shoes and the smoothest track, a 500-pound sprinter is not going to be a serious contender.

The same reality applies to individuals and groups that lack the capability to perform a particular task. You can hope. You can dream. You can throw all of your coins in a fountain and make a really big wish.

But this isn't the movies. It's not going to happen.

Far better to explore an option with a better chance of success. 

Look at your plans. How many of them involve 500-pound sprinters? Can you whip that sprinter into shape or do you need another contender?

Dictator's Checklist



  • Gain complete power.
  • Introduce terror so people keep their heads down and don't ask any questions. 
  • Create a system of informers so they won't know who can be trusted. 
  • Hammer them with propaganda which praises blind obedience. 
  • Put them in community groups which will consume time and energy amid the scrutiny of neighbors. 
  • Hand out a few impressive titles so bullies will have status. 
  • Have everyone constantly on the alert for enemies, real or imagined. 
  • Tell them how much you care about their aspirations.
  • Remove anyone who exhibits the slightest sign of disloyalty.
  • Reward people who have notable flaws and who are psychologically dependent upon pleasing the ruler.
  • Make it clear that relatives and friends of "criminals" will also be punished.
  • Get confessions so even those who know better may harbor a slight doubt of the accused person's innocence.
  • Re-write history to remove any troublesome facts.
  • Create a ruthless inner circle to deflect silent criticism from the ruler.
  • Establish an ethical system based on gaining the approval of the ruler.
  • Subvert the courts.
  • Twist the law.
  • Indoctrinate the children.
  • Destroy property rights.
  • Cultivate a privileged class of intellectuals.
  • Use credulous journalists.
  • Make everything secondary to the survival of the regime.
  • Say that all of this is done for the people.
  • Keep saying that.

Quote of the Day

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies. 

- Groucho Marx

Monday, July 28, 2014

Simplest Work Rule



You know the work which you need to do today: the work you've danced around and nibbled at and studied from all angles?

Do it.

The ISIS Start-Up


Fortune has the story of how guns and oil are getting ISIS one million dollars a day.

Le Malaise



Something is adrift in France. Rarely has the public mood been this miserable and the sullenness as omnipresent as it has been this summer. A president currently resides in Elysée Palace who was mercilessly booed during the July 14th military parade. It doesn't seem possible for Hollande to get any less popular, and yet his popularity continues to fall from one low to the next.

Read the rest of the Spiegel Online article here.

Daily Questions



  • When to think and when to act.
  • When to cease and when to persist.
  • When to engage and when to back off.
  • When to rest and when to toil.
  • When to listen and when to ignore.
  • When to assume and when to explore.

Quote of the Day

Most of what exists in the universe - our actions, and all other forces, resources, and ideas - has little value and yields little result; on the other hand, a few things work fantastically well and have tremendous impact. 

- Richard Koch

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Ponder


Some items to ponder today:

Find Something Beautiful Today


Saturday, July 26, 2014

Writers on Writing


1989: A Paris Review program featuring George Plimpton and Paul Theroux

[Plimpton mentions his book, The Writer's Chapbook, which is excellent and, for some reason, now missing from my bookshelves. Hmm.]

Neither a Typo Nor a "Speak-o"

Althouse reacts to Jonathan Gruber's convenient switch. She notes:

The inconsistency between what Gruber said in the friend-of-the-court briefs in the current litigation and what he said in 2012 doesn't persuade me that he "made a mistake" back then. In 2012, the effort was to pressure and frighten the politicians in the various states so that they would set up the exchanges. Now, after so many states resisted that pressure, the effort is to preserve the federal exchanges that were set up. At both points in time, Gruber said what served the goals of the program.

What's more likely, that he "made a mistake in some 2012 speeches" or that he's lying now?

Health Food Update

pie

From 2013: The Pioneer Woman shows how to make French Silk Pie.

The End of Poirot



Mr. Suchet’s portrayal was, in the classic British tradition, built from the outside in. Christie provided a template — short and fastidious, with a dramatic mustache and an egg-shaped head. To this Mr. Suchet added a stiff, military posture and a slightly mincing penguin’s waddle of a walk that could turn into a surprisingly nimble run on the rare occasions when action was called for. Add a small assortment of expressions — gimlet stare, disapproving frown, twinkling grin — and across roughly 80 hours of screen time a full portrait emerges of pride, loyalty, fastidiousness, kindness and implacable principle.

Read the rest of The New York Times article.

Turnover


The CEO was unhappy with the performance of one of his top executives so he fired him and brought in another hot shot. That person knew his predecessor was good but he figured that person must have missed something so he enthusiastically assumed the post. The new person also failed. The chief executive tapped another person for the slot only to be disappointed again. Then another and another failed to meet the chief executive officer's expectations.

One day, the frustrated CEO sat in his office, stared out the window and muttered, "I wonder if there is a common denominator in all of these cases."

How to Succeed in DC



Here's a 2008 Washingtonian "self-interview" by Victor Gold that is a must-read for political junkies. An excerpt:

A theme this election year is that Washington is more partisan than ever. That true?
Mere campaign blather. When Nixon was inaugurated 40 years ago, he promised to “bring us together” because people were wringing their hands over how “partisan” politics had become. And George H.W. Bush in 1989 said we needed a “kinder, gentler” atmosphere in Washington, followed by Bill Clinton’s promise to end partisan “gridlock.” Partisanship is the nature of democratic government. If you’re looking for a non-partisan capital, move to Beijing.

Not Hard to Find


It is not hard to find:

Those who work only for a paycheck.

But it is also not hard to find:

Those who love the job, hone their talents, and enjoy their co-workers and customers. 

It's too easy to gripe about the first group and overlook the second.

Big Jules



Algis Valiunas examines the importance of Jules Verne. An excerpt:

Each of Verne’s heroes is a nonpareil, the most remarkable man in the world—as long as the reader is immersed in his particular story. Only in other Verne novels—and in television commercials for a Mexican beer—can one find his equals. And the ideas in the novels are of interest chiefly for being indicative of the thinking done by persons of that time who are no longer esteemed for their thought.

Quote of the Day

Those are my principles, and if you don't like them . . . well, I have others. 

- Groucho Marx

Friday, July 25, 2014

The Man of Many Watches



Congratulations to Rick Georges, a.k.a. FutureLawyer, for the Above the Law article on how Rick uses technology in his law practice.

You need such gizmos when you spend most of your days at the beach.

Music Break

BBC Proms: "Hedwig's Theme" from Harry Potter.

A Smoking Gun?

Ryan Radia at the Competitive Enterprise Institute on the day "Mr. Mandate" talked about the state exchanges.

Peter Suderman on the story as well as some updates.

More from:
["Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" - Groucho Marx]

Nanny State Update



National Journal on the federal government's actions against school bake sales.

These people have lost their minds.

[HT: Drudge Report]

Quick Bits of Advice at the End of the Work Week




  1. Give your life a larger purpose.
  2. Don't tell yourself stories.
  3. Be alert to opportunities but don't chase every one.
  4. Count on it taking longer.
  5. Be as kind to yourself as you are to others.
  6. Learn how you learn.
  7. Seek wisdom, not cleverness.
  8. Stop making excuses.
  9. Avoid bad influences.
  10. Determine what you really want.
  11. Focus.
  12. Don't coast.

It's Friday. You Need This.


Guitarist John Williams playing Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez at the BBC Proms.

Bock on Business Books



Wally Bock has an excellent post and points to some other posts on the importance of reading business books (and novels too, for that matter). 

One of my regrets is that I didn't read as many business books as I should have in the early stage of my career. That practice would have prevented more than a few scars.

You Don't



  1. You don't insult people and then expect them to cooperate with you.
  2. You don't act as if you know more than everybody in the room when you know less than everybody in the room and they know it.
  3. You don't dress like a Hell's Angel and expect to be regarded as a bank president.
  4. You don't enforce minor rules and expect that your victims won't use those same rules as weapons.
  5. You don't take care of yourself before taking care of your team.
  6. You don't switch priorities so frequently that people throw up their hands and wait for the next change.
  7. You don't take good performers for granted and then expect them to stay.
  8. You don't assume that everyone shares your opinions.
  9. You don't make commitments and then drop people on their heads.
  10. You don't expect people to read your mind.

Quote of the Day

Westerners have abandoned an ethical basis for society, believing that all problems are solvable by a good government. . . . In the West, especially after World War II, the government came to be seen as so successful that it could fulfill all the obligations that in less modern societies are fulfilled by the family. . . . In the East, we start with self-reliance. In the West today, it is the opposite. The government says give me a popular mandate and I will solve all society's problems. 

- Lee Kuan Yew

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Music Break

Back by popular demand. Suzanne Vega: "Tom's Diner."

Art Break: Huhn



Art Contrarian looks at the work of Tim Huhn.

A Maginot Commitment

I had breakfast with a city official this morning. Since both of us are history buffs, before getting down to business we discussed the history books we've been reading. That resulted in a review of decisions made during World War II. A thought came to mind: Once France had invested its time and treasure so heavily in the Maginot Line, what were the odds that it was going to back away from that strategy?

I'll take that even further: Assume that a credible source had leaked the German plan of attack to the French 12 months in advance. Would it have been easy to persuade the French government and military to shift its strategy? 

Probably not.

Random Thoughts



One of the greatest challenges in any organization is to overcome a surprising amount of inertia on important issues. Individuals and groups naturally drift toward complexity.  A leader who continually makes excuses no longer deserves to be a leader. It is telling that while there are attempts to make vegetables that taste like meat, no one tries to make meat which tastes like vegetables. I have an old fashioned reaction whenever seeing a war or a fight: I ask who started it. You can learn a great deal about people when you discover what they read for pleasure in high school. Many of us fight a daily battle against sloth disguised as busyness. An efficient way to discover the flaws in a plan is to present it to a group and declare that the plan is perfect. There is a huge difference between having humility and feeling unworthy. Extreme politeness between two people can be a sign that they dislike one another. Office buildings should consider renting special rooms designed for naps. A common mistake of boards and staff is to infringe upon each other's territory. The map of a bureaucrat is filled with one-way streets which are dead-ends. Be on the alert for discredited practices with new titles. Anyone who relies upon television for the news may be well misinformed. The lessons of history are usually ignored until a nation is in the emergency ward. I have never heard Aaron Copland's music on the radio without feeling happy. For many, the main achievement of graduate school is an increased vocabulary of jargon and weasel words. I wonder if we'd get more done if days were only 12 hours long. Men notice a woman's jewelry. Women notice a man's shoes. An ethical person is not just honest and kind but also brave and ambitious.

Quote of the Day

One of the saddest sentences I know is "I wish I had asked my mother about that." Or my father. Or my grandmother. Or my grandfather. 

- William Zinsser

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

First Paragraph

To win at any endeavor requires a competitive edge with an ability to outperform the competition consistently and definitively. That's called success - a simple word that is not so simple to understand, let alone achieve. In business, we define success as meeting the needs of all major stakeholder groups (customers, employees, investors, suppliers, and communities) consistently over the short term and the long term. 

- From The Leadership Roadmap by Dwane Baumgardner and Russ Scaffede

Entertainment Break

Jimmy Durante and Monty Woolley in a scene from "The Man Who Came to Dinner."

The Bureaucrat Who Came to Dinner


I recently spoke with an administrator about the structure of a program at his institution. [I'm being vague here.] The program had become insanely complicated, needlessly increasing work without improving results. I expected him to defend the changes since he'd announced them but he sighed and said they were necessary to satisfy federal auditors.

You take their money and they call the tune.

I was initially going to say that the changes were to satisfy federal requirements but that may not be accurate. There can be a big difference between what is legally required and what is demanded by the people in the field. I've dealt with federal administrators and investigators for years. Most are decent people trying to do their job in a reasonable manner but more than a few are, to use an overused expression, beyond belief.

They know that the customers (or victims) are eager to get back to their main duties. That eagerness becomes a point of vulnerability. Auditors don't need to take you to court in order to make your life miserable. They just need to camp out on your porch and overwhelm you with information requests. Their power stems from the fact that they can disrupt operations and consume huge amounts of time.

It reminds me of the old play which was later made into a movie - "The Man Who Came to Dinner" - in which an arrogant guest comes to dinner, is injured, and then doesn't leave. 

As for getting hooked on the money, a rock song may be more appropriate

Problem Employee Index


  • Number of team members: 12
  • Number of problem employees on the team: 1
  • Number of times management has talked to employee about the problem: 0
  • Number of times management has dropped hints about the problem: 15
  • Number of times co-workers have talked about management inaction: 32
  • Number of performance evaluations given to employee: 8
  • Number of overall "Meets Standards" ratings in those evaluations: 8
  • Number of nights the supervisor has churned stomach acid: 67
  • Number of nights the problem employee has churned stomach acid: 0

Quote of the Day

The world is rich in possibilities. It overflows with the good things that humankind has created for itself. They're out there for the taking. But before you learn how to take them, you must learn that no one will do it for you. 

- Ben Stein

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Entertainment Break

The trailers for:

Whiff of Rodent


Political Calculations has crunched the numbers on the IRS computer crashes.

Draft

Picture your audience. Outline. Review. Scramble to produce the first draft. Don't edit heavily as you write. Get it done. Know that you're putting in too much at some points and too little at others. The addition and subtraction will come later. Be especially wary of anything which is clever. When the first draft is done, check for tone, order, and flow. Above all, check for clarity. Write another draft. Then another and perhaps even more. Learn how to write quickly without becoming impatient. Impatience fosters mistakes. [You'll make enough mistakes without it.] Impatience can cause you to ignore alarm bells.

Not there yet? Write another draft.

The Factual Feminist Looks at Verizon's Ad

Christina Hoff Sommers on the Verizon "Inspire Her Mind" ad.

[HT: Instapundit]

2 a.m.

It is two in the morning and I am awakened by a wet-nosed dog. I look at my watch and groan. She wants to go out. Her usual schedule was disrupted by the bi-weekly irrigation which flooded both of our yards and although she sleeps on the floor next to my wife's side of the bed, she is savvy enough to know that any chores will go to dad, the elderly retainer. My wife sleeps or feigns sleep. [I think I detect a small smile.]

I get up, grab my glasses and some slippers, and shuffle to the patio. The dog wanders out to her new favorite spot and studies the magnetic field, the stars, and the condition of the ground. This takes a while. I am patient, grateful that she just doesn't want to play.

The mission accomplished, we go back inside to the kitchen where I dry her paws with some marginal hand-towels which the Chinese sell to credulous Americans. Around here they are car-towels and paw-towels. They do the job. The young dog happily trots off to bed. The old dog shuffles back.

Sleep is truly under-rated.

Online Training



For years I have resisted presenting online training. This stems from my belief that no educational experience is better than being in the room with a well-qualified and enthusiastic instructor where you can ask questions and exchange thoughts.

I still believe that.

But the world is going online. Clients want access to classes 24 hours a day and an online version costs less than having old Wade come in with his stories and questions, although that is obviously an experience to be cherished.

I'll still teach live workshops but am preparing online versions of my classes on leadership, harassment prevention, ethical decision making, and supervision. Others will follow on customer service, followership, and other topics.

They will be available on a public and in-house basis. The idea is to make them easily available.

Many years back, I developed and taught a supervisor's workshop for Dun & Bradstreet. I received royalties whenever another instructor used my materials. There was something intensely pleasurable when a letter arrived announcing that winter sessions of my class were being taught in Montreal, Buffalo, or Minneapolis while I sat in Phoenix.

Yes, the online option has its advantages.

"It is why we do everything else"



Cultural Offering on home therapy.

Hints of Power



  1. Carries nothing.
  2. Dresses conservatively.
  3. Is polite and prepared.
  4. Doesn't raise voice.
  5. Listens for the unsaid.
  6. Summarizes.
  7. Decides.

Quote of the Day

Since civilization was something that could be achieved, everything was enlisted in order to push back barbarism and ignorance and spread civility and refinement. Courtesy books that told Americans how to behave doubled in numbers during the middle decades of the eighteenth century. From such conduct manuals people learned how to act in company, how to clean their bodies, how to refine their tastes. Compilers of dictionaries attempted to find the correct meanings, spellings, and pronunciations of words and freeze them between the covers of their books. In these ways peculiarities of dialect and eccentricities of spelling and pronunciation could be eliminated, and standards of the language could be set. Even dueling, which flourished in the eighteenth century as never before, was justified as a civilizing agent, as a means of refinement; the threat of having to fight a duel compelled gentlemen to control their passions and inhibited them from using "illiberal language" with one another.  

- Gordon S. Wood, Revolutionary Characters: What Made The Founders Different

Monday, July 21, 2014

Joining the Stack



  • Moments of Reprieve: A Memoir of Auschwitz by Primo Levi
  • Gomorrah: Italy's Other Mafia by Roberto Saviano
  • I Am the Change: Barack Obama and the Crisis of Liberalism by Charles R. Kesler
  • A History of The Jews by Paul Johnson
  • Crisis Communications: The Definitive Guide to Managing the Message by Steven Fink
  • Patriotism edited by Igor Primoratz
  • Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman with Greg McKeown
  • The Fear Index by Robert Harris
  • For The Good of the Cause by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
  • School for Love by Olivia Manning
  • Critical Chain: A Business Novel by Eliyahu M. Goldratt

Living on Vegas Time



Many years ago I attended a class on campaign management. It was held in Las Vegas and was conducted by political campaign wizards who spoke on the ins and outs of their craft. They eloquently described the fine uses of well-designed mailing pieces and warned of the dangers of pestering prospective voters with phone calls. One of them noted that he would never use a telephone campaign in Las Vegas because of the odds - an appropriate term for that area - that you'd be waking up and angering someone who sleeps during the day.

Shift forward to today. Many of us have strange work schedules. People are working long hours and the Monday through Friday mode is often broken. The political campaigns and the telephone solicitors, however, do not appear to have gotten that message. Robo-calls are in full force along with robo-surveys.

I'd love to see some cost-benefit analysis on those.

Christina Hoff Sommers

The Millennials have been cheated out of a serious education by their Baby Boomer teachers. Call it a generational swindle. Even the best and brightest among the 20-somethings have been shortchanged. Instead of great books, they wasted a lot of time with third-rate political tracts and courses with titles like "Women Writers of the Oklahoma Panhandle." Instead of spending their college years debating and challenging received ideas, they had to cope with speech codes and identity politics. College educated young women in the U.S. are arguably the most fortunate people in history; yet many of them have drunk deeply from the gender feminist Kool-Aid. Girls at Yale, Haverford and Swarthmore see themselves as oppressed. That is madness. And madness can only last so long. So, I plan to continue writing books and articles, making my Factual Feminist videos and lecturing at as many campuses and laws schools as I can.[sic] American colleges have been described as islands of repression in a sea of freedom. I want to encourage rebellion among the islanders.

Read the rest of the Ravishly interview with Christina Hoff Sommers, author of Who Stole Feminism?

[HT: Instapundit]

First Paragraph

Under the shadow of Boston State House, turning its back on the house of John Hancock, the little passage called Hancock Avenue runs, or ran, from Beacon Street, skirting the State House grounds, to Mount Vernon Street, on the summit of Beacon Hill; and there, in the third house below Mount Vernon Place, February 16, 1838, a child was born, and christened later by his uncle, the minister of the First Church after the tenets of Boston Unitarianism, as Henry Brooks Adams. 

- From The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams

A Person


A person can be very smart and, seconds later, surprisingly stupid; brave on some subjects and cowardly on others, and each of those can be affected by fatigue and memory; at times noble and then mean and insensitive; generous and selfish, far-sighted and short-sighted, friendly and cold, neat and sloppy, logical and illogical - the list can continue.

When dealing with a person, you are encountering a crowd.

Quote of the Day

One of the scariest aspects of our time is how seldom either people or policies are judged by their track record. 

- Thomas Sowell

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Remaking Yourself



Who's writing your script? Fire them and get someone new. 

- Nicholas Bate

Read the rest here.

Hmm


The trailer for "Magic in the Moonlight." 

First Paragraph

"This board meeting is adjourned," announces Daniel Pullman, the domineering chairman and CEO of Genemodem. The elegant conference room hums with conversation as the directors start to depart. The last quarter was the best in the history of the company. The directors are pleased, but no one is overly excited. They have come to expect it. For the past six years, almost every quarter has been better than the preceding one. 

- From Critical Gain: A Business Novel by Eliyahu M. Goldratt

Exclamation Point!


There are people who overdo the exclamation point. "We went to the beach!" "The coffee was extraordinary!" "Cranston lost his keys!"

Others would endure torture instead of adding what they regard as an unnecessary and gushy form of punctuation. 

I take the middle ground and occasionally use exclamation points for a simple reason. Writing is akin to performing on a stage. Stage actors, as opposed to their colleagues in films, have to exaggerate a bit more in order to project an emotion. They don't have a camera examining their every pore. It is far easier for a film actor to be subtle than it is for the stage performer who must be heard by the people in the balcony and the back row. That is why the "stage whisper" was invented.

Writing poses a similar barrier. Consider this scenario:

An associate sends an idea via email.

You email back: "Great."

Your friend may stare at that and wonder, "Is that 'great' what I mean by great or is it a reluctant great, a cursory great, an 'I can't believe you think this is a good idea" sort of great?"

An exclamation point - "Great!" - conveys sufficient enthusiasm to overcome the potential misinterpretation.

This is, of course, neither fool or knave-proof. Some may use exclamation points as a form of sarcasm. When they do so they risk misdirecting their barb. If you are going to be sarcastic, you want people to know it. 

Others may read too much into the exclamation. They may not know your currency exchange rate. "Great!" may really mean "That's very good" or even "That's good."

Set those quibbles aside. If the exclamation point is appropriate, go for it.

Remember, when they cannot see you or hear your intonations, you are on stage.

Unconventional Interview


If we didn't have to worry about employment law and had no qualms about causing the HR people to seek solace in the nearest bar, we might break out of structured interviews and use a free-wheeling manner that could cut through the neat little answers memorized in employment workshops by asking about favorite dogs, cars, escapes, food, clothing, and which car they'd buy if they had unlimited funds and whether they could persuade you to buy a condo in a swamp. It would be interesting to know the classes they hated in high school and what they felt about people in the band and if they really like cocktail parties and regard rap music as music and can name three magazines they really like and what is their favorite trashy movie and Shakespeare play and their opinion of Mel Gibson and Mardi Gras and the ending of "The Sopranos" and how clean is their car, like right now, and have they ever read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or heard of Alger Hiss, Gilbert & Sullivan, and The White Album or fired a shotgun or had a fight or been lost in the woods.

And others to that effect.

Now what would you like to ask?