Independence Day: Would You Have Signed?

I wrote this several years ago and post it each 4th of July:

The document is on the table. 

Although some of your colleagues are making jokes, each one knows that the signature places the signer's head in a hangman's noose. To sign means you will be regarded as a traitor by the nation that has held your loyalty since birth. Your livelihood may be destroyed and your family doomed to a life of isolation and poverty. Many of your friends and associates will be under suspicion. Others will shun you. Your side, which has feeble and poorly-trained forces, will be fighting the greatest military power in the world. Despite all of the grand talk, the odds of success are small. Even if your side is successful, your new nation will be vulnerable to internal disputes and attacks from predatory powers. This theory of self-government, however attractive, might not work.

It's your turn. Will you sign?

Quote of the Day

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. 

- George Orwell

Off The Grid

Barring a zombie invasion, I will be off the grid until July 4, collecting thoughts and fireworks.

See you then.

The Beginning

The Telegraph gives a step-by-step account of the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the event which triggered the First World War.

Imagine the millions of people who read of this event in the newspapers, little realizing what was coming their way.

Health Food Update

From 2009: The Pioneer Woman shows how to make a killer coffee cake.

Random Thoughts

I wonder if heaven has a meter showing how much time we squandered deleting email. [Perhaps that's in hell.] Proposed sign for meeting rooms: "Check your ego at the door." Many of us can outdo our harshest critics twelve times before breakfast. What the office does to the leader can be as interesting as what the leader does to the office. "It's a priority" is very different from "It's the priority." If there are 20 people in a board meeting perhaps four or five are truly present. We would be humbled to know how little of our daily work matters. At the same time, we would be surprised to learn which of it matters enormously. You can't have it all and you certainly can't do it all. Choosing your areas of incompetence is an important part of any career plan. You can easily spot someone who, having attained a position of power, doesn't know what to do with it. It would be nice if each generation were given a magic envelope containing a list revealing which of its activities future generations will regard as insane. Keeping up on things may ensure that you fall behind on things. It was a wise person who first described some skills as "rusty." A frequent challenge is deciding which of the little things aren't little. Slow down to gain pleasure from a small task. Learn the power of being present and of being absent.

Lack of Appreciation

Want to drive off some of your best employees?

Take them for granted. Give no sign of appreciation. Never even hint that you've noticed their achievements.

After all, you don't have time for a five minute phone call, a brief visit, or a handwritten thank-you note.

They should know that if you didn't like them they'd be gone.

Wait, they're gone?

Gray

Perhaps not evil. Definitely not virtuous. Borderline bad. 

Gray. 

Which is nothing to brag about. 

How many actions have to be gray before reasonable people conclude that a person or an organization is unethical?

Dead Accurate

From Maggie's Farm via Anderson Layman's Blog:

Quote of the Day

Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms. 

- George Eliot