The story on Members of Parliament fiddling their expense reports and diddling the British ratepayers keeps on coming. And it’s costing MPs more than embarrassment—they’re starting to lose their jobs.
Shahid Malik tried brazening it out by insisting that expensing (among other things) a $3K flat-screen TV is perfectly legit. But by Friday he’d handed in his resignation as junior justice minister. Malik is the first, but probably not the only one headed down that path.
The WSJ comments that this is an aberration from the usual Parliamentary scandal, which has tended to be of a sexual nature. You know—murdering your gay lover, sleeping with call girls who are also servicing the Soviet naval attaché, that sort of peccadillo. Money—just not the done thing, you know…
The pushing of the padding envelope has been going on for many years. But surfacing amidst a serious recession, when Brits have lost their sense of job security and watched banks being nationalized while executive management remained both exempt from accountability and in possession of golden parachutes—well, the electorate is not amused.
The rules that enabled all the fiddling were enacted to basically increase MPs’ compensation without passing a raise in salaries, which was unpopular to the point of being a serious career-limiting move. Salaries remained static, but Members could expense all sorts of things—without having to justify individual purchases to their constituency. They were permitted allowances, and the total expenditures might be made public, but not that they were for flat-screen TVs, horse manure or multiple-residences.
(The WSJ has helpfully compiled a list of who’s charged the taxpayers for what. Talk about ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous.)
By contrast, in the US, Congressional money scandals usually revolve around accepting freebies and quid-pro-quos from lobbyists. That’s because their allowed expenses are carefully circumscribed, and they by law must reveal all their outgoings. Having the same sense of grandiose entitlement as their British confrères, they make up the “difference” between what they get and what they think they deserve by cozying up with special interests.
What’s interesting to me is that in the midst of swirling revelations of venality both large and small, Parliament expressed its own outrage. Not that they were revealed as emulating small-time pickpockets, or that their injured self-justifications didn’t wash with the British public.
No, the real crime in their view wasn’t that they were screwing their constituents. It was that the story got leaked to said constituents. They were outraged—utterly outraged—that their privacy was compromised in this fashion, and have called on the Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard) to investigate and prosecute the true criminals to the fullest extent.
That’s pretty much a pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtains ploy to divert the public's attention from the fact that they’ve been picking up the tab for MPs’ dog food, home renovations, phantom mortgage interest payments and bankrolling their sibs for years.
I’ve got to say, it makes a nice change from our domestic venality, but it is nonetheless discouraging to find that, no matter how much you pay pols, it’s never enough to salve their egos.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Dog is my co-pilot
The Denver Post reports a story that will come as a surprise to no one who’s shared his/her life with a four-foot companion: dogs have souls.
Well, duh.
Dogs are full of natural goodness and have rich emotional lives, according to an animal behaviorist at the University of Colorado. Marc Bekoff encapsulates his findings, “[W]e’re not alone in having a nuanced moral system.” They know their lives are interrelated with their humans’ and they focus on us to make that relationship work.
There’s more: empathy and morality aren’t uniquely human characteristics.
(Actually, there are times when I think morality is distinctly not a human trait. But that’s a different post.)
Bekoff reports that animals can and do distinguish between right and wrong. Dogs have rules of play and cheats find themselves ostracized.
Findings such as Bekoff’s, and investigations at Harvard’s Canine Cognition Laboratory are stimulating new discussions among theologians. In the world of western religion, it’s long been the accepted “knowledge” that animals don’t have the requisite capabilities of belief and rationalization to possess human-like souls.
(Assumption being that humanlike souls are the gold standard.)
Bekoff has found that dogs have a sense of fair play; they make friends; they modify their behavior to meet the needs of their friends. They recognize unfairness, and it makes them unhappy. They grieve and they hope.
What they don’t do is scheme, torture, backstab or abandon their young.
What’s not to admire in these characteristics? Why would the Supreme Being not have endowed these creatures with souls?
Tom Ricks, who covered the military for the WSJ and the Washington Post for many years and is now senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, asks the real question. Do dogs think people have souls?
Now, all this hoo-hah is about dogs, but that’s because they’re easiest to observe—they’re around us. I myself have witnessed affection, play, concern, sullenness, guilt—in short, a whole range of emotions and behaviors—in cats who’ve graciously deigned to allow me to minister to them.
Whether I had them for 53 days or 17 years, every one had something to teach me. Don’t take things personally. Try everything once. A cuddle and a purr can make most things better. You have the right to be loved for what you are, not what you do. Sevruga caviare isn’t just for humans and if you snake one paw up from under the coffee table you might not be noticed snatching the Scottish smoked salmon. Be persistent. Don’t be in the moment—own it.
Sadly, there are way too many people in this world who think animals are here for their amusement and to be objects of their cruelty. I confess that every time I see one of those Sarah McLachlan SPCA commercials I can barely manage to look and I want nothing so much as a high-powered M40A3 with a really good scope and a crate of .338 Lapua Magnum cartridges. Ditto those commercials for the Humane Society.
You can’t tell me that creatures that would inflict such suffering on other living beings have souls.
Regardless of which species are stamped with the soul-of-approval, if you’ve read all the way to the end of this post, do one more thing: go to the Animal Rescue site and click on the button to donate food to shelters. Your click will give sustenance to one of those incarcerated critters waiting to share morality and cognition with a human.
Well, duh.
Dogs are full of natural goodness and have rich emotional lives, according to an animal behaviorist at the University of Colorado. Marc Bekoff encapsulates his findings, “[W]e’re not alone in having a nuanced moral system.” They know their lives are interrelated with their humans’ and they focus on us to make that relationship work.
There’s more: empathy and morality aren’t uniquely human characteristics.
(Actually, there are times when I think morality is distinctly not a human trait. But that’s a different post.)
Bekoff reports that animals can and do distinguish between right and wrong. Dogs have rules of play and cheats find themselves ostracized.
Findings such as Bekoff’s, and investigations at Harvard’s Canine Cognition Laboratory are stimulating new discussions among theologians. In the world of western religion, it’s long been the accepted “knowledge” that animals don’t have the requisite capabilities of belief and rationalization to possess human-like souls.
(Assumption being that humanlike souls are the gold standard.)
Bekoff has found that dogs have a sense of fair play; they make friends; they modify their behavior to meet the needs of their friends. They recognize unfairness, and it makes them unhappy. They grieve and they hope.
What they don’t do is scheme, torture, backstab or abandon their young.
What’s not to admire in these characteristics? Why would the Supreme Being not have endowed these creatures with souls?
Tom Ricks, who covered the military for the WSJ and the Washington Post for many years and is now senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, asks the real question. Do dogs think people have souls?
Now, all this hoo-hah is about dogs, but that’s because they’re easiest to observe—they’re around us. I myself have witnessed affection, play, concern, sullenness, guilt—in short, a whole range of emotions and behaviors—in cats who’ve graciously deigned to allow me to minister to them.
Whether I had them for 53 days or 17 years, every one had something to teach me. Don’t take things personally. Try everything once. A cuddle and a purr can make most things better. You have the right to be loved for what you are, not what you do. Sevruga caviare isn’t just for humans and if you snake one paw up from under the coffee table you might not be noticed snatching the Scottish smoked salmon. Be persistent. Don’t be in the moment—own it.
Sadly, there are way too many people in this world who think animals are here for their amusement and to be objects of their cruelty. I confess that every time I see one of those Sarah McLachlan SPCA commercials I can barely manage to look and I want nothing so much as a high-powered M40A3 with a really good scope and a crate of .338 Lapua Magnum cartridges. Ditto those commercials for the Humane Society.
You can’t tell me that creatures that would inflict such suffering on other living beings have souls.
Regardless of which species are stamped with the soul-of-approval, if you’ve read all the way to the end of this post, do one more thing: go to the Animal Rescue site and click on the button to donate food to shelters. Your click will give sustenance to one of those incarcerated critters waiting to share morality and cognition with a human.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Driven to despair
I was reminded yesterday of how dependent we are on our technology. It’s bad enough when you can’t connect to the Internet; but it can and does get worse.
I came in to work at 0600 and my laptop wouldn’t boot up. After three calls to the help desk to send out a hardware tech (one of which revealed that, “the tech sent you an email asking if you’re available…” To which I replied, “Okay—if I can’t boot up my machine, I’m not going to be receiving email.” Right), at 0945 the guy finally showed up.
He ran a diagnostic and pronounced my hard drive dead at the scene.
Here’s where the blood drains from one’s face: all my files, my business plans, product features specs, house-moving checklists, expense reports—in short, pretty much my whole life—was on that drive. And, since my employer supplied me with neither network backup nor an external hard drive, nothing was backed up.
A lot of the material was still there, attached to emails. But the stuff I worked on this past week was gone with the electrons. I have to say, life did not seem worth living at that point.
The tech took away my machine to replace the drive, accompanied by dire predictions of the unlikelihood of recovering any of my files, and I set about trying to recall all my brilliance of the past few days. But my heart wasn’t in it.
About three hours after that, he called to say he’d been able to recover my files after all, and they’re now on the hard drive of my interim machine. And I’ve ordered external hard drives for my office mate and myself.
I swear I’m backing up every other day from here on out.
At least once a week.
I promise.
I came in to work at 0600 and my laptop wouldn’t boot up. After three calls to the help desk to send out a hardware tech (one of which revealed that, “the tech sent you an email asking if you’re available…” To which I replied, “Okay—if I can’t boot up my machine, I’m not going to be receiving email.” Right), at 0945 the guy finally showed up.
He ran a diagnostic and pronounced my hard drive dead at the scene.
Here’s where the blood drains from one’s face: all my files, my business plans, product features specs, house-moving checklists, expense reports—in short, pretty much my whole life—was on that drive. And, since my employer supplied me with neither network backup nor an external hard drive, nothing was backed up.
A lot of the material was still there, attached to emails. But the stuff I worked on this past week was gone with the electrons. I have to say, life did not seem worth living at that point.
The tech took away my machine to replace the drive, accompanied by dire predictions of the unlikelihood of recovering any of my files, and I set about trying to recall all my brilliance of the past few days. But my heart wasn’t in it.
About three hours after that, he called to say he’d been able to recover my files after all, and they’re now on the hard drive of my interim machine. And I’ve ordered external hard drives for my office mate and myself.
I swear I’m backing up every other day from here on out.
At least once a week.
I promise.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Absinthe, Chapter 2
When you are taste-tested in Eric Felten’s WSJ “How’s Your Drink” column, you’re playing with the big dogs.
So be prepared to find absinthe-based cocktails appearing at an upscale bar near you or have them thrust upon you at your next trendoid party with the glitterati-manqués. All the more so since the versions Felten rates range in price from $50 to $76. When something costs the earth, it’s going to hit the charts.
(You know the liquor has made it to the mainstream when some “boutique” distillery in quasi-rural western Washington is manufacturing the stuff. In a state that’s just announced raising the taxes on spirits from 39% to 52%.)
Felten gives us a brief history indicating that not only is the “green fairy” an acquired taste, it’s not really acquired by many outside of the artistic crowd who have a vested interest in pushing the brain-damaging envelope. Even Oscar Wilde couldn’t get over the taste, try though he might to appear the style-setting iconoclast.
But take a look at Felten’s taste-test ratings. The one he developed a new category, “Yucky” for is what Virgin America is selling on its flights. All the more reason to watch out for any fellow passengers ordering it, even in watered-down form.
So be prepared to find absinthe-based cocktails appearing at an upscale bar near you or have them thrust upon you at your next trendoid party with the glitterati-manqués. All the more so since the versions Felten rates range in price from $50 to $76. When something costs the earth, it’s going to hit the charts.
(You know the liquor has made it to the mainstream when some “boutique” distillery in quasi-rural western Washington is manufacturing the stuff. In a state that’s just announced raising the taxes on spirits from 39% to 52%.)
Felten gives us a brief history indicating that not only is the “green fairy” an acquired taste, it’s not really acquired by many outside of the artistic crowd who have a vested interest in pushing the brain-damaging envelope. Even Oscar Wilde couldn’t get over the taste, try though he might to appear the style-setting iconoclast.
But take a look at Felten’s taste-test ratings. The one he developed a new category, “Yucky” for is what Virgin America is selling on its flights. All the more reason to watch out for any fellow passengers ordering it, even in watered-down form.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Parliamentary procedure
It turns out that US Congress-slime aren’t the only lawmakers who believe that election to office entitles them to live like corporate managers & stick their constituents for their day-to-day expenses. For the past few days the Telegraph has been making bales & bales of hay about Members of Parliament whose expenses smell decidedly fishy.
The stories started out with Labour Party members’ peccadilloes, as you’d expect from the Torygraph. By way of sampling, ex-Agriculture Minister David Hogg stuck the British ratepayer for £20K/year for the past five years for “second home allowances”, which included £2,115 for clearing a moat, £646 for miscellaneous stuff around stables & £40 for piano tuning.
All of which is obviously desperately related to running the agriculture ministry.
Hazel Blears, Communities Secretary, filed for expenses on three separate properties in a year, including £5K for furniture in three months. Dunno what a “communities secretary is”, but I suppose you need furniture for when the communities come calling.
Margaret Beckett, Housing Minister, also in the three-homes club (including a “grace-&-favour” accommodation supplied rent-free by the taxpayers) hit up the good citizens of Britain for £500 for hanging baskets & potted plants.
&, one of my faves, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith expensed two pay-per-view porn movies her husband ordered up in a hotel. Well, you know—it’s hard being a ministerial spouse, all by yourself in a strange room; the taxpayers really owe you that, don’t they?
It probably really sticks in the Torygraph’s craw, but the irregularities aren’t limited to Labourites; the Conservatives are right up there at the trough, too.
Alan Duncan, millionaire MP & shadow leader, submitted claims for thousands in gardening expenses, including £598 to overhaul a ride-on lawn mower & another £41 to fix a tire on same.
David Healthcoat-Amory, MP for Wells, claimed £388 for horse manure.
Very big on gardening, these Tories.
But wait—there’s more: even the Lib-Dems got in on the pork. Andrew George hits up the ratepayers £847/month in mortgage for a £300,000 flat exclusively inhabited by his student daughter.
There’s a huge outcry now—Labour looks in danger of losing the next general election, although I don’t know whom to choose among all the parties, since they’re all equal opportunity grafters. MPs are scurrying to explain how they’ve scrupulously adhered to the letter of the expense regulations; &, besides, they didn’t have the first notion that horse manure & porn flicks aren’t really, you know, reasonable & customary.
Well, pols are pols the world over.
What’s interesting is that the Telegraph’s story is actually the result of an American reporter who cut her investigative teeth on investigating Washington state’s legislators. She’s spent the past five years pushing to get Parliamentary expenses out into the light of day. Seems they’ve benefited from rules that don’t require transparency.
With the predictable results.
It’ll be amusing to watch the fall-out. No one does umbrage-cum-pomposity like an MP. & I'll bet the senior management of failed British banks are toasting the MPs all around their gentlemen's clubs, for distracting the public from their excesses.
I guess it does all work out in the end.
The stories started out with Labour Party members’ peccadilloes, as you’d expect from the Torygraph. By way of sampling, ex-Agriculture Minister David Hogg stuck the British ratepayer for £20K/year for the past five years for “second home allowances”, which included £2,115 for clearing a moat, £646 for miscellaneous stuff around stables & £40 for piano tuning.
All of which is obviously desperately related to running the agriculture ministry.
Hazel Blears, Communities Secretary, filed for expenses on three separate properties in a year, including £5K for furniture in three months. Dunno what a “communities secretary is”, but I suppose you need furniture for when the communities come calling.
Margaret Beckett, Housing Minister, also in the three-homes club (including a “grace-&-favour” accommodation supplied rent-free by the taxpayers) hit up the good citizens of Britain for £500 for hanging baskets & potted plants.
&, one of my faves, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith expensed two pay-per-view porn movies her husband ordered up in a hotel. Well, you know—it’s hard being a ministerial spouse, all by yourself in a strange room; the taxpayers really owe you that, don’t they?
It probably really sticks in the Torygraph’s craw, but the irregularities aren’t limited to Labourites; the Conservatives are right up there at the trough, too.
Alan Duncan, millionaire MP & shadow leader, submitted claims for thousands in gardening expenses, including £598 to overhaul a ride-on lawn mower & another £41 to fix a tire on same.
David Healthcoat-Amory, MP for Wells, claimed £388 for horse manure.
Very big on gardening, these Tories.
But wait—there’s more: even the Lib-Dems got in on the pork. Andrew George hits up the ratepayers £847/month in mortgage for a £300,000 flat exclusively inhabited by his student daughter.
There’s a huge outcry now—Labour looks in danger of losing the next general election, although I don’t know whom to choose among all the parties, since they’re all equal opportunity grafters. MPs are scurrying to explain how they’ve scrupulously adhered to the letter of the expense regulations; &, besides, they didn’t have the first notion that horse manure & porn flicks aren’t really, you know, reasonable & customary.
Well, pols are pols the world over.
What’s interesting is that the Telegraph’s story is actually the result of an American reporter who cut her investigative teeth on investigating Washington state’s legislators. She’s spent the past five years pushing to get Parliamentary expenses out into the light of day. Seems they’ve benefited from rules that don’t require transparency.
With the predictable results.
It’ll be amusing to watch the fall-out. No one does umbrage-cum-pomposity like an MP. & I'll bet the senior management of failed British banks are toasting the MPs all around their gentlemen's clubs, for distracting the public from their excesses.
I guess it does all work out in the end.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Measure for Measure
Yesterday was a day of justice: journalist Roxana Saberi has been released from an Iranian prison and John Demjanjuk was deported to Germany to be tried for war crimes.
Saberi, who strings for NPR, BBC and other outlets, had been accused of spying by the Iranians. Without much of a trial she’d been sentenced to eight years. She’d been imprisoned since January. After considerable international uproar, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered a “careful review” of the verdict and despite vociferous arguments from the spook and security crowd to keep her jailed, an appeals hearing reduced her sentence to a suspended two-year term and ordered her released.
She’s expected to leave the country this week.
In stirring the waters, Ahmadinejad has opened the way for more normalized discussions with the US. It’ll be interesting to see how this pays off.
In the “justice delayed is justice denied” category, the 89-year-old Demjanjuk finally got his slimy Nazi ass hauled onto a plane out of here to face charges for his actions at the Sobibor death camp. I recall the furor 30 years ago when he was first outed as “Ivan the Terrible”—all the truculence and blustering about being just a regular guy caught up in the whirlwind. And he’s just an old man who should be left in peace.
Yeah—he was an SS guard at one of the most hellish places on earth. And how many thousands of inmates had their lives cut short in the most ghastly ways possible because of him and his comrades?
This argument that age somehow mitigates crimes is completely spurious. The only thing about yesterday’s action that sticks in my craw is that it comes not only 60 years after his crimes, but 30 years after he was dug out of his working class hidey-hole.
I’m with Shakespeare’s Isabella:
O worthy prince, dishonour not your eye
By throwing it on any other object
Till you have heard me in my true complaint
And given me justice, justice, justice, justice!
Sad state of affairs that a radical theocracy has righted a wrong within days while the democracies of the world took decades to visit justice on a criminal.
Saberi, who strings for NPR, BBC and other outlets, had been accused of spying by the Iranians. Without much of a trial she’d been sentenced to eight years. She’d been imprisoned since January. After considerable international uproar, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered a “careful review” of the verdict and despite vociferous arguments from the spook and security crowd to keep her jailed, an appeals hearing reduced her sentence to a suspended two-year term and ordered her released.
She’s expected to leave the country this week.
In stirring the waters, Ahmadinejad has opened the way for more normalized discussions with the US. It’ll be interesting to see how this pays off.
In the “justice delayed is justice denied” category, the 89-year-old Demjanjuk finally got his slimy Nazi ass hauled onto a plane out of here to face charges for his actions at the Sobibor death camp. I recall the furor 30 years ago when he was first outed as “Ivan the Terrible”—all the truculence and blustering about being just a regular guy caught up in the whirlwind. And he’s just an old man who should be left in peace.
Yeah—he was an SS guard at one of the most hellish places on earth. And how many thousands of inmates had their lives cut short in the most ghastly ways possible because of him and his comrades?
This argument that age somehow mitigates crimes is completely spurious. The only thing about yesterday’s action that sticks in my craw is that it comes not only 60 years after his crimes, but 30 years after he was dug out of his working class hidey-hole.
I’m with Shakespeare’s Isabella:
O worthy prince, dishonour not your eye
By throwing it on any other object
Till you have heard me in my true complaint
And given me justice, justice, justice, justice!
Sad state of affairs that a radical theocracy has righted a wrong within days while the democracies of the world took decades to visit justice on a criminal.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Reading between the lines
Thank God for the King County Library System. Just as I finished The Inextinguishable Symphony and was thinking I’d have to start opening boxes to find a book I haven’t read, I got a notice that War Paint was waiting for me at my local branch.
This means I don’t have to go carton-diving for a long enough period that I can probably find something else on the library shelves or Amazon to tide me over until I move.
Moreover, it makes a really nice change from my most recent reading. Inextinguishable Symphony is Martin Goldsmith’s account of the Jüdischer Kulturbund, the organization that grew up in Germany after the Nazis began cutting Jews out of national—“Aryan”—cultural activities. The Kulturbund brought together Jewish artists, musicians, singers and lecturers and put on a rich variety of programs for Jews, who were forbidden to attend "Aryan" performances. It’s also the story of his parents, who met as musicians in the Düsseldorf chapter of the Kubu.
It’s well written and engaging, but also really depressing. For some reason I can take historical analyses of crackbrained Nazi (or Soviet or Roman or American) policies. When the story gets down to the individual human level, though, I take it personally and start having nightmares.
I was alternating Symphony with The Innovator’s Prescription, which apparently has solutions to the US healthcare mire. (Get ready—it involves you paying a whole lot more for your care.)
This tome is dire in its writing style (and I say this as someone who made her living for many years by reading dreck), but it’s all the rage at work. It’s like The Lord of the Rings in the 70s—you couldn’t be matriculated in college without one of the volumes in your backpack.
So my recent reading hasn’t been what you can call entertaining. Therefore I’m looking forward to getting the goods on those arch-rivals in the beauty business, Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden.
I find it interesting that, like Mary of Scotland and Elizabeth of England, each marshaled forces and schemed at the destruction of the other, and yet never met, even though on occasion they were in the same restaurant at the same time.
And I know I need the respite before diving into Joe Queenan's Closing Time, his memoir of growing up with an alcoholic, abusive father.
This means I don’t have to go carton-diving for a long enough period that I can probably find something else on the library shelves or Amazon to tide me over until I move.
Moreover, it makes a really nice change from my most recent reading. Inextinguishable Symphony is Martin Goldsmith’s account of the Jüdischer Kulturbund, the organization that grew up in Germany after the Nazis began cutting Jews out of national—“Aryan”—cultural activities. The Kulturbund brought together Jewish artists, musicians, singers and lecturers and put on a rich variety of programs for Jews, who were forbidden to attend "Aryan" performances. It’s also the story of his parents, who met as musicians in the Düsseldorf chapter of the Kubu.
It’s well written and engaging, but also really depressing. For some reason I can take historical analyses of crackbrained Nazi (or Soviet or Roman or American) policies. When the story gets down to the individual human level, though, I take it personally and start having nightmares.
I was alternating Symphony with The Innovator’s Prescription, which apparently has solutions to the US healthcare mire. (Get ready—it involves you paying a whole lot more for your care.)
This tome is dire in its writing style (and I say this as someone who made her living for many years by reading dreck), but it’s all the rage at work. It’s like The Lord of the Rings in the 70s—you couldn’t be matriculated in college without one of the volumes in your backpack.
So my recent reading hasn’t been what you can call entertaining. Therefore I’m looking forward to getting the goods on those arch-rivals in the beauty business, Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden.
I find it interesting that, like Mary of Scotland and Elizabeth of England, each marshaled forces and schemed at the destruction of the other, and yet never met, even though on occasion they were in the same restaurant at the same time.
And I know I need the respite before diving into Joe Queenan's Closing Time, his memoir of growing up with an alcoholic, abusive father.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Seattle flu
A couple of weeks ago when Seattle mayor Greg Nickels announced that the city definitely has a plan for dealing with the swine flu, I thought that if their “plan” for handling an outbreak is anything like their “plan” for dealing with the snow storms of last December, we should prepare for bodies in the streets.
Now that a man in a neighboring county has died of complications from the flu—the third in the nation and the only one not in Texas—the residents of King County should think back on the days of not being able to get out of their houses (unless they had snow tires or chains), the weeks when trash wasn’t picked up and the hours and hours they spent without power.
Then they should translate that to these municipal Keystone Kops managing an unpredictable virus that has stymied the World Health Organization’s best minds.
Public health authorities aren’t releasing any details of the death, but they are conceding that there doesn’t appear any direct connection between the man and México—that he appears to have contracted the illness from others in the area. He had underlying heart problems and died from viral pneumonia.
But then, that’s how flu works—it exploits underlying conditions, digs deep to overpower the immune system and then moves on to the next host, mutating as necessary to foil any obstacles to its ability to thrive.
Well—we hope for the best, but a government that thinks it’s fine to kind of tamp down the snow and sprinkle it with sand so four-wheeled drive vehicles or those with snow chains on can drive rather than ploughing and salting so everyone can, you know, get about (except for the streets where the mayor and senior county officials live, which were indeed cleared) doesn’t inspire me with confidence.
Now that a man in a neighboring county has died of complications from the flu—the third in the nation and the only one not in Texas—the residents of King County should think back on the days of not being able to get out of their houses (unless they had snow tires or chains), the weeks when trash wasn’t picked up and the hours and hours they spent without power.
Then they should translate that to these municipal Keystone Kops managing an unpredictable virus that has stymied the World Health Organization’s best minds.
Public health authorities aren’t releasing any details of the death, but they are conceding that there doesn’t appear any direct connection between the man and México—that he appears to have contracted the illness from others in the area. He had underlying heart problems and died from viral pneumonia.
But then, that’s how flu works—it exploits underlying conditions, digs deep to overpower the immune system and then moves on to the next host, mutating as necessary to foil any obstacles to its ability to thrive.
Well—we hope for the best, but a government that thinks it’s fine to kind of tamp down the snow and sprinkle it with sand so four-wheeled drive vehicles or those with snow chains on can drive rather than ploughing and salting so everyone can, you know, get about (except for the streets where the mayor and senior county officials live, which were indeed cleared) doesn’t inspire me with confidence.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Group dynamics
I’m obviously being charged with high crimes and misdemeanors of the karmic kind. We had an all-day departmental offsite meeting yesterday, which was putatively meant to be a project-sharing exercise amongst seven product managers and two directors.
You know: "here's what I'm working on, and here's why it's going to Save Civilization as We Know It."
The part that wasn’t subsumed by the cleverness and condescension of the World's Greatest Expert simply highlighted how difficult it appears to be for even smallish corporate departments to communicate internally, put together a reality-based strategy and execute on cohesive tactics. We departed after eight hours of presentations and earnest discussions knowing more about what each other is working on, but without any real direction for how we're supposed to be real, you know, product managers in the greater organization.
Truly, I don’t know how Mormons or Methodists would manage in an environment like this; it’s just not possible to make it through the week without drinking.
You know: "here's what I'm working on, and here's why it's going to Save Civilization as We Know It."
The part that wasn’t subsumed by the cleverness and condescension of the World's Greatest Expert simply highlighted how difficult it appears to be for even smallish corporate departments to communicate internally, put together a reality-based strategy and execute on cohesive tactics. We departed after eight hours of presentations and earnest discussions knowing more about what each other is working on, but without any real direction for how we're supposed to be real, you know, product managers in the greater organization.
Truly, I don’t know how Mormons or Methodists would manage in an environment like this; it’s just not possible to make it through the week without drinking.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Just dicking around
If you find yourself with a few minutes on your hands at work between announcements of layoffs & could use some amusement that doesn’t require you to mute the sound on your PC, try Dickipedia.
It’s obviously in a nascent state—I mean, there’s not even a category of Business dicks. How can you claim to be the ultimate compendium of dicks without John Thain (Merrill Lynch), Rick Waggoner (GM), John Stumpf (Wells Fargo), Bernie Ebbers (WorldCom), John Rigas (Adelphia), Kenny Lay (Enron)—well, maybe you have to still be putatively alive when your entry is made.
& those are just the CEOs. The American ones.
I mean, okay—they have Rupert Murdoch there; but he’s listed as a Media dick. Which is, of course, true; but he's definitely a crossover candidate. Like the Beckhams.
A couple more cavils:
The entry on Kim Jong-il doesn’t mention that he wears shoes with major lifts in them & allegedly throws marathon banquets. It does say he has the world’s worst haircut, which is incorrect, as I work with someone who takes that title; but I’ll concede that Kim has the worst haircut of any Stalinist dictator.
I did think the factoid about him being the largest consumer of Hennessey was interesting. It might explain a lot.
How can you have Dick Cheney but not George W. in the Political dicks category? Cheney may be the organ grinder & W. the monkey, but still.
& how can you have Steve Jobs but not Steve Ballmer? Or, for that matter, Larry Ellison? Jeez—I’m back to the question about why there’s not a business category…
Not sure I agree that Pope Benedict XVI looks like a combination of Elton John & Liberace—he may dress like them, but doesn’t have John’s flair for eyewear or Lee’s blinding smile. But I’m totally behind him being in the list, both on account of the office (which is basically focused on keeping humanity no further advanced than the Inquisition) & his own inclinations (he wasn't known as John Paul II's enforcer for nothing). As the Dick entry says, “Is it a coincidence that 14-year-old Joey Ratzinger was enrolled in the Hitler Youth? No, it is not.”
Well, I could run on & on, but you should explore for yourself. God bless the Internet.
It’s obviously in a nascent state—I mean, there’s not even a category of Business dicks. How can you claim to be the ultimate compendium of dicks without John Thain (Merrill Lynch), Rick Waggoner (GM), John Stumpf (Wells Fargo), Bernie Ebbers (WorldCom), John Rigas (Adelphia), Kenny Lay (Enron)—well, maybe you have to still be putatively alive when your entry is made.
& those are just the CEOs. The American ones.
I mean, okay—they have Rupert Murdoch there; but he’s listed as a Media dick. Which is, of course, true; but he's definitely a crossover candidate. Like the Beckhams.
A couple more cavils:
The entry on Kim Jong-il doesn’t mention that he wears shoes with major lifts in them & allegedly throws marathon banquets. It does say he has the world’s worst haircut, which is incorrect, as I work with someone who takes that title; but I’ll concede that Kim has the worst haircut of any Stalinist dictator.
I did think the factoid about him being the largest consumer of Hennessey was interesting. It might explain a lot.
How can you have Dick Cheney but not George W. in the Political dicks category? Cheney may be the organ grinder & W. the monkey, but still.
& how can you have Steve Jobs but not Steve Ballmer? Or, for that matter, Larry Ellison? Jeez—I’m back to the question about why there’s not a business category…
Not sure I agree that Pope Benedict XVI looks like a combination of Elton John & Liberace—he may dress like them, but doesn’t have John’s flair for eyewear or Lee’s blinding smile. But I’m totally behind him being in the list, both on account of the office (which is basically focused on keeping humanity no further advanced than the Inquisition) & his own inclinations (he wasn't known as John Paul II's enforcer for nothing). As the Dick entry says, “Is it a coincidence that 14-year-old Joey Ratzinger was enrolled in the Hitler Youth? No, it is not.”
Well, I could run on & on, but you should explore for yourself. God bless the Internet.
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