0031 - 25APR2014 - "Everything is relative"...

Ever since Albert Einstein introduced his Theory of Relativity in 1905, and was last validated in 1938, many of us have grown accustomed to the thinking that everything is relative, although sometimes it is still a foreign rationale for some who believe in terms such as ‘absolute’, ‘perfect’, ‘never’, etc.

Some days ago I was at a gathering with some friends and a delicate subject was brought up: people who live in this country and do not speak English. There were people of somewhat diverse backgrounds, some of them multi-lingual, some bilingual and some who only spoke the language they were born into and grew up with.  There were opinions, some strong ones, about the situation where if you live here, you must speak English, period. And I could not agree more. And I usually take it a step further: even if you come here to do business, or to go to school, or to simply visit, you’re expected to speak English. The discussion ensued – very animatedly - with several points of view being expressed; some in the form of simple comments and others more passionately… Some of the most interesting ones were:

a)     I am quoting: “How is it possible that a person goes to a public establishment, and either they are expected to speak other languages, or there are no English-speaking people in the establishment?” (End of quote). This was a very passionate point for, and commonly experienced situation by, some folks…

b)    We want people to speak English when they come here; however, we generally neglect, is not even in our 'Radar Screen', or sometimes refuse to learn other languages; so, when we go elsewhere, we expect – and often demand – that people address us in English, even though they speak another language in that particular country we are visiting… We, at times, seem to be very comfortable with double standards, and are proud of it!

c)     There are some other countries, developed countries like us, where people proudly speak more than one language and where they have more than one official language. In almost every country in Europe, people speak two languages, and many times more than that; they do business (officially) in more than one language; even our most esteemed neighbors (the ones to the North, of course) have two official languages: English and French Canadian. In some Caribbean Islands that belong to the Netherlands people must speak, at least, five languages (that is 5!) to work in anything related to the public. However, we somehow consider it inappropriate - sometimes - for people to ask us if we speak another language… I have witnessed this dialog more than once: “Do you speak Spanish?” “No, I do not!” and the left-hand conversation goes like ‘who do you think I am?’ or 'where do you think you are?' as if they had been offended (or mistaken or misplaced) by the question…

At any rate, in the middle of all these worthy and enlightening arguments, a friend tried to give an example to the point they were trying to make (their point being that people must learn the language of the country they live in) and said something to the effect that “English is not John Doe’s first language but they speak it perfectly…” (I will omit the names to protect the innocent and the guilty alike). Another friend made a gesture of surprise and said under their breath “Oh my God, is he serious?” apparently taken aback by the 'perfectly' assertion, since John Doe clearly speaks with a distinct accent… Being a natural introvert, I sometimes need my time to process certain topics properly and I hold back any reaction until I have had time to really ponder all the variables at play and formulate an answer; of course, by the time I was ready to participate in the discussion with an adequately thought-out opinion, the gathering was over and I had nobody to share my answer with; so I decided to use this as my outlet to offer my opinion… And here it is: as I said before, likely my friend’s 'surprised' reaction to the original comment was based on the accent John Doe has when speaking English; they most likely consider that accent a language flaw, in contradiction with the original comment. Again, John Doe does have an accent when they speak English but, in all reality, who does not? Who can cast the first stone? Within the US alone there are over 25 different dialects and accents of English… (Easy examples: people with a Boston-urban accent do not pronounce r’s, and people with the Virginia-Piedmont accent add r’s where there are none!) So, even those who were born and raised here in the good ole US of A, have an accent when they speak English; everything is relative.

In the wider scope, everybody around the world who speaks English has an accent; some more pronounced than others, some worse and some better; everything is relative… Try to listen to a conversation being carried in ‘English’ between a person from Texarkana (Texas) and one from the Transvaal (South Africa); let me know after that ‘experience’ if you still think that people born in English-speaking lands have no strong (and sometimes hard to understand) accents… Or try one, also in ‘English’, between a Cockney (London East End) and a Guyanese (South America)… If you think there is no accent there, or that one is better than the other, or that one accent is more understandable than the other, think again… Everything is relative.

You see, historically, English is and has been for millennia a dynamic language; it has been evolving constantly since its Teutonic origins… The initial British Isles dialects were modified (some may say bastardized) by the pseudo-Latin the Roman Legions spoke while occupying the territories for over 300 years… They were further modified radically when the Saxons (with a more modern German or Teutonic version of their language) conquered the Isles, and lately refined by all the words adopted from all the colonies while the British Empire was in place (Hindu, Spanish, Farsi, Arabic – yes Arabic! – amongst the most influential ones). Even among themselves, the British Isles still feature four major groupings of regional dialects and accents of English, such as English itself, Scottish, Irish and Welsh; people with more knowledge than I are able to point out many other variations within those groupings…

For those who still think they speak perfect English and, as such, think they have earned the right – by birth, or otherwise self-adjudicated – to feel somewhat better suited for communications than those who do not speak like they do, the bubble is about to burst: there is no such a thing as ‘perfectly spoken [language]’ (still a truism regardless of what language is inserted between the brackets); what may be perfect for some, is flawed to others; everything is relative…

Bottom line folks, there are many versions of English and many ways in which those version are spoken (i.e. accents). The beauty of it all is the diversity and richness of the language, how it evolves over time, how it bends according to needs and geographies, how one never ends learning it (thinking otherwise is folly), and how humbling it could prove to be to even the most proud, confident and self-proclaimed ‘Perfect English’ speaker…

0030 - 03MAR2014 - "To Flagstaff and back!"

Background…

In mid January, Leah – the youngest child - was invited to apply for a job with her current company ACC (American Campus Communities) in Tucson, Arizona; although initially exciting, after a couple of conversations with the hiring manager, Leah decided to graciously decline the invitation; it was not a good fit for her. Jan and I were somehow relieved because, even though we raised our girls to be confident and seize opportunities (“we gave them wings so they could fly…”), we thought Tucson was very, very far; in other words, we dodged the bullet… One week after that, Leah was invited to apply for another job in Arizona, this time as the Assistant General Manager for one of the two properties ACC had in Flagstaff. After several conversations and then interviews with the hiring manager, and others in the chain of command, Leah was offered the job and she accepted. She had made known to them that she was the maid of honor in a wedding in Gainesville on Saturday, February 22. So, even though they would have her in their payroll since Monday Feb 17^th, they asked Leah when she could be at work; she candidly responded: the 24^th! It was some hours later, after she spoke to Jan and me, that she realized she would have only 30 hours between the wedding and the time she would have to show up for work, but it would take, minimally, 31 hours driving nonstop for her to get there. Asking for an extension was not something she wanted to do; so, after some thinking and considering of options, we decided that Leah would fly from Orlando to Flagstaff on Sunday, February 23^rd, in the morning, make it there middle of the day with enough time to regroup and make it to work, as expected, on Monday morning, February 24^th, Alex’s birthday! The rest of the plans called for me to fly to Florida, finish packing Leah’s stuff, load the car, drive her to the airport early on Sunday - her flight to Flagstaff was at 7:10 AM - and then drive to Tennessee, pick Jan up and continue driving to Flagstaff with Leah’s car.

Alex jumped in the game and went to Gainesville in early February to help Leah with the packing/trashing/donating selection process. She also proposed that, instead of me taking Leah to the airport on Sunday morning, she would drive from Atlanta to Gainesville and meet me there on the night of Friday the 21^st of February; we would ‘finish’ Leah’s car on Saturday morning and I would drive home to Tennessee during the day with enough time to rest and then continue on to Arizona… We all agreed on this plan but, to complicate matters, the previous weekend (on Feb 15^th) Leah got the flu, a strain of Influenza common in the Orlando area, where the Bachelorette party took place on the weekend. She could go to work on Monday, and she could not get out of bed for the following three days, sending all her plans for last minute packing and organizing her move, down the drain…

Friday, February 21, 2014

So, as planned I am flying down to Sanford, FL today… Leah will pick me up and Alex will join us later in the evening… Looking forward to seeing my babies… Well, this execution is not coming out quite as planned… The original schedule was for my Allegiant Air flight to leave at 2:30 PM from Chattanooga to Sanford, FL (a suburb of Orlando), arriving at about 4 PM , and for Leah to pick me up. Jan and I left the house at about 10:45 AM, to make it to the airport at about 1 PM. Jan dropped me off and went back home… At about 1:30 PM they announced that the plane, coming from Sanford, was late by about two hours due to bad weather; the new departure time was 4:30 PM; I duly notified Jan and Leah (Leah was still not really up for the drive so she was going to have a friend drive and Leah would pay for the gas…). The plane made it to Chattanooga at about 4 and the gate agent announced the plane was being cleaned and reconditioned and to expect boarding at about 4:30. And just at about 4:30 another announcement came saying that ‘due to the crew having exceeded their air time, the flight was being postponed until the next day at 8 AM’. No other crew was available to fly the plane – no other recourse; too bad, so sad! There were lots of people who were going to Florida to go to the Daytona 500 race, both Saturday and Sunday programs… The counter agent commented that another plane would be there between 6:30 and 7 AM the next morning to ensure timely departure. Jan picked me back up at the Chattanooga airport and we took a ride on 111 for the fourth time that day… Meanwhile, Alex had started driving from Atlanta to Gainesville to help Leah with last minute packing and to eventually drive her to the airport on Sunday morning…

Saturday, February 22, 2014

I wanted to be at the airport at 6:30 AM; that meant Jan and I getting up 3:45 and leaving the house at 4:15, which we did and made it back to the Chattanooga airport at 6:30 AM; this time Jan came with me to ensure that, if there were any other delays or cancellations she would not have to drive back to get me. Everything was in order and on-time so, I went through security and Jan left. The flight was scheduled to leave at 8 AM; however, the crew (must have had a great time the previous evening) did not show up until – precisely - 8 AM! Started boarding at 8:30; boarded the plane and, as we seem to be sitting there for a long time, along came the pilot’s voice over the PA system apologizing for the delays and bearing more bad news: the hydraulic system was producing abnormal readings and we would have to deplane for him to have the plane checked; and so we did. A mechanic showed up 30 minutes after that and found a leak; they shared with us that it would take about 90 minutes for the work to be completed and that it was only after the subsequent test that they would know if the fix had worked; meanwhile they were contacting partners about availability of another plane to make the trip. So, if the fix worked we would be looking at a 1:30 PM flight; or, if it did not work and a new plane had to come in, we would be looking at a 3 PM flight; if neither of those options worked, all bets were off … (That third option would have meant that Jan would come to pick me up and, instead of going back home, we would have kept on going to Gainesville…!) So, I was trying to keep all affected parties – Jan and Leah/Alex- updated and called Jan to update her on every new item of information I got, and asked her to update Alex (my phone was not too high on charge); after the second update Jan requested I update Alex myself – I guess she felt that was the best course of action for her; oh well… Eventually the leak was fixed and we left Chattanooga at about 1:45 PM, over 23 hours after the original departure time! There were lots of people who had missed already the Saturday race (at a clip of $350 per person, non-refundable) and most of them were very upset; some other folks were meeting their entire family in Disney World and they – the ones in Chattanooga still – were holding everybody’s tickets… Yet another person was collecting names to give them to a lawyer to pursue further action against Allegiant… We finally made to Sanford; Alex picked me up at the Sanford airport and we made it Gainesville at about 5 PM. Leah had left the house at about 8:30 AM; her day was to be consumed by the preparations for the wedding she was the maid-of-honor in, and then the wedding itself… Alex and I finished packing a few last-minute items and loading and securing the top cargo pouch (Alex was a true blessing! I praised her about being a very hard-working woman and she responded “Only if and when I have to, Daddy!” That’s my Alex!). I left the 2^nd Avenue compound at about 6:15 and, after stops for gas and food, I left Gainesville at about 6:30 PM; made it home at about 1 AM. My plan was to get enough rest and to hit the road as early as possible…

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Jan and I left the house at about 9:30 AM after a shower, a cup of coffee, a walk with the pups, and rearranging the load in Leah’s car a bit to fit our luggage and provisions for the road… Took TN-111 North and, after filling up in Sparta,  hit I-40 in Cookeville and headed West; passed Nashville and then Memphis four hours later (Tennessee is a very wide state). Went over the Mississippi river into Arkansas (the weather had changed from sunny to cloudy) and eventually passed through Little Rock and Fort Smith. Got into Oklahoma as it was getting dark and then through Oklahoma City at night, and finally hit Clinton, OK - where we had reservations at a Days Inn (the worst ever!) - at about 10 PM; in bed by 11. Grateful that the weather held well for the most part…

Monday, February 24, 2014

Alex’s 24^th Birthday!

After a less that restful night, got up at about 6 AM and called Alex for her birthday; left Clinton, OK at about 7 AM after gassing up and continued headed West on I-40; Leah’s car is behaving well and, since its gas gauge is broken, we are measuring the availability of gas based on miles driven (need to refill every 300 miles or so and we have been very consistent about it…) After we entered Texas, the roads became more and more desolate; exits and gas stations became more scarce than before… Nice land with lots of wind powered turbines generating lots of electricity – the ‘windmill’ farms extended for tens of miles… After passing Amarillo, we left Texas and entered New Mexico; very strong side winds and even stronger head winds at times (once I could not get the car to accelerate beyond 75 MPH…) Right after passing Albuquerque, NM and when the mileage still read 230, the alarm for ‘Low Gas’ started to ring; it was completely unexpected and became an ‘oh shit’ moment – as it turned out, the head wind made us lose more than 20% effectiveness on the gas usage; we were able to find a gas station near a Casino on the road and, literally, saved the day! The terrain gradually changed from the grassy plains from Oklahoma and Texas to the more rugged and rocky Southwestern one… Got into Arizona and, after climbing to 7,000 in elevation made it to Flagstaff at about 6 PM under the duress of a setting sun shining right in front of us at eye-sight level! Leah had directed us to a parking lot in front of a Starbucks store which is right under her building - The Suites - and she met us there, inside the Northern Arizona University (NAU) campus… It was good to see that baby! Made two or three trips unloading the car (with the help of an industrial-strength dolly Leah had borrowed from the maintenance office). Went to a nearby Wal-Mart for some basic supplies and crashed in Leah’s place; she was fading rapidly since she was still very weak from her bout with Influenza the week before…

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Leah’s apartment is simply great; it is an ‘efficiency’ apartment with a sleeping area, a sitting area, an ample full bathroom, two bathroom sinks, two mini-refrigerators, and a microwave oven; a full kitchen is available to the whole floor down the hall… After seeing Leah off to work (she left with us her car and house keys along with a fob for access to some doors and elevator), Jan and I had some coffee, rearranged completely Leah’s furniture to make more effective use of the space (and we did a great job, if I may say so myself!) and got ready to go out; Leah called to ask if we wanted to tour her work place – The Town-homes at Hilltop @ 1500 S. San Francisco Street - which is about a 7 minute walk from her apartment, still inside the NAU campus, and so we did… What a place! The lobby, game room, meeting rooms and gym are first class; Leah’s office is about 14 x 14, nicely appointed; Rob, her boss, is quite young, well spoken, and rather polished; and then we toured their model; their ‘product’ is unbelievable: they offer townhouses of 4 bedrooms and three bathrooms (two of the bedrooms share one bathroom) with all conceivable niceties and very attractive…!

Later, we went to several stores (Target, BB&B, Wal-Mart) and got the materials to build a pantry for Leah and ‘hide’ it behind some curtains… and so we did! Later on, for dinner, Jan made an 8-can taco soup in the Crock-pot we just bought for Leah and (a) it came out great, and (b) Leah had a good amount of leftovers for later days…

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

We modified the ‘pantry’ to make it more effective and then put together an area for her ‘kitchen’ work using a couple of Kitchen Island pieces… In it we put all her kitchen appliances (toaster oven, electrical skillet, rice maker, crock pot, George Foreman grill), utensils, bowls and a lamp. She can now do 100% of her cooking, if she wishes to, in her apartment without having to go to the kitchen… Bought all the material we needed to build her a stand for her flat screen TV (her old building in Florida was having all their TVs replaced with newer ones and they were giving away the ‘old’ ones, less than three years old in perfect condition, but no remote control or stands)… That night we met with Rob (Leah’s boss), his girlfriend and Sara, another coworker, for dinner at La Fonda, Mexican restaurant. Nice time!

Thursday, February 27, 2014

After our daily coffee, I built a sturdy and safe stand for Leah’s big screen TV; it ended up being quite adequate and worked very well; Jan helped me get it to where it needed to be (high above the twin refrigerators) and it looked great. Later that day, at about 2 PM  a dear old friend, Chris Redrup, drove up from Phoenix to visit with us (he also drove up from Phoenix the previous Sunday to meet Leah at the Flagstaff airport, to welcome her to Arizona, to driver her to her place and to a grocery store, and to ensure her general well-being… For all that, I am eternally grateful!) After catching up over some Stella Artois while waiting for Leah to get off work, we all went for dinner at a Mexican restaurant, ‘Salsa Brava’, featured by Guy Fieri in his Diners, Drive-ins and Dives program.  It was great to see ‘Crittopher’ again and he promised we would come to Tennessee to visit again one of these days!

Friday, February 28, 2014

Today, Jan and I decided to take the day off and play hooky... We went to Sedona; a once sleepy town, it eventually became an artists’ retreat and now has become a veritable tourist trap. Still pretty and with beautiful offerings, all entirely overpriced! The drive from Flagstaff is simply spectacular and there are many Navajo artisans works offerings along the way…

During the day, the weather was fair; a little chilly and cloudy but not much else; it deteriorated later… We picked Leah up from work, went out shopping for more business clothes, and then ordered pizza from Papa John’s!

Saturday, March 01, 2014

Since we had an 8AM flight from Flagstaff to Phoenix, we got up at 5:15 AM, left Leah’s place at 5:45 and were at the airport at 5:55 AM; the airport was closed and the weather was foul. While waiting in Leah’s car for the airport doors to be opened by somebody, she checked from her phone to ensure our flight was still on-time and we found out the flight had been cancelled! Jan got on the phone with US Airways Customer Service and, after 15 minutes of non-answer (on hold plus trying to communicate with the rep) we decided to ask Leah to drive us to Phoenix… Our original itinerary was Flagstaff->Phoenix->Los Angeles->Nashville; so, since we were still early, 6:15 AM, we could be at Sky Harbor by 8:15 AM and still be able to resume our itinerary since that leg of our trip was scheduled to leave PHX for LAX at 10:15 AM. So Leah was a champ and, even though she had been looking forward to go back to her place and continue sleeping, she cheerfully drove us to Phoenix and dropped us off (we asked her not to park since, for sure, we were not going back with her to Flagstaff under any circumstances; if worse came to worst, I would rent a car in Phoenix and return it in Nashville…). So, after standing in a queue to check in into US Airways for about 30 minutes, we finally got to talk to an agent who, after hearing of our cancelled flight situation, directed us to a ticket counter with a real person behind it. After double checking and verifying everything, she let us know that, even though it was an US Airways flight, it was operated by American Eagle so we needed to go check in at the American Airlines counter; with some disappointment, we grabbed our bags and graciously went on as instructed. At the American Airlines area, they directed us to the self-checking kiosk even after I explained we were trying to catch a flight in the middle of our itinerary (first leg cancelled); as expected, the kiosk response was ‘CONTACT AN AGENT’ so they directed us to the ticket counter. Darla, nice lady, started to check us in and, after a few minutes stopped and let us know that, due to the bad weather in LA, US Airways had already re-booked us on a flight to Dallas, and that we needed to go back to them; after we, politely yet clearly, expressed to Darla our reluctance to get on that queue again, she understood and asked us to stay where we were  while she went to do whatever needed to be done  (Side note: American Airlines and US Airways are merging – approved by the FAA and all other pertinent regulatory bodies; however, as one of the ladies put it ‘we are living together but we’re not married yet’; in other words, processes, procedures, systems are still separate). Darla worked diligently, by herself and with other agents, to solve our issue (the problem was caused by the difficulties to modify our PNR after one leg had been flown; in our case, the leg had not been flown, it had been cancelled but the system did not seem to process the difference properly…) Eventually, and after over one hour, she came through for us: we were booked on a flight from Phoenix to Dallas at 12:40 PM (with priority boarding) and then from Dallas to Nashville at 6:40 PM (in First Class!). The rest of the day, did not come without anxiety because both flight were delayed (and one never knows, based on my experience, when a delay will lead to a cancellation!) Unfortunately, Rick and Shawn Perez had offered, and insisted on, picking us up at the Nashville airport and I had to let them know that we had screwed up their evening in Nashville because, instead of arriving at 5:20 PM as the original scheduled said, we were coming in now at 8:50PM! We landed at 9:20 PM; picked up our luggage and Rick got us home right before midnight… Our pups were elated to see us and the greeting and welcoming went on for several minutes (McGee had taken good care of them while we were away, and she also took good care of us by making us a chicken pot pie) … Jan texted Alex and Leah to let them know we had finally made it home… All is well!

0029 - 30OCT2013 - "Heads should roll..."

In the world of Information Systems Development, there are ‘many ways to skin a cat’ as the saying goes but, when all is said and done, there are two major school of thoughts (or philosophies) on implementation approaches, or how and when to implement what has been developed; here they are:

Implement your best. This approach states that it is extremely important to put up a quality product that, on the vast aggregate, meets the stated requirements, and it is the best the team is able to produce. There will be issues that come up and require fixing but, for the most part, they are cosmetic in nature. The ‘customer’ will be satisfied from the beginning. --- There are many merits on this approach (no need to re-state the obvious) and there are also pitfalls, the main ones being that, in the pursuit of the best, time lines are blown, budgets are busted; at the end, it may be a great product but no longer desirable due to the CBA (Cost-Benefit Analysis) being no longer valid because of cost overruns or a closed window of opportunity…

Implement what you’ve got. This approach subscribes to the principle that it is extremely important to implement what you’ve got at the expected time, ready or not. It states that it is easier to deal with issues from the inside that from the outside looking in (not having implemented); it is easier to cancel an implementation than to revert one. --- Although there are many benefits to this approach (Microsoft has been practicing it for 20+ years making billionaires out of thousands of people and achieving an until-recently unchallenged market dominance) there are also mortal sins when overdone.

Having professionally practiced the discipline (or art?) of Systems Development in all possible rolls for the last 35+ years, I have selected/directed/used, and successfully executed, both of those approaches in many instances. Although I strongly favor one of them above over the other (won’t disclose which one), the overarching principle always has to be not to overdo either one of them; in the end, all successful endeavors are a healthy mix of both approaches. You take reasonable risks on the timeline and budget but deliver sound functionality; or you take reasonable risks on functionality and deliver on time and within budget; and sometimes, when almost everything goes perfectly, you deliver the expected functionality, on time and withing budget! The decision making process (regarding the reasonability of the risks you take) is always influenced by your understanding of the role of the project, the priorities of the 'customer' (the person paying the bills), and what risks they could either afford the most or hurt them the least; in other words, always picking the lesser of all evils…

In the case of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) electronic interface (web site), there seems to be a multitude of basic leadership and Project Management concepts that were either ignored, neglected or plain all abandoned. All the information one hears on the media (after filtering for political biases/noise) seem to point out to lack of focus, lack of coordination, lack of care, lack of accountability, lack of communication and last – but not least - lack of understanding of what were the project organizational and institutional priorities. These lapses in all these areas seem to have permeated from the project leadership (Sibelius) through middle management, down to the myriad of contractors running amok, enriching themselves and delivering garbage.

One month after the implementation debacle there seems to be nobody in charge, no credible remediation plan in place, no time frames as of when the deficiencies will be satisfied and a hell of a political rainstorm.

I personally do not think President Obama was either coding or testing or managing the project; he should not have been. But his Secretary of Health and Human Services was the manager in charge. Full accountability needs to be established and made public; that includes the chain of command within the administration and contractors involved; and heads should roll!

0028 - 10OCT2013 - "How Fanatics/Extremists just take over…"

This is an adaptation from, and not a verbatim copy of, an article by Dr. Emmanuel Tanay, a respected psychiatrist.

A man whose family was German aristocracy prior to WWII, owned a number of large industrial concerns and estates; when asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave may be an indication of some of the realities we currently face and are living through…

“Very few people were true Nazis” he said, “but many enjoyed the return of German pride and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools who eventually would go away… So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world as we knew it, came. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and my family lost everything.”

We are told, again and again by ‘experts’ and ‘talking heads’ that Islam is a religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace and are normal people just like us. Although these assertions may be true, they are entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectra of fanatics rampaging across the globe on the name of Islam and other causes, and here in our own backyard with other types of extremisms.

The fact is that the fanatics/extremists rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics/extremists who march. It is the fanatics/extremists who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics/extremists who systematically slaughter Christians or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics/extremists who bomb, behead, murder or honor-kill. It is the fanatics/extremists who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics/extremists who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics/extremists who teach their young to kill and become suicide bombers. The hard quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the ‘silent majority’ is cowed and extraneous.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists under the Stalin regime were responsible for the murder of about 20 million of Russians and other Soviet people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant.

China’s huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people under Mao's Cultural Revolution.

The average Japanese individual prior to WWII was not a war mongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an bloody orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians, most killed by sword, shovel and bayonet.

And who can forget Rwanda which collapsed into the butchering of millions of innocent civilians by a small minority of fanatics/extremists? Could it not be said that the vast majority of Rwandans were ‘peace loving’ people?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: peace-loving people are made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving people will become tacit accomplices of the extremist minority if they don’t speak up because, like the German man mentioned above, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics/extremists own them, and that the end of their world has begun.

Peace loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians and many, many others died because the peaceful majority did not speak up against the fanatics/extremists until it was too late.

As for us who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts: the fanatics/extremists who threaten our way of life!

Editorial Note:
We are currently witnessing how a small group of fanatics/extremists in position of power are managing to derail the country’s economy and the future of the republic as we know it. They were sent there by their fanatic/extremists constituents to destabilize the system, create chaos and eventually impose their will; nothing else matters; no other ways are feasible; no other opinions count; bye-bye democracy! Unless the vast ‘silent majority’ acts decisively and send these fanatics/extremists back to where they came from, we are on our way to be ‘owned’ by them. For many years, around the world, the word German was synonymous of Nazi; unless the vast 'silent majority' act decisively starting now, the word American will become synonymous of right-wing-extremist!

0027 - 03OCT2013 - "Who needs a government, anyway?"

And so it goes, that on October 1st 2013, the US Government was shut down and more than 800,000 ‘non-essential’ government workers were furloughed… Are the national parks and museums non essential? During WWII, somebody told Churchill that the funds dedicated to the preservation of Arts and Culture in Great Britain had to be diverted to fund more military equipment. He responded “If we are to disregard our Arts and Culture, what are we really fighting for?” Now, there are several key questions that, depending on your psychological profile (because that dictates your political persuasion) are valid or not, simple or not, fair or not…

Question #1: one political radio commentator asks: “If they are non-essential, why are they working for the government anyway?” Interesting question because it indicates that only essential functions are needed or necessary, right? It makes sense. However, like with everything else, the devil is on the details and, after further analysis, this criterion for essential-or-not starts getting a little fuzzy… Are janitors essential to the Pentagon or to the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building? No, they are not; Pentagon is Defense and the FBI building is Justice; period. And that all makes sense until there is no paper in the bathrooms, or the toilets are not working. The alternatives are to wait until you return home to go to the bathroom or go in any dark corner of your choosing. Are electricians essential? The same answer applies: no, they are not; that is until a breaker blows and there is no power to the whole wing of a building, or light bulbs need to be changed, or the A/C is not working, etc. Now we are talking about a stinky, dark hot and humid workplace; still non essential, right? And one can go down the line and talk about guards, cooks, secretaries, travel arrangers, couriers, etc. Can you see the difference between essential and needed? Can one understand that non-essential does not mean unnecessary? A bathroom in one’s house is non-essential because a house essential function is to provide shelter, plus you can go outside and do your ‘businesses’. Does that mean the bathroom’s services and functionality are not needed? I know that the answer to those questions depend on your political persuasion and, as such, I leave it up to you. I know what my answer is!

Question #2: another political radio commentator said: “It’s been two days with the Government out of business and I, for one, see no difference. Who needs a government, anyway?” I’d say that the logic here is infallible and as perfect as one can conceive, right? Justice, Foreign Policy and Trade, Defense, Treasury, Agriculture, Labor, Transportation, Education, Energy, Veteran Affairs, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services. All those things are a waste of money and play no role, whatsoever, in the day-today lives of God-fearing, Bible/Torah-totting, red-blooded Americans. Let’s make a simple list:

• Justice: Courts where to air one’s grievances; “Who needs that crap? Every man for himself.”
• State: Healthy and honorable relations with other countries of the world; “what the hell for, who needs to even know who they are?”
• Defense: Ability to defend our land, citizens and interests wherever they may be; “hey, we are all rugged individuals and I need nobody to defend me; I have my AK47 ready to go against those government thugs!”
• Treasury: Control and manage monetary policy. “What kind of gibberish is that? A dollar is a dollar is a dollar. Inflation, recession, depression those are inventions of the bureaucrats!”
• Agriculture: Educate, incentivize farmers and help market crops. “Bull crap; farmers need no help; they know best; leave them alone!”
• Labor: monitor, regulate and maintain healthy work rules and environments. “Who the hell needs that? A fair wage for a fair work day; that’s how this country was created; don’t interfere with the business owners”
• Transportation: safety, maintenance and expansion of means of transportation. “There is no place in the Constitution where safe roads, bridges, cars, trains or planes are guaranteed, OK? So, stop whining and travel at your own risk” 
• Education: management of educational standards for curricula and educators. “It is a broken system; I don’t trust them; I do my own schooling; teacher are lazy and, at an average of $30,000/year, they are grossly overpaid; college Professors are worthless and always in their ivory towers; those who can’t do, teach!”
• ... And the list goes on with many examples of how little value the government brings to us…

I have one more example of government irrelevance, a close-to-home example: Elizabeth Warren, a senator for Massachusetts, is referred to by many people of certain political persuasion (i.e. psychological profile) as a God Dammed Liberal, a true Communist! Many also ignore (or choose to ignore) that this same ‘communist’ fought for long and hard, and founded, the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau); she caught hell from many patriots who opposed the creation of such a wasteful entity; it had to be created by executive order because the patriots in congress did not want more government. Ironically, this is the same outfit we are all looking at, and talking to, and pleading with to help us with the mess the developer left behind in Hawks Bluff… What a waste!

Lastly, for those of us who still think that government is not needed, here are a couple of suggestions where one may find the closest thing to Paradise: Somalia or Afghanistan. Little or no government whatsoever; there one can live happily ever after!

0026 - 01OCT2013 - "So, what’s a coach, anyway?"

A few weeks ago a friend and I spent some quality time together; went out for dinner; went for a ride; got lots of time to talk. So we talked about many things and one of them was the situation of going back to work after ‘retirement’. Some people see it as a source of embarrassment since the inference is that they are not able to make ends meet; that they did not plan well; a feeling of inadequacy. Other folks see it as he saw it, a very positive event and a great opportunity; his point was (and is one I’ve advocated for years) that many of us – throughout our ‘productive’ years - have accumulated an immense amount of knowledge, experiences, and tricks-of-the-trade which are not taught in any school, at any level; that intellectual capital sits idle and unproductive (going to waste) as we are now retired; nobody is benefiting from all that wealth of wisdom. As an example, he cited himself as a business man, cited others on their known professions, and cited me as an IT guy… Many other folks would have taken offense at being referred to as an IT Guy; “Hey” they would have said, “I went to six years of school for - and became - a Licensed Computer Scientist, a Specialist in Cybernetics & Informatics, and a Systems Engineer, and you are referring to me as an IT Guy?” and they would have stomped out of the place all offended and in a huff. But that was not the case and that was not the point; the point was that I would have loved to be known as a coach, which is my passion and something that I am experienced in and trained on, instead of being known as an ‘IT Guy’, my old profession; and so I let him know… As the conversation progressed on to several other topics, he gathered the courage to ask me, “So, what’s a coach, anyway”?

I gave a good account of myself when it came to define that the type of coach that I was talking about was not the stereotypical sports or any other skills coaches (teach and drill is their model); the coaching that I practiced was oriented towards guiding and helping individuals find healthy ways to face and deal with their perceived or real shortcomings, self-defeating attitudes, and other factors that are on the way of fulfilling their full potential and producing their best, whatever that best might be. “Are you a shrink?” he asked; “No”, I replied, “Psychologists deal with the clinical areas of perception, attention, emotion, motivation, brain functioning, behavior and interpersinal relationships.” “Coaching is like – voluntarily - peeling the onion and understanding there is debris between the layers that may be getting in the way of it being a perfect onion; you get rid of nothing (that would be a job for the shrink); instead, you understand all that is there, value it for what it is – and what it is not, and move on accordingly.” I could see on his face that the whole subject was still obscure, confusing to him and that I had not really answered his question; so I proceeded to try to illustrate the whole concept with an example, oversimplifying the process and the details, and keeping the protagonists anonymous, as the code of ethics demands…

This is the case of a man who grew up in an environment in which knowledge was the most appreciated ‘currency’; there used to be a saying around his home about “Your knowledge, and not your holdings, is your worth”. So, from youth, he was a very avid knowledge acquirer. He read every book he got his hands on; if there were no new books available that he hadn’t read twice, he would read the dictionary end to end. Over the years this attitude persisted and by middle age, he was a walking throve of trivia. There is an axiom that says ‘an overused virtue becomes a liability’ and that was the case with this fellow; he was always eager to share his knowledge and to have answers for everything. At the beginning it all was well and everybody around him praised him for his knowledge and the contributions he made; however, as time went on, he started to be perceived as a ‘know-it-all’; he was still admired by all, but his contributions were not too well received any more. In the role he was expected to play he could not afford to be exiled from the rest of people and teams, so he realized he had a problem that needed resolution; and he did not know how! Through friends and acquaintances he heard about coaching and what it could do, and sought some help from a coach… After several sessions of conversations and information gathering the coach guided the man to come to the realization that his issue was not his needing to show his worth (knowledge); instead his issue was one of fear of obsolescence and irrelevance. The fellow feared to become irrelevant, of not making a difference. The coach helped him find ways to add value to people and situations by just playing his role as a leader and as a friend, and stop using his knowledge as the only tool in his bag. Instead, he tried (successfully) to stop volunteering answers when the question was not even asked; he learned how to either guide people to the answers or wait for the question to be asked; he learned to realize that if the question was not asked, it was not relevant to the situation… That made his job and relationships with others quite more normal and pleasant.

“Does that make sense?” I asked… “Yes, it does…” my friend replied. “Would coaching like that be of any value to you?” I asked… “No; I have no issues…” he replied. And I thought to myself “Right!”

0025 - 01SEP2013 - "Are we beyond repair?"

OK, somebody please try to explain to me what just happened in Oklahoma where three teenagers were bored and, to find some amusement, decided to shoot and kill a young man that happen to be passing by… Folks, this is almost the end of the rope for some people for whom this land once was a promise as close to paradise as possible and now has fallen so far down the ladder of inhumanity that is getting hard to describe the degeneration we are experiencing…

It is evident, going by the demographics, this malaise is not race biased and it is an Equal Opportunity Decay. Three teenagers, black/white/brown (yellow and red were not represented), found no way to amuse themselves other than selecting a random jogger and gunning him down, murdering him in cold blood, in broad day light, in the middle a small town in Oklahoma… We’re not talking Chicago, or Detroit, or New York City, or Philadelphia, or Los Angeles, or Miami, or even Atlanta; we are talking Duncan, Oklahoma, Crape myrtle Capital of Oklahoma, path of the Chisholm Trail, population ~23,400; the type of town that is expected to represent all is good about the USA and now it will represent all that is gangrenous about the USA!

Now, there are already opinions out there that say this was caused by the violence portrayed in games, TV and the movies… BS! We manage to export that same violence to the whole rest of the world, and we don’t hear about this type of atrocities happening elsewhere as often as they happen here. There is also a set of opinions that says that it is that violence plus the availability of firearms… BS BS! Some other countries of the world may not have the same ungodly amount of uncontrolled firearms that the USA has on its streets, but they have other types of arms which are also lethal (remember that there were lots of people killed in this world before there were any firearms, and this is not an apology for the firearms issues we have, and boy, issues we have; but that’s the subject of another soap box stand!). Some others are pounding their chests arguing that, since all these three monsters came out of broken homes, single-parent households are the problem… BS BS BS! The current president of the USA came out of a single-parent home and there are many, many highly accomplished and remarkable people in the arts, sciences, politics, academia, military, and all other important walks of life and professions who came out of broken homes; my own father came out of a single parent home and he was one of the most remarkable, though unpublicized, men I ever knew. I’m not saying that a broken home is the same as a ‘whole’ home; what I am saying is that broken homes do not breed monsters.

Now, hang on to your pants because, at times, this may come close to home or may feel uncomfortable, but ‘it is what it is’… I’ll tell you what the problem is: it is the ‘me’ mindset. Why do I mean by that? Well, at one time, we decided we were going to take care of number one first; once we started on that path we started to drift more and more into that mindset and now we find ourselves caring about number one only; period! Look around and you will see examples, in all walks of life and in all instances, of what I am saying. It may reflect itself into simple things like “if it doesn't affect me, it is not my problem” and then one step further “if it is not my problem, there is no problem, is there?” Unfortunately, we have forgotten that it is the sense of community and our duty to care for our fellow men what makes us human; without that, we are just animals (like the three ones mentioned above). We have taken our ‘rogue individualism’ to an extreme that says ‘only I matter’. Just remember that in 1776 only few people paid taxes and, if we had had this attitude then (if it doesn't affect me is not my problem), we would still be flying the Union Jack… 

We've no respect for human life, period.

Some of us claim to be the defenders of human life and proclaim that a life is viable since conception; however, once the child is born, who care is he/she eats? “Cut entitlements”, we cry (even though it may mean some children may starve to death); oh, but we defended them with all our might while they were in the womb… These people are all hypocrites! 

Others say, we can kill them as long as they are not born (at times almost with a ‘who cares’ cavalier attitude), but once they are born, we teach them that regardless of their lot in life, they don’t have to ever worry about where the next meal is coming from because we will feed them for life; there is no merit on hard work and effort because all basic needs will be taken care of for as long as they live, even if they become animals (like the three above) and we choose to cage them for the rest of their lives (instead of killing them for their crime, as they squarely deserve) and we still will be taking total care of them in jail (food, medical, entertainment, education) at no cost to them for as long as they live… Another bunch of hypocrites! 

We pound our chests and proudly salute the American flag and even shed tears when our soldiers return home being only shreds of what they used to be; oh yeah, they are our heroes but, for the life of God, balance the Goddamned budget and cut, cut, cut (who care if the vets don’t have a doctor to see for months or don’t have a leg to stand on, literally!)... The worst type of hypocrites!

I may sound a little cynical, a little bitter and a little dejected… Well, I feel cynical when I realize the wide gap between what we say we value and what we actually do value, the gap between the word and the deed; I am bitter about the horrible waste of human capital in so many ways all over the country that seems to be going on and on and has become the norm; and I am dejected that my choice of being part of once the best nation in the world, may be coming under self scrutiny…

Are we beyond repair? I don’t really know… What do you think?