Then imagine that this country’s king decides to deny government workers scheduled raises and new government workers civil service protection, but confers upon the appointed members of his court bonuses of up to $25,000.
Monthly Archives: December 2002
‘Do Not Call’ List May Become Reality in NJ – Why Not A ‘Do Not E-Mail’ List?
Here is the story at KYW. Now why couldn’t there be a similar ‘do not e-mail’ list that spammers would need to check or be fined?
Bumper Mentality
This is harsh. …
Have you ever wondered why sport utility vehicle drivers seem like such assholes? Surely it’s no coincidence that Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Dem-ocratic National Committee, tours Washington in one of the biggest SUVs on the market, the Cadillac Escalade, or that Jesse Ventura loves the Lincoln Navigator. Well, according to New York Times reporter Keith Bradsher’s new book, High and Mighty, the connection between the two isn’t a coincidence. Unlike any other vehicle before it, the SUV is the car of choice for the nation’s most self-centered people; and the bigger the SUV, the more of a jerk its driver is likely to be.
According to market research conducted by the country’s leading automakers, Bradsher reports, SUV buyers tend to be “insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors and communities. They are more restless, more sybaritic, and less social than most Americans are. They tend to like fine restaurants a lot more than off-road driving, seldom go to church and have limited interest in doing volunteer work to help others.”
Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch! Read the rest of Stephanie Mencimer’s review of Keith Bradsher’s “High and Mighty: SUVs”.
Post-9/11 priorities: Stephen Covey
Minneapolis, Minnesota: Since 9/11 my significant other has found more dissonance between his job and his career goals so he decided to quit his job. Unfortunately that dissonance remains and he seems stuck at determining what he wants to do with his life. What suggestions do you have for moving on? In other words the intent to change is high but his actions seem weak. He focuses more on his house repair than on exploring a new career.
Stephen Covey: The ideal career can say “yes” to the following three questions: Am I good at it? Do I really like it? Does the world need it to the point that I can get paid for it? This requires a lot of self-knowledge, and also the study of opportunities to discern the real needs and problems in those opportunities. Then proactively, you go to that opportunity as a prepared solution to their problem instead of being just another problem.
Comment from Stephen Covey: The main reason most people don’t have the job they want is because they don’t do this homework, and they’re nothing but a problem rather than a solution to problems.
Comment from Stephen Covey: Arise to your responsibility and make it happen.
Read the rest in this missed Stephen Covey chat transcript at USAToday.
Stephen Covey is chatting now at USAToday on Job satisfaction.
Irony And The Truth About Computing
Shelley posts on the irony of a summit on Social Software that has as attendies mostly “made up almost exclusively of white, educated, upper-middle or upper class, 30-50 year old males.”
Dave Rogers posts in her comments a “truth” I believe in computing – “I think history shows that technology has never changed _what_ people do, it only changes the _how_. Technology usually compresses processes in time, or expands them in space, often both at the same time. Most of the time we confuse the “how” with the “what,” and think something novel has happened.”
That last phrase though is a little off. It *is* novel when the time is shorted to accomplish a task, or distances are compressed, or messages further distributed. The “How” is important 🙂 But the essential truth he points to here I know to be very true.
The Phoenix Trap Interview
Check it out over at Origivation. For you internet wonks, the interview can be interesting just to learn how TPT utilizes MP3.com to get international listeners.
So…. you miss PhillyFuture ehh?
There’s a new weblog in town – PhillyBlog – that is carrying the torch. They are doing a wonderful job. Gotta e-mail them to say hi.
Forced Air Heat And Allergies
We have forced air heat. It sucks.
Volunteer coordinator copes with crises and gets job done
“Father, in the name of Jesus,” Efrain Cotto prayed Wednesday, minutes before the first seating of a pre-Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless and hungry at the Salvation Army headquarters in North Philadelphia.
“We need your help. We can’t do this alone.”
Besides Jesus, Mr. Cotto, volunteer coordinator for the Salvation Army and a local pastor, could have used a couple of dozen more volunteers.
Read the rest in this Philadelphia Inquirer article.
Filters and Personalities
The frog’s vision is filtered to only see objects of a certain size moving at a specific speed. Only these circumstances will cause the cells within the frog’s eyes to fire and generate a reaction — tongue whipping out at the prey.
Unfortunately, any dot of the right size moving at the right speed will trigger this reaction, including a plane flying by overhead.
The human visual system is much more sophisticated, but people are just as capable of filtering; the only difference is that human filtering is deliberate rather than being based on genetics. So you all can go outside an look at planes without feeling the impulse to whip your tongue out. Well, most of you normal people.
Read the rest over at Burningbird. I know that the filters Shelley talks about develop at the earliest ages. Kindergarden even. They simply become more defined and strict as we get older. In high school, of course, we figure after the mess is thru, things will change. But do they? The wise amoungst us do somehow learn to master the reflex. And there are those that fight it.
Question for you… do you think weblogging is instinctually a filtering process? I do. And sometimes it reminds me of high school.
You may get the impression I had some kind of bad high school experience from the above, but that wouldn’t be true. I had plenty of friends. One of which is still my closest. But, then, as I am now, I didn’t like to be categorized. So I moved amoungst the filter defined cliques. I was neither fully “in”, nor “geek”, nor “loner”. I was all three. I resisted the efforts each clique would make to put down the others. There were, however, uncomfortable moments when these things come to blows. I can’t count how many “metal head” vs. “preppie” fights I was in. Kinda like weblogging. There are things to learn, and friends to make, in the most unlikely of places.
Cliques help us to feel safe by letting us know there are others who feel/act/look the same way we do so people defend these boundaries/filters/cliques with plenty of visciousness. If there’s an argument occuring between cliques, watch closely and you will see evidence of argument techniques listed in this baloney kit under “Common fallacies of logic and rhetoric”. Check it out.
I’ve always felt there is some “essential truth” to be found by listening to people across these boundries, real or artificial, no matter what. I’m an Idealist. As my About page says, an ENFJ or ENJP, counting upon my mood. These are Myers-Briggs personality types. You can discover yours by taking the Temperament Sorter II test, but beware, for detailed results it’s going to cost you $15 bucks. Jonathon Delacour has been exploring the subject recently at his weblog in relationship to blogging. I normally don’t buy-in to things like this. But the test is amazing accurate. Of course it’s just another filter 🙂