Calgary Airport–The Power of a Smile

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. - Leo Buscaglia

A gentle word, a kind look, a good-natured smile can work wonders and accomplish miracles. - William Hazlitt

My insane personal and professional schedule brought me to Calgary Airport today and at one point, reflecting on things that I had read, written and spoken about, I found myself sitting in a nice comfy chair in Banff Hall between Starbucks and the Era kiosk.

On the other side of the security glass in front of me, electric cars whizzed back and forth, carrying a lot of people from one end of the airport to the other.  Most of the occupants were unsmiling, looking tense, exhausted, confused, distracted, angry or heavily focused on “something”.

When we are in an airport, we often forget the incredible combination of Life circumstances that have come together within one building – people on their way to or from job interviews, funerals, family reunions, vacations, meetings, successes, failures and the like.

Travel can be …. well …. exhausting, frustrating and even frightening for some.  Most of us just need to get where we’re going as fast as we can get there.

And so as I watched the electric cars zoom back and forth, I turned towards my colleague and said “someone needs to wave and smile at these people and break them out of whatever trance they’re in.”

My colleague said “sure” and as the next car went by, we waved.

The people looked at us awkwardly and one person did a half-wave.

Undeterred, when the next car went by, we waved again and some of the people waved back.

By the time we were a dozen cars into our little wave-fest, even the drivers were waving back with gusto and large smiles.

Somewhere in the love-fest that ensued, the drivers must have told the passengers to anticipate this because as the cars approached our location, the drivers and passengers began to smile and wave at us before we had a chance to wave at them first.

We had fun for quite a while before Life responsibilities drew us away.

As my colleague and I walked away, I looked over my shoulder and I could see the drivers looking for us as they drove by the now empty chairs.

My colleague and I joked that a lot of people were wondering who “the two goofs” were in the chairs, waving and smiling at people.  No doubt, in some corner of the world later tonight, someone may reflect on the difference a smile made, offered or returned and someone may share a laugh with friends or family when they arrive at their destination.

And as I thought about this, something occurred to me.

For every wave and smile I sent, I received 5-10 in return.

So maybe (and here’s a confession here – don’t tell anyone), just maybe, I suggested the wave-fest somehow knowing that I would get a lot of love in return.  After all, in the middle of my own cross-country move and large business deals, a little love never goes astray, right?

But don’t tell anyone I told you that.

After all, we tough guys have a reputation to uphold.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS Here’s a suggestion for Calgary Airport Authority.  Place a sign there telling people if they sit in those chairs, that it is a mandatory “wave and smile zone” for people on the other size of the glass.  You never know the impact it will have on both the giver and the recipient …. and the people who are observing both. 

It’s also a great promotion for the Calgary Airport (which has an amazing new international terminal if I may toss in a free plug for them).

I also hope that the Calgary Airport Authority reaches out to the drivers of those cars to thank them – they made a lot of people very happy today.

They may have even changed a Life.

We’ve got enough examples of hate being spread around the world these days.

Let’s find ways to spread a little love while we still can.

It matters.

The Consequences of Revealing Innocuous Data

Once you've lost your privacy, you realize you've lost an extremely valuable thing. - Billy Graham

Privacy is not something that I'm merely entitled to, it's an absolute prerequisite. - Marlon Brando

The #1206 “fiction” series continues …

---

The short, well-dressed but nondescript man sat in the car dealership with other customers in the customer service waiting area as they waited for their vehicles.  While most people put waiting at the dealership only a few pegs lower on the “fun scale” behind seeing their dentist or renewing their licence in the DMV line, he actually enjoyed spending time here.

After all, he wasn’t here waiting for his vehicle.

He was here to steal someone else’s.

Customers came and went over the next hour as he waited for a specific event to take place that would make his day worthwhile.  Finally, his wait was rewarded when the customer service supervisor walked into the waiting area and on a large board on one wall, began to write customer names and vehicle identifying information.  It was a promotion for a vehicle buy-back program that the dealership was running and they had written on the board, the names of the customers who would be in the dealership that week.

He pulled out his phone and began texting the information on the board to a colleague of his and as he did so, he smiled.  He and his team used to roam the streets of Calgary looking for specific models that were either easy to steal, easy to sell or both.  He had invested a lot of money in the security system disabler for those specific vehicles so he was locked into specific makes and models unless he chose to diversify his operation.

Now as he sat amongst the bored, tired and stressed customers, an employee of the dealership posted the information he needed which took away the need to waste hours roaming the streets.

“Efficiency is the name of the game in any business”, he thought with a smile.

When he first discovered this some time ago, he tried to take a photo of the board but someone stopped him and said it was a violation of privacy to do so.  He could have protested that the posting of information was more of a violation than photographing it but he needed the information and so he had apologized with a smile and sat down.

Now he stopped in every few days to obtain a new list of names, texted the information to a colleague and once confirmation came back regarding the home addresses of the individuals on the board, he would get up and leave. 

He didn’t take everyone’s name down but rather, only the ones whose vehicle descriptions were of appeal to him and over the next 24 hours, those vehicles would disappear from the driveways of unsuspecting customers and within hours after that, be disposed of.

As he noted the names from today’s “harvest”, he paused and frowned when he got to the last name on the list.

The name was very familiar to him.

After pausing for a moment more, he sent the name to his colleague as with the other ones but this one didn’t have any vehicle that he was interested in.

---

About 8 hours later, he sat parked in his car on a quiet street in Calgary ….. waiting in the dark.

As the vehicle he had seen on the list earlier in the day pulled into the driveway, for a moment he was distracted as memories tumbled through his mind.

Memories of love …. of pain …. and of revenge.

The restraining order that had been issued against him had insulted and embarrassed him in front of his friends and had been almost too much to bear.

When she had gone into hiding, it angered him because he wasn’t able to talk to her about her obvious misunderstanding and he swore that someday, she would pay for what she had done to him.

And now, in a moment of serendipity, he saw her climb out of her car and walk towards her door.

He turned off his interior vehicle lights so they wouldn’t illuminate when he opened the door, opened the door quietly and began to walk towards her quickly.

To be continued.

---

© 2015 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved

Background

The story was inspired by an event that occurred this morning.  In the process of getting my vehicle serviced for a recall at a car dealership in Calgary, I realized that my name, my vehicle information and similar information for other customers was posted prominently on a board in the customer service area.

Given that the information was being used in a public area for a promotion and was being displayed without my consent, I requested that my name be removed.  I also pointed out that the information could be used to violate someone’s privacy and to prove the point, within 5 minutes, I had obtained the home addresses of 8 of the 10 customers displayed.

When I attempted to obtain a photo of the board, I was informed that photos couldn’t be taken because of privacy reasons.  Unfortunately, the privacy of these customers (and who knows how many before them) may have already been breached merely by posting the info on the board.

The tale of the auto thief is fiction and serves as an example of what a miscreant can do with such information.

The security system disabler referenced in this post is real and is easily obtained by those who make crime their bread and butter.

By the time this post was written, the board at the dealership had been erased but I still managed to obtain a photo anyway.

Was it erased to appease a customer and then redone when the customer left or will it remain empty?

By the way, it was interesting to note that the service people’s names on the bottom of the list were identified by first name only.  We mustn’t breach their privacy after all!

Maybe I should stop back tomorrow to check  ….. before someone else sees the board first.  Criminals are, after all, opportunists.  We need to think before we do stupid things so that we stop creating opportunities for them. [Author note: I checked the next day and the names are no longer on the board.  This dealership has always been amazing to me and I will continue to give them my business.  Sometimes what sets someone apart from others when it comes to service is how they respond when a customer has an issue and this dealership responded quickly and appropriately. However, may this post serve as a warning to what happens when we don’t think before we act when it comes to other people’s privacy.]

What do you think?

PS As a long time strategy advisor, I am paid to “see into the future”, anticipate actions and measurable outcomes for my client as well as for competitors and to create proactive strategic plans that maximize results while minimizing / mitigating risk.  If more people thought through their actions in the manner in which people in my industry do, with full knowledge of what could be, we would be able to avoid situations like this.  No matter how strange a scenario, failure to anticipate it almost always enables it.

Truth is stranger, and often more frightening, than fiction.

An Amusing Anecdote – Related But Not

I remember some years ago when a car dealership in my hometown was offering high-end stereos with the purchase of a new vehicle.  It turned out that the dealership had purchased a small number of these stereos and so when they sold new cars with the stereo installed in it, they arranged for someone to go to the home address of the new car buyers in order to steal the stereo from the new vehicle.  The stolen stereos were then “re-sold” in new vehicles, thus allowing the promotion to continue.

I don’t remember who eventually figured this out, but the notion of a car dealership involved in theft (instead of enabling it) came to mind as I wrote this.

Series Origin

This series, a departure from my usual musings, is inspired as a result of conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States, senior officers in the US Military and other interesting folks as well as my own professional background as a Wall St. / Fortune 25 strategy and large-scale technology architect.

While this musing is just “fiction” (note the quotes) and a departure from my musings on technology, strategy, politics and society, as a strategy guy, I do everything for a reason and with a measurable outcome in mind. :-)

This “fictional” musing is a continuation of the #1206 series noted here.

Values – More Than Lip Service

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke

Do you want to know who you are?  Don't ask.  Act!  Action will delineate and define you. - Thomas Jefferson

Action expresses priorities. - Mahatma Gandhi

When I first came to Calgary from out east a few years ago, I was often given a lecture on the importance of values – specifically of how western values trump eastern values, how Canadian values trump American values, how Calgarian values are superior to New York City values and the usual verbal diarrhea presented by people who feel insecure or inferior and therefore seek to diminish the person who makes them feel insecure.

It’s usually not worth my time to argue with such people as their poorly formed and poorly presented opinion often does not reflect the majority of people that surround them and so it is not worthy of analysis or discussion.

However, imagine my surprise today in the middle of a busy day in Calgary when my focus was suddenly interrupted by two words:

“Help me”.

I looked up to see if someone was just horsing around or if I had misheard something when the cry for help came again …. repeated …. insistent …. and with a raw edge of fear wrapped around it.

I looked around for the source of the plea and began to run towards it and as I did so, I ran past people who were not reacting to the screaming child at all.  As I ran past them, some stared, some moved out of my way and others simply looked quizzically at the mad man running towards them who said “A kid is screaming for help” as I ran towards the source of the screaming.

I pushed past several dozen people who seemed indifferent to the cry for help and I identified the source.  A ten-year-old girl was in trouble and as the first and only person on the scene, I was able to render the assistance necessary.

Shortly after, her parent arrived and we were able to bring resolution to a situation that could have been much worse.

Where I come from, when a child screams “help me” “help me” “help me” in raw terror, we react.  For all we know, a child is being taken against their will, is being attacked by a human or an animal or some other situation is unfolding that requires immediate action.

Today, a lot of people took no action at all.

As I left the scene and walked past the same people, some of them stared at me.  Others asked “what happened?” and I assured them that the girl would be ok but I didn’t stop walking.

Walking helps flush out the adrenalin and besides, I didn’t want to fall into the trap of adding “no thanks to you” or “why didn’t you do something – you were closer than I was”.

It was tempting but offered little if any value to their Life or mine.

The Bottom Line

I’m not tarring all Calgarians with the brush of “no values exist here”.  There are many great Calgarians (likely the majority) who answer the call when the word for help goes out.  We have seen many examples of this, including the flood of 2013 and other examples.

However, claiming to have superior values, having the courage to do something as a result of possessing them and actually taking action when called upon requires more than a pat on the back that comes from politicians and other public officials who proclaim that western values are unlike anyone else’s or a false sense of superiority is assumed “just because”.

I can point to several dozen people today who presented an example of the lack of values that I was told are common in “people from away” and which people in Calgary would never be known for.

Values are more than what we think, what we say or how we verbally compare ourselves to others in an effort to establish some sense of superiority.

They are not a western thing or an eastern thing.

They are not a Canadian thing or an American thing.

They are not a Calgarian thing or a New York City thing.

They are a human thing and are demonstrated in what we do when we are called to do so.

I think that events like this are a reminder that we all can and must do better when the call for help goes out.  It makes a difference and the next time a call for help is made, it might be from someone important to you.

Talking about it is easy.

Unfortunately, merely talking about it offers no value nor does it make a difference.

Let your actions speak so loudly that I can’t hear what you are saying.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

The Sucking Sound of the Leadership Vacuum in Alberta

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. - John C. Maxwell

The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves. - Ray Kroc

I was amused and disappointed the other day when it was announced that 1700 private jets were being used by attendees of the upcoming Davos conference on global warming and income inequality.  The disconnect between the verbally stated intentions of the attendees and their demonstrated actions sharply demonstrates the old adage:

Let my actions speak so loudly that you can’t hear what I am saying.

When one wonders why such an obvious disconnect can take place for a conference so important, it is important to realize that such leadership (or demonstrated lack thereof) starts on a much smaller, local scale.

The roots of leadership capability start at home and with that I turned to examples of local leadership in the Province of Alberta to observe leadership in its incubation stages.

After all, the leaders on the local scene eventually become our global leaders.

After taking a quick scan of the leaders on a local scale, it is easy to see why leadership by example is missing in Davos.

It’s because it doesn’t exist at the local levels either.

Last week, Mayor Nenshi of Calgary allowed Councillor Druh Farrell to make unsubstantiated, unverified claims of alleged wild, alcohol-fuelled parties by councillors at City events.

A real leader recognizes that unsubstantiated claims should never be made in public.  A real leader also doesn’t allow his or her colleagues to be skewered publicly with such unsubstantiated claims.  There is a time and a place for such claims and action is taken using facts that allow corrective action to be taken if necessary.  If unsubstantiated, such allegations never see the light of day.

The Mayor not only allowed Councillor Farrell to make such vague, unsubstantiated claims, he exacerbated the situation with his own references to councillors getting “blotto” at community events, to inappropriate drinking by councillors in their offices and to the use of illegal drugs by councillors.

By his own admission, he has no evidence or proof.  He claims he was merely reporting what he had heard and in doing so, he as the leader of City Council invited and encouraged an unfair, unprofessional, public smearing of many hard working councillors who sacrifice everything in order to serve their community.

In other words, he threw his colleagues under the bus without facts of any kind and he doesn’t seem to care.

It appears that he enjoys the merits of being the Mayor when it is convenient and he often plays the card of “I’m just one vote of many on council” but for some reason, he is unable or unwilling to assume the position of the leader of the City Council when the presence of such a leader is critical.

It is a sad reality that politicians are rarely real leaders and this smear probably serves a political need of his.  Well ….. that is giving him the benefit of the doubt and is assuming that he is an astute strategist.  It is a known strategy for those who don’t know what they are doing to encourage disagreement amongst their colleagues to keep them distracted from recognizing the lack of leadership at the top.

Then again, maybe he or his advisors just don’t know any better. 

In the real world, such allegations without merit or proof get a “leader” fired or potentially sued for slander.

But the world of politics is not the real world and therefore, such unprofessional, unethical behavior is rarely punished.

A real leader also knows how to apologize and regain control of matters when things get out of control under their watch.  At the time this was written, no such apology is forthcoming from the Mayor.  He has informed some councillors that as far as he is concerned, this is a dead issue but if they wish, they can call a point of privilege to pursue.

So instead of apologizing to the people who have been unfairly smeared and instead of killing the issue once and for all in the absence of facts, he is letting allegations stand while more fuel is poured on the fire.

If he put as much effort into leading as he does with meaningless, fluffy tweets, maybe Council could spend more time addressing important concerns such as the economic downturn that is coming due to collapsing oil prices. 

Tens of thousands of layoffs are expected. 

I wonder what his strategy is for this.

Maybe it will fall out during one of the alleged wild, alcohol-fueled parties.

And speaking of apologies …

Danielle Smith, the former Wildrose Party leader and now opportunistic PC Party ladder-climber, apologized on her Facebook page about the decision she made in leaving the Wildrose Party of Alberta. Intriguingly enough, she apologized for angering people with her decision but then went on to criticize the people who allegedly forced her hand.

It sounded like “I’m really sorry but it was someone else’s fault anyway so …..”.  Sounds like an authentic apology to me.  It is generally accepted that the “take action and beg for forgiveness later” apology is never authentic since the original intention was still achieved while the underhandedness and dishonor behind it falls into the shadows and is soon forgotten.

She went on to say how she would be honored to serve her community if elected as an MLA again.

Translation: Having demonstrated that she can dishonor the many who supported her in the past, she would like the opportunity to pull the wool over a whole new group of supporters.

It’s pretty easy to see whose interests she is serving.

Can you guess?

I’ll make it easy for you.  The list is very short.

The fact that she didn’t see betrayal as something that would upset many speaks volumes of either her intelligence to understand the will of the people or her belief that the people are not very intelligent.

Neither reflect well on her as an alleged leader in her community and province.

Goals: It's best to avoid standing directly between a competitive jerk and his goals.

Accepting people like this as a senior player in the PC Party speaks volumes of Premier Prentice’s character as well but that’s a subject for another day.  Alberta will get a taste of his character in the next year or so as difficult times engulf the Province with the recession that has been predicted.

But it’s not just in Alberta ….

Last week in the Newfoundland and Labrador Legislature, a member of the Official Opposition made a comment during Question Period that Minister Judy Manning’s best position when it came to cost cutting was “under the table”. 

I’m surprised that women’s groups didn’t storm the legislature as a result but then again, they choose fights that suit their own needs, motives and timing.

It’s hard to believe that in the 21st century that we could have such derogatory comments made by a government official who alleges to serve as a servant to the public and as a role model to many.

What does that tell you about the state of government these days?

The Bottom Line

The world has reached a juncture where real leadership is needed to solve challenges in the areas of government spending, the economy, climate control, arms control, terrorism and other areas.

Is it any wonder that the leaders at the global level can’t seem get it done when one sees what we have at home in the form of leadership (or lack thereof)?

Do we care that such leaders form role models for our children?

Do we care that as the world burns in certain areas, that our leaders are the best we can come up with when it comes to guiding us out of difficulty and towards our unlimited potential or do we merely accept the message they are constantly espousing?

Excuses: If you keep asking others to give you the benefit of the doubt, they'll eventually start to doubt your benefit.

I think we should expect and demand better before things really hit the fan locally and globally (if it’s not too late already).

I also think we need leaders who serve the people and are not merely mouthpieces who serve their own interests or the interests of those who use them in return.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

Is Mayor Naheed Nenshi a Racist?

The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place. - George Bernard Shaw

We're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding. - Rudyard Kipling

Mayor Nenshi of Calgary, Alberta found himself in hot water this week when he said the following during a presentation about diversity:

We are lousy at promoting a diverse workforce. When you look at our management levels within the city, my top six managers, there are no women right now. The one woman retired. There are no people of a visible minority. Throughout our 34 next most senior managers at the city, I haven’t actually done the census but off the top of my head I can think of one person from a visible minority. And a handful of women.

We’ve got to do a better job. And we have to look internally at our own organization to determine what are the barriers that are in place towards people getting promoted into these jobs.

A lot of people climbed all over the Mayor with the belief that his comments were promoting racism or gender-bias.

I don’t think he was doing either and from what I know of the Mayor, he is not only NOT a racist but that he probably possesses more empathy and compassion for ALL people than most leaders you will ever meet.

However, I believe he is making a great mistake in the generalization that he made in his presentation.

The error, I believe, is that he may be about to send his people on a wild goose chase based on an assumption.

Let me explain.

Back in the mid 1980’s, the organization that I was a part of received notification that we faced criminal charges based on someone’s assumption that we were intentionally discriminating against women and minorities.

The accusing organization simply knew this because we didn’t have any women or visible minorities working for us.  This was, obviously, an assumption and an incorrect understanding of cause and effect.

Keep in mind that:

- we were a small company of 10 people (albeit a successful company), so there wasn’t a lot of room for demographic variation

- in the mid 1980’s, women and visible minorities in the IT industry were not as common as they are today.

That being said, this group marched in with the intention of proving our evil ignorance of diversity and so they began by examining all the resumes that we had received since our inception.

They went through more than 800 resumes and from what they could see, no women or visible minorities had even applied to our classified ads.

“So”, they concluded, “you must have worded your ad to intentionally discourage them from applying.”

Another assumption.

When they examined the classified ad, they informed us that the ad needed to be changed so that we would give preference to women and visible minorities.

And as anyone who has ever argued with me knows, you better come to the argument armed with data – data that is in alignment with your own raison d'être and your modus operandi.

So when they presented me with a draft of the ad we should run the next time we were hiring, I pointed out that the wording was actually in violation of the rules they were attempting to enforce.

They took it back and reworded it.

After several iterations, they gave up and left us alone and we never heard from them again.

And yes, eventually as the IT marketplace changed, we hired women and visible minorities.  We didn’t care about the demographic the candidate represented – we cared about hiring the best people possible.

Affirmative action

I could go on to describe the effect of affirmative action programs and how improper promotion on Wall St. (my stomping grounds) has created a bloody mess that YOU are paying for and will continue to pay for for many years.

I could talk about how affirmative action and the intentional promotion of certain demographics is now being reviewed as being potentially harmful to the people it is intended to help, as described in this this article from the NY Times where they note (my emphasis added):

The idea that affirmative action might harm its intended beneficiaries was suggested as early as the 1960s, when affirmative action, a phrase introduced by the Kennedy administration, began to take hold as government and corporate policy. One long-simmering objection to affirmative action was articulated publicly by Clarence Thomas years before he joined the Supreme Court in 1991.

Mr. Thomas, who has opposed affirmative action even while conceding that he benefited from it, told a reporter for The New York Times in 1982 that affirmative action placed students in programs above their abilities. Mr. Thomas, who was then the 34-year-old chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, didn’t deny the crisis in minority employment. But he blamed a failed education system rather than discrimination in admissions. “I watched the operation of such affirmative action policies when I was in college,” he said, “and I watched the destruction of many kids as a result.”

And so to generally blame “someone” for lack of fairness in demographic representation sends people down a rabbit hole of whether affirmative action works, it doesn’t, who the experts are and a plethora of other things that leaves the original problem (if there even is one) unsolved.

As I said to the group that attempted to judge us in the mid 1980’s:

If society doesn’t create someone who wants the job I am offering, you can’t blame me for not hiring them.

You also can’t legislate it as Justice Thomas noted since the repercussions on the people you are trying to help are largely unknown (or ignored).

Bottom Line:

We don’t fix problems such as diversity by accidentally or purposefully whipping people into a fervor with an assumption or a generalization as the Mayor may have done so in his presentation. 

After all, it is entirely possible that the people who hold the positions that the Mayor referenced may in fact be the most qualified people for their positions within all of the municipal governments across Canada and if that’s the case, why would you want to assume that the positions need to be assessed or changed?

There is also the reality that one assumption or generalization tends to lead to another …. and another … and another.  And at the end of the day after following a trail of assumptions and generalizations, we probably won’t have made much measurable, effective progress at all.

Mayor Nenshi’s comments are not racist or gender biased.

But I think he (and all of us) should be careful how a simple assumption or generalization, stated with authority, can lead to a whirlwind of activity without a complete understanding of true cause and effect and the real complexity buried within the perceived issues.

For as we all know, the devil is in the details.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Is Calgary Doomed To Collapse?

The doom of a nation can be averted only by a storm of flowing passion, but only those who are passionate themselves can arouse passion in others. - Adolf Hitler

You can calm down now.  I like the quote because it speaks many truths even though the person to whom the quote is attributed to was a monster.

When Joe Arvai (@DecisionLab) suggested in a Globe and Mail piece that data points to the possibility that Calgary could follow the path of Detroit into oblivion, he upset a lot of people also.

I agree they should be upset but not in the revengeful, caustic way some of them have been towards him.

It’s because his data should be a wakeup call, a call to use data to either prove him wrong OR to prove him right, the latter being followed by a strategic plan to create a stronger future.

It’s like getting upset with your car because the brake light has come on.  The sensors are merely using the data available to suggest that there may be a problem if corrective action is not taken and a warning light comes on as a result.  Yelling at the light itself serves no valuable purpose whatsoever.

We live in a curious world where realities and rationalized myths compete for our attention.

Politicians, diplomats and corporate leaders sell us the mantra that the world continues to get better and better and that anyone who would say anything to the contrary is a pessimist. 

I posit that many pessimists are in fact realists who acknowledge that the world is a beautiful place but who also recognize that such beauty could be interrupted or lost if we don’t choose to fix things that threaten it.

They are optimistic realists (or realistic optimists).

Consider these items ….

1. Airline security keeps the amateur from doing something stupid to us.  However, there are plenty of opportunities for the professional terrorist (or idiot) to take down a plane or gain access to the “impenetrable cockpit”.  We know that acknowledging this will severely hamper the aviation industry (and thus the economy overall) and so we don’t talk about it.

2. As long as nuclear and bio weapons exist in the world, there is the potential for us to wipe ourselves out either accidentally, purposefully or through the acts of a third party (e.g. a cyber attack that deploys the weapons).  We invent useless things like duck-and-cover to help people feel safe in the meantime.

3. Our national and international infrastructure (including the distribution of food, water, energy and other critical services) is at high risk  for compromise for a number of reasons.  Talking about it makes people too nervous … and so we don’t.

4. We cannot protect ourselves from terrorist attacks (including on a large scale) unless we are prepared to give up 100% of our freedom.  We insist on having both our freedom and our safety, a mutual exclusivity that is impossible to create and so the results are predictable.  However, we reserve the right to act surprised / affronted when an event occurs.

5. Wall St. and our government financial models remain a ticking time bomb, filled with unsustainable practices that benefit the minority while punishing the majority when the occasional hiccup (artificial, accidental or intentional) occurs.  Sooner or later, the hiccup will be really big but we dismiss such talk as gloom and doom – we are told to be grateful to “live for today”.

6. Built-in obsolescence, while driving our economy quite nicely, is ultimately unsustainable for the economy or the planet.  We do a little recycling to show how this small act has somehow saved the planet.

7. There is no emergency preparedness plan for the masses should a large-scale emergency take place.  There are many ideas that will be tested during an event and there will be political rhetoric during and after an event about “how we rose to the occasion” but so far we have been lucky. A Life built entirely around luck eventually encounters a patch of bad luck.

8. 80+% of the IT systems being built today are garbage, being overcomplicated by over zealous architects, being little understood by developers who rely more on their tools than their brains, are too lightly tested “because we’re in a hurry”, etc.  People who refute such suggestions point to the great frameworks, architecture and processes they embrace while being silent about how their projects run way over budget, extend well past their implementation deadlines, are largely untested, are routinely compromised, etc.  Since much of our society runs on these systems, this also a fundamental problem that we choose not to talk about.

Examples such as these aren’t examples of pessimism.  They are examples of reality.

There is also no irony lost in the fact that people who bring these things up with the intention of making the nation stronger end up on the same watch lists as those who would seek to tear our nation down. 

Paranoia under the guise of preparedness doesn’t discriminate. :-)

We can choose to ignore examples such as these, knowing that statistics, stupidity, greed or Murphy’s Law will eventually catch up to us.  We can also label people who discuss such things as pessimists like those who criticized Prime Minister Chamberlain’s famous “Peace for our time” quote only to be proven right a year later when World War 2 erupted.

Voltaire noted the problem of ignoring reality when he said:

Everything's fine today, that is our illusion.

When someone appears with data that suggests that something needs to be fixed, it is ok to get passionate about such warnings.

In fact, getting passionate about them is often a good thing as long as we use our passion to objectively verify the existence of the problem, validate a solution if necessary and take action where appropriate instead of engaging in a game of “shoot the messenger” just because the messenger’s data has created a sense of unease that we would rather turn our back on.

Data offered in theory requires data to challenge it.

Only then will we know if the person who proposed the original theory is wrong, insane or an absolute pessimist or if that person is a realist who is merely trying to save us.

When the “brake light of society” comes on, we must have experts examine the data that illuminated it to determine if it is merely a “faulty sensor” or if something actually needs to be corrected.

Because merely yelling at the warning light doesn’t solve anything and could produce a result that, while potentially fatal, could or should have been prevented.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Addendum – December 10, 2013

Edmund Burke once said:

Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.

Hegel more pragmatically / critically said (roughly translated):

History teaches us that history teaches us nothing.

I’d like to add my own variation:

History teaches us that we choose to learn nothing until forced to and then we relive history. Unfortunately, relearning history is like the pendulum in "The Pit and the Pendulum"- every swing gets a little lower and a little closer to producing finality.

Surviving Climate Change–The Elephant in the Room

If we stop all greenhouse gas emissions, will global climate change stop?

Industrial activity has already pumped billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and we have yet to see the full effect of warming from those gases. A great deal of excess energy imbalance is stored in the ocean and will be released gradually over time, continuing to warm the planet.

In other words, some degree of climate change is irreversible. Scientists call this the "committed warming," and estimate that the Earth would continue to warm about 1 degree Fahrenheit (.6 degrees Celsius) even if greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere stopped growing immediately. That is, if all human greenhouse gas emissions stopped tomorrow, the Earth would still warm for at least a half-century. – NASA (emphasis added)

As I listened today to Alberta Government Minister Diana McQueen poke jabs at Opposition Leader Danielle Smith’s personal beliefs about climate change versus what Ms. Smith’s official party policy will be, I couldn’t help but notice the elephant in the room.

As we all argue about whether it is a natural cyclical phenomenon or a man-made one (or both), whether we are warming or cooling, whether someone’s data is accurate or exaggerated, what reasonable reductions in greenhouse emissions are needed, what carbon tax regimens will work best to expedite reductions, etc., we face a reality that I never hear any politician speak about.

It is the reality that if, as opined by NASA, we could stop all greenhouse emissions tomorrow, we have at least 50 years of climate change inertia before us where we will continue to experience significant events in the environment.

Events like ….

- the droughts in Australia

- Hurricane Sandy

- flooding in Calgary and High River

- insert personal event experience here

These are events that are likely to increase in frequency and intensity.

And so as I listen to people argue about melting versus freezing ice caps, whether sea levels will rise an inch or a yard, whether the changes are natural or artificial or I see personal attacks to score political points, I would like to ask a question that doesn’t seem to get much airtime.

What do we intend to do to survive larger, more frequent floods, hurricanes, droughts and everything else?

I’m not saying that research into our contribution to climate change is not important.

But finally identifying our contribution will offer little comfort if we continue to be steamrolled by it because we put more of our focus into stopping what may be unstoppable or if stoppable, not stoppable in a heartbeat … or my personal favorite …. what company, industry or country is mostly to blame.

I wonder if we have secretly thrown in the towel, finding it more satisfying personally, professionally, politically, reputationally and economically to pretend that preventing it is within our reach and that on the day that the magic pill is found, everything will simply reverse to pre-climate change levels?

Are we willing to bet our survival on it?

Climate change will always be with us, regardless of the reason.

Are we able to demonstrate our ability to change with it or are we going to continue to act surprised when events steamroll over us, followed by the inevitable political rhetoric of how we “rose to the occasion yet again”?

Because if we aren’t able to provide better strategies regarding surviving climate change, I would posit that we are more like ostriches than humans.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Addendum – November 2, 2013

An interesting item – President Obama passes an Executive Order to prepare the nation to survive the effects of climate change.

The Vatican Effect–Attracting the Undesirable

The Vatican Effect (aka the Streisand Effect):

The more noise someone makes trying to hide or refute something, the more Life they give it, requiring a closer investigation as a result.

As a student of the human experience, I am always fascinated by the ways we strive for success as well as the ways we strive to create complexity (or even failure) in our lives.

The name of the Vatican Effect originates from the process by which Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” went from obscurity to sensation practically overnight.  It would probably have  died in obscurity had the Vatican not set up a committee to investigate and stymie the potential popularity of the book.  Of course many people wanted to see why the Vatican would do such a thing and the rest is history regarding Dan Brown’s success.

In striving to create success or to avoid creating failure, we need to be careful that we don’t inadvertently create our own version of the Vatican Effect.

Some fun examples from this week.

Yesterday, I wrote a blog post, The Power of the Four-Poster Interview, where I mused about a Minister in the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and potential conflict of interest allegations with an alleged lover of hers.

Naturally a blog post with such controversial subject matter will attract a lot of attention.  However, in observing how the blog post was being shared, there were as many people who were upset by it as there were who supported it.

Of course in sharing it, their anger was amplified as readership of the blog post grew very quickly, making it instantly one of my top blog posts of the week.

So while some people complained about how quickly the blog post was gaining popularity, they were in fact equally responsible for its rapid distribution.

No rain drop believes it is responsible for the flood

A couple of weeks ago, in making what I thought were benign musings about a local election campaign in Calgary, Alberta, I wrote Is Calgary’s Crime Rate Out of Control?, discussing one candidate’s use of negative emotion and hype (without data to back up her assertions) in order to “scare” voters.

The blog post had its surge in readership as new posts do and then faded into what I refer to as “idling mode”, not scoring higher or lower than other blog posts that were being read.

Earlier this week, a person self-described as her marketing and social media lead thought it would be a good idea to instigate a little argument with me on Twitter, sending readership of this blog post through the roof and drawing much condemnation of this person and the candidate she represented.

And then things went quiet again with this blog post until today when the same person surfaced with this tweet:

For those not familiar with this expression, it is a literal translation of a Polish phrase which, depending on what part of Poland you are from, the context of the situation and how the expression is used, can be interpreted to mean:

Not my problem.

F___ this shit.

F___ off.

I was amused by this since I knew what such a spontaneous tweet without any instigation on anyone’s part would do and so shortly after this tweet appeared, I checked my blog stats.

Sure enough, people were back to reading the blog that had created some damage to the candidate’s campaign and which had died down again (for the second time) earlier this week.

Third time’s a charm, I guess.

Insatiable curiosity can be an interesting and devastating weapon when used correctly (or misused accidentally).

It can be fatal from a career perspective when such a message is delivered to a potential voter on behalf of someone seeking my vote.

The wisdom of the ancients

There is a reason that our vernacular is filled with old adages such as “let sleeping dogs lie” or “beware of self-fulfilling prophecies”.

I think it is because they originate from the sum of many truths in the collective human experience.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Addendum

Curious as to whether the person in my second story still represents the candidate I referred to, I took a look at her LinkedIn profile.

Yup.

Addendum 2

Shortly after this blog was published, the LinkedIn profile was revised:

Whether the change reflects an actual change in duties or is meant as a deflection technique is irrelevant.  We always have to be cognizant of who represents us and whether anything we say or do alleges to represent someone else.

There is a final irony in that she has asked people to stop bullying her as noted in her final tweet.

The use of social media does not change a basic concept of human interaction:

Respect earned is respect given.

When one instigates a conversation as noted earlier in this blog, one has to expect a strong reaction and cannot subsequently claim to be a victim.  One cannot travel through Life looking for trouble and then complain when trouble arrives.

Is Calgary’s Crime Rate Out of Control?

You can have data without information, but you cannot have information without data. - Daniel Keys Moran

I attended a forum last week between the two candidates for the role of Councillor (Ward 12) for the City of Calgary and it represented, at least to me, the sharp contrast between Canadian and US-style politics.

The incumbent, Shane Keating, discussed his family, his ties to the community, his record within the Calgary council chamber and his plans for the future.  He insisted on keeping the campaign above-board and indicated his desire to campaign on the issues and not by bashing the other candidate.

The challenger, Stephanie Kusie, opened by attacking the incumbent for allegedly producing no results of value and for implying that he was unable or unlikely to produce any results of value in the future.

To quote from her opening remarks, after her obligatory thank-yous to the host, the incumbent and the attendees, she said:

What I'm really excited about with this forum is that this forum, as Peter indicated, is about ideas but the truth is that ideas can be meaningless if there is no action and there are no results and I think that Ward 12 deserves better action and better results ……

And with those opening remarks, I knew that I was in for a contest between calm sharing of data and emotion-based, fear-laden rhetoric.

In essence, I was watching the clash of the Canadian and American political systems respectively.

Now in truth, anger, fear and indignation sell as I described here in Anger: Setting Yourself Up For Manipulation and as was so well described in the excellent book Trust Me, I’m Lying – Confessions of a Media Manipulator.

And the American political system, which Ms. Kusie has been immersed in for years as a diplomat and which I have spent most of my Life in, would be the system that she has witnessed the most in her recent history – a system where emotion over facts is used very effectively.

But I’m a data guy – not an emotion guy

As a data guy, I have noticed over the years that the more emotional a candidate gets and the more evasive they are regarding questions such as “why?” and “how do you know?”, the less likely that the candidate has any factual foundation for their campaign at all.

For example, Ms. Kusie indicated during the debate that there is increasing concern about crime and vandalism in her ward and implied that many constituents are becoming fearful of their neighborhood.

I was intrigued by this as I am active in the community and I wasn’t aware of any heightened crime concerns.

However, I’m a data guy.

So when Ms. Kusie tweeted this yesterday (along with the Facebook post), beating the crime drum again, I thought I would explore the statistics.

Since Ms. Kusie discussed or implied in the forum last week that in regards to crime her focus was on the crimes of assault and vandalism, I went to the Calgary Police Service website that tracks such crimes.

And since she named Cranston specifically in yesterday’s tweet, I selected the data slice for that neighborhood for the last 6 months (the largest slice available on the website).

Here’s what I came up with.

Choosing the crime stats she was interested in last week, specifically assault, attempted murder, homicide, robbery, sex offences (the personal attack categories) and vandalism, I came up with the astounding number of 13 violations for the last 6 months.

Is this a crime rate out of control?

Hardly.

But people without data need to fall back on emotion, fear and hysteria because that’s all they have.  Her tweet discussed “unreported crimes”, a subjective topic that can be easily hyped up in absence of real data.  It also implies that she has alternate sources of information that are not readily available to others.

Sadly, voters who don’t rely on data will easily fall susceptible to such a ploy.

Meanwhile when the tough questions come her way

Despite my requests for her to answer “why” and “how do you know” when it comes to her assertions and intentions, I received the classic response often provided by people who can’t answer to the data.

I didn’t get an answer at all.

Her website has this interesting opening line as to why she should be the choice of Calgarians in Ward 12.

When I asked her at the forum how she would make “Calgary the best city it can be”, in other words how did this line translate into measurable actions, she denied that it was on her website and we argued over it.

A week later, it is still there.

And I still don’t know what it means.

If I can’t translate rhetoric, emotion or “feel good” into a measurable future, I don’t know how I can vote for her either.

Now if she can convince me that the current crime wave in our ward is about to overwhelm us and she knows how to fix that, I might change my mind.

But somehow I don’t think she cares about data.

And so we become the classic paradox of the irresistible force versus the immovable object, with people like me becoming a major source of irritation that needs to be ignored, buried or neutralized.

The Bottom Line

I wonder if elections like this are a litmus test, on a micro level, of the future of politics in Canada.

Are Canadians still the type of people who care about the issues and who demand that candidates demonstrate how they will address the issues in a respectful way?

Or have Canadians fallen to the US model, where whoever shouts the loudest, appears to be the most intimidating and avoids answering the questions using data will be the winner?

I think this election will answer that question.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Addendum

I have great respect for Ms. Kusie and anyone else who puts their name in the ring to run for politics.  It is a difficult, often thankless job for the candidate and their family and it takes great courage (in addition to other resources) to submit one’s self to a living, 24x7 “Whose Line Is It Anyway” regimen where no matter how well you do, half the people will not like your answers or results.

And we must never forget that good human beings run for office in every election.

However, even good human beings have to remain accountable in terms of what they are offering, what they intend to do for their constituents and how they intend to do it.

Rather than merely tear their opponent down, they should take their passion, wrap it around facts that have context for the voter and take that to victory.

We should be able to elect the person who lifted themselves up the most and not the person who tore the other person down the most.

Because when we elect the person who won by tearing the other person down, we all lose eventually.

If they will tear others down, what does it say about their ability to negotiate and collaborate – to “play well” with others?

And what does it say about what they will think of their constituents if our feelings or demands for accountability get too “inconvenient” for them once they are in office?

What indeed?

Addendum – October 1, 2013

For those who missed the forum, it can be viewed here.

 

And as a final note to close this subject, here is Mayor Nenshi’s thought on the concept of crime in Calgary.

Addendum – October 7, 2013

In an interesting back and forth with one of her campaign staff today, Ms. Kusie’s failure to answer questions was explained as follows:

to which I replied:

This is disappointing.  One looks for new candidates to bring in fresh concepts in ideation, expression, collaboration and execution.  Defensive or deflective postures suggest otherwise, either in the candidate or perhaps in the people who are advising the candidate.

The end result is the same.

The other funny thing to note is that for all the time these fine people have to entertain “intellectual exchanges” defending their candidate, they never get around to answering the questions. :-)

If I were running for office, I would spend more time creating alliances and less time creating self-perceived antagonists.  Life tends to be easier and more successful that way.

In closing, one of this individual’s closing comments strengthens my argument that facts and data are essential to dialog.

The author of this tweet is attempting to plant a seed of deception, lack of transparency or lack of honesty on my part by suggesting that I am covertly connected with her candidate’s competitor’s family.

When I indicated that I have no association with her candidate’s competitor’s family (I’ve never even met them), she tweeted this.

So emotion, confrontation and misinformation are fine from her perspective.

But when one stands up to this by demanding transparency, facts and truth, she withdraws from the conversation, citing issues with “the other person”.

As I said … disappointing.

One final addendum (hopefully) – October 7, 2013

There was an amusing moment that occurred later when someone from the Keating (Ms. Kusie’s opponent) campaign stated unequivocally that I was not associated with his campaign or his family at all, to which Ms. Kusie’s staff member replied:

With this tweet, there was a suggestion, as inferred by some people who commented on this tweet, that @NOYFB_Sith was the alleged son of Councillor Keating that I was covertly connected with.  I think people came to this conclusion because @NOYFB_Sith wasn’t part of the conversation at all but was suddenly named in the “conversation wrap-up”.

The funny thing is that he is not related to Councillor Keating either.  His hilarious response to this inference cannot be repeated here – it is a family-friendly website after all. :-)

Closure – October 8, 2013

I was grateful that Ms. Kusie reached out to me and apologized for my experience with a member of her campaign team, indicating that the person above does not speak on behalf of her or her campaign.  Time and actions taken moving forward will serve as evidence of the authenticity of the apology.  Almost 24 hours after that apology, the individual above is still self-described as:

Given that the person above initiated conversation with me claiming to represent the campaign as the social media / marketing advisor, this should serve as a warning to all people with public personas that our reputation is built not only upon what we say and do but upon what others claiming to represent us say and do as well.

Closure – For Real :-) - October 9, 2013

I see 24 hours later that this person no longer references the Kusie campaign on her Twitter profile but still does on her LinkedIn profile (perhaps in response to this blog).

It doesn’t matter at this point.  Damage to the campaign has already occurred, with people I don’t even know stopping me and asking me if I’m the guy that they saw on Twitter having “an interesting conversation” with this person.

Some free advice

It reminds me of the following key behaviors for any politician or their supporters to observe when in the public eye (not an exhaustive list):

• You should always endeavor to guide the conversation without letting it get out of control.
• If you can't control it, keep it positive or at least neutral.
• Don't make it personal.
• Don't let anything get under your skin – never let them see you sweat.
• Never get angry.  It reflects poorly on you and may be used to your disadvantage as I noted in Anger: Setting Yourself Up For Manipulation.
• Anything said on social media lives forever – remember this before making an angry or embarrassing comment publicly.
• Seek to create alliances and not antagonists.
• Never attack a voter or belittle their questions or efforts to obtain clarity or information.
• Pursuant to the previous point, don’t confuse (intentionally or otherwise) a request for information with being attacked.  You may think it is a useful strategy but it can be leveraged to make you look weak or stupid.
• You may invite a pile-on in social media if you attack others – don’t claim to be a victim if this occurs.  This lowers your credibility even further.
• If the issue is dead, let it remain dead.  Don’t deliberately bring it back to Life, especially if the previous incarnation created problems for yourself or the people you work with.
• Be aware of the Vatican Effect (aka the Streisand Effect as I described in The Voice of the Rebel).  Specifically, the Vatican Effect states that: The more noise someone makes trying to hide or refute something, the more Life they give it, requiring a closer investigation as a result (named after Dan Brown’s sudden success with “The DaVinci Code” when the Vatican set up a group to destroy its credibility). The traffic to this blog post had pretty much died down until this person’s actions caused a lot of people to revisit it – creating elevated readership and bringing unfortunate information back into the conversation.

Bottom line: We must always be careful of people who speak (or claim to speak) on our behalf.

The damage they produce may be irreparable.

Choose your support wisely.

When Education, Stereotypes and Ignorance Collide

I was reminded today of what happens when stereotypes and ignorance collide and the danger that such a collision represents when it infiltrates our education system.

I was attending a public function in Calgary today when a lady approached me and presented her business card, indicating that she was running as a candidate for public school trustee.

I thanked her but indicated that I supported the Roman Catholic school system.  She replied that at least she didn’t support a school system that restricted how people think and which minimized their potential to learn.  She then proceeded to bash the Roman Catholic system.

“Ah”, I thought.  “One of those.  Time to move on.”

I thanked her and moved on but she followed me and made some comments about our tax system and its failure to provide for adequate education and health support systems, to which I agreed that we did indeed have challenges.  I also indicated that having consulted to many government groups over the years in multiple countries, I was fully aware of the challenges that we faced.  She replied that I didn’t know what she knew.

Fair enough. I moved on.

Again.

Ten minutes later, she approached me again to lecture me about how the tax system in Canada didn’t work and I replied that having worked on Wall Street for many years, I was very familiar with the system and its pros and cons.

She then made a very interesting observation:

“So you worked on Wall St, did you?  Well that says a lot about the type of person you are, doesn’t it?  In fact, it says everything about your character.”

She then proceeded to belittle me (or least attempt to), basically equating anyone who has worked on Wall St. with the scum of the earth.  After having had her say, she left.

As I was discussing this with the other people sitting at my table, someone at the next table overheard me and expressed his story.

Ms. Mowat had approached him earlier and at one point made a derogatory comment equating his darker skin with the likelihood that he would be voting for Mayor Nenshi, merely because they shared a darker skin color.

She also suggested that this was a natural thing to do since they were probably from the same part of the world anyway.

This gentleman’s ancestry is from the Philippines while Mayor Nenshi’s family traces its roots back to Tanzania.

Oh well, close enough.  They are from the same planet after all.

He had another story to share as well that I won’t share here but involved dialog she had with children under age that were in his care and his temptation to call the police as a result.

The ignorance that this woman demonstrated doesn’t surprise me.

The fact that she exhibited such ignorance publicly while running for office does surprise me.

That fact that she is running for office where she will have an opportunity to influence the education of young people frightens me.

We can’t always dictate the nature of the people who enter our sphere of influence nor should we try.

Not only do we not have the right to do so but in fact, we would become exhausted in attempting such a feat.

However, when said nature is blatantly ignorant and attempting to gain a position of authority and influence in our education system, then that’s another thing.

I’m damn proud of my career on Wall St. and have met many fine people there.  The Filipino gentleman I met today, focused on helping youth, is also a very nice guy.  I suspect he and I have each discovered a new friend today.

Ms. Mowat, however, needs to learn that a Life well spent is easier and more fulfilling when we spend our time building bridges instead of burning them.

How the next generation grows up to assume the mantle of authority in the world is a reflection of what we teach them, what we demonstrate to them through our own actions ….

…. and what we allow them to be exposed to.

When people like Ms. Mowat come along, if we don’t call it like it is, then we are allowing our children to be exposed to a less than ideal environment, one focused on ignorance and stupidity when we should be focused on respect and collaboration.

Closing thoughts

On the back of her business card, it says:

Our Goal: Build Schools Now!

I shudder to think what kind of schools she believes need to be created.

One final note. I went to her website to see what she stands for and was greeted by a template that said “This site is under development”.

Truth be told, I don’t need a website to tell me what she stands for.

She’s too busy shoving it down our throat.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Addendum

After some additional research, I see why she worked very hard to pick a fight with me today. 

It is because I am the enemy. :-)

On this website, she describes herself as the following:

Helen Mowat is a dynamic teacher, a visionary thinker and an integrative researcher. She loves connecting the dots, common sense, and seeing the BIG PICTURE. 

I love reading, researching and understanding social and political issues. I am whole, complete and a very open-minded person.

But it’s her recommended reading list that appears most interesting.

On her recommended reading list, one can find these tidy little items – How the Elite Play God, Is the New World Order Jewish and the conspiracy ramblings of Alex Jones.  It also has links to anti-vaccination ramblings, material tying the American Pledge of Allegiance to the Nazis  and a whole pile of other “curious” reading.

What is ALSO intriguing is that her recommended reading list includes a link to John Taylor Gatto where the site owner “challenges the myths of modern schooling” – a curious website recommendation from someone running for school board trustee.

And for those who don’t know what her recommendation for GlobalResearch.ca is all about, Rational Wiki describes it as:

The prevalent conspiracist strand relates to global power-elites (primarily governments and corporations) and their New World Order.  Specific featured conspiracy theories include those addressing 9/11, vaccines, genetic modification, Zionism, HAARP, global warming, and David Kelly.

And finally, she recommends that people read John Kozy’s material which can be found here.  Mr. Kozy describes the purpose of his website as:

Expose the Bull: A site devoted to the logical analysis of the lies, prevarications, and nonsense being fed to the American people by government, business, and the mainstream press. Topics include American society, culture, government, law, Supreme_Court, education, economy, economic_theory, economics, foreign_policy, religion, and more.

I see a lot of conspiracy stuff and very little useful, pro-school, pro-education, pro-children stuff.

It’s also odd to see someone promoting anti-establishment material while running for the establishment at the same time.

I would recommend that people who are considering voting for this person or any person truly understand their candidate’s background and beliefs first … and then make the choice from an informed perspective.

History–A Source of Entertainment, Not Knowledge

Many of us have heard the old adage (and the many variants thereof) that those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it.

I wonder if the truest variant is Hegel’s when he said “history teaches us that history teaches us nothing.”

In the spirit that stories resonate better than facts and figures, I present the following illustrations that demonstrate Hegel’s point.

Natural Disasters

In the City of Calgary, despite the many politicians and other leaders who acted surprised about the floods, we have a few facts that we can’t deny.

1. The city has faced devastating floods repeatedly in its past and as recently as 8 years ago.

2. The areas stricken the most in each flood are built upon flood plains known to be at high risk of flooding.

3. The City and the Province knew the risks of building in high risk areas but permitted it for decades anyway, lighting the fuse on a time-bomb that keeps going off.

4. Some of the areas are so obviously at risk that a property buyer doesn’t need to be told that they are in risk of catastrophic loss but they buy the property anyway.  Some residents admitted that they have known the risk for years but decided to remain as they “waited for the government to fix things”.

So despite warnings, recommendations and the like in the past, status quo remains and construction will likely continue in high risk areas, threatening life and property in the future.

Meanwhile … in US politics

I find US politics to be a fascinating reflection on the electorate and a great source of support for Hegel’s thoughts on history.  Here are some examples.

1. Former South Carolina Governor  Mark Sanford was found guilty of a number of inappropriate actions as Governor and faced impeachment proceedings.  Despite being disgraced as Governor, abusing taxpayer funds, having an extramarital affair while in office and the like, he has now been re-elected as a Representative from South Carolina, thus demonstrating high levels of support for his “character and values”.

2. Former Congressman Anthony Weiner who was forced to resign from Congress for inappropriate texting of a body part that shares commonality with his last name is now a front runner in the NYC mayoral race (even as he warns that more photos of him may surface in the future).  I guess he is proof that if we choose to stick it out in times of adversity, rising to the occasion, we can overcome anything.

3. Former NYC Governor Elliot Spitzer, disgraced and removed from power in an escort scandal as well as a campaign contribution scandal, is now running for the office of NYC Comptroller.

4. Proving that life has its ironies, Kristin Davis, the madam who ran the organization that brought Mr. Spitzer down, is running against him for the same comptroller position after serving prison time for running her less-than-ideal organization.  Ironically, Mr. Spitzer did not receive any jail time for partaking of the services that Ms. Davis’ organization offered.

5. Jesse Jackson Jr. easily won re-election of his Congressional seat despite facing charges at the time of wire fraud, mail fraud, inappropriate use of campaign funds and a number of other things and while being off the campaign trail as he was treated for a number of “exhaustion” related mental and physical illnesses.  After being re-elected despite the charges against him, he plead guilty, with prosecutors recommending in June of 2013 that he be sentenced to 4 years in jail.

I could go on but the list is too long.  However, it is true that we get the government that we deserve, isn’t it? :-)

And then there is national security

Senior military officers and advisors to the US government warned leaders for years that one of the greatest threats to national security were foreign agents commandeering US commercial aircraft and flying them into American buildings and landmarks.  I was told of this as a civilian in the early 90’s so I suspect that it was known long before I was told.

Ahhhh …. the list is never ending.

Why we can’t find a better way to live?

Human beings have a great gift in our seemingly unlimited levels of resilience.  We appear to be able to overcome everything.

This ability to overcome almost anything thrown in our path is also our greatest weakness.  Our belief that we can overcome everything tends to make us play down prevention with the belief that we will do the best we can and just overcome whatever disaster befalls us.

Unfortunately, as I have seen in disaster preparedness meetings within organizations and governments, planners are paid to anticipate disasters far greater than anything citizens have experienced to-date or could even dream of.

Or would want to dream of.

Some of those disaster scenarios are in fact large enough to overcome even the greatest levels of human resilience.

Unfortunately, those same planners are hamstrung, knowing that they don’t have the money or other resources to deal with every threat and that to share the true threat levels with the world would paralyze everyone into fearing that “the ultimate disaster” is right around the corner.  The resulting panic that would ensue would create its own epic disaster.

And so the planners, advisors and leaders play the difficult game of balancing cost vs. risk while at the same time, keeping citizens contented and focused on ever-increasing consumption.

Interestingly, this ever-increasing consumption is building a new set of disasters for the planet but we don’t need to worry about those right now. 

After all, our children will be resilient enough to figure them out.

Won’t they???

Meanwhile, when the next disaster rolls around, which it will, we will fall back on our old standbys:

1. We will act surprised, supposedly caught off guard that we had no warnings that such an event was possible.

2. We will rise to the occasion, saving those who can be saved while we congratulate ourselves on our ingenuity for our quick response and our ability to create solutions on the fly.

3. We will get angry when we rediscover / relearn that this has happened before.

4. We will find someone else to blame.

5. We will demand action to prevent this from happening in the future.

6. We will go through the motions of doing something, analyzing data, creating reports and then burying them.

7. We will move on without actually changing anything.

8. We will get angry at anyone who points out how predictable we are as a species and how we keep repeating ourselves when it comes to disaster avoidance. We will also get angry at people who remind us that the world is not perfect and that merely thinking good thoughts is insufficient in creating a better world.

That’s assuming that the next challenge doesn’t overrun our level of resilience altogether.

Until then, history will serve as a source of entertainment and not as a warning to hold ourselves and our leaders to a higher level of accountability and preparedness.

And we will continue to ignore warnings, mainly because thinking about them disrupts what otherwise would be an easy Life for many of us.

Well … at least for now.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Personal Note:

When I first started working on “interesting projects” in the early 90’s, I acquired a very deep respect for the many planners out there who do the best they can with what they have so that we can be safe.  Few know of the sacrifices they make, especially in the areas of their own personal health and their family relationships, in performing the tasks that they do.

I was presenting at a conference a few years ago and I was speaking to a colleague about the struggles that I had with the things I had been exposed to over the years.  I figured that someone I looked up to and who had much more experience than I with these things would have some words of wisdom for how to deal with them.

When I asked the question “How do you deal with this information and how do you sleep at night knowing what you know?” his answer was very telling.

“I try not to stay sober”.

A sobering statement indeed.

Addendum – July 11, 2013

The CBC reported today that experts are warning us that damaging water events such as those that occurred in Alberta and Toronto in recent weeks will likely become more the norm and that we need to invest heavily in infrastructure in order to protect life and property moving forward.

This resonates with things that I and others have written in the past about global climate change.  Too many people are trying to prevent it when it is quite possible that it is not preventable, regardless of whether it is a natural cyclical event or a man-made one.

And when people spend all their time arguing about how to prevent what may be unpreventable instead of how to survive and thrive within it, they may be so busy (and so distracted) that they won’t see the event that overwhelms them.

Addendum – July 23, 2013

Case in point.  It was announced today that Anthony Weiner, while disgraced and chased from office in 2011, participated in a new round of inappropriate behavior during the summer of 2012.