Maybe the founders of this country got it wrong. Maybe people really don’t want freedom. Perhaps it’s just too damn much work to have to think for oneself instead of having someone else tell you what to do. They tried pretty damn hard, even put it down on paper, but we can’t seem to take these ideas at face value. They’re pretty simple too, designed to be applied regardless of the variable nature of time and government. But we just can’t help but search for ways to give up these rights, or take these rights away from people with whom we disagree. (more…)

I’m not a manager. I’m doing just fine working in the trenches (although I work way too many weird hours) and don’t have any desire to work the political world of management. I have no doubt that I could do it and successful, but I don’t want to don the required “suit” mentality Therefore this post comes by way of a “those who don’t know, teach” angle as I really don’t have the experience. Some may say that I shouldn’t judge what I don’t know, but I believe there’s a certain amount of common sense involved in managing others and there are some situations that beg to be excoriated. By way of a “for example”: recently, the Senior Vice President of my organization within the company for which I work invited my team to lunch. This lunch turned out to be, from the email sent to us by his assistant, pizza and salad served in a conference room. The lunch, in fact, turned out to be pizza only, the salad either forgotten or diverted by hungry vegetarians. Further, no input was requested from our team regarding what kind of pizza we would enjoy eating, which seems like a reasonable thing to ask given that we were giving up our lunch hour for this pow-wow with senior management. Finally, no information was given to us regarding what this meeting was for, what the agenda might be or what we might do to prepare. We went in blind to a lunch bereft of salad and featuring 2 out of 3 pizzas that no one wanted to eat. (more…)

The events at Virginia Tech were certainly a tragedy. Yet more people die every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of them our own sons and daughters. None of these people are any less important or valuable than those who died at VT. Yet our flag is at half-staff for the victims of a suicidal gunman, but not for our own soldiers returning home in their flag-draped coffins (surely no less worthy?). Sadly there is just as little logic behind the deaths of those in Iraq, at least from an American-intervention perspective, as there is in the twisted logic that led to the rampage at VT. I don’t mean to belittle the loss of the loved ones in the VT tragedy or the sacrifices made by those sent to Iraq, but mean to bring focus to the fact that thousands have died in a war that has nothing at all to do with a war on terror (remember the real roots of our misguided actions against Iraq people: it wasn’t terror or 9/11, despite what the media and our administration would revise history to say, but a failed UN resolution). Yes, what happened at VT was terrible, and my heart and thoughts go to the families and victims. But please, remember that our sons and daughters are in harm’s way and dying every day because of an administration that cares only for its own agenda and not for the people it purports to represent. Please put the tragedy at VT in perspective and remember that many young men and women of the same age as those who died at VT are in danger as well.

Please remember (before commenting in dumb-ass ways) that I’m not a Republican or a Democrat, a liberal or a conservative…I am Independent. This is not a call for withdrawal from Iraq (we’re beyond that point and must see it through or risk greater instability and loss of life for those we leave behind) but rather a plea for focus.

I’ve had a powerful urge to blog about the Virginia Tech shootings, but every time I thought about it I found myself drifting into politics, gun-control and big-media-bashing. None of that matters right now, though. All that matters is that we all take time to say goodbye to all the victims and to take a moment to think about those wounded, physically or emotionally, and to hope (or pray, if you’re so inclined) that they recover as fully as is possible. The world we have built for ourselves won’t let us stay out of the mud for long, so take the time now to honor the memories of the dead as well as the lives of the survivors, their friends and their families.

Author Kurt Vonnegut died last night; he was 84. He was hospitalized after suffering injuries from a fall several weeks back. Take a moment to remember him and pick up one of his books and give it a read. If you have a chance, track down some of his many essays. He traveled all over giving lectures and talks about the state of the world and his Humanist philosophy. I was lucky enough to attend one of his lectures at my University back when I was in school, and I’ve been a fan of his writing for years.

Wow…some people are just plain twisted and evil.