Pawprints From Space

The other day the Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr had a great editorial about the topic of exchanging one's freedoms for security. If your paper does not carry Mr Pitts' column you are missing a good one. There was a great quote by Benjamin Franklin included: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety". And isn't that exactly what we've been doing ever since 911? I don't generally agree with the ACLU but they have a point in their ad that appears in the latest issue of the magazine Mother Jones. Curious? Check out the March/April 2006 issue. The ad is on page 12. Makes you think which is undoubtedly the whole point. Back to Mr. Pitts' editorial. He recounts a scene that happened on Feb 9th in Bethesda MD (not all that far from Washington when you think about it). Apparently two men in uniform "stride into the main reading room (of the Little Falls branch of the Montgomery...

I appreciate a day off as much as the next person, maybe more what with work and volunteering and grad school, but after three plus years I am still astounded that I get President's Day off. Of course I do have to go to class tonight so it isn't 100% freedom but still...it is a day off. So of course there are great plans of cleaning etc that you just know will not get accomplished (why do you think I'm writing this and not doing that?). News item of the moment seems to be the Cheney hunting accident. Of course accidents happen when hunting. Get a bunch of testosterone driven folk out in the middle of nowhere with firearms and things are bound to happen. Okay the victim walked up behind without announcing himself but how do you mistake an elderly man stomping through the brush for a bird? The two don't make anywhere near the same amount of noise. Hmmm, methinks the VP is just a mite trigger happy. The real kicker is the way Cheney's office kept quiet for so long. Any...

Have you ever had one of those lives? Just when you think it is safe to relax a little, start putting some actual money away for retirement and maybe be able to afford that vacation you've been putting off for the last three or ten years... WHAM! Life bops you upside the head with some absurd situation and then runs off laughing as you sit there and wonder what the hell hit you and whether or not you need medical attention? Yes ladies and gentlemen, I have one of those lives. Not days, weeks nor even years... LIVES. Seems as those whenever I stop holding my breath the proverbial shoe really does drop. With a very loud thud. I won't go into all the gory details here but suffice it to say budgets need to be re-evaluated, plans need to be canceled or at least revised and who the hell is going to have time for homework in an upside down world? So yup... I will be "winging" this next paper for the Managing Across Cultures class. Speaking of getting smacked... what the devi...

You may be wondering what the purple awareness ribbon badge-thingy on the blog is, it represents Relay For Life. If you have never been to a Relay For Life event (American Cancer Society) you are missing something. Tons of people all having a blast and raising money to fight cancer. Of course my perspective is a little different since I work for the American Cancer Society and have to manage 4 such events but you know, if I ever leave the job I will come back as a team captain. Go to www.cancer.org and plug in your zip code on the homepage to find a Relay near you. The Sister Cities International project is another cool thing to check out. If your city has a sister city somewhere in the world you can be sure that there is a committee of volunteers in your town working to maintain that relationship, set up exchanges and even seek out new sister cities. We have a sister city in Japan and I have had the opportunity to travel to that neat country three times now. I've learned a lot an...

For those of us who are single this is not a fun day. I just needed to point that out to those of you cute and cuddly couples out there. Moving on... Have you ever read The Smoking Gun? Check out the Web site http://www.thesmokinggun.com/ it will make you go "hmmmm".The featured document today is on the VP Cheney hunting accident. Okay so what the heck does Saddam want? Jail is not the palace for Pete's sake! He says he is being mistreated, denied access to the Koran (which okay I think he ought to have since it is a religious text - maybe he'll actually read it for once and see that murder is not okay), and he doesn't like the people in the courtroom looking at him as though he was a curious animal. Hello! Get a clue! A hunger strike is not going to get you five star treatment or ban everyone from the courtroom. He ought to be thankful he isn't being treated as prisoners of his were treated. And what about the President of Iran? Scary guy. NASA's 2007 bu...

I have to wonder... is sleep really necessary? Oh sure I'm exhausted a lot of the time what with a 60+ hour work week, graduate school and trying to keep up with everyday details of life (laundry, groceries, cleaning the house) but think how much more I could get done without sleep! Heck, I might even have time to a) exercise and b) have a social life. Maybe I could get some hobby time in there too. But you what? If we could do away with sleep I will bet that several things would happen: 1) we'd end up putting even more hours in at work which defeats the purpose of not having to sleep as far as I'm concerned; 2) the government would somehow tax those extra hours and 3) insurance rates would go up. Think about that last one. Without 6 to 8 hours downtime more people would be on the roads at all hours (car insurance) resulting in more injuries (health insurance)... spending more time exercising and/or engaging in outdoor activities could also lead to more sports injuries and ...

Have you ever noticed how large organizations fail at internal communication? In fact the running gag in the communications department is generally that they can't communicate. As we all know communication is a process requiring a sender and message and a receiver. Understanding by the sender or receiver of the message is not a factor in the process. This is how you can have a misunderstanding but not a miscommunication . Okay rant over, back to topic. I am researching a final paper for an IT class for this MBA program I'm in. We are looking at technologies and how their growth and utilization is helping/hindering or will help/hinder our workplaces. So here I am thinking "cool! ACS (my employer) could really benefit from wireless technologies and the Internet in reaching people with information etc." and "gosh! what if experts would blog on this and that" and so forth. Guess what? We partnered with Yahoo for a month-long celebrity blog promotion to raise ca...