Last week, one of my students drew my attention to a radio advertisement touting a “revolutionary” new speed reading course. “In just 7 minutes you could be reading up to 1000 percent faster, enabling you to read 10 books in the time it presently takes you to read one book. And you can try out this course absolutely free. Call now for your free trial.”
First of all, nothing about reading is “revolutionary” – reading is like breathing – you either do it well or you do it badly. Then they don’t tell you that, for the free trial, you will need to pay a bundle for the shipping (which is pretty standard) and handling (which is where they cover the cost of the free trial!). Nor do they tell you that they will need your credit card details to bill you 5 easy payments of $50 if you forget to cancel your order before the free trial ends.
And they don’t tell you that you could also invest the shipping and handling money in the lottery where you COULD win $300 million, enabling you to run for President of the United States and never have to read a book or newspaper again!
The critical consumer will see through this marketing ploy. “In just 7 minutes you COULD be …” does not mean you WILL be. In fact, the word COULD means everything and nothing. Ask those who COULD have made a fortune investing in the stock market. Similarly, “…. reading up to 1000 percent faster” covers everything between 0 percent and 1000 percent.
But since the critical consumer is about as commonly found as geographically-savvy Republican vice-presidential nominees, I suppose I should try for a bit of one-upmanship with my latest advertising proposal … which is infinitely more accurate. “In just ONE minute, you WILL be reading 50 percent to 20,000 percent faster without losing comprehension. Guaranteed or your money back. Send your payment of $595 now!” You don’t believe this? Try me!
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Our Greatest Enemy ...
"Many young Americans are willing to serve, but too little is made of the declining number of young people who are qualified to serve. This is the real story and it’s a shocking one. Only 28 percent of the 17 to 24 year-old population qualifies to wear a military uniform. The other 72 percent fail to meet minimum standards on education, character and health. The problem gets worse. Of those eligible to serve, a significant portion chooses not to for a variety of reasons." Gen William S Wallace, commanding general of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.
Any guesses on the ratio between sub-standard education, sub-standard character and sub-standard health?
Any guesses on the ratio between sub-standard education, sub-standard character and sub-standard health?
Sunday, May 11, 2008
No Child Left Behind - Scientific Gravy-train?
So, according to the Institute for Education Services, the federal government’s $1 billion-per-year initiative to help our children read has yielded “no statistically significant results”! Mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, the Reading First Program set out to promote reading instructional practices that have been “validated by scientific research”.
Backed by a $1 billion-per-year gravy train, Reading First grants were awarded to schools to implement the scientifically-validated reading instructional practices to children in Grades 1, 2 and 3. Now we learn that these scientifically-validated instructional practices have yielded no scientifically-validated results. One can only wonder how these scientifically-validated practices were validated if not by scientifically-validated results … which quite clearly they were not!
Reading First funding can be used for:
• Reading curricula and materials that focus on the five essential components of reading instruction as defined in the Reading First legislation: 1) phonemic awareness, 2) phonics, 3) vocabulary, 4) fluency, and 5) comprehension;
• Professional development and coaching for teachers on how to use scientifically based reading practices and how to work with struggling readers;
• Diagnosis and prevention of early reading difficulties through student screening, interventions for struggling readers, and monitoring of student progress.
Reading First funding started in 2002 and this is what the billions of Dollars has yielded :
• Reading First did not improve students’ reading comprehension.
• Reading First increased total class time spent on the five essential components of reading instruction promoted by the program. So the extra 45 to 60 minutes a week spent on developing reading skills netted zero results.
Bear in mind that the whole Reading First Program is restricted to improving the reading skills of Grades 1, 2 and 3 only. That’s it! After grade 3, you’re on your own and are expected to survive with the reading skills you have. Small wonder that teenagers think that reading sucks – they’re reading with a skill that’s not much better than an 8 year-old.
And so we come to our crop of struggling high-schoolers – the “at-risk” students. Why are they “at risk”? Quite simply because we let science supersede common sense. “A common variable among low performing students is their low reading level. Most of our low test scores are related to reading problems. I doubt the target kids have the basic skills to benefit from (an advanced reading skills) your program” says CMS teacher Dr T.
“Unless we give the students diagnostic reading tests such as these (at ExecuRead.com), we may never know their reading entry level. Is it really fair to assign ten pages of reading to a student who reads less than 100 words a minute (it will take that student 4 minutes to read a text-book page of 400 words, or a total of 40 minutes to read ten textbook pages.)?” asks another teacher.
Come on people! Have you ever seen a teenager struggle with the instructions on the latest computer- or Play Station game? Or abandon the sports-page on the eve of the Superbowl? And where were all these scientifically-validated instructional practices 50 years ago?
When it comes to human nature, you simply cannot throw science and money at it and expect results. And when it comes to reading, all the science and all the money in the world will not make one iota of difference IF YOU CANNOT CHANGE ATTITUDES.
Reading skills will improve when our children WANT to read, when they can see the VALUE of reading and what reading can DO for them. It’s all motivated by self-interest and self-gratification. And it’s a ‘sell-job’. We don’t sell Coca-Cola by talking about ingredients, taste-formulation and gas-volumes. We sell feelings – refreshment, exhilaration, satisfaction, vibrancy. Similarly we can’t sell reading by talking structure & components or by telling people to read what WE WANT them to read. We need to talk fun, excitement, satisfaction, entertainment, reward – the excitement of the destination rather than the drudgery of the journey.
And it starts at home. This process of developing attitudes. Parents who have replaced reading-evenings with TV-evenings create an attitude about reading. Parents who complain about having to bring office-reading home and who can’t play with the kids because they have office-reading to do, create an attitude about reading. And they end up with kids who prefer TV to books and who see reading as a chore that they’ll have to face when they become adults.
And it continues at home. With TV it’s what they WANT to watch. With reading it’s what the teacher WANTS them to read. And if you’ve ever looked at the erudite literary yawn-stuff that teachers are peddling, you don’t need a scientifically-validated process to recognize a disaster in the making.
With my kids I find that the best way of getting them to do something, is to find out what they want to do and then suggest it! I didn’t force them to read Tolstoy, Conrad, Joyce, Twain and Poe, but when they begged to go to the library or book-store to get the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, there was no resistance from my side. Neither did I have to enforce reading time. More often than not, I have to physically remove the book at 2am on a school-night, in spite of the pleas of “Oh Dad, I’m almost finished the book!”
Once I had instilled in them a passion for reading, a realization that reading can be as exciting and rewarding as TV and movies, then came the process of gently manipulating their interests and once there is interest, there is a motive for wanting to read. And this is all a lot easier in a home where there is a culture of reading.
The bottom line is that attitudes are built at home and in the absence of a positive attitude about reading, all the money in the world spent on “scientifically-validated” instructional practices will continue to yield “statistically insignificant results”.
Backed by a $1 billion-per-year gravy train, Reading First grants were awarded to schools to implement the scientifically-validated reading instructional practices to children in Grades 1, 2 and 3. Now we learn that these scientifically-validated instructional practices have yielded no scientifically-validated results. One can only wonder how these scientifically-validated practices were validated if not by scientifically-validated results … which quite clearly they were not!
Reading First funding can be used for:
• Reading curricula and materials that focus on the five essential components of reading instruction as defined in the Reading First legislation: 1) phonemic awareness, 2) phonics, 3) vocabulary, 4) fluency, and 5) comprehension;
• Professional development and coaching for teachers on how to use scientifically based reading practices and how to work with struggling readers;
• Diagnosis and prevention of early reading difficulties through student screening, interventions for struggling readers, and monitoring of student progress.
Reading First funding started in 2002 and this is what the billions of Dollars has yielded :
• Reading First did not improve students’ reading comprehension.
• Reading First increased total class time spent on the five essential components of reading instruction promoted by the program. So the extra 45 to 60 minutes a week spent on developing reading skills netted zero results.
Bear in mind that the whole Reading First Program is restricted to improving the reading skills of Grades 1, 2 and 3 only. That’s it! After grade 3, you’re on your own and are expected to survive with the reading skills you have. Small wonder that teenagers think that reading sucks – they’re reading with a skill that’s not much better than an 8 year-old.
And so we come to our crop of struggling high-schoolers – the “at-risk” students. Why are they “at risk”? Quite simply because we let science supersede common sense. “A common variable among low performing students is their low reading level. Most of our low test scores are related to reading problems. I doubt the target kids have the basic skills to benefit from (an advanced reading skills) your program” says CMS teacher Dr T.
“Unless we give the students diagnostic reading tests such as these (at ExecuRead.com), we may never know their reading entry level. Is it really fair to assign ten pages of reading to a student who reads less than 100 words a minute (it will take that student 4 minutes to read a text-book page of 400 words, or a total of 40 minutes to read ten textbook pages.)?” asks another teacher.
Come on people! Have you ever seen a teenager struggle with the instructions on the latest computer- or Play Station game? Or abandon the sports-page on the eve of the Superbowl? And where were all these scientifically-validated instructional practices 50 years ago?
When it comes to human nature, you simply cannot throw science and money at it and expect results. And when it comes to reading, all the science and all the money in the world will not make one iota of difference IF YOU CANNOT CHANGE ATTITUDES.
Reading skills will improve when our children WANT to read, when they can see the VALUE of reading and what reading can DO for them. It’s all motivated by self-interest and self-gratification. And it’s a ‘sell-job’. We don’t sell Coca-Cola by talking about ingredients, taste-formulation and gas-volumes. We sell feelings – refreshment, exhilaration, satisfaction, vibrancy. Similarly we can’t sell reading by talking structure & components or by telling people to read what WE WANT them to read. We need to talk fun, excitement, satisfaction, entertainment, reward – the excitement of the destination rather than the drudgery of the journey.
And it starts at home. This process of developing attitudes. Parents who have replaced reading-evenings with TV-evenings create an attitude about reading. Parents who complain about having to bring office-reading home and who can’t play with the kids because they have office-reading to do, create an attitude about reading. And they end up with kids who prefer TV to books and who see reading as a chore that they’ll have to face when they become adults.
And it continues at home. With TV it’s what they WANT to watch. With reading it’s what the teacher WANTS them to read. And if you’ve ever looked at the erudite literary yawn-stuff that teachers are peddling, you don’t need a scientifically-validated process to recognize a disaster in the making.
With my kids I find that the best way of getting them to do something, is to find out what they want to do and then suggest it! I didn’t force them to read Tolstoy, Conrad, Joyce, Twain and Poe, but when they begged to go to the library or book-store to get the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, there was no resistance from my side. Neither did I have to enforce reading time. More often than not, I have to physically remove the book at 2am on a school-night, in spite of the pleas of “Oh Dad, I’m almost finished the book!”
Once I had instilled in them a passion for reading, a realization that reading can be as exciting and rewarding as TV and movies, then came the process of gently manipulating their interests and once there is interest, there is a motive for wanting to read. And this is all a lot easier in a home where there is a culture of reading.
The bottom line is that attitudes are built at home and in the absence of a positive attitude about reading, all the money in the world spent on “scientifically-validated” instructional practices will continue to yield “statistically insignificant results”.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Recession-Proof Yourself and your Organization
Trying to survive a recession? Make yourself indispensible. That’s it. And this applies to both the individual and to the organization itself.
For the individual, a recession means cut-backs. Organizations need to trim overheads in order to remain profitable with smaller volumes. So they reduce expenditure - and one area for reducing expenditure is the payroll. The first to go are those people with an unfavorable payroll-cost to work-product benefit ratio. The solution is to be pro-active – change the ratio – make yourself indispensible to the organization by increasing your productivity and output at no additional cost to the organization. Become versatile - acquire new skills and improve your existing skills – empower yourself to adapt to new challenges and additional responsibilities. No organization off-loads valuable employees when the value of the worker outweighs the savings in payroll-cost.
To achieve this, learn to read faster and more efficiently. It will save you time and increase your productivity. By increasing productivity, you’ll get more done in less time. With time saved, you’ll be able to increase your work-load. Think about it – how much time do you spend each day on work-related reading? Two hours? Well, if you simply double your reading / comprehension speed, you’ll have an additional hour a day, 5 hours a week, to do additional things – acquire new skills, pick up additional responsibilities, offer assistance to someone else. You’ll be delivering work-product at a lower rate per Dollar than your competitors and this increases your value to your organization.
For organizations, a recession means budget-cuts and your customers start shopping around, looking for the best service and quality but at a cheaper price. Customer-loyalty is superseded by the need for Dollar-savings. To stay in the market, organizations need to reduce overheads while increasing work-product. Some organizations resort to expenditure cut-backs - expenditure on payroll, capital investment, marketing, promotional and training activities. Others endeavor to increase work-product, customer service and quality of output.
In most organizations, the payroll is the biggest single overhead – the process of buying human work-product at a Dollar-cost per hour. It’s been said that the only cost that exceeds the cost of training your work-force is the cost of not training your work-force. A better-skilled, versatile, more-productive work-force is able to deliver better and more work-product, in less time and at a lower cost per hour. Train your work-force in their weakest skill – that of reading. Think about it - reading education stops at age 6 and yet reading is the key to knowledge and information.
And here are some numbers : 10 managers costing you $100k each in salary, benefits and overheads and working a 40-hr week with 2 weeks annual leave and spending 2 hours a day on work-related reading – email, newspapers, reports, journals, manuals, correspondence. That’s a cost to you of $50 per work-hour. And a cost to you of $100 per day, per manager, in reading time. If these 10 managers learn to process information just twice as fast, a very conservative increase, they’ll free up an hour of reading time every day – that’s 10 hours per day, 2500 hours per year – a savings of $125k in reading-time-cost in the first year alone. And the cost to train these 10 managers to read at least twice as fast, without losing comprehension & recall? $3000!
Do the math. In a time of recession, effective and productive information management training for your work-force is a no-brainer.
We’ve witnessed the trends, worldwide, for the past 30 years. As economies head into a recession phase, smart people and smart companies commission speed-reading training courses to increase productivity and to reduce the hourly cost of work-product. Similarly, as the economy enters a revival, speed-reading training enables workers to manage increased work-loads and activity-levels, thus increasing work-product at the same hourly cost to the organization.
Author : Dr Bruce W Stewart - B.A.(Econ)(Law), Dip. Spec. Ed., M.A., D.Ed. - executive reading skills coach since 1975 and developer of the ExecuRead range of speed reading & comprehension skills training courses for executives, professionals, managers & students. Contact him in the USA on 888 439 3287 or at Info@ExecuRead.com
For the individual, a recession means cut-backs. Organizations need to trim overheads in order to remain profitable with smaller volumes. So they reduce expenditure - and one area for reducing expenditure is the payroll. The first to go are those people with an unfavorable payroll-cost to work-product benefit ratio. The solution is to be pro-active – change the ratio – make yourself indispensible to the organization by increasing your productivity and output at no additional cost to the organization. Become versatile - acquire new skills and improve your existing skills – empower yourself to adapt to new challenges and additional responsibilities. No organization off-loads valuable employees when the value of the worker outweighs the savings in payroll-cost.
To achieve this, learn to read faster and more efficiently. It will save you time and increase your productivity. By increasing productivity, you’ll get more done in less time. With time saved, you’ll be able to increase your work-load. Think about it – how much time do you spend each day on work-related reading? Two hours? Well, if you simply double your reading / comprehension speed, you’ll have an additional hour a day, 5 hours a week, to do additional things – acquire new skills, pick up additional responsibilities, offer assistance to someone else. You’ll be delivering work-product at a lower rate per Dollar than your competitors and this increases your value to your organization.
For organizations, a recession means budget-cuts and your customers start shopping around, looking for the best service and quality but at a cheaper price. Customer-loyalty is superseded by the need for Dollar-savings. To stay in the market, organizations need to reduce overheads while increasing work-product. Some organizations resort to expenditure cut-backs - expenditure on payroll, capital investment, marketing, promotional and training activities. Others endeavor to increase work-product, customer service and quality of output.
In most organizations, the payroll is the biggest single overhead – the process of buying human work-product at a Dollar-cost per hour. It’s been said that the only cost that exceeds the cost of training your work-force is the cost of not training your work-force. A better-skilled, versatile, more-productive work-force is able to deliver better and more work-product, in less time and at a lower cost per hour. Train your work-force in their weakest skill – that of reading. Think about it - reading education stops at age 6 and yet reading is the key to knowledge and information.
And here are some numbers : 10 managers costing you $100k each in salary, benefits and overheads and working a 40-hr week with 2 weeks annual leave and spending 2 hours a day on work-related reading – email, newspapers, reports, journals, manuals, correspondence. That’s a cost to you of $50 per work-hour. And a cost to you of $100 per day, per manager, in reading time. If these 10 managers learn to process information just twice as fast, a very conservative increase, they’ll free up an hour of reading time every day – that’s 10 hours per day, 2500 hours per year – a savings of $125k in reading-time-cost in the first year alone. And the cost to train these 10 managers to read at least twice as fast, without losing comprehension & recall? $3000!
Do the math. In a time of recession, effective and productive information management training for your work-force is a no-brainer.
We’ve witnessed the trends, worldwide, for the past 30 years. As economies head into a recession phase, smart people and smart companies commission speed-reading training courses to increase productivity and to reduce the hourly cost of work-product. Similarly, as the economy enters a revival, speed-reading training enables workers to manage increased work-loads and activity-levels, thus increasing work-product at the same hourly cost to the organization.
Author : Dr Bruce W Stewart - B.A.(Econ)(Law), Dip. Spec. Ed., M.A., D.Ed. - executive reading skills coach since 1975 and developer of the ExecuRead range of speed reading & comprehension skills training courses for executives, professionals, managers & students. Contact him in the USA on 888 439 3287 or at Info@ExecuRead.com
Monday, February 11, 2008
Limp Dicks and Wanton Women
My first exposure to the advertising for those "special occasion" pills worried me. Made me feel that I'm walking around with a flaccid willy absolutely terrified that Mrs S would suddenly declare the moment to be right and expect me to immediately rise to the occasion and perform to her satisfaction. And that to always be ready to satisfy Mrs S's sudden wanton need for idle distraction, I should remain in a state of semi-permanent tumescence.
Makes me think of my pets back home. Fido is all slobber and panting, so enthusiastic to anticipate and satisfy my wants and needs, eyes following my every move and ears cocked for the slightest sign to spring into frenzied action least I show disappointment at his laziness and inattentiveness. And more often than not, I ignore him. Felix on the other hand is a master of the alluring stretch, the sly inviting look and the air-caressing swish of her tail. She's learned that no mouse-trap ever pursued a mouse.
Mrs S, bless her, has never demanded that I keep a supply of blue-pills on hand and shudders at the very idea of priapism. And the simple image of me trying to be Fido has her in fits of giggles. Instead she's developed a penchant for candle-light dinners, alluring perfume and "forgetting" to get dressed properly. And face it, a woman in high-heels, G-string and pearls is a powerful incentive. And if that's not enough to add some lead to your pencil, you don't need pills. You need another woman.
These pills remind me of a scandal in Hermanus, South Africa, some years ago. A new boutique brewery drove a bill-board through the town emblazoned with the words "Beer - helping unattractive people have sex since 1652!". The resulting protest ended the campaign but not before it became obvious that the most vociferous complainants were the unattractive people!
Makes me think of my pets back home. Fido is all slobber and panting, so enthusiastic to anticipate and satisfy my wants and needs, eyes following my every move and ears cocked for the slightest sign to spring into frenzied action least I show disappointment at his laziness and inattentiveness. And more often than not, I ignore him. Felix on the other hand is a master of the alluring stretch, the sly inviting look and the air-caressing swish of her tail. She's learned that no mouse-trap ever pursued a mouse.
Mrs S, bless her, has never demanded that I keep a supply of blue-pills on hand and shudders at the very idea of priapism. And the simple image of me trying to be Fido has her in fits of giggles. Instead she's developed a penchant for candle-light dinners, alluring perfume and "forgetting" to get dressed properly. And face it, a woman in high-heels, G-string and pearls is a powerful incentive. And if that's not enough to add some lead to your pencil, you don't need pills. You need another woman.
These pills remind me of a scandal in Hermanus, South Africa, some years ago. A new boutique brewery drove a bill-board through the town emblazoned with the words "Beer - helping unattractive people have sex since 1652!". The resulting protest ended the campaign but not before it became obvious that the most vociferous complainants were the unattractive people!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
I just LOVE television!
In the Brian de Palma violent classic "Scarface", there's that memorable scene in the restaurant where an intoxicated Robert de Niro and wife Michelle Pfeiffer start throwing food and personal epithets at one another. The embarrassed patrons, although pretending to be unaware of the verbal discord, soon themselves become victims of Scarface's drunken wrath as he calls upon them to "look at the bad guy". "You need people like me" shouts Scarface. "I'm the bad guy. You need me so you can point and say, THERE IS THE BAD GUY."
Is it a trait of our culture that we love to see the bad guys? Perhaps because it makes us feel good? Why do we love to see someone else's misery and tragedy? Perhaps because it makes us feel blessed with good fortune? Turn on your television and you'll see what I mean. Why are our national news channels so preoccupied with the downfall of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan and the plethora of bubble-heads who've taken the dictum "Any publicity is good publicity" to an absurd extreme? Is it because their tragedy gives us a warm feeling about how normal and happy we are? Or is it because we just love to be told a story?
When my children were little more than rug-rats, bed-time was always prefaced with the demand "Tell us a story, Daddy". And I'd make up a story, any old story would do, some clever and some really dumb. Because it was not WHAT I was telling them, but rather just the telling of the story itself. And it's the same with television news.
Even if no-one knows anything, we must be told a story. So the reporter will grab any poor sod in the vicinity, who to maximize his 15 seconds of fame, will tell us a story, some of it real, some of it just spit-balling. And we lap it up because we've been entertained. And the stories we enjoy most are the bad stories, the stories that frighten us, the stories about the bad guys. So we can sit back, smug, self-satisfied and say "there's the bad guy!" and feel so much better for our own good fortune.
The only problem with having so much news-time being spent on 'telling us a story', often over and over again, (remember how often you told the same old story to your kids every night?), is that we never get around to the real news - something I haven't seen a bizillion times already - like what's the latest update on Darfur, Zimbabwe, Kenya, the Chinese who're buying the USA, the Japanese electric car that performs better than a Porche, or Westinghouse that is alleged to have buried a patent to harness electric power from tidal movements and "dinner-jacket's" plans to nuke us all.
But who cares about that? It's not about us. It's not about now. So go away - Fox is telling me a story about a princess who lived in a trailer and who became so so rich that her evil godmother called in the boogey-man who was disguised as a shrink and together they planned and schemed to have the little princess locked up in a castle for little girls who are bewitched. And when the little princess was gone, the evil godmother took all her money and used it to make the princess's little sister even more famous. But meanwhile, back in the evil godmother's trailer, something terrible was about to be discovered .... (we'll be back after our scheduled commercial break.)Gotcha for the next episode?
Is it a trait of our culture that we love to see the bad guys? Perhaps because it makes us feel good? Why do we love to see someone else's misery and tragedy? Perhaps because it makes us feel blessed with good fortune? Turn on your television and you'll see what I mean. Why are our national news channels so preoccupied with the downfall of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan and the plethora of bubble-heads who've taken the dictum "Any publicity is good publicity" to an absurd extreme? Is it because their tragedy gives us a warm feeling about how normal and happy we are? Or is it because we just love to be told a story?
When my children were little more than rug-rats, bed-time was always prefaced with the demand "Tell us a story, Daddy". And I'd make up a story, any old story would do, some clever and some really dumb. Because it was not WHAT I was telling them, but rather just the telling of the story itself. And it's the same with television news.
Even if no-one knows anything, we must be told a story. So the reporter will grab any poor sod in the vicinity, who to maximize his 15 seconds of fame, will tell us a story, some of it real, some of it just spit-balling. And we lap it up because we've been entertained. And the stories we enjoy most are the bad stories, the stories that frighten us, the stories about the bad guys. So we can sit back, smug, self-satisfied and say "there's the bad guy!" and feel so much better for our own good fortune.
The only problem with having so much news-time being spent on 'telling us a story', often over and over again, (remember how often you told the same old story to your kids every night?), is that we never get around to the real news - something I haven't seen a bizillion times already - like what's the latest update on Darfur, Zimbabwe, Kenya, the Chinese who're buying the USA, the Japanese electric car that performs better than a Porche, or Westinghouse that is alleged to have buried a patent to harness electric power from tidal movements and "dinner-jacket's" plans to nuke us all.
But who cares about that? It's not about us. It's not about now. So go away - Fox is telling me a story about a princess who lived in a trailer and who became so so rich that her evil godmother called in the boogey-man who was disguised as a shrink and together they planned and schemed to have the little princess locked up in a castle for little girls who are bewitched. And when the little princess was gone, the evil godmother took all her money and used it to make the princess's little sister even more famous. But meanwhile, back in the evil godmother's trailer, something terrible was about to be discovered .... (we'll be back after our scheduled commercial break.)Gotcha for the next episode?
He said She said ...
Some years ago I found a broken ornament in our family room and when I called my two children into my study to ascertain whether they knew anything about this, was treated to the "he said she said" and "he did she did" episode of allegation and counter-allegation. I soon realised that this was an attempt to cloud the issue and to weave a convolution of deception and extraneous ploys to avoid the real issue of "who broke the ornament?"
Viewing Hillary and Obama in their endless "Hillama tête-à-têtes" over who is best for America, we are treated to endless hours of "he said she said" bickering, instead of having them address the question of how they will fix the broken ornament, which in this case is somewhat more serious - global warming, fossil fuel depletion, nuclear proliferation, economic recession, social security, health insurance, terrorism and illegal immigration. This reminds me of my children and their reason for employing this evasive "he said she said" subterfuge.
In the case of my children, the very act of the "he said she said" distraction was clearly indicative that they were both involved in the destruction of the ornament. If one or both of them had absolutely nothing to do with the damage, a simple denial would have sufficed. The "he said she said" debate thus told me that they were both guilty of something.
In the case of Hillary and Obama, the question is "what are they guilty of"? Either they don't even know what's broken and don't want to admit to being ignorant, or they don't know how they're going to fix the problem and are trying to deflect questions on the subject - questions which may reveal a degree of incompetence and unsuitability for the job of President of the United States.
The same can be said for the Republican "Joh-Mitt" duo, where in a recent debate, poor Huck got so excluded that he would perhaps be forgiven for wishing he HAD broken the ornament and could at least interject with a confession if nothing else. At least Edwards had the common sense to realise that he was the third person at a dinner-for-two and instead of making a fool of himself went home to mamma.
It's time these debate moderators start earning their salaries and take control of the debates and realize that "he said she said" bickering is wasting valuable time and clouding the real issues.
Viewing Hillary and Obama in their endless "Hillama tête-à-têtes" over who is best for America, we are treated to endless hours of "he said she said" bickering, instead of having them address the question of how they will fix the broken ornament, which in this case is somewhat more serious - global warming, fossil fuel depletion, nuclear proliferation, economic recession, social security, health insurance, terrorism and illegal immigration. This reminds me of my children and their reason for employing this evasive "he said she said" subterfuge.
In the case of my children, the very act of the "he said she said" distraction was clearly indicative that they were both involved in the destruction of the ornament. If one or both of them had absolutely nothing to do with the damage, a simple denial would have sufficed. The "he said she said" debate thus told me that they were both guilty of something.
In the case of Hillary and Obama, the question is "what are they guilty of"? Either they don't even know what's broken and don't want to admit to being ignorant, or they don't know how they're going to fix the problem and are trying to deflect questions on the subject - questions which may reveal a degree of incompetence and unsuitability for the job of President of the United States.
The same can be said for the Republican "Joh-Mitt" duo, where in a recent debate, poor Huck got so excluded that he would perhaps be forgiven for wishing he HAD broken the ornament and could at least interject with a confession if nothing else. At least Edwards had the common sense to realise that he was the third person at a dinner-for-two and instead of making a fool of himself went home to mamma.
It's time these debate moderators start earning their salaries and take control of the debates and realize that "he said she said" bickering is wasting valuable time and clouding the real issues.
Monday, January 28, 2008
The Burden of Citizenship
As we approach the 2008 Presidential Elections it may be opportune to consider the onerous burden we share in exercizing our voting rights as Citizens of the United States. While many view citizenship as a right, few consider the burden that this right places on each and every American.
America is an awesomly powerful nation, politically, economically and militarily, and with the inherent ability to change the lives of the global population, both for the better and for the worse. With this power comes an obligation of responsibility - an obligation to act with discretion, wisdom, compassion, knowledge and foresight.
The risk we all face, as US Citizens, is that we may become arrogant - that might is right. That we may become indifferent - that lesser nations don't count. And that we may become ignorant - that we don't need to be informed or knowledgeable about other nations. And that we may be abrogating our democratic responsibility to ensure that our President and our Government is acting within the mandate we afford to them when we give them our vote.
Powerful nations that lose the ability to rule wisely, mercifully and with temperance invariably cultivate the seeds of their own destruction. And if the loyalty of its citizens is blind, arrogant and ignorant, the destruction of great nations is inevitable.
America is facing some of its greatest challenges - global warming, fossil fuel depletion, terrorism and nuclear proliferation - and it will require serious people to make serious decisions if we are to survive and prosper. And whether America gets a President and a Government that will make the right decisions and the right choices, will depend on whether US Citizens cast a vote based upon arrogance, indifference and ignorance or on wisdom and knowlege of the issues affecting not only our lives in the United States, but the lives of everyone who shares this planet.
In an interview with the son of Osama Bin Laden, the commentator ventured that America would NEVER be willing to talk with Osama Bin Laden himself. Yet it is precisely because of what America is, that we SHOULD be making every effort to sit down and talk with OBL. The essence of greatness is the ability and willingness to communicate with friends and enemies equally. To demonstrate an intent to pursue agreement and compromise. To motivate a search for a solution to differences of belief and opinion. True greatness comes not from pettiness and spite, but from a willingness to seek out your enemy, not to destroy him, but to understand him.
America will be judged internationally not only by our actions but also by our intentions, and as US Citizens it is our responsibility to ensure that in as much as we enjoy mastery of the planet, so too must we exercise this mastery through knowledge rather than ignorance. Only then can we hold our elected officials accountable to act in accordance with our mandate. Anything less makes a mockery of democracy and belittles the value of our vote.
America is an awesomly powerful nation, politically, economically and militarily, and with the inherent ability to change the lives of the global population, both for the better and for the worse. With this power comes an obligation of responsibility - an obligation to act with discretion, wisdom, compassion, knowledge and foresight.
The risk we all face, as US Citizens, is that we may become arrogant - that might is right. That we may become indifferent - that lesser nations don't count. And that we may become ignorant - that we don't need to be informed or knowledgeable about other nations. And that we may be abrogating our democratic responsibility to ensure that our President and our Government is acting within the mandate we afford to them when we give them our vote.
Powerful nations that lose the ability to rule wisely, mercifully and with temperance invariably cultivate the seeds of their own destruction. And if the loyalty of its citizens is blind, arrogant and ignorant, the destruction of great nations is inevitable.
America is facing some of its greatest challenges - global warming, fossil fuel depletion, terrorism and nuclear proliferation - and it will require serious people to make serious decisions if we are to survive and prosper. And whether America gets a President and a Government that will make the right decisions and the right choices, will depend on whether US Citizens cast a vote based upon arrogance, indifference and ignorance or on wisdom and knowlege of the issues affecting not only our lives in the United States, but the lives of everyone who shares this planet.
In an interview with the son of Osama Bin Laden, the commentator ventured that America would NEVER be willing to talk with Osama Bin Laden himself. Yet it is precisely because of what America is, that we SHOULD be making every effort to sit down and talk with OBL. The essence of greatness is the ability and willingness to communicate with friends and enemies equally. To demonstrate an intent to pursue agreement and compromise. To motivate a search for a solution to differences of belief and opinion. True greatness comes not from pettiness and spite, but from a willingness to seek out your enemy, not to destroy him, but to understand him.
America will be judged internationally not only by our actions but also by our intentions, and as US Citizens it is our responsibility to ensure that in as much as we enjoy mastery of the planet, so too must we exercise this mastery through knowledge rather than ignorance. Only then can we hold our elected officials accountable to act in accordance with our mandate. Anything less makes a mockery of democracy and belittles the value of our vote.
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