We never seem to learn form history. http//clicktotweet.com/ef46m
I am trying to learn how to add "click to tweet" to my blog.
We never seem to learn form history. http//clicktotweet.com/ef46m
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There is an old Chinese curse that goes, “May you live in interesting times.” If you follow the news lately, these are certainly interesting times. I read somewhere that the Chinese word for "crisis" (to the left) is the same for "opportunity". Apparently, that is a common misperception; even my Chinese friends say so. However, I like the concept. Maybe during these interesting times-these times of national crisis, our society can find the opportunity to do better. One thing that we need to do a better job at is watching out for each other. When we look at the events in Boston, Cleveland, and Texas, a common tread is that if someone had reported something or done something, we might have prevented tragedy. We are so good at communicating with our cell phones, laptops, notebooks, etc. on Tweeter, Linked In, and Facebook that no one is paying attention to what is happening next door. My mother-in-law used to live with us. She liked to sit at her window and keep an eye on the neighborhood. Nothing ever happened in our neighborhood without her knowing. She was a one-woman neighborhood watch. I think we have gone overboard on minding our own business and respecting everyone’s privacy. It is time to start noticing when someone leaves a backpack in a crowd unattended, or is reported for being disruptive at a mosque service, or has an unfamiliar women in the backyard, or builds a factory too close to residential neighborhoods without a blast wall. Let’s start looking out for our neighbors. There was an article in the paper this morning about Sergeant First Class (SFC) Naida Christian Nova from the 82nd Airborne Division of the US Army. She has filed complaints about discrimination and harassment because she used to have a Muslim sounding name, Hosan. Her family is Catholic. The harassment started after 9/11. Her father was Muslim but converted to Catholicism when he married. He changed his last name from Hosein to Hosan to avoid harassment. I think it is sad that this type of harassment is still going on.
I was disappointed to read about SFC Nova’s case because I served two tours with the 82nd as a young officer. I served six months before going to Vietnam and returned after a year in Vietnam to serve two more years. The 82nd was challenging, demanding, and exciting. That was the early 70s at the tail end of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. I can’t say that we did not have incidents, but I think we handled them fairly well. We had a very diverse group of soldiers. The airborne appealed to many soldiers because they paid an extra $55 per month for soldiers on jump status. I left there with 65 static line jumps and a Senior Parachutist Badge. Our biggest problem at the time was drugs. In my e-book, Leadership for New Managers: Book Two, I wrote about harassment and tolerance of religious backgrounds. Here is what I wrote about diversity and harassment. Leader/managers prepare themselves to work with diversity by learning about different cultures. They also should look for subtle problems that may arise, for example the menu selections in a company cafeteria (for cultures that do not eat pork, beef, or meat), music, dress codes, religious holidays, etc. Most organizations can make accommodations. One of the best examples of making accommodations occurs in the military prison at Ft. Leavenworth. During Ramadan, a Muslin month of fasting, Muslin prisoners who observe the custom must fast from dawn to sunset. This usually creates a problem for the kitchen to serve supper. However, by mutual agreement, the non-Muslin population waits until after sunset to be served supper. Leader/managers need to be aware of harassment in the workplace and should eliminate it. Harassment can take many forms including sexual, bullying, racial, religion, age, or disability, or personal appearance. Harassment may be verbal, non-verbal, or physical. The Workplace Bullying Institute found that 37% of the US work force has been bullied at some time during their work life. Failure to take action could result in a substantial lawsuit. Leader/managers are accountable for failing to prevent or stop harassment. Leader/managers should be aware and enforce organizational polices as well as the law. Leader/managers may have a role in the investigation of harassment, prosecution of the offender, supporting the victim(s), and healing the environment. I saw on the news this morning that Mark Sanford won his election to Congress. I am not sure if the voters in SC should be proud of that or not. I guess name recognition played a big part. I do believe he deserves a second chance in many aspects of his life. However, as governor, he showed a great lack of sound judgment, and for that, he does not deserve a second chance. He was elected to Congress, so I guess no harm done. Congress does not seem to be doing much of anything now days. He will be among other elected officials who lack sound judgment.
I am a firm believer that we need a department of concubines. Each elected official at certain level would be assigned one. The concubines would be paid and approved by all parties. No more sneaking away for a hiking trip or to fly to South America. No more scandals. The concubines would be cleared for classified information and sign a contract not to write reveal all books. I think that would solve many problems. In our local paper, there was an article about Anthony Weiner and Mark Sanford in the editorial section. Weiner, a congressman from NY at the time, sent out pictures of genitalia. Sanford is the former SC governor who had an affair and lied about. Weiner is considering running for mayor of NYC while Sanford is making a bid for governor once again. For me, it is a question of values. I can’t vote for either one since I am not a resident of NYC or SC. I can only voice my opinion.
Both these men have demonstrated that one of their core values is sex. That affects their style of leadership. Both claim they are reformed men. I do not understand the cure. Did they get a dose of pepper spray? I wrote about values in my e-book, Leadership for New Managers: Book Two. Most books on leadership talk about the desirable values of effective leaders. In my book, I discuss the undesirable values that new managers need to be aware of in their followers and in themselves. At the very least, we have to question whether either of these two can men use sound judgment since their past mistakes go off the scale. I don’t care if they have an affair or not, I just question the thinking process of a person that would send pictures of his genitalia on the internet or a governor who would sneak off from his responsibilities and lie about it. I do know of a rehab program for stupid. In the right hand side bar, there is a link to this book and my other books. Below is an excerpt from my book, Leadership for New Managers: Book Two. You have only to follow the news to see how powerful the sex drive is as a core value. Leader/managers need to be aware of this not only for their associates but also for themselves. It would be naive to believe that associates do not have sex in the workplace if the opportunity presents itself. This seems to especially true in male dominated professions and industries. It may take the form of sexual harassment, groping, verbal remarks, jokes, calendars or photographs, and even intercourse. The current state of TV and cinema seems to indicate that sexual misconduct in the workplace is acceptable, but it is not. In fact, it has ruined many careers and families and resulted in many law suites. The sexual misconduct of leader/managers is far more serious. Leaders should set the example with their professional conduct. To have an affair or to create a sex scandal is wrong on several levels. It violates the trust between a significant other and may involve deception and denial. The sound judgment of leaders involved in an affair is questionable. Affairs never end well. People always get hurt. I see on the news that a church in Texas is offering a free class on gun safety. I am not sure why that is news worthy. It's Texas, folks! Texas! I guess anything about guns now days is considered news. I do think that the church maybe preaching to the choir. I think that many gun owners also go to church. After all, they like to exercise all their constitutional rights. I would guess that a church in Texas would have a large number of parishioners who are gun owners. Why not teach gun safety? I think gun safety training should be required for all gun owners.
I lived in the Chicago for a number of years. We often had drive-by shootings where innocent bystanders were shot because the shooters were terrible shots. I often thought it would be a good idea to teach marksmanship in the public schools. It would cut down on innocent bystanders getting shot and increase the number of gangbangers who are shot. Sounds good to me. Do not get me wrong. I owned five guns at one time. I sold them all a couple of years ago. I kept the guns in boxes in the basement and the ammo hidden in a separate room. I wasn’t concerned about my kids getting the rifles and bullets as much as I was concerned about my wife getting them. At the annual NRA meeting, Wayne LA Pierre, Executive VP for the NRA said that “political and media elites” are using the recent mass shoots to further their own agenda. Of course, we all
know that the NRA would never take advantage of a shooting to further their agenda. The NRA has always used the argument, that the constitution protects gun ownership. This is correct. Therefore, the obvious solution is to amend the constitution. We should amend the constitution to say that gun owners must register and assault weapons not allowed for normal citizens. I would add that we allow only certain people (security, bodyguards, etc.) to carry guns, but that may not sell. Certainly, we should not allow people to give guns as gifts to five year olds. Hunters would be one allowed group, but they must have several hours of training on gun safety. I see on the news that the funeral home that is handling Tamerian Tsaraev’s body is looking for a cemetery to accept the body for burial. I would have thought that the obvious method would be cremation. My great uncle Ted believed that gunpowder was good for you. All his life he ate a teaspoon full of gunpowder every day. He lived to be 103 years old. When he died, he left behind ten children, 24 grandchildren, and a 12-foot hole in the side of the crematory. I guess I am becoming a movie and TV critic. I watched an action movie last night, one of those with a lot of blood and chase scenes with terrible dialogue, little plot, and loads of poor acting. There were several fights scenes with martial arts. I enjoin a good fight scene but something is bugs me. In many of these fight scene, the hero will kick the villain/bad guy/protagonist with a sidekick or a back kick, causing them to fly high in the air and smash into a wall. That is impossible. I am a second Dan black belt in Tae Kwon Do. I have studied different styles. I taught karate and coached the West Point Karate Club for three years. I know a few things about it. I often use martial arts techniques in my writing. You cannot kick a person in the air and across the room.
It is simple physics. If a person weighs about the same as you, give or take 20 pounds, the best you can do with a kick is stop them from moving forward or cause injury. There is not enough energy in the mass of your foot to throw them across the room. Your foot would have to travel at mock speed to do that and you cannot generate that much speed. You might break a rib or two (theirs, not yours). I know what you are thinking, Monte, a 45 caliber bullet will do it and it is very small. Yes, but it is high energy. All that energy is transferred to the victim as the bullet slows down. It is called conservation of energy. You cannot do that with your foot. Screenwriters simply do not know or do not care; after all, it is fiction. The other thing that bugs me is when the hero throws a pistol/knife/magazine into the air, kills three attackers, reads the Wall Street Journal, has a cup of coffee, and then catches the pistol/knife/magazine just before another attacker strikes. This is becoming a common scene much like the chase scenes-again, no imagination from the screenwriters. First, you would have to throw the object rather high. The higher the object is thrown, the faster it is when it comes back down. Try this; throw up a piece of popcorn as high as you want and catch it in your mouth. You can do it. Now try it again, but this time look away for three seconds. Now try to catch the popcorn in your mouth. That sucker will strike you in the eye. You may want to wear safety goggles. The problem is that you must be able to see the popcorn to catch it. When you look away, you lose eye contact and when you look back, you cannot see it fast enough to catch it. Now attempt to do that with a larger object. Please do not try a chainsaw. Not possible. I watched the news about Jodi Arias’ trial and the closing arguments. You recall that the police charged her of killing her ex-boyfriend by stabbing him 27 times and shooting him in the head. She has pleaded self-defense. I am still unclear if he became her ex before or after the stabbings. I also do not understand why he continued to attack her 26 more times after she stabbed him. He must be bull-headed. I am surprised that the defense did not try to claim it was an accident. She was holding the knife and her boyfriend backed into it ...27 times.
She also shot him. The shooting is harder to explain. Maybe she was cleaning the weapon and did not realize it was loaded. She could have pointed the gun at her boyfriend’s (or ex-boyfriend) head and pulled the trigger to see if it was loaded. (The gun, not his head.) She may have been as surprised as he was that it was actually loaded. Now who has not done that at some point? It happens all the time. The prosecutor said that she drove 1000 miles using gas cans to fill up so she would not have to stop at a gas station. Of course, gas stations have cameras. That I can understand. After all, my wife does that if she is not wearing makeup. I watched that new comedy series, Family Tools. There was a scene involving a nail gun. Other shows replay this scene so often that it is starting to bug me. If you have ever used a nail gun you know that you cannot pick it up and use it as a weapon. It has a safety feature built in so that the tip must be pressed against something for it to operate. I guess you could bypass the safety by using some duct tape or something to hold back the safety but you cannot run into a construction site, pick up a nail gun, and shoot someone. Nails are not aerodynamic. I do not think a nail gun would be very accurate as a weapon. I wish screenwriters would stop doing that. Other than that, I enjoyed the show. Okay, this will be the last blog about my pet greyhounds. I promise. Groovy is younger and full of energy. She bounds up in the morning ready to play or go for a walk. Prada, on the other hand, is not a morning person (morning dog?). We have to drag her out of bed. It reminds me of trying to get my kids ready for school. Of course, greyhounds sleep a lot, but Prada loves to sleep in late on our bed. Like most dogs, greyhounds love to go for a ride. Whenever we say, “ride” they get all excited. Early on, we switched to spelling the word aloud as we used to with our children to avoid the excitement. However, those smart greyhounds learned to spell. We had to switch tactics again. We would use words like ‘journey’ or ‘outing’. Even so, they always seem to know when we are going to take them for a ride. At first, I thought they could hear my car keys, so I would grab them last but they still started jumping before I touched the keys. For a while, I thought they could hear me putting on my shoes. Still, they were ready before I was. I guess they have Extra Sensory Perception (ESP). I just have to think about taking them for a ride, and they come on the run. It is uncanny (un-canine?). Going for a walk with them is another adventure. Groovy tries to be the alpha female and leads. Prada on the other hand is a Zen Buddhist dog. She lives in the moment. She takes time to smell the flowers…and the rocks, and the grass, and the leaves. They love to walk but they always want to mark their territory. Why do female dogs mark their territory? Prada especially, will stop a dozen times to leave her mark. She has the bladder of an elephant. You might ask, “Why do we put up with it?” Every pet owner knows the answer to that question; our pets love us unconditionally. No matter what we do, they always forgive us and find room in their tiny hearts to love us. No one should waste that kind of love; it should be treasured. |
AuthorMonte is the author of several e-books on Amazon and smashwords.com Buy Monte's e-books: The Throuple Private Eye--Business is Booming. The Throuple Private Eye--Hate Crimes A Head for Murder The Register cliff Rapist The Clone Murders, Archimedes of Syracuse: Leonardo da Vinci's Mentor, Leadership for New Managers: Book Two FREE E-BOOKS: Angels and Gargoyles LINKS linkedin.com twitter.com brandyourself.com Archives
March 2023
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