Only WE the People can bring about political action on global warming and climate change; the politicians have failed us!

It doesn't really matter which religion we are "brought up" in or which country our forefathers originated from, or which language we speak, or what level of education we have attained, if any, or what historical  biases are barnacled to our national, regional and familial cultures, we seem, as a species, to be seeing our time and place on the planet in terms of, if not precisely instant, at least too quick gratification, both individually and collectively.
For those millions in the Philippines, following the devastation of typhoon Haiyan, who are just barely existing and struggling for food, water, shelter and medical care, their plight has not only moved us all, as have the many signs of their coming to the aid of those in greater need. There are literally dozens of sites across the globe where people are struggling just to survive. And while our hearts go out to all of those suffering as refugees, war wounded and displaced, those in danger of an impending epidemic because of a natural disaster, or a protracted military or terrorist conflict, those are the people whom we see as the metaphoric canaries in our global coalmine.
These are the people whose lives are hanging by a thread, or whose limbs have been severed, or whose homes have been razed and whose lives will likely never fully recover.
And while there is currently a massive relief effort, of considerable proportions from many divergent quarters, to help those in the greatest need, in Syria, in Haiti, in the Philippines, in Somalia, in Nigeria, in Mali, and elsewhere, there are some troubling signs about both the length and depth of the commitment of the world community to a plight that could become shared by all of us, given our obsession with living lives dependent on fossil fuels, eating foods and drinking beverages that are clearly counter-intuitive to health and wellness, over-committing to military and hard power expressions of influence and seemingly refusing to commit to long-term urgently needed collaborative measures that would obvious balance the wealth more evenly, and assure access to clean water, clean air, nutritional foods and adequate and affordable health care.
And we are also living lives whose depth perspective into the future is  about as long as a nanosecond, in meta-historical terms.
Got a pain, find a pill to eliminate it!
Got a political problem in our town or city, find the quickest and least costly Band-Aid to fix it, so that we can all get re-elected.
Got a provincial problem, find as many expressions of circumlocution, in order to achieve maximum confusion and detachment so the opposition will have to fight through the fog before they land any real blows, and by then, most people will have either forgotten about the problem or moved on, because they were bored with that problem.
Got a national problem, chant a "talking point" to death, over and through all the probing and penetration questions so that no one will grasp the full import of what kind of policy we are really enacting, and by the time we leave, everyone will have forgotten what this current 'dust-up' was about in the first place.
Got a really serious, even profound, problem that deeply impacts every person on the planet, generate so much opposition to whatever long-term, mutually beneficial and obviously healthy measures that would alleviate the problem, so that no one really knows what to do, because the "evidence" is "unclear" or equivocal and hold another conference like the one currently underway in Warsaw, on climate change and global warming, where the Philippine delegate in holding his own personal hunger strike, in sympathy with his devastated people, devastated he believes, because the world has not really addressed the profound need to reduce carbon emission from the atmosphere, one of the main reasons, he believes, behind the typhoon and the many others that have hit his homeland just this year.
Sea levels that have rise some 2 inches, may sound like a paltry problem, unless you are living on land abutting the sea, and then you are already starting to notice the changes. If the sea levels actually do rise approximately 8 inches by the end of this century, as some conservative scientists are predicting, that will spell more devastation for millions now living in locations that will eventually become uninhabitable....and while cities like New York may be taking steps to "protect" themselves from such exigencies, that city stands almost literally alone, among world cities in that regard.
We are, as a human race, simply either like those adolescents and young men and women who consider themselves invulnerable and not in need of health care insurance, or are in "gimongous" denial of our own impending, and self-inflicted potential catastrophe...multiplied and magnified and reverberated around the planet...or perhaps a little of both.
We are like the joke (sad but very true to life) about the man who sat on his roof in the middle of a huge storm, as the water levels rose, calming refusing a car and rescuers, a boat and more rescuers, and finally a helicopter and rescuers...and when he got to heaven he asked God why He let him drown there on the roof, to which God reportedly replied, "I sent a car, a boat and a plane and you refused all three!"
When will it be time, fashionable, politically correct and even, God forbid, conventional, and therefore not risky or dangerous from public ridicule, for human beings to "get it" that we are in the process of generating an inferno of self-immolating proportions, that only we can limit, reduce, and perhaps even eliminate, if not for our own survival, at least for the survival of our grandchildren and our own children?
There are, and will be, hundreds, if not thousands of rallies, protests, sit-ins, even barricades and arrests, jail sentences and probably broken bones, if not actual gunfire in the battle to awaken the political class to the need for and campaign for collective, collaborative and consistent actions, not in the nature of the wimpish Kyoto accord, but with teeth, and consequences and public disclosure of those countries not prepared to "pay the price" of taking "responsibility" for their stewardship of their country's long-term, not just the short-term, politically expedient, narcissistic needs of politicians, but of all the people for the foreseeable future.
And we the people are obliged to provide the leadership because, we already see, that given free reign, the political class is either impotent or unwilling to take effective, immediate and sustained action on our behalf.

Universal morality and individual choices....an unresolved tension in human conflicts

Robert Wright, writing in the October 23, 2013  edition of The Atlantic a review of Joshua Green's Book, Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them, outlines a thought experiment that, he says, has gained credence and visibility. The experiment goes like this:
The thought experiment—called the trolley problem—has over the past few years gotten enough attention to be approaching “needs no introduction” status. But it’s not quite there, so: An out-of-control trolley is headed for five people who will surely die unless you pull a lever that diverts it onto a track where it will instead kill one person. Would you—should you—pull the lever?
Now rewind the tape and suppose that you could avert the five deaths not by pulling a lever, but by pushing a very large man off a footbridge and onto the track, where his body would slow the train to a halt just in time to save everyone—except, of course, him. Would you do that? And, if you say yes the first time and no the second (as many people do), what’s your rationale? Isn’t it a one-for-five swap either way? (from The Atlantic website, November 13, 2013)
Whether it's a one-for-five swap either way, there are people who would, by their response, prefer to pull the lever than  to push a man to his death. There is a different kind of agency, and thereby perceived responsibility, and also one has to assume, degree of guilt, that accompanies each of these options. Pulling the lever is clearly more "detached" and more objective than putting a hand on a person's body and shoving that person to his death. And, if one follows some of the logic that researchers attach to the experiment, there is a different level of emotional response to one choice over the other.
The Wright piece is couched in terms of why humans are in conflict, and whether there are ways to lower the level of conflict, given the innate nature of the human being, as well as the human types of organization. Green, according to Wright, seems to think that we are closely tied to small groups, from whom we collect our conventional perceptions and attitudes, and that only when these groups are competing for a common finite resource, does conflict arise.
From the Robert Wright Piece in The Atlantic:
So if we’re such moral animals, why all the strife? Joshua Greene’s answer is appealingly simple. He says the problem is that we were designed to get along together in a particular context—relatively small hunter-gatherer societies. So our brains are good at reconciling us to groups we’re part of, but they’re less good at getting groups to make compromises with one another. “Morality did not evolve to promote universal cooperation,” he writes.
Greene seems to think this wouldn’t be such a big problem if we were still living in the Stone Age, back when sparse population meant that groups didn’t bump into one another much—and when, anyway, a neighboring village might share your language and your culture and maybe even include some of your kin. But the modern world smushes groups together, and to further complicate things, they have different values. Greene writes:

Many Muslims believe that no one—Muslim or otherwise—should be allowed to produce visual images of the Prophet Muhammad. Some Jews believe that Jews are God’s “chosen people” and that the Jews have a divine right to the land of Israel. Many American Christians believe that the Ten Commandments should be displayed in public buildings and that all Americans should pledge allegiance to “one nation under God.”

This fact—that different groups view life “from very different moral perspectives”—is what Greene calls the “Tragedy of Commonsense Morality.” He opens his book with a parable in which different tribes subscribing to different values can’t get along and says, “They fight not because they are fundamentally selfish but because they have incompatible visions of what a moral society should be.”
If this diversity of moral codes is indeed the big problem, one solution suggests itself: get rid of the diversity. We need “a common currency, a unified system for weighing values,” Greene writes. “What we lack, I think, is a coherent global moral philosophy, one that can resolve disagreements among competing moral tribes.” He is proposing nothing less than the moral equivalent of Esperanto.
Green offer utilitarianism as his choice for a universal moral code.
However, at the same time, a writer on religion, Karen Armstrong, has been working with others, "on a major international project to launch and propagate a Charter for Compassion, created online by the general public and crafted by leading thinkers in Judaism, Christianity, Islam Hinduism and Buddhism" (from the cover of Armstrong's book, The Case for God)
What seems to have happened, far to often, at least in western 'Christian' circles is that the meaning and import of words and concepts has so radically changed from their original that we have in fact distorted our own religious belief and practice. In addressing the question of belief (and its corollary, practice based on belief) Armstrong writes this:
Those who beg him (Jesus) for healing are required to have "faith" before he can work a miracle, and some pray: "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief." We do not find this preoccupation with "belief" in the other major religions. Why did Jesus set such store by it? The simple answer is that he did not. The word translated as "faith" in the New Testament is the Greek pistis (verbal form pisteuo), which means "trust, loyalty; engagement; commitment. Jesus was not asking people to "believe" in his divinity, because he was making no such claim. He was asking for commitment. He wanted disciples who would engage with his mission, give all they had to the poor, feed the hungry, refuse to be hampered by family ties, abandon their pride, lay aside their self-importance and sense of entitlement, life like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, and trust in the God who was their father. They must spread the good news of the Kingston to every in Israel--even the prostitutes and tax collectors-- and live compassionate lives, not confining their benevolence to the respectable and conventionally virtuous. Such pistis could move mountains and unleash unsuspected human potential. (Karen Armstrong, The Case for God, p.86-87)
It seems that our obsession with our own "perfection" may be distracting us from compassion, benevolence especially to those don't fit our version of "respectable" and "conventionally virtuous"...and that  kind of human compassion will never become realized or realizeable unless and until we shed our protective armor of clinical and sterilized pristine sense of language reduced to a degree which renders impossible our human capacity to deliver. Commitment, a highly subjective word, not easily measured, is much more threatening for those who need a statement of "belief" by which to measure those they are willing to include in their inner circle...and if one is uncertain, or sceptical, or unsure, there are far too many cells of so-called Christianity who would far to readily dismiss those they consider "of little faith" yet their own, that is the faith of the judges is unshakeable. Their exercise is really one of "gate-keeping" on behalf of God, certainly not one of commitment and practice of a life-giving, compassionate commitment.
As for the thought experiment, while neither option is easy, it would seem to be highly unlikely that, unless and until I was actually placed in a situation faced with either set of options, in which I had literally no time to react, that I would clearly know how I would react. I might become completely  discombobulated, and so vulnerable and confused that would be unable to react. What about you, dear reader?

A twelfth anniversary thank-you note to Michelle

"Once upon a time" while living in a foreign country, although I never really grasped the degree of 'foreignness' I would experience until I had spent real time living and working in that country, one that used the "same language" and inhabited the same continent, and that shared what was commonly called the longest undefended border in the world, (signifying a deep and long-lasting friendship), I met someone whose first impressions were of the 'gentle' and 'shy' sort.

Michelle

She was a mother, a musician, and a colleague with whom I worked for many months, in joint planning of tasks that involved both of us, she having already been engaged by the same employer as I, long before I even saw the place. We had to select activities in which the people we served would participate, collected around different themes we hoped would inspire, and stretch these people, since we both shared an interest, if not indeed a passion, for both inspiration and stretching, in all the ways that people are open and receptive to being inspired and to  being invited to stretch. Having very different pasts, we both nevertheless found ourselves engaged in these weekly activities, never really incurring even the most micro of grains of 'sand' in the gear-box of our shared activities.
We were always glad when it was time to meet, to talk and to explore options from resources to which she added, and from which I drew, inviting others to share in our choices, as part of our minor and meagre attempts to grow what little we both knew and could draw out of others with respect to building a small and supportive community.
The North American continent is not, and will not likely be for a very long time, renowned for its commitment to community, real community, in which real conversations about real and pressing issues are integrated into the daily lives of people who inhabit the same village, or workplace, or even religious circle. There are, of course, exceptions, in the First Nations villages and in the small and scattered sections of towns and cities in which recent immigrants have collected, as part of their survival in a new land with new conventions and expectations. However, in the Caucasian world of our individual and separate experience, we have both noted a significant impact of what has come to be known as the 'silo effect' in which people ride to work encased in their private cars or trucks, in which they work in private offices, walled often by half-walls, connected albeit through phones, faxes, emails, and more recently twitter and facebook....but still there is a distinct urge, evidenced by both the nature of public conversations and by private choices, for extreme privacy.
Breaking down some of those emotional fences, without in any way threatening the hearts and minds and even the spirits of those people who had already grown familiar and comfortable with their unique and common fences, one of the unstated yet shared goals of our shared activities, seemed to come naturally, without the need to plan and to strategize in order to formally measure our success.
It was more of an organic thing, that somehow we both knew, and accepted, even relished our opportunity to work together to accomplish something that we both knew we could not do alone, in our own silo, no matter how shy and reserved we were by nature and development.
Often our activities would require a brief period of rehearsal, for which arrangements were both easy and accommodating. Our goals within those sessions, often gently planned and announced by this work-partner, were consistently reasonable, yet also a little challenging, never oppressive and never too much, as they would and could have been had I designed and suggested them.
We learned that we had both experienced a significant number of years of instruction in piano performance, with her's being more slanted to composing and accompanying, and mine more focussed on solo performance. Innately, our piano backgrounds depicted our different emphasis: her's to a shared experience as being natural and desireable, mine to a solo experience, making her capacity and interest and easy of working with others far exceeding mine, naturally, without the slightest sign of competition. Never did I feel or believe that either of us was 'second' in either eyes; we were always, somehow, without a single ounce of "work," 'on the same page' at the same time, without knowing how we got there.
Sometimes we would both smile at the synchronicity, without ever giving voice to its mystery, probably fearful that in defining it, we might injure its magic. If cues were ever required for either of us to 'begin' or to 'slow down' on something we were doing simultaneously, as part of our duties with other people, a mere link of her eye and mine was adequate as a sign. We literally worked as much as a single entity, as I at least could ever imagine.
A working relationship like this was so foreign to my world and to my experience that in over half a century I had never even heard of such compatibility. A career in teaching had sent some 180 students each year for twenty-plus years into classrooms where I was expected to 'teach' and inspire their development. I had made many acquaintances with many interesting and brilliant and inspiring adolescents so eager to learn and to grow and I believed that my best approach was, in many ways, to get out of their way, as they absorbed more and more complex notions, nuances and ideas, from writers who had inspired centuries of other young spirits. There were also a few colleagues with whom I shared some common views, and some common goals, although my experience was generally that I was thought to be far too 'liberal' for many of my conservative educator colleagues.
So this working relationship fell into a category of mystery, magic and something like fragility, in my mind, not to ever be threatened with a word, a hint or a sign of anticipated or expected additional intimacy.
This relationship was, from my perspective, far too important, and far too subtle and nuanced and far too compatible ever to be 'messed with' although I was also aware of signs of some deep and profound ill-ease within her heart. When one enters into the world of practicing ministry, one learns rather quickly, that there are moments that can only be described as different, with a kind of significance that eludes comprehension, often around a birth or a death, a marriage or a baptism, or even just an "accidental" conversation in which two people share something significant. And while one tries to remain open to such moments, and let them define themselves and develop themselves through their own natural evolution, one knows that they can never be 'structured' or arranged or planned or even expected. In fact, one of the serious barriers to North Americans' apprehension of anything spiritual is our obsessive need to plan, organize and structure our whole existences, as if we were in complete control, and to obsess about our frustrations if and when something does not follow our "plan".
We leave little to no room for these 'sacred' moments, because are so busy executing our duties, our chores, our parenting, our jobs, our...whatever...even our social lives.
However, in a very significant contrast this relationship was unencumbered by too much structure and too much planning and to rigorously defined goals and expectations, and yet the relationship seemed never to miss a "beat" as the music of its harmony and rhythm unfolded before both our eyes.
After nearly three years, she said to me, one day, "Would you like to audition for the local concert of the Community Concerts?"
"And what would that entail?" I asked.
"Well, the committee would expect you to perform a couple of numbers, vocally, and if you were 'accepted' as one of the performers for the local concert, that would be all there would be to it!" she responded nonchalantly yet with some energy.
"And do you think I could do that?" I pushed, a little surprised and nervous at her suggestion.
"Why not?" she retorted.
"So, what would you suggest I offer as my two 'numbers'?
"You could start with The Lord's Prayer, I've heard you do that one already," she led. "And I am sure we could find something else to rehearse. In fact, since you are from north of the border, you might consider doing a Canadian song, like perhaps one by Gordon Lightfoot, as your second number."
"Well, I am a little overcome with the prospect of this suggestion but, let's give it a try," I offered.
And so the rehearsals began, several weeks prior to the date of auditions.
Accepted, as one of the performers in the local concert, I began to sweat about whether or not I could pull this off, given the need to memorize notes and words, and to hold the nerves in check.  I had never done anything like this, although I had done some radio and television work, in which I was the facilitator, not the "focus" of the program.
The concert completed, both of us were energized, proud, and even inspired to do more. In fact, there was a kind of burst of shared energy which could have launched a 747, had it been encased in the
fuselage. What was "more" going to look like, I wondered.
And, shortly we discovered what it might look like. We could do a concert with a third colleague to raise funds for the people left homeless in Hurricane Mitch that had recently hit Honduras.
And so the rehearsals for that enterprise began, in earnest.
Selecting the material came as easily as had the many choices we had made together, in our working assignments, to the surprise of neither of us. Rehearsing the material also took almost no "effort" and was always a deep and lasting joy, both in the moment and upon reflection, at least from my perch.
And as these rehearsals continued, so began a series of long and deep and very personal conservations that finally included, "We both want to be together, however that might happen!" And so, sitting, as I recall, on a car blanket in a park in Steamboat Springs, we both offered that we would "walk as if" we were going to be together for the rest of our lives, and that as part of that walk, we would both agree to inform the other if that "as if" ever changed.
That conversation took place in 1999 and today, we are celebrating our twelfth anniversary, after a dozen years of the most inspired and inspiring conversations, walks, dinners, trips, theatre dates, and shared readings and writings of these many decades.
Michelle, I only want to say, however inadequate the words themselves  may be, just how much I love you and how much to have enriched my life and how grateful I am for your just being in my life.
Now, as we continue to say almost every day, "Would you please marry me, if you were to chose again today?" and before you answer, I unequivocally hope your answer is "yes" because that is all I need, want and live for.

There is a difference between accurate time-keeping and musical chimes that also tell the time

Finding and naming an enemy and then setting out to destroy that enemy, within our borders, or without, is, at its root, how too much of contemporary politics is played. Playing to collective fears about that enemy, through  both exaggeration and willful deception, as well as outright lying, is included in this new norm. Monsterizing the enemy, demonizing that enemy, and catastrophizing about the likely outcomes if the enemy is not subdued, another form of deploying the apocalypse, is one of the reliable signs that moderate thought and reflection have been replaced with toxicity and too often hate-mongering.
For those on the right, government has become the monster, the ever-growing and never-succeeding attempt by the 'state' to take care of its people. No opportunity to point to the horrors of government mismanagement and waste and over-reach is missed by those seeking to curtail its power and to obsess over its evil nature, especially when they compare how it operates with the wild west where little to no government appeared to block individual freedom. And from their "slay-the-dragon" of government mind-set comes the concomitant finger-and gun-pointing to those whose lives depend on government assistance, as if those people were not "up to" the task of being a citizen.
The social divide that occurs when the rich and powerful, whose richness and power have grown exponentially in the last decade-plus, disdain those whose incomes and mobility have been fossilized and even atrophied, as the price of the growth in income, investments and political power of the few, is not merely another rendition of racism, without the criminal charge, but it also points to future generations of fewer and fewer "success" stories in which the poor climb out of poverty because they will never acquire the means to achieve that climb: a full and equal education.
The right would have us believe that teachers unions are the demon that precludes student success in public schools; they are, after all, sucking up all the money being spent on educating students. However, evidence to the contrary, that in countries where all teachers belong to a union students in public schools are doing very well, would tend to neutralize the false allegations against teachers' unions in some countries like the United States.
Where programs of economic austerity are in vogue in governments, there will be the inevitable and predictable decline in upward mobility, especially noticeable among the most disadvantaged. Starve the body, and the mind shrivels along with the ambition/inspiration needed to make the sacrifices necessary for that Himalayan-like climb. These right-wing expressions of "responsibility" and budget-cutting, as the necessary, if apocalyptic and exaggerated, steps to fiscal balance, all come at a very high, if less easily decipherable cost. Generations of young children, whose family support programs are being cut by those so fixated on their own political ambitions, cemented into their misguided readings of religious texts, are being thrown under the bus of reduced expectations and curtailed hope, in order that some politicians can continue to climb to power on lies we all know, including those who tell them, that cannot be support by empirical evidence.
And while they are telling those lies, they are also denying the empirical evidence that our (that is all of us) planet is experiencing a serious change in climate, one that threatens make it difficult for people to breath, and to find and drink fresh water, and to harvest clear land.
So, for them, is it reality that is the enemy, and are they determined to create a Gatsby-mansion and parties, for themselves and their neighbours, while the rest of us fade into the nothingness they already believe we really are?
Unfortunately, our nothingness does not compute with their perception of our identity. We are not reducible to some photo-shop version of what they would have the world believe we are. Our "nothingness" and our "unimportance" shakes itself off and puts on the nations' uniforms, and enrolls in the most accessible schools, and takes the risk of a burden of student debt, and waits on tables, drives taxis, and even cleans to make ends meet, and also teaches our children, and inspires their dreams, and arms them with skills that the rich would have us denied, so that they can preserve their bubble of helium-filled self-absorption, without having to give thought or care for the rest of us....and they are spreading their propaganda through their ubiquitous media outlets, striving for "ratings" and "income" while ordinary people are abandoning that dream, returning to a more simple, and less costly and more collaborative mind-set and lifestyle.
The pendulum may already have begun to swing back to the centre, to moderation and to inclusivity, not merely of those living gay and transgendered lifestyles, but of those without whose presence, and work and insights and inspirations we would all be the poorer. And when those feasting on their wealth and their fame and their power come to realize the significance of those less fortunate among us, for so many reasons, the social clock will chime with real musical notes, not just the hollow sound of 'accurate' time-keeping.
We need the music from all the 'notes' and all the 'instruments' of our society, orchestrated into a full symphony, not just the jangling of the coins of the rich.

Pastoral reflections on alcohol dependency

In another life in the early 1990's, I served as a "team-building" consultant for a small Ontario plating company. This happened to be an original "mom-and-pop" shop, which had incurred an infusion of cash from an investor, and which was then doing about $2 million worth of business annually. Their principal product comprised aircraft parts for the major airline manufacturers.
Naturally, these parts were composed of various metals, already machined and  then dipped, depending on the specifications required, in various chemical solutions for varying lengths of time and at varying temperatures.
While the company did not perform much, if any, of the machining, their special service involved the plating required for high-stress components in high-speed jets.
And then the packaging and shipping department would move the product from the factory to the end user.
Unfortunately, there were individuals engaged in these tasks, both the supervision of the timing and the temperatures in the plating process, and also in the packaging and shipping processes, who, by their own admission were, and had been suffering from a dependence on alcohol. Also unfortunately, both of these phases of the business were experiencing considerable interruptions, delays, and returned parts that did not meet specifications.
One Saturday morning, while I visited the plant, I was greeted by one of the original "mom-and-pop" owner/operators, privately, as there were very few employees working at that time. He told me of his own and his partner's dependence on alcohol, seeking both support and guidance. My response, as I recall, was that I would be pleased, even honoured, to accompany him to a meeting of AA, or to any rehabilitation centre, should he wish to seek help. My interest was exclusively to see that his life changed, that he became healthy and that his engagement in the business was transformed from one of continual frustration, anxiety and more dependence on alcohol to one of freedom from his dependence and openness to the new opportunities that could lie on the other side of controlling his addiction.
As  both the man and his partner were playing critical roles in the effective functioning of the business, I recognized that there would be considerable difficulty in generating the conditions necessary for an effective leadership team, including the investor and two other mid-ranking leaders in the company, plus these other two, unless and until the two employees in question sought and received and accepted some help, whether or not they kicked their dependence in rehabilitation or not, so long as they kicked it.
In a face-to-face meeting, prior to writing my final report, after interviewing well over half of the people engaged in the plant, I told the CEO/investor of my findings at the heart of the company, much to his apparent displeasure. While he thanked me for my information at the conclusion of our conversation, he apparently did not like what he had heard.
The next day, or within a very few days, I was told the consult was over, given a cheque for my fee and summarily told to leave the property. The CEO even followed me to one of the offices where I merely wished to say "good-bye" to one of the mid-ranking leaders in the company, and angrily told me to leave.
I tell this story, in the light of the recent revelations from the Mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, concerning his video-taped use of crack-cocaine, and his  also video-taped threats to some unknown person, both of which apparently occurred during what the mayor calls "one of my drunken stupors".
Alcohol is an extremely seductive mistress, or beau, depending on one's gender. I once listened to a recovering alcoholic tell her "story" about physical, emotional and sexual abuse in her family of origin, only to attend a party while a junior at high school, only sixteen, where she was offered her first drink of alcohol.
"With that first drink, I knew right away that this was the friend I had been searching all my life, I felt so good, and each time I took another drink, it delivered the same predictable and wonderful feeling...of peace, contentment and freedom from pain and anxiety that was an integral part of every day life for me," she recounted.
"And I met others at other parties who understood me and my feelings exactly and who were ready and willing and able to make sure that we always had more drinks available whenever we went to parties, in order to provide those same feelings, so different from our lives, as we saw them," she continued.
Who knows what pains have and continue to inflict the mayor of Toronto. Who knows when and how his attraction to alcohol began, and how it continued to accompany him through his many stages of a life of a half-century. And also, who knows if the mayor will seek outside help, time off from the duties of the chief magistrate, support from a rehabilitation centre and its professional staff.
What we all know is that the public discussion of alcohol dependence has been given a major "fuel injection" by the high profile and tragic story of a mayor whose life seems to be heading into the ditch, if it has not already landed there. What we also know is that in the Canadian context, for most people, we are far too polite to consider a formal "intervention" conducted by professionals who understand the role such interventions can and often do play. What too often happens, is that family members either  do not know, or do not know the extent of one's dependence, or if they do, they try to do the "loving thing" by remaining quiet, and not confronting "the elephant" in the room, the dependence on alcohol.
Drinking, by itself, is not prohibited by law; in fact, it is often encouraged, supported and required in many professional and business circles, as part of the conventional behaviour. Becoming an alcoholic is also not specifically forbidden by law, but only those actions that incur damage, injury or death to others have too often been deemed actionable under the law. We all know neighbours, friends, co-workers and even doctors, lawyers, accountants and other professionals whose lives have been and continue to be impeded from achieving their highest and most creative potential by their dependence on alcohol, or illicit drugs.
Some of us, unfortunately, have also attempted to alleviate some of the pain those people suffer, by befriending them, or even dating them or even, without being fully aware of the extent of their dependence, offering to marry them. Alcoholics are, after all, too often among the most charming members of the human race, when they are not under the influence of the "booze".
Some of us recall, also sadly, the similar plight of the former, now deceased, premier of Alberta, Ralph Klein, whose life was also beset by alcohol dependence, including a public admission and a request for help, some time before death. So Rob Ford is not, and will not be the last public figure to have to confront these imponderable and powerful demons, (our language for those things we do not fully understand, nor do we understand how to "tame" them, regardless of the professional approach selected).
One of the lines used by the CEO of our plating company story, upon dismissing his team-building consultant, was, "You look only for the negative in people!" as he put down his copy of the latest "leadership guru" Steven Covey on the seven attributes of leadership....There was neither time nor opportunity for me to rebut the accusation, nor his denial of the reality that 'his' business situation disclosed to anyone willing to see the full and sad truth.
We can only hope that there are no people in Rob Ford's circle of family, friends or professional colleagues, analogous to the CEO in our story, who frame the situation in such a crippled manner, both psychologically and from the perspective of an employer and his most "trusted" employees.
Such an approach is not merely one of denial; it is also one of intransigence...and unfortunately, those who write the cheques too often hold the most restricted and restricting of views, as they enact their perceived roles of the perfect, unsullied and unimpeachable, yet ever so imperfect and ever so vulnerable, leader.

"Is asking for a Nobel Prize really too much?" Israeli mothers to their children

  What makes Israel with just eight million people, an innovation hub

By Peerzada Abrar, Economic Times, November 8, 2013
The presence of thousands of startups, and more engineers per capita than anywhere else in the world, makes Israel a natural hub for innovation.
Best known for defence- and - military-inspired technologies, entrepreneurs across the nation are now focussed on building the next generation of healthcare applications. Helped by government support, societal acceptance and the presence of large numbers of multinationals eager to buy innovative technology from startups, Israeli companies are building a wide range of products and services.
Using artificial intelligence and digital technology, they are creating applications for diagnostics, tools for the visually, physically and mentally challenged as well as products that can improve farm output. "Many visually disabled people are old people who don't care about smartphones," said Yonatan Wexler, vice president for research and development at OrCam, a startup launched in 2010 by Amnon Shashua, a computer science professor at Hebrew University.
Using technology developed by Shashua, Wexler and another faculty member, Shai Shalev-Shwartz, they have created a device that can be clipped onto spectacles, making it possible for a blind person to read, find an item, catch a bus or cross the road. "For us the issue of innovation is not a hobby. It is basically about who we are and what our economy is built on," said Avi Hasson, chief scientist at the ministry of economy. "This was a country selling oranges to the world and not high tech. We have now decided to build our economy around the knowledge industries." Currently half of all Israeli exports come from the technology industry.
So, what is Israel's "secret sauce" that has made it a global startup hub? Experts said the "bottom up" approach of the government to fund innovative projects is unique in the world of early-stage research and development funding. For India's nascent startup ecosystem, the Israeli experience offers several valuable lessons.
Israel's research and development expenditure account for approximately 5% of the country's $260 billion (Rs16 lakh crore) GDP, higher than any other western country. This excludes the spending on defence R&D. The office of the chief scientist has a budget of $450 million (Rs2,800 crore)annually and always co-invests along with the private sector. "We do not try to replace the private sector, but rather complement it; we like risky projects," said Hasson, who worked as general partner at Gemini Israel Funds. Typical grants are in the range of $30,000 to $6 million (Rs18 lakh to Rs37 crore).
There are also around 300 multinational companies in the country which are a big part of the ecosystem. Many of them, including Apple, Google, Intel, Microsoft, General Motors, and GE, have set up research and development facilities to use the local talent and come up with breakthroughs.
"You have 20-year-old kids here; their education is not to follow instructions, but to lead and solve problems," said Yossi Matias, managing director of Google's Israel R&D centre and a top computer scientist. In June, Google bought Israeli mapping startup Waze for over $1 billion (about Rs6,200 crore).
In 2012, M&A deals involving Israeli and Israel-related companies were valued at $9.74 billion (Rs60,700 crore), an 88% increase from $5.2 billion (Rs 32,000 crore) in 2011, according to Israel's IVC Research Center database. Besides acquisitions, many of these multinationals provide space for entrepreneurs to meet and help them to bootstrap their ideas. In 2012, six of the 10 largest acquisitions involved venturebacked targets.
Per capita, Israel has attracted over twice as much venture capital investment as the United States and 30 times more than all the members of the European Union combined. An example of Israel's farsightedness is the fact that it set up a seed fund called Yozma more than two decades ago. Today, there are about 70 active venture capital funds in Israel, of which 14 are international.
Around 575 Israeli high-tech companies raised $1.92 billion (Rs12,000 crore) in 2012, a 10 % decrease from 2011 levels, but up 52% from 2010, according to IVC. The country's emphasis on education is manifested in its 57 colleges and eight universities which over the last 10 years have produced six Nobel Prize winners. Israel has 135 engineers, scientists and PhDs per 10,000 people in the work force, the highest in the world.
"All Israeli kids know that their mother will tell them, 'After all that we've done for you, is asking for one Nobel Prize really too much?'," said Yossi Vardi a serial entrepreneur who is most famous for being the first investor in ICQ—the first internet-wide instant messaging system which AOL acquired in 1998 for $400 million (Rs2,500 crore).
Seventy-one-year-old Vardi, who is regarded as the godfather of Israel's hi-tech industry is of the view that Israel's success as an innovation hub is not about technology alone. "This is a cultural phenomenon and the value system that kids learn," said Vardi, who has invested in 80 startups, of which 27 have failed. "In a society which does not tolerate failure, entrepreneurship cannot thrive there," said Vardi. "In Israel, if you have not failed, that is a sign of shame," said Amir Shevat, Google's developer relations program manager in Israel.
Community spaces are also made available for startups. One public library in Tel Aviv has been converted into a coworking space for startups. Instead of hotels, an old train station on the Jaffa-Jerusalem line has been restored by the municipality and hosts startup conferences.
Startups constantly network with top entrepreneurs, industry leaders and investors at coffee shops for advice, money and mentorship. "They are so open that you can just walk up to them and talk. I find this missing back at home," said Ronak Kumar Samantray cofounder of Hyderabad-based technology startup NowFloats, one of the finalists at a Tel Aviv startup competition.
"It is useful to be part of community and learn from the mistakes of other entrepreneurs," said Avner Warner, director of global economic development at Tel Aviv Municipality. "As a society, we respect people who work in a startup."

(The writer was in Israel recently at the invitation of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

BBC: Saudi's have 'purchased' nuclear weapon from Pakistan and threaten to complete their order

Saudi nuclear weapons 'on order' from Pakistan

By Mark Urban, BBC news, November 6, 2013

 

Saudi Arabia has invested in Pakistani nuclear weapons projects, and believes it could obtain atomic bombs at will, a variety of sources have told BBC Newsnight.
While the kingdom's quest has often been set in the context of countering Iran's atomic programme, it is now possible that the Saudis might be able to deploy such devices more quickly than the Islamic republic.
Earlier this year, a senior Nato decision maker told me that he had seen intelligence reporting that nuclear weapons made in Pakistan on behalf of Saudi Arabia are now sitting ready for delivery.
Last month Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told a conference in Sweden that if Iran got the bomb, "the Saudis will not wait one month. They already paid for the bomb, they will go to Pakistan and bring what they need to bring."
Since 2009, when King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia warned visiting US special envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross that if Iran crossed the threshold, "we will get nuclear weapons", the kingdom has sent the Americans numerous signals of its intentions.

It really doesn't matter how angry the Saudi's are at the United States, nor how frightened they are of the Iranian threat to develop nuclear weapons; this "order" from Pakistan must never be consummated. The argument for months now has been that Iranian acquisition of and/or production of nuclear power for weapons purposes would unleash a demand for nuclear weapons from other Middle East states, and the existence of nuclear weapons in Israel, while providing that country with a unique power, will in the end prove to be the Swiss cheese hole through which others will argue their right to acquire those weapons. And for Pakistan even to consider such a "deal" to extend the reach of nuclear weapons to Saudi Arabia would demonstrate that the U.S. billions poured into that country has only exacerbated the threat of Pakistan, linked in however many and nefarious ways to the radical Islamists, (just as is Saudi Arabia!).
What the world does not need is another significant player in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, an open ally and funding source of AlQaeda for years, from the beginning, to acquire nuclear weapons, and provide the world with the spectre of a nuclear conflict, even one between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Hatred of the United States, by radical Islamic fundamentalists, cannot be used to justify the acquisition of nuclear weapons, and their deployment by the rich and anti-deluvian Saudi's. However, hatred of the U.S. is consistently used as the public argument for the existence of and the activities of the Islamic terrorists, and their influence is already spreading like a noose around the world's neck, as if to say the movement continues to assert it dominance and threat to world security, in a "holy" pursuit of an Islamic caliphate.
If you want something to block your digestion this morning of your breakfast, try to swallow the news that Saudi Arabia, using money acquired from the sale of highly polluting fossil fuels and much of that from the United States, has already "purchased" and paid for a nuclear weapon from Pakistan, and is merely exercising its right to bring that or those weapons to its own soil.
And if that is not enough to explode your attempt to digest your morning meal, then try to imagine a world in which both Iran and Saudi Arabia have the capability and the will to deploy a nuclear weapon, without either of them having become signatories to the Nuclear Arms Non-proliferation Treaty.
It makes one sick, even before breakfast is attempted!