Absolutely Scary

I drove my son and two of his friends home from tennis this afternoon. We passed an Obama sign in someone's yard, and one of these friends enlightened us all in this way: he said that we shouldn't vote for Obama, because "'Barack Obama' is a Muslim name," and "Muslims fly airplanes into buildings."

I can't even tell you how angry, and sad, and anxious this made me. Forget about the Muslim name part, that's just irrelevant. Here's a kid who doesn't even know what Islam is, or how it's different from Christianity (his own religion -- surprised?), or, more importantly, how it's the same. When I mentioned that he should maybe learn a little bit more about the world before he talked like that, he said he didn't want to know. He said the world is a terrible place, and he didn't need to know anything about it.

Thirteen or fourteen years old, this kid, and already so filled up with hate, and so unbelievably ignorant. I asked him where he got all this stuff, and he said, "my family." Can you imagine? What kind of contribution is this dunce going to make to our civilization? How far will ignorance, xenophobia, and hate get us as we try to help our neighbors around the world and be good stewards of the only planet we've got (whatever your superstitions might be)? His family ought to be ashamed of themselves. Or maybe I'm ashamed enough for all of them. We should all be.

Execution

Just finished reading Execution (which you may have noticed already if you've been following me on Shelfari). And the verdict? Not so good.

I had to read Execution for work, otherwise I probably wouldn't have finished it. It brought to mind a great article I read in 2006 in the Atlantic Monthly (thank you Mike Lawton for turning me on to that excellent magazine), called "The Management Myth." I quote Matthew Stewart:

According to my scientific sampling, you can save yourself from reading about 99 percent of all the management literature once you master this dialectic between rationalists and humanists. The Taylorite rationalist says: Be efficient! The Mayo-ist humanist replies: Hey, these are people we’re talking about!

Execution belongs in the rationalist camp, the idea being that you can't just be a management-strategy guy, you actually have to make sure that stuff gets done. I never would have thought of that. I'm not saying that I, as a manager, couldn't do better at that particular aspect of my job (who of us couldn't?); I'm just saying that I didn't get much out of this book except the impression that the CEO contributors seem pretty pompous (yeah, I have no doubt that employees are carrying your handwritten notes of criticism around and showing them to their colleagues because they're so starstruck to have them from you, from you!) and the feeling that the authors maybe put too much emphasis on the somewhat controversial Six Sigma thing.

Ike Is Here

The remnants of Hurricane Ike showed up this morning. Uninvited. My weather radio woke me up at 05.20-something with an obnoxious alarm, something about a flood warning and a wind advisory. And it sure is rainy and windy out there. Seems like it didn't take too long to get all the way up here to St. Louis.

Excellent Dream

Sometime this morning I woke up laughing, which I am wont to do occasionally. I do it when I dream something funny, and I was certainly amused by this dream.

Imagine, dear readers, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (of Seinfeld fame) standing in front of a steam table with a trumpet. Only one of the bins in the steam table has anything in it, and she's standing in front of that one.

What's in the steam table, you wonder? Well, start with a base of that delicious, sweet/spicy General Tso's sauce, and then add a big frog wearing a birthday hat and a smallish, thinnish tabby cat wearing a look of righteous indignation (both of these animals very much alive, in case you were concerned; I guess the steam table was not actually functioning).

Why the cat's look of righteous indignation, you wonder? Because Juia Louis-Dreyfus is merrily blowing random notes on her trumpet at them, while they were just minding their own business playing in the General Tso's sauce.

So, the part that made me laugh and woke me up was where the cat, still looking mortified that this woman would be blowing her trumpet at his amphibian friend and him, raises his goofy cat paw straight up in the air (you know how cats stick a leg straight up in the air while they're giving themselves a bath? Like that) and brings it down on Julia's arm with a wet, General Tso-ey smack.

See? Hilarious. Now, let the analyses begin.

Wild Swans

My vacation read this week was Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, by Jung Chang. I guess my take-home for this was that I just really had no idea. I had some vague notion of what happened under Mao, but really I had no idea what daily life must have been like (imagine having to spend your time ripping up the bourgeois grass from the yard, which would be one of the more innocuous things you might have to worry about during that time). Wild Swans is unique in that it takes you through three generations of women in China. Go read it.

I also intend to read Mao: The Untold Story by the same author together with her husband, but I'm holding out for the Kindle edition (hint hint). Wild Swans isn't available in a Kindle edition, so I was readin' it old-school. I picked it up at my favorite bookstore in all the world, Leelanau Books.


Now, back to Greenspan's book...

Oops, One More Uber-Tune

Inevitably, I forgot an uber-tune. I have to add The Wings, by Gustavo Santaolalla, to the list. You'll find it on the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack.

Uber-Tunes

Sometimes I'll hear a song and it will really grab me. I'll listen to it on my iPod over and over again for a long time, and keep coming back to it over and over again. These songs are different from the songs that I just like; I obsess over these songs. Sometimes I know it's because I can sing them well; they're in the sweet spot of my vocal range and I can really belt it out (Afterglow and The Crane Wife 3 are like that). Others I'm not so sure about, but there's just something about them.

Anyway, I was thinking about these songs and I thought I'd make a list of them, and here's my list. I'm sure I've missed a couple, but maybe you'll find something you like in here.

Afterglow, by INXS
Face Down, by Katie Todd Band
Gravity, by Embrace
Hallelujah, by Jeff Buckley
Hear Me Out, by Frou Frou
Hide And Seek, by Imogen Heap
If You Were Here, by Cary Brothers
In The Sun, by Joseph Arthur
Intro - Svefn-g-Englar, by Sigur Ros
London Rain (Nothing Heals Me Like You Do), by Heather Nova
Such Great Heights, by Iron & Wine
The Crane Wife 3, by The Decemberists
Thinking About Tomorrow, by Beth Orton
World Spins Madly On, by The Weepies