Punch drunk

Tonight, I watched the film “The Hurt Locker” for the first time. Yeah, I know, it came out a couple of years ago in the States, but that’s right about the time I left. Plus, I’m a little (OK, a lot) behind the curve when it comes to pop culture. Anyway, one scene in particular [...]

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3 grains of salt

So, America, I have a question for you: Who. Are. These. Wingnuts? Don’t act like you don’t know. Sharron Angle: As a former — and possibly future — resident of Nevada, I’ve always been curious about why she needs the extra “r,” in her name, but I suppose that’s another story. For now, I’d like [...]

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Speak up, I can’t hear you!

I’m waiting to hear a voice. A voice from the east — the Middle East. This voice I’m waiting for needs to come from someone prominent. Someone in a high place. Someone who commands, rather than demands, respect. Someone whose words will move the masses. Because the masses in that part of the world need [...]

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Whither peace?

How many more times? How many more times will gunfire pierce the air of a workplace, doctor’s office, school or military base? How many more times will buildings, airliners, markets, trains, subways, ships and places of worship be laid to waste? How many more times will explosives shatter the lives of those who happen to [...]

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Will you work for free?

And so it has come to this: Yesterday, in an e-mail to all its staff, cash-strapped British Airways, which employs 40,000 people in the United Kingdom, offered workers between one and four weeks of unpaid leave — but with the option to work during this period. In other words, the airline is asking its employees [...]

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Aren’t you extinct yet?

I’m a dinosaur. Well, I feel like one, anyway. I don’t have a fancy name, like Tyrannosaurus rex, or built-in armor plates, like the stegosaurus. Sadly, I’m the type of dinosaur who works in the newspaper industry, which, these days, is facing the business end of a meteorite that’s about to make those of us [...]

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State of the (lost) art

The Department of Redundancy Department has been made, well, redundant. Truth be told, that’s not much of a surprise to those of us who worked there, really. You see, it seems there’s not much need for editors anymore. In the “kind of get it right, maybe fix it later (if we get around to it)” [...]

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Tired

Are you tired? Tired of being stressed? Tired of being worried? Tired of thinking about what’s going to happen next quarter? Sure, you made it through this round of blood-letting, but what about the next one? Think you’re safe? How can you be sure? One day, you’ve got a hand in projects all throughout the [...]

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Flight, we’ve got a problem

To lose to the Russians all we needed to do was start late, … fragment authority, pinch pennies, think small and shirk decisions. – from “Failure Is Not An Option,” by ex-NASA flight director Gene Kranz Although the above words were written about the U.S. space program during the 1950s and 1960s, they could just [...]

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What will he build?

“People will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.” – President Barack Obama’s inaugural address At a magnificent mall, in a sea of buoyant faces, a nation’s hope was reborn today in the form of a new president. Barack Hussein Obama, the nation’s first black commander-in-chief, is the epitome of everything America was, [...]

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