obama’s failure.

It’s good to be declarative when talking about presidents. They should own things. Think ‘Bush’s War’ for Iraq. And, now, it seems ‘Obama’s War’ for Afghanistan. So, I’m declarative here: Obama’s failure. I’ve wanted to write this for a long time. It really built over 2010. As my feelings grew stronger, I felt trapped by […]

fighting the world’s fight.

In The Unforgiving Minute, Craig Mullaney talks about his Rhodes Scholar experience. In introducing it, he speaks of ‘a demonstrated passion for “fighting the world’s fight”‘ as one of the criteria for selection. The phrase stuck in my mind. What did it mean to fight the world’s fight? How do you dedicate yourself to this? Is it […]

reading joker one.

At one point in 2004-2005 I read a book or two a week. In retrospect, it was a phenomenal time. Some of my earliest memories are of reading soo much. At one point, I remember that my brother and I were so engrossed that our father took our books away from us when we had […]

does twitter improve memory?

Last month I read an article in Wired about a woman who remembers everything. You name a date and she’ll tick off hundreds of events that have happened to her on this date. The publicity eventually attracted  Wired. The article reached the new conclusion that the reason she remembers so much is because she has […]

what do we value?

What is it that we value? As a society at large, I’ve heard a lot of candidates: We value our environment. We value our children, Education, Progress, Peace, Health, Knowledge, Kindness. All kinds of stuff. I’ve never thought long and hard about this question. Now that I am thinking about it, these are the kind […]

it’s always the same.

Months ago I looked around me at what was going on in the economy and stock market and it literally gave me tightness in my chest. It was hard for me to concentrate on work, or much of anything. Things that I had read about and worried about were coming to life and the pace […]

could vs should.

For the past few years the one thought that has never been far from mind is my “could vs should” debate. Essentially, I think we’ve become a society that has stopped asking if we “should” do something and instead default to if we “could” do it. “Can we get away with it?” has become our […]

religion vs spirituality.

I’ve long monitored the discussion between being “religious” or “spiritual.” Of late, I’ve heard some fatigue with people classifying themselves as “spiritual.” I suspect this has to do with how nebulous a term “spiritual” is and with how very many people are now identifying as such. This is a great article in TIME magazine (actually […]

some general 2008 thoughts.

I agree with my friends who say that leaving resolutions for New Years is kind of silly since we should just start them immediately. But New Years is also a great opportunity to reflect back (as are birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, etc), take stock, and make changes. So here are some random thoughts: 1) In 2009, […]

the laundry list in my head.

Here’s a laundry list of what’s been bouncing around in my head the past few days. 1) Obama likely ran the best campaign in history. From approaching the campaign with a data-based decision making process, thinking through weakness and strengths and letting this guide a communications/tactical strategy, a consistent (reassuring) image and message to voters, […]