11 posts tagged “life”

If only they showed this in the ’50s about life in 2000!

(Forwarded by Larz Shinobi on Twitter.)
   Man, I need some Soylent Green.

Time deconstructs Sen. Obama’s victory:

Over time, it’s become clear that these men view change very differently. McCain sees change as an ordeal, a test of his toughness; Obama sees it as an opportunity, a test of his versatility. McCain sees change as reforming the system; Obama talks about rebuilding it from the ground up. McCain does not e-mail. He became famous by riding a bus. And he brandished at every opportunity the values that never change with circumstances: duty, honor, country first. (See pictures of John McCain’s on the campaign trail.)

    Yet Obama, derided as so ethereal compared with the battle-tested McCain, was the clear-eyed realist in the room; he was a child of change—changed countries and cultures and careers, even his very name: Barry became Barack. You can’t stop change from coming, he argued; you can only usher it in and work out the terms. If you're smart and a little lucky, you can make it your friend.

   They are both right.
   No one can stop change, but an executive should be able to position one best to deal with it.
   However, (s)he should also fall back on time-tested traditions because duty, honour, country first never change as important guiding principles for a national leader.

[Cross-posted] As it is September 11 here in New Zealand, I thought about what I might write in tribute to those who fell that day. Then I remembered that I wrote something last year at this time, viz. quoting my own editorial written on September 11, 2001 (which, of course, was the 12th as far as Kiwis were concerned).
   I recall the world changed that day. I was planning to return to New York and September was my month back here, recharging batteries. Needless to say, that return never happened.
   I still remember the usual crisis-mode version of me kick in and I never felt the grief of the families on that first day, because my duty was to make sure that my team was all right, as well as friends who lived in Lower Manhattan or who were due to get off the subway stop beneath the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers around that time.
   Then I had to attend the start of the Wellington Fashion Festival (my parking ticket is shown above left) and no one was in any mood to celebrate.
   And I devoted the time following 9-11 to my work on corporate social responsibility, leading up to my first Medinge Group summit that year. (The name had not even been coined at this point.) Much of that energy was used in my book Typography & Branding; if anyone still has any copies of it, you may see an idealistic streak underlying most of the words.
   But we should retain such ideals, even if many of us have been given good reason to be cynical in the years that followed.
   If the deaths of nearly 3,000 people are to have any meaning, it is that: a reminder that we do hold certain principles dear and they should be retained and practised.
   One friend waiting tables back in those days said New Yorkers were nice to him after the disaster but the bitterness and nastiness returned two weeks later.
   It is sad that it didn’t take long for some of us to forget a tragedy, and the seventh anniversary of the attacks on the United States should be a reminder that at one point, we did re-evaluate our lives and their meaning.
   And whatever positive result that came from that introspection should resurface on September 11, 2008—and we should at least make a commitment this year to hold on to some of those life-affirming thoughts for longer, rather than see ourselves return to the cynicism that mars so much of modern life. We owe the victims a lot more than going through life living half of our potential, or in negativity. Their deaths have to mean something more.

I was disturbed to note that the video showing Lauren Richardson responding to her father and her dog on YouTube has been removed from the service. The Life for Lauren website states:

Due to an Injunction against Lauren’s father, by the court appointed lawyer ad litem (allegedly representing the interests of Lauren), we may no longer link to the video which showed Lauren responding to family members.  This order, which was signed by Master Samuel Glasscock, asserts the right to privacy of Lauren by the same lawyer who consented to terminating her life.

   How does this work? The folks who say that Lauren is a vegetable and somehow less than human, and that she should starve to death through the removal of her feeding tube, also say that she has the right to privacy.
   So in Delaware I guess the right to privacy is more important than the right to life and to food.
   Sounds like someone doesn’t want the public to have the facts. Can you say, ‘Cover-up’? I knew you could.

How do you feel about your birthday? Do you look forward to it and remind all your friends, or do you dread it and try to keep it a secret?

I don’t announce it, and tend to keep it off biographies and social networking pages. I am not as good at receiving, and am better at giving. I also get stressed out doing parties and on my birthday, I should not be stressed! A quiet dinner with family and an SO would usually be sufficient.

What is your daily commute like? What is the weirdest thing you’ve seen on that commute? 
Submitted by E. 

A bit boring but I am thankful it is only 10 seconds going from my bedroom to my office. If I go via the bathroom first I may remark on how bad I look unshaven. Whether I do or not depends on the traffic.

Have you figured out what your (or your kids’) Halloween costume will be this year? What’s it going to be?

Thank goodness we do not celebrate Hallowe’en down here, though at the same time, some kids have bought into it through watching too much American television and will try trick or treatin’. I have no intention of rotting their teeth and making their dentists rich. Plus, they should be able to wait till Christmas.

Why do you live where you live?
Submitted by memtony.

There aren’t many cities in which I can be me, not the me in the newspapers and magazines, but regular me. Wellington has the quietness I want, it’s a relatively cheap place to live, and I don’t sense that busy-ness that other cities have.
   The only other places under consideration would be Stockholm, Göteborg, San Francisco and my old home town, Hong Kong. But I get more envious looks when people figure out that I live on a Pacific island.

When at Paper Plus today, the woman in front of me spoke mainly Māori. And why not? It’s an official language of this nation.
   The girl behind the counter served her in English. She responded in Māori. Everything flowed.
   When I am in Italy, I usually wind up giving up speaking Italian and speak French to the locals. They respond in Italian. We catch enough words.
   I await the day when te reo and English are just mixed on regular TV. There is no reason the English channels are exclusively in English, other than the odd Saturday morning programme and Te Karere. This is New Zealand, and this sort of blog entry should not be a novelty, but an accepted part of everyday life.
   It should also shut up the racists who say that Māori is a dying tongue and has no place in everyday life.

When I was around 10 or 11, I used to wonder: what if someone could pay to see what I saw? I would walk around, trying to get the right angles “through my eyes”, and pretended I was transmitting to someone. As referenced on the Bad Banana Vox blog, Justin.tv is just that: a guy called Justin has a camera strapped to his head and he will wear it till he dies, claims the site. ‘Justin wears the camera 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Even in the bathroom. Even on a date.’ The thing is, it’s for free.
   Andrew Niccol (The Truman Show) was right. Only thing is, it’s pretty dull, by my reckoning. I prefer my own life.
   Note: Justin is in California, so bear that time zone in mind when you tune in. It’s pretty late there as I type this, so not much is happening.