Archive for November 8th, 2009
Slalom
I never really got slalom skiing. Just couldn`t cut deeply enough. Fear, I guess. I much preferred barefooting and tricks, although I don`t have any images of trick skiing. Sad. I really wish we had digital cameras back then. This is 1981 or so on Long Lake in Maine, about an hour north of Portland. Very pretty area.
Make: Tokyo Meeting 04
I have never been to a Make Meeting. Just BarCamp and Hackerspace. May try Make.
Think Big, Henry.
Here’s a chilling excerpt from a new movie about Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, which Ellsberg leaked to Neil Sheehan of the New York Times exposing the lies about the Vietnam War (among other things). If you haven’t read the Pentagon Papers I can tell you it’s an enlightening experience to say the very least. It may shake your confidence in official leadership a bit, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Leadership should be questioned so power remains as distributed as possible and decision making processes remain as transparent as possible. More generally, those two concepts are core principles to keep in mind while building communities, especially if you want to create the circumstances where opportunities can spring from anywhere. Anyway, back to this film clip. There is one audio conversation between Nixon and Kissinger cited in the film offering a glimpse into the thinking of Richard Nixon. Here’s the exchange:
Nixon: I still think we ought to take the dikes out now. Will that drown people?
Kissinger: That will drown 200,000 people.
Nixon: Well, no, no, no, no, no. I’d rather use a nuclear bomb. Have you got that ready?
Kissinger: That I think will just be too much, uh.
Nixon: A nuclear bomb, does that bother you? I just want you to think big, Henry, for Christsakes.
Absolutely. Insane. But instructive as well. This is what happens when leaders detach themselves from the reality of their decisions. Granted, this is an extreme case, but oftentimes even genuine leaders make bad decisions due to isolation. Lesson to would be leaders: get out of the office, get down in the grassroots, live like the people you lead.
