looking for one thing and found something else…
Buddha's dying words
"Do your best."
Come to the edge.
No, we will fall.
Come to the edge.
No, we will fall.
They came to the edge.
He pushed them, and they flew.
- Appollinaire
Sarah and I stayed up late last night discussing the potential spiritual effects of various church services. We stumbled on an interesting idea where different religions have differing ideas of what their commonalities are. Some all believe the same thing, some all practice the same way, where those two don’t necessarily go together.
Some, like Unitarian Universalists, basically value the same thing without actually believing the same thing. We each felt differently about what we want in common, how the spirituality we feel relates to that commonality, and how much freedom from commonality we need to grow.
There’s all these exciting jobs from premiere companies on the CHI-JOBS list, then the SAS Institute posts this:
POSITION TITLE User Interface Analyst (any level) POSITION NUMBER 8044ALB POSTING DATE 2000-04-25 CLOSING DATE Open until filled DIVISION Data Visualization Research and Development DEPARTMENT Data Visualization Usability
etc. Yuck, who wants to apply to a company with that kind of advertising?! “Yeeehaaaaa, I got position number 8044ALB!!!”
Boo bites it. I’m not surprised.
Passed a guy handing out pamphlets in the NYC subway last night. I said no thank you. He asked what I thought of Jesus Christ, and I said (and motioned) “Thumbs Up!” He asked, as I walked on, if Jesus was my personal Lord and Savior. Jeez, it isn’t enough that I try to follow these teachings, this guy has to save my soul as well.
I think the story of boo.com’s impending doom is making a fascinating case study. In addition to their crazy ass use of client side technology the business is big and unweildy as well. They’ve only been around for 18 months and have offices in four countries. Aren’t dot coms supposed to capitalize on not needing lots of physical space? You’d think they would need a staff in one city and a distribution center somewhere less expensive, instead they have a huge staff in four expensive European cities.
Once again Tog comes up with what should’ve been a blatently obvious solution to everyone, this time for squashing inappropriate ringing cell phones.
A woman at U of Hawaii, doing research on music record labeling, called my undergrad thesis on Music and Censorship “very well-researched and surprisingly current…it still applies today.” Schucks. It’s nice to know a paper I worked my butt off to write eight years ago is still current.
I attended my cousin’s wedding this weekend in North Carolina. They’re so in love and so intense and so good at expressing themselves, it’s wonderful to see them growing the relationship that much in their 20’s.
“The significant problems we face today cannot be solved by the same level of thinking which created them.” – Albert Einstein
It’s odd how bad business people are at running meetings. I work with some of the premiere organizations in the world in many industries and you rarely ever see an agenda, goals for what needs to be decided, or even a leader to keep everything organized. It’s just streams of chaos, folks interrupting each other, and feelings of unsatisfaction. I would actually think this is very beautiful if we never needed to accomplish anything, but of course we do.
I asked “what’s the most beautiful thing you’ve experienced today?” and etoile responded
probably the most beautiful thing today was someone saying hi to me
unexpectedly who hasn’t been talking to me in person. instant
messenger, sure, but in person……
it’s a strange side effect of the ‘communication revolution’…
communication is not just words, voiceless text. those subtle pauses,
inflection, whispers, all replaced by ellipses, parenthetical smiles and
frowns, font size. the telephone was bad enough, reducing the complexity
of human communication to disembodied voices….
anyway the main thing is the eyes. i just can’t feel right talking
without eyes to talk to.
eyes, eyes, eyes. oh, i miss them.
but this friend who said hi… can’t look me in the eyes anymore. they
search the room for a place to rest when i am present. but she actually
acknowledged me today. that was beautiful, even if it’s the closest
thing i could get to a real human connection…today.
And I just remembered what one of the Outward Bound instructors said, “We listen with our eyes as well as our ears.” It sounded corny as hell then, and does now too, but when someone doesn’t listen with their eyes you know something’s up.”
Would you take branding advice from a company called DareStep?
I was starting to soften my position on Nike today. With the Lance Armstrong sponsership I really wanted to like Nike again, because Armstrong’s achievements get me all chocked up.
I haven’t bought any of Nike’s stuff since they were busted, twice, a few years ago for horrible labor conditions and salaries. But I figured if they cleaned up their act there should be a statute of limitations on my disdain.
They’re bragging about oversight from PWC and Ernst and Young, but it was the latter that busted them the second time for carcinogens in their factories. There’s nothing at either of their sites about Nike and the labor situation, and Nike doesn’t make the reports available. Furthermore, their description of the PWC process reveals that PWC is merely measuring conditions against Nike’s code book, not the United Nation’s standards.
Nike brags on it’s site that you can apply for a position at PWC to monitor the factories. To apply, you have to send an essay to a priest at St. Johns. One of the criteria is to speak the local language of the country the factory is in. This last one seems ridiculous, you don’t need to speak Vietnamese to measure the carcinogens in the air, time the working day, or measure the wages of workers.
When attacked, Nike responds that they participate in President Clinton’s industry partnership to improve this situation. Here’s a reasurring statement: “Nike is constantly evaluating compensation packages to ensure
workers are being paid fairly. In fact, as a member of President Clinton’s Apparel Industry Partnership (AIP), Nike will be
reviewing a wage survey conducted by the Department of Labor, undertaken at the request of the members of the AIP.” Reviewing a survey, that sounds like a real action item.
I think to counter this situation they’d have to act from the top and encourage a mentality of good will towards workers throughout the company. This article from just last year in The Nation revealed the wrong attitude from Nike’s top management:
On January 11 Joseph Ha, a Nike vice president, sent what he thought was a confidential letter to Cu Thi Hau, Vietnam’s
highest-ranking labor official. In it, Ha blasted a number of human rights and labor groups that have been working to improve
labor conditions in Nike’s overseas factories and expressed admiration for Vietnam’s authoritarian system. “A few U.S. human
rights groups, as well as a Vietnamese refugee who is engaged in human rights activities, are not friends of Vietnam,” wrote Ha
to the Vietnamese official.
I can’t in good conscience buy their stuff, it sounds like they still haven’t figured out what’s really important in life.