The Divided Language

I was dismayed to learn the other day, that my all-time favourite George Bernard Shaw quote may not in fact have been uttered by him.
Nevertheless, even the misquotation that Britain and the United States are two countries divided by a common language, will ring true with any British Expat who has tried to make their new home in America.
There are hundreds and probably thousands of words that are different or embody a changed meaning or intent.
British people coming to America often assume that they've picked up everything they need to know about American English from a lifetime of consuming American movies and television.
There is, undeniably, a huge advantage Britons have over other migrants, just by speaking a variant of the same language. It is also astonishing how much British English has itself become Americanised.
Forty years ago it would have been difficult to find a British person alive who pronounced the word secretary in any way other than the short, clipped sec-rit-tree. These days, that sounds old-fashioned to many people in the U.K as the American sec-reh-tar-ee has taken full root. Mind you in Britain forty years ago, no-one said "hi" and few people knew what a teenager was.
In these globalised days American slang takes only a few months to cross the Atlantic, such as the 90's fad of adding "not"on the end of sentences, or saying "I'm like" as a substitute for "I thought" or "I said" which has regrettably survived well into the new Millennium on both sides of the Atlantic.
Perhaps it is because of the every day prevalence of American English in Britain that few British Expats realise what a linguistic minefield they are entering when they cross over that big moat.
The very worst attitude to adopt when arriving on these shores, is what the veteran transatlantic broadcaster Alasdair Cooke once referred to as immediately deciding that "....Americans are British people gone wrong."
There is a long and inglorious history of British sneering at the way Americans speak, often based on ignorant assumptions.
Now of course, we all have our own beefs about American pronunciations. I wince every time I hear the American president say noo-coo-ler for nuclear. I've never quite worked out why some Americans say eye-talians for Italians. (Does this mean the country is called eye-taly?) And I feel like inflicting a great deal of real physical pain on someone when I hear, even seasoned American sports broadcasters, call the tennis championship Wimble-ton or even more horribly Wimple-ton - as if the d in Wimbledon is somehow invisible.
But for every one of these ear-sores, we are equal opportunity manglers of American English. Brits routinely mispronounce relatively simple American place names such as Michigan, Houston and Arkansas. And despite pleas from the performer herself, the British adamantly refuse to pronounce Dionne Warwick's name the way it is pronounced in America - literally war-wick.
In fact, there is a great body of historical evidence that American English is much closer to historical English in England, than the version that is spoken today in modern day Britain.
It may come as a surprise to the sneerers to learn that words such as fall, for autumn, mad for angry, trash for rubbish and scores of other Amercanisms all come from Elizabethan England. Many linguists believe that the accent Shakespeare's plays would have been performed in would have sounded nothing like the classic renditions we've heard by Gielgud or Olivier. These linguists believe that the accent typically heard in Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, would had a distinct twang that we would associate today with the west country. A little bit more like, shock of shocks, the American accent.
Indeed, Gielgud and Olivier spoke what we know in Britain as received or BBC English. This is now largely acknowledged to be an upper-class Victorian affectation. It nevertheless became the standard English of public schools and was rammed into the consciousness of the British people with the advent of BBC radio in the 1920s. While it may have created some sort of standard out of a chaotic collection of wildly differing regional dialects, it is an artificial, almost worthless creation that has almost no historical value in the understanding of the way English was spoken.
So if we accept that those early settlers in America took with them some of the vocabulary and sound of historic England, it's still amazing that the language survived the onslaught of subsequent settlers.
In the second half of the 19th century some thirty million people poured into America, including Austro-Hungarians. Germans, Swedes, Dutch, Ukrainians, Irish, Poles and Russians. By 1890 there were over 300 German newspapers in the U.S.
French was once spoken broadly in a geographical ribbon that stretched from Quebec (where it is still the first language today) to New Orleans. Cajun - a mangling of Acadian - still survives as a language today.
Words poured into the American linguistic landscape from all these groups and others: Cookie came from the Dutch, avocado and mustang from the Spanish, canoe and tobacco from native Americans.
It may be a short history but it has been an intense one. When you really stop to consider it, it's amazing American English does bear as much similarity to what is spoken in modern day Britain. After all, the Dutch and the Belgian Flemish actually share a border, but often find each other unintelligible.
But even when you've been humbled by the historical evidence, it does not prevent the unsuspecting Brit from cocking up (to use a comforting ripe old British expression).
In fact it is because the English is so similar between the two nations that the pitfalls become bigger.
You can make a complete fool out of yourself in the simple act of ordering a cup of tea. Unless you specifically ask for "hot tea" in America you're just as likely to be served iced tea. (Of course, some would argue that even the hot tea is neither hot nor tea).
Some of the differences are extremely subtle.
A word like jolly in Britain has gained a large range of meanings. There is the jolly Father Christmas of course. But we also say somebody is jolly when they're drunk, or in the sense of humouring or appeasing: To jolly along. It's used to describe perks or salacious fun; "I see he's getting his jollies". We describe things as being "jolly good". It's also used by some British people, usually those who sound a bit like Penelope Keith, in phrases such as "I'm going to jolly well go down there and give him a piece of my mind!".
In America jolly has only one meaning - merry. Other definitions used on this side of the pond will be greeted with bewildered stares.
Some words are just designed to be confusing. A pavement in Britain is a sidewalk in America - where a pavement means the actual road or street. How potentially dangerous could that be?
I once had an extremely long and strange conversation before I determined that that an aerial is an anttena in America.
Similarly video as a noun refers only to a tape, not the machine. In the States the machine is a VCR.
I quite recently had to carry out some swift damage control when I was taken to a party consisting largely of my girlfriend's family. My host, kindly introduced me to everyone.
"This is Lee." she said and then added helpfully, "He's English."
"Well spotted!" I replied, a tad sarcastically but meant harmlessly, possibly summoning up a little Basil Fawlty humour. The whole room fell into an uncomfortable silence as I searched desperately for a hole to open in the living room carpet that would envelop me.
Not only was the jovial sarcasm completely misinterpreted but nobody in the room had a clue what "well spotted" meant anyway.
That story does however illustrate what a lonely place being caught in between two cultures can be. This can be compounded by the cruel attitude of friends looking for any evidence that you've gone soft in the head when you revisit the U.K
"Hmmmm! You've got a twang!" is a typical observation usually accompanied by knowing looks signifying an innate cultural superiority. Then, with all the human empathy found in the act of pulling wings off butterflies they'll furtively search and pounce upon every piece of newly acquired vocabulary or potentially offensive pronunciation.
Once, when submitting a story to an editor in Britain, she noticed I had repeatedly used the word "lines".
"Do you mean queues?" she asked.
"Oh yes I do." I replied, embarrassed by letting an Americanism slip in.
"Mind you, " she added generously "Line is a much more logical word."
"Oh I don't know," I replied feeling a sudden rush of British nostalgia. "I think queue is quite a charming word."
"My dear Mr. Carter," she scolded, in her best schoolmistress voice, "if you're starting to find your own people charming then you really have gone native!"
And so this is the netherworld we inhabit. Neither one nor the other
But the next time you're struggling to order a cup of tea, or to make a fool out of yourself in the drug store, or if you're called a hopeless yank by your British friends, just remind yourself that you're actually a part of a new breed of hardy internationalists.

Congress Has No Business Taxing AIG Bonuses

Here's why.
The Obama administration and congress approved the bill that allowed for the awarding of the demonized bonus payouts. Claiming that they unaware of the bonus clauses, as President Obama has done, proves only that he and his cabinet are lying or are incapable of doing their jobs by not having read what they signed; or both. Once they signed the paperwork that permitted the payments, the deal was done. The buck stops with this one not with AIG management and employees but at the White House and with Congress.
According to employee contracts that these bonus recipients have with AIG they are entitled to their additional funds in the form of the payments they received. They got them for performing their jobs. That's what bonus's are for - incentives and rewards.The knee-jerk reaction Congress is due to the rising chorus of public discontent with the way government is handling the economic crisis in general. The bonus issue is merely a symptom of a much larger problem, yet they garnered disproportionate attention. This reaction in punishing employees without due process is simply wrong. Congress should realize that the horses they are seeking have long left the stable; beating the stable boys won't bring them back.
It is disturbing that in the seat of world capitalism that the government can rush through legislation specifically designed to intervene in pre-agreed business procedures using the IRS as their attack dog. It reeks of the way things were done in Communist Russia. The concept behind this methodology is worrying.
It's a pity that Congress hasn't been as quick in pursuing more pressing and critical matters such as, for instance, voting to halt their automatic pay-raise process which quietly slipped by last week. A more appropriate response to the bonus issue should have been a claw-back of the funds involved, in the form of rebate check from AIG, not the public humiliation of these employees in little more than a cheap PR stunt. Cheap for Congress that is.
One hopes that this reactive behavior is not indicative of things to come although having seen this once it does not bode well for the future. Note to Congress; we progress in business through the use of incentives, not by potentially bankrupting those who have done their jobs.
In a final note it is worth mentioning what the Government has been at pains to not share with the great unwashed (you and I) and that is the critical importance of keeping AIG alive and funded. This is the real crux of the matter.
AIG is the only thing standing between U.S. and European Banks and their likely collapse. Read the article below from the New York Times on 02/27/09 entitled "Propping Up a House of Cards" for an excellent explanation of this crisis within a crisis.
Here is an excerpt that sums up AIG's position, "...the (U.S.) government feels it has no choice (in funding): because of AIG's dubious business practices during the housing bubble it pretty much has the world's financial system by the throat. If we let A.I.G. fail, said Seamus P. McMahon, a banking expert at Booz & Company, other institutions, including pension funds and American and European banks "will face their own capital and liquidity crisis, and we could have a domino effect." A bailout of AIG is really a bailout of its trading partners - which essentially constitutes the entire Western banking system."

Milking the People, Part One - Recession's Latest Twist

True to one of its primary functions of keeping people in the dark, the press announces the Central bank "wants to print money" to heroically and boldly rescue us from the recession.
The proposal is a measure termed "Quantitative Easing" which is a very cool sounding piece of made-up gobbledygook designed to obscure from the ordinary citizen another twist in the Great Recession Hoax.
Quantitative Easing is dubbed "the modern equivalent of printing money," which is a meaningless statement again designed to make it sound cool. After all, what's an "equivalent" of printing money? One either prints money or one doesn't. And somebody has to print it or it would not exist.
What is being proposed is that the national central bank will print money and use the newly created money to buy government securities from "financial institutions." In this way government will provide financial institutions with a big injection of cash. The banks will them lend said cash to business and consumer so that business and consumer will have more money to spend, and therefore buy things and therefore re-inflate the economy.
Sounds all right, doesn't it? Kind of sensible. Nothing sinister there. Probably.
Most of us can't quite follow it...it's a bit technical. But we're not trained economists after all, nor brainy blokes like the journalist who wrote the article we can't quite follow. What could possibly be the catch? We assume the brainy blokes running the economy know what they're doing....they sure sound scientific. Not scientific enough to have predicted and prevented the current slump but, hey, nobody's perfect!
Well somebody does know exactly what they are doing and what they are doing is executing another twist, another magician's flourish in the Great Recession Hoax. The depths to which banks will sink to bleed the rest of the community dry and the depths to which government will sink in its role as willing accomplice beggar belief.
That very un-believability and the fact that it sounds so technical and "scientific" ensure that we do not notice we are being done. Very thoroughly done.
Let's take a cold, hard looking at what all this means: what exactly are the banks and the other criminal organization involved, your government, up to?
Well, firstly, we already know from my earlier articles that the recession is CREATED. Money enters circulation because banks create it then lend it to people, businesses and government. That is the "modern" and seriously stupid method of supplying money to the economy. Banks can therefore willfully and with malice aforethought send an economy into a slump simply by turning off the tap of money supply - by tightening up on lending. That is precisely what they are doing at the moment.
The illusion is created that this is all beyond anyone's power to control, like an earthquake or hurricane. Government "tries everything" to re-inflate the economy but "nothing works" (i.e., banks continue to refuse to lend money). The government is therefore "driven" to take "drastic measures" to save the day, which is where "Quantitative Easing" enters the scene.
Quantitative Easing ought to be called "Quantitative Fleecing" for the flock is about to get well and truly sheared as the monetary plot thickens.

Understanding the 2 Economic Systems - Which One Are Your Operating Under?

There's no doubt that the Economy has become sluggish, but that doesn't mean you can't profit in a sluggish economy. Once your understand that there are only two economies "Scarcity and Inspiration". Then you can decide which one you are operating under?
If you follow the media, then you know that they only bring doom and gloom, the media, then you know that they only bring doom and gloom, they talk as if the world has stopped. Guess what? it's a marketing ploy and it works. Just head to the local grocer and listen to the conversations between people standing in line; "the price of everything is so high", "how are people going to make it", "the economy has affected everything", does this sound familiar? This is the scarcity economy that most people are operating under. They're in the fear mode, they become paralyzed by the daily news and believe that life is so tough that they cannot take any action to change their life for the better.
The Sluggish economy is God's way of telling us that a change needs to be made, because we've become stagnant and complacent. Banks and Wall Street have taken advantage of their positions in the marketplace, they've become so big, that they forgot to serve the people who put them in power and that's the consumer.
If you've turned off your media radar, then you know that some people are still thriving. For example: my little bank provides personalized service and recognizes that people are not just a number has opened 10 new branches in the last year. They are lending money for new commercial projects everywhere. Why? Because they operate from an Inspiration Economy. They reward, honor and provide extra ordinary service to their customers and in return their business thrives.
If you want to operate in an Inspirational Economy, forget the greed, turn off the TV, take care of your business and your customers and they both will take care of you.

Red Pants For the World

Red Pants for the World is a project based in the premise that young women can make a difference in the world through powerful communication. This year, Red Pants is focusing on empowering young women in Afghanistan to find their voices through education and support from other young women of the world.
Social networking is one perfect opportunity for the young women of the world to connect and support each other. Red Pants is searching for young women in local communities around the United States, many with difficult economic and social circumstances in their own lives. Red Pants believes that by turning one's focus away from personal problems to making a difference with others, something amazing happens: we discover the power to deal with our own circumstances as well.
The young women of Afghanistan are perhaps in the most difficult circumstances, with the threat of war and terrorism, the economic struggles of their country and the local cultural mores that threaten to keep women from opportunities for education independence. The young women of Afghanistan, especially in the rural areas, have little opportunity to discover their own voices and connect with the world.
Red Pants first project is to provide supplies and whatever is needed to the rural villages of Afghanistan and in particular, to the women in those villages. Teeming up with a well known Afghanistan born woman living in France, Red Pants now has a direct opportunity to connect with the rural women of Afghanistan to provide whatever is needed to further the education in rural villages. Our purpose and goal is to have every woman discover her voice and gain power over life.

Racism in America - News About Barrack Obama - Main Secret For Better American Future

Racism in America already looks less prominent because of the new President, Barrack Obama. President Obama is categorized black, a person of a minority group which suffered racial discrimination in the past. Obama's winning the presidential election was a dream come true for many. Now, all American non--whites seem revitalized psychologically in believing that the American Dream really is for everyone. Barrack Obama became not only a symbol of success; he indirectly boosted the self esteem of minority groups in American society.
Children of different American ethnic groups will now see a president, who looks more like them than the previous American country leaders. The very young will realize that they are worth as much as any other citizen in the USA. Barrack Obama will be an unforgettable role model. Children will gain a better self--image at a formative age by a powerful example. However, it all will take time for the big breakthrough and end of racism in America. Improved self esteem of minority groups will help with this. When you are happy in your heart and mind you become a better person. You will love you more. Others will respect you for it.
For example, a black child in school or in the playground will act with more confidence towards others with a white skin. All this will be due to a brave president. He helped all to see each other differently. Biased actions against minority groups will disappear to a great extent. Will it stand the test of time, once President Obama has left office? Of course, it will live on. Nothing can change the fact that America's first non--white president was elected in 2008. A positive self--image is always a very powerful mindset to see you in a positive light. This positive thinking will indirectly be the main reason leading to the eradication of American racism.
The fact that racism in America will disappear is based on an opinion. Some might disagree. However, it will be very interesting to see if the future proves it right.

Not Just Newspapers in Trouble - TV Stations, Too

This is an interview with Paul Conti, instructor in communications at The College of Saint Rose in Albany, N.Y.
Q: What do you think of the idea being bandied about that governments as a last resort should bail out failing newspapers?
PC: Bad idea. I do believe in newspapers. I believe that free journalism (unrestricted reporting) is essential to democracy. But having the government pay to keep the press afloat is just a bad idea. How can you report on what the government is doing when they are responsible for your paycheck? Even if there is some sort of "firewall" to protect the newspaper from influence, how do you dispel public suspicion? As a former working journalist (30 years), I am committed to continuing the craft, but not by government intervention. Newspaper owners must find the new business model.
Q: In the event governments decide to do it, should they attach conditions as is being done for other bailout loans and grants or should it be a blank check?
PC: Again, I'm really against it, but if they were foolish enough to take the money, it would have to be unconditional. Look what happened to public TV during the Bush administration. In the first term, the Bush team tried to wrestle program control away from the people running the Corporation for Public Broadcasting because, according to them, the viewpoints were too liberal. I believe they used the words "unbalanced" but that's what they meant. Whether they were or not was irrelevant. The fact that they tried to affect program content is evidence what happens when you take the government's money in a media business.
Q: You previously were news director of NBC affiliate WNYT. Are TV stations facing the same problems as newspapers to the extent that some or many of them might go out of business? What kind of experience was it for you to work there?
PC: To some extent, yes, TV stations are facing the same pressures and are confronted by the same business issues. In newspapers, their core audience is dying, literally, and newer younger consumers do not choose to read newspapers. In TV, the issue is that the audience is scattering. Newer (younger) consumers don't watch or consume their product. They have far more choices, so the audiences are getting smaller. In the end, it leads to the same basic problem.
The TV stations cannot sell enough ads to make the money they want to make to support the business long term. Their solution is to change their budgets by reducing costs. It makes the bottom line look better for a short period of time, but the content becomes bland and meaningless, which means it becomes less useful to viewers and the viewers start using other choices. Keep in mind the profit center for a local TV station is their local news product. The most successful TV station in any metropolitan area in the country is the one with the "best news ratings."
Having fewer reporters or less experienced reporters (who will work more cheaply) necessarily means less content for the viewer. It also means the content you get is less meaningful. Enterprise stories or investigative stories which take time to adequately report are impossible to gather. The reporters are dispatched to cover fires, car wrecks and other crime or public safety related stories. Those are easier to gather, but less meaningful to a larger audience. It fills up the time in the newscast or space in the newspaper, but it's like Hamburger Helper. It fills up the plate without any nutrition. If the content of the newscast is less compelling, then fewer people watch. That means ad rates cannot increase or the ad rates go down. In the end it's the same cycle as the newspapers. You can continue to cut staff to make your books balance in hopes of riding out the recession. Still, the basic issue is the business model is dead.
Historically, TV stations and newspapers sell on a cost per thousand basis or CPM. It's a "wide net" theory of marketing and advertising. When consumers had fewer choices, audience sizes were bigger and the ad would reach enough people to generate a demand for the product being advertised. Audience sizes for individual media shrank over the last decade. The rate they are shrinking is accelerating. That means the cost per thousand is increasing even if the ad rate stays stable, which it cannot. Since fewer consumers are seeing or reading the individual ads, there are less consumers motivated to buy or use a product or service promoted in the ad. Newspapers and TV need to find a new business model, one that does not rely on CPM.
As far as my personal experience goes, I saw the storm clouds gathering when I left the industry. I am not an economist, but I knew the industry that paid me the previous three decades was about to suffer greatly. I sat through collective bargaining sessions with labor forces that became increasingly contentious and I did not have the stomach to watch the news staff be disassembled. There were certainly financial pressures during my last several years as news director of the TV station, but nothing like today. Fortunately for me, I had a plan. I went back to school, got an additional academic degree and The College of Saint Rose invited me to teach as an adjunct. That led to a full-time teaching opportunity. I'm am very glad I did not stay longer even though I loved the day to day process of news gathering.
Q: From your years of experience in journalism and teaching it, is there anything newspapers can do that they're not doing to improve their chances of surviving?
PC: Lots of theories. Not many good ideas. The conventional wisdom is that they will have to rely more on the Internet and new media for revenue. Here's what I'm telling my students. The content engine for new media is old media. Take away old media and what do you do with your I-Pod or where do you go with your browser? New media forms generate pennies. Old media forms still generate dollars even though the dollars are shrinking. Frankly, my students want and expect everything "on demand." They are not specifically loyal to media brands. They do not care what the source of their media content is as long as it entertains or informs them. If I were running a newspaper's city room, I'd be sprinting to create more "TV News Stories" that people can watch on their web sites. A few newspaper companies are doing this, but the vast majority simply send one of their "print" reporters out into the field with a substandard consumer camera to record a news conference. Yes, that's content, but it isn't good content and it won't attract younger readers. They need to mimic the styles that TV reporter do with visualizing stories. Every story in the newspaper should have a companion video version available on demand.
The one small piece of good news out of Internet monetization is that web users consider a 10- or 15-second ad that precedes watching a video to be a fair price to pay for free content. They ignore most banner ads. They ignore the fly outs on web sites. They click away from "cover over" ads. They will sit and watch the 10- or 15-second ads that precede video. If I were newspaper companies, I'd be looking at ways to hire some of the TV reporters and producers who have been laid off. That's their expertise and many of the victims were very experienced. I realize many newspapers are in no financial condition to do it. Frankly, they should have been moving in this direction three years ago.
With the prospect now that many newspapers across America are on the brink of bankruptcy, what do you think the effect will be on our society if they don't make it?
PC: I think it's very bad news for democracy. Americans may love to hate their media (depending on their mood) but they rely upon it to report the best AND THE WORST of what happens each day. It is a favorite trick of elected officials to make media the scapegoat for just about anything, but Americans still rely upon it to be their impartial voice, even if they complain about media bias. If some newspapers and local TV stations go out of business, the demand for their product will shift to different venues. Independent and small journalism "stores" will spring up without the legacy costs of the old media businesses. They may sell their product to TV stations that remain or use it directly on the web and find sponsor support directly.

Bolivia's New State Run Airline Cannot Be Allowed to Land in the United States

Evo Morales, the leader of Bolivia has had some choice words for the United States as of late. He seems to comment on even our diplomatic trips into the Middle East, but why? Worse, each time he speaks he blames the US for something, yet at the same time he's been busy nationalizing everything from oil operations to, well, probably to the Lithium Mines, a mineral we need to realize our dreams of electric cars and hybrids.
Rather than deal with a company, we are forced to deal with a government, one who's leader clearly hates the United States, but why? Some of this hatred stems to the water filtration plant run by Bechtel Corporation, which was nationalized. A lot of good that did, not the nation is in drought and Dengue Fever is running out of control, over 50,000 in fact, and deaths are mounting.
Apparently, Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez are best of buddies and they'd really like to sell coca leaf here in the US, only they really want to crush it into white powder and bring it over. Hugo Chavez has recently challenged President Barack Obama and called him similar things, which he had called President Bush.
Since all this is going on, and since Evo Morales has kicked us out of the nation to help fight drugs, and told our state department to leave, why on Earth would we allow jet airliners from Bolivia to land in the United States. We must never allow hostile airliners from nations that hate us, and are dead set on harming us economically to come to our country. Let's not forget 9-11.

The Enemy Triple Play

Under normal conditions the saying goes, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". Unfortunately, in the Gaza Strip nothing is normal and the catch-phrase does not apply. No, in Gaza, we have enemies across the board which would be most fortuitous in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, so perhaps it is not so unfortunate, at least politically. I say this because I fully understand that your garden-variety Palestinian is not going to suddenly embrace Israel, but it is encouraging that they are not raging against Israel in the immediate aftermath of the onslaught in Gaza.
Now that Israel has ceased hostilities and withdrawn, and while Hamas - having learned nothing of humility - is already busy restocking armaments, Palestinians who were fortunate enough to flee are finding that their luck applies only to their lives; their property did not fare so well, and they are angry. They are angry that their homes were used as military attack zones by Hamas.
Spiegel had an interesting report on the subject. Here is an excerpt, demonstrating the object of the Palestinians' ire:
"Mohammed Sadala's rage is aimed at the man, whose remains he found in his bedroom: a Hamas fighter. He and a comrade broke into the home which had long stood empty after the Sadala family fled. The Hamas men shot at the approaching Israelis from the balcony. The soldiers fired back, killing the militants and destroying the house of the 10-strong family in the process."
Couple this revelation with the unusual reticence of the Middle East as a whole to voice loud condemnation of the Gaza offensive - not to mention the media's - and it may just be that we are witnessing a changing mindset in the region, at least in the small enclave of the Gaza Strip.
Call me hopelessly optimistic, but as we rush headlong into the 21st century, I feel that even the most archaic of ideologies may be getting caught up in the wake of modernity, having no choice but to see that 7th century ideals are something that should have been abandoned long ago. Suffice it to say, perhaps common Palestinians have been awakened to the heinous nature of those for whom they voted and will now begin to see that a civilized approach is beneficial, even to them. Barack Obama does not corner the market on hope.

Marines Don't Take Crap

We live in a world of widgets. People manufacture, distribute, and sell them. You name it, they’re doing it. I have a friend who is a toilet paper salesman. God bless him. It’s an honorable job and my butt and I give him a two ply thumbs up thank you butt it’s not something I, personally, could ever do-do.

I have a friend who told me once that the litmus test for taking a job is if you meet a girl and you’re embarrassed to tell her what you do for a living then you probably shouldn’t be doing it.

Let me tell you about a career choice I was never embarrassed to tell girls about, the Marines. Make no mistake. The Marines are a business. We manufacture the world’s finest fighting force, and distribute them worldwide to sell Democracy. If we have to, we’ll kick their you know what, provide toilet paper to wipe their butts, and not even take their names because we wouldn’t even know how to pronounce them.

The enemy usually needs toilet paper when we get through with them because when they see the Marines land we usually scare the crap out of them. What can I say? War stinks!

There’s a lot of things Marines do that stink. We don’t like it and complain that it’s not what we signed up to do.

We joined the military to see the world but all we end up seeing is bad weather and bad attitudes. So we say, “If I wanted to deal with this merde I’d have taken a summer vacation in hell or a winter vacation in France. The Germans spanked them, we had to save their butts, and now they’re little ungrateful terds.

I’d love to see a recruiter now. “You’ll get to travel the world.” Let’s see, where I could have gone in the last ten years, Somalia, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Baghdad. Wow, can you throw in a free trip to Liberia?

It’s hard to tell a service member that the grass is never greener on the other side because the places are young men and women go usually don’t have grass but war has some positives. For instance, it educates the American people. If you asked most Americans what the capital of South Dakota was they’d say, “I don’t know.” If you asked them the capital of Afghanistan they’d say, “That’s easy, Kabul.”

They also learn geometry too, hello Sunni Triangle. The only problem is in a few years they might make the mistake of trying to book a vacation to the Sunny Triangle because they heard it was, to use the parlance of our times, “The bomb.”

Marines actually have to go to these sewer holes. They have to live there and survive and it is no joke to them or their families but they love it. I used to get a kick out of Marines who said, “This is the hardest job in the world. You never sleep and when you do it’s in the dirt; you get to go hiking, with a 100 pound rucksack on your back, and you get paid to visit areas of the world you’d never pay money to go on vacation to see, but it’s the greatest job in the world. You’ll love it.”

Make no mistake, Marines love their jobs and as you probably know, are “The Few, The Proud.” Marines are prouder then game roosters and meaner then cocks. If the Marines made toilet paper it would be two ply steal plates in order to cover their butts when they use the head.

Being is a Marine is a dirty job but the best part of it is that we don’t take crap from anyone. Every young man and woman should do a stint. If you’re interested, go down to your local recruiter and put your signature on a piece of paper, preferably one ply.

Motive To Kill .... Avoidable Indeed

I was sitting in my hotel balcony in 105 degree heat reading and watching my young daughter “splish and splash” in the pool when I came across the “killing in workplace” headline that sent chills through my spine. I felt obligated and drawn to read more.

“I didn’t know the two killed very well except that they were upper management” Larry Hansel, 54, wrote in a letter to USA TODAY from California State Prison in Sacramento, where he is serving a life sentence for the two 1991 murders. As if this wasn’t enough to shake you, Hansel, a technician from Elgar, a San Diego based electronic company expresses his strong desire to repeat the act of violence with more determination.

Over 30 years, since 1975, the total number of workplace killings amounted to 224. Yes, 224 lives have been lost and what’s more chilling is that those horrific acts of violence were not unique to any one state or industry and have come as close as to being in our own backyard, San Diego , CA .

In the days following the publishing of this article in the Thursday, July 15, 2004 edition of USA TODAY, I often thought about the killer, those who were killed and the co-workers. What was going through their minds? In the mind of the killer, what could possibly motivate anyone to destroy lives? What about those who were killed? Were they just poor unfortunate souls? Were day taken by surprise? Did they have any chance to reflex for defense before being showered with bullets? And then there were the co-workers, stunned; witnessing a tragic and unforgettable moment while fearing for their own precious lives.

USA TODAY’S analysis found that firing is the most common motivator for workplace killings followed by on-the-job arguments, fight or disagreement and last but not least, disciplinary actions for tardy and poor performance. It is needless to say that these motivators seem relatively common acts happening daily in most companies, best and mediocre, big and small and public and private. No matter where we rank in our company’s org. chart, we’ve all in some shape or form, witnessed a fight or an argument maybe even participated in one. Gave performance reviews and disciplined or coached people and yes the “F” word, even FIRED people because they deserved it and let’s face it, we all had second thoughts and were fearful for our lives. The truth is Corporate America makes similar decisions every day. Yes, daily we as business owners, leaders, managers and employees make decisions that could trigger “A MOTIVE TO KILL!” And so, businesses must run; and even though we cannot tailor make the consequences of those decisions; we certainly can mitigate them to avoid life threatening disasters.

Hansel may have had a motive to kill, but what I conceive it to be that he also had the chaotic workplace to fuel his failure. A workplace, like many, reacting to the constant changes triggered by the imbalance of world economy and changing technology thus; manifesting itself in a form of “Conflict”. We face conflicts at home, when our children fight. We face conflicts at work with disgruntled employees. We all face conflicts in our lives because we engage in social interaction with people with different goals, values, and backgrounds and as an inevitable result of social interaction, “Conflict” has the potential to be one of the most productive part of life at home and at work and NOT A MOTIVE TO KILL.

Here are 4 tips for you to help you create a SAFEer workplace!

• Demonstrate nonverbal communication- Be aware of how your feelings and attitudes affect your nonverbal message. Listeners will “hear” your tone of voice, vocal volume, rate of speech, and body language over and above your words.

• Define unfair fighting- It is human nature to want to be on the side that’s winning. The problem is for many of us, the fear of losing power and status motivates us to “fight unfairly”. The truth is reality is negotiable and if you don’t see it your way don’t make it personal.

• Define fair fighting- As individuals, or as leaders and managers, we must take the responsibility for making sure we are “fighting fairly”, limit disagreements to those related to the task and establish an environment in which personal threat is an absolute taboo.

• Send a clear message- While listening skills are important, sending a clear, concise and consistent message expressing your true wishes is of equal importance.

Up to this point, we are all in agreement that "conflict" is a normal part of work and in fact, I want to be bold enough to say that sometimes it is critical to have "conflict" amongst your team members to allow for different opinions, ideas and expectations to surface.

No, I am not contradicting myself at all. While "conflict" is unavoidable, you as managers have to ensure that the outcome of recognizing and dealing with it is one that reaps healthy working relationships in your workplace.

The biggest mistake managers do is ignore or avoid conflict. Somehow they convince themselves that if they did so long enough that it would disappear. Not! "Conflict" if not dealt with, will consume you and everyone around you and ultimately transform into a motive to...

You have "conflict"; we all do, bring it to the surface, raise the level of its importance and deal with it before it escalates beyond management.

In case you missed it, here are some more quick tips for you on "conflict" resolution:

• Minimize friction before it turns into a disagreement

• Compromise, compromise and compromise

• You can only handle one issue at a time. Focus!