Whenever I meet dynamic, nonretarded Americans, I notice that they all seem to share a single unifying characteristic: the inability to experience the kind of mind-blowing, transcendent romantic relationship they perceive to be a normal part of living. And someone needs to take the fall for this. So instead of blaming no one (which is kind of cowardly) or blaming everyone (which is kind of meaningless), I’m going to blame John Cusack.
In any organization, no matter the size, the fundamental motivational unit is the personal goal. Any motivational scheme that does not build upon the diverse ecology of personal goals is doomed.
“True culture is in the mind, the mind,” he said, and tapped his head, “the mind.”
“It’s in the heart,” she said, “and in how you do things and how you do things is because of who you are.”
“Nobody in the damn bus cares who you are.”
“I care who I am,” she said icily.
The real development task of a project is to create a community capable of making and keeping hundreds of small but vital promises.
Over the course of my lifetime, it certainly seems like there’s been a strange American emphasis on embracing any emotion you happen to be having at any given moment, and that there’s something psychologically wrong with you if you’re not constantly confronting your emotions in public. I don’t like that quality. I think it’s bad for society.
In our biggest school systems, it’s become virtually impossible to fight the teachers unions and fire bad teachers. The giant Los Angeles Unified school system, with 33,000 teachers, fires only about 21 a year, or fewer than 1 in 1,000, according to the findings of an L.A. Times investigation. Now either Los Angeles has the greatest teachers in the world or something is very wrong. Talk to parents and you’ll know the answer.
At a friend’s home this weekend, his wife brought him a venti iced chai from Starbucks and set it down in front of him on a coffee table.
“Do you want a straw?” she asked.
In hindsight, a better answer would have been “no” but he said yes.
She unwrapped the straw and with a Norman Bates overhand grip tried to stab it through the plastic lid. Unfortunately, she hit it off center, knocking the cup off the table and splashing the contents all over the hardwood floor.
“Sorry,” she said.
“That’s all right, honey. That’s part of your charm. You do things without really thinking about them.”
She looked at him for a moment. “That’s not a compliment,” she said.
“No, it is. It means you’re . . . spontaneous.”
“Can you take me to the Barnes and Noble by your work?” my son asks. “I need to get AP study guides.”
I work in Aliso Viejo but since it’s Saturday and I’m not going to work, I ask why we can’t go to the Barnes and Noble right here in Irvine.
“Asian kids are running rampant on the selection,” he says. “I’m guessing there’s not as much hustle and bustle in Aliso, especially since our schools don’t go on strike.”
There’s an Italian Greyhound meet-up at the Irvine dog park on Saturday mornings . . .
Italian Greyhound owners are a tight-assed bunch. They put sweaters on their dogs at the first sign of cool weather. They’re more likely than the average owner to refer to themselves as the “mommy” or “daddy” of their dog. They like to hold forth with non-IG owners on the finer points of the breed, as if anyone cared.
Yesterday the group was addressing the serious matter of whether the largest dog in attendance was a full Italian Greyhound or part whippet. The owner insisted that she has papers on the dog, but as everyone knows, whippets tend to weigh 25 pounds and up whereas IGs top out around 15 pounds, and since this dog was somewhere in-between, what was one to make of it?
“The puppy mills are making the IGs bigger,” a bearded gentleman said. “They keep the biggest males for breeding.”
“Do you think my dog is full IG?” I asked, pointing at Lightning.
“That’s a pug,” someone said.
“Gosh,” I exclaimed, “I really got taken for a ride.”
Nobody laughed. Italian Greyhound owners are a tight-assed bunch.
In five weeks in the Galapagos in 1835, Charles Darwin identified 12 separate species of finches. After watching a 90-minute documentary on the Galapagos in 2001, Mel Kiper Jr. identified 35 species of finches, ranked them on strength, quickness, and “football instincts,” and correctly predicted that a land tortoise named “Jorges” would go to Indianapolis in the sixth round.
I was shocked and dismayed –I think we all were- to learn that Goldman Sachs had been involved in whatever it was they did. I had always ranked them with unlicensed boxing promoters and taxi drivers in Cairo, as people who inspire one with absolute confidence.
