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April 14, 2007
Headline We Wish We’d See: Dick Cheney
Ahh, there it is. I've been waiting to see proof of Dick Cheney’s pact with Satan. The Headline-We Wish-We-Saw was "Cheney Dive-bombed By Bird; Expensive Suit Bespeckled."Posted by Rob at 10:53 PM | Comments (1)
April 13, 2007
Fifteen Headlines We’d Like To See & The Ones We’ll Probably See
| DATE | HEADLINES WE’D LIKE TO SEE | HEADLINES WE’LL PROBABLY SEE |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 2007 | Electric Car Back By Popular Demand | The Long Arm of Air Pollution: Smog Alerts in Bermuda |
| Feb 2008 | Concerns Over Health of President Unrelenting, VP Slips Into Coma | Cheney Fourth Triple By-Pass Recovery 100% |
| Dec 2008 | War Averted In Iran, Peace Treaty Imminent | Chaos Reigning In Tehran, Explosions Mar Diplomatic Mission |
| Feb 2009 | Scandal At Halliburton, Industrial Espionage Exposes Far-Reaching Corruption | Defense Industry Profits Hit All-Time High |
| Oct 2009 | Criminalists Now ID Serial Killers Before They Commit | Psychologists & Law Enforcement Concerned By New Class of Super Criminals |
| Nov 2009 | National Debt Halved | US Treasury Defaults On National Debt! |
| Sept 2009 | Korean Electric Car Sales Smashing Expectations, Car Industry Experts Baffled | New Mileage Bill Neutered By Congress |
| Oct 2009 | Red Tides Fading, Scientists Perplexed | Freak Hurricane Smears Oil Slick Across Gulf Stream |
| Jun 2009 | Brazilian Forests Recovering Quickly, Study | Dust Bowl Forms In Amazon Basin! Clouds Seen As Far As West Africa |
| Apr 2011 | Social Sec Uprisings On College Campuses Down From One Year Ago | Department of Social Security Declares Insolvency |
| Mar 2012 | High-Speed Passenger Train, On Track, Under Budget | American's Endless Infatuation With The Automobile |
| Nov 2015 | Lose Weight The MIT Way: Sophomores Develop Anti-Gravity Device | U.S. High School Students Place Thirtieth In World-Wide Science Tests |
| Feb 2016 | Anti-Gravity Slingshot Fails At Launch, Inventor Still Optimistic | Obesity Rates Over 50% In U.S. Elementary Schools |
| Mar 2017 | Autism Cure Developer Wins Nobel Prize | The Mysteries of Autism, Cases On The Rise |
| Jun 2018 | HealthCare Industry Crisis Unravelling, Proponents of National System Gaining Favor: Poll | HMO System Bullet-proofed By Legislation |
The Trend of Upward Difficulty
Yea, these headlines are a little pessimistic. But if the trends we see today continue into next week, next year, next decade, we're in for rough times, difficult times. What can we do now to proactively dampen the power of these problems? How can we see the low tide, evacuate the shore, and prepare—before the tsunami strikes?
But on the flip-side, there is hidden value to the problems that will arise. The obstacles we'll face will be incredible opportunities for growth and rare chances to display a strength of character of awe-inspiring depth. These moments will be history-making, decade-defining times. If difficulties like these are theoretically valuable, what lessons can we learn from them? Will we use these obstacles? Or will they use us? Who among us will be there to leap up to the cockpit, grab the tiller, and steer?
Posted by Rob at 05:34 PM | Comments (0)
April 09, 2007
Ten Headlines We Saw, Ten We Wish We'd Seen
| DATE | TEN HEADLINES WE ACTUALLY SAW | TEN HEADLINES WE WISH WE’D SEEN |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 2001 | Bush Will Continue to Oppose Kyoto Pact on Global Warming | Bush Declares Kiyoto Protocol Weak, Demands Stronger Federal Legislation |
| Jun 2001 | Bush Repeats Vow to Help New Orleans | Bush Helps New Orleans |
| Jul 2001 | Jenna Bush Fined for Alcohol Use | Jenna Bush Enlists In The Marines |
| Sep 2001 | The Islamic World Reacts to U.S. Strikes in Afghanistan | Barbara Bush Reacts to U.S. Strikes, Cuffs Son In Back of Head |
| Nov 2001 | Presidents Bush, Putin Fail to Reach Agreement on Missile Defense | Bush On Diplomatic Tour Of Muslim World, Hires Farsi Tutor |
| Feb 2004 | Will the election be hacked? | Diebold Engineer Reveals Voting Fraud, Rove To Stand Before Grand Jury |
| Aug 2005 | Vacationing Bush Poised to Set a Record | Bush Transforms His Crawford Ranch Into Interim VA Hospital |
| Jan 2007 | Bush’s Troop-Increase Plan Is Expected to Draw Six Guard Brigades to Iraq | Bush Pulls Troops Out of Iraq, Redeploys to New Orleans |
| Nov 2006 | Bush Ousts Embattled Rumsfeld; Democrats Near Control of Senate | Bush Ousts Embattled Rumsfeld — Voters: “Too Little, Too Late Jerk-offs.” |
| Nov 2006 | Democrats Take Senate | Democrats Take Senate, Impeachment Proceedings Begin |
Difficulties Are Valuable
You might wonder what I think of our current president (considering I run a website like this one), how he, his family, and his staff, have reacted to the difficulties they’ve faced.
The difficulties of this administration have been great, but they have also been diamonds in the rough. The obstacles these men and women have faced were incredible opportunities for growth and rare chances to display a strength of character of awe-inspiring depth. Did they taken advantage of these opportunities? Did they grow and adapt and become role-models for the rest of the nation? No. They’ve let these opportunities fall by the wayside and have successfully done only this: look greedy and incompetent.
These days it just seems like we American Voters just can’t catch a break, can we?
Posted by Rob at 12:14 AM | Comments (0)
April 05, 2007
Subway Riders Bond (briefly) About Working With You Is Killing Me
I’d like to share with you an interesting experience I had on the downtown IRT express train this morning.
Yeah, I’ll admit it. I’m a biblio-voyeur. I’m nosy when it comes to what books and magazines people read on the subways. Well, there sat a woman reading quietly on the train, and I immediately noted that she seemed much more involved in her book than most readers seem to be, so I peered down to see what she was reading, and, sure enough, it was the paperback version of “Working With You Is Killing Me.”
I thought to myself, hmh! I know a thing or two about this book. I looked at her again, and I could see she was reading voraciously—Whoa!—and that she was weally diving into it, and that she had just started it.
Normally when strangers are reading, I leave them alone, but since I knew this book back-to-front, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to bother her about it, so I begged her pardon and asked if I could interrupt her to ask a few questions.
“Excuse me, but I’m familiar with this book and an acquaintance of the authors, and I’m curious, where did you see this book? I mean, how did you find out about it?”
She immediately smiled at me in an un-NewYorkery way and said “Oh, from these,” and she pointed toward the overhead subway car advertisements.”I saw the ad and, you know, it kinda just grabbed me. This title, it’s just so—you know, it’s perfect.”
“Wow, “ I nodded, “it does do that.” I told her I liked this book a lot right off the bat too.
“You know,” she said, “I went to three different bookstores before I found it. It’s out of stock everywhere.”
“You went to three different stores to get this book?”
“Yeah, I went all over the place—to a Borders in Westchester, and two Barnes & Nobles, but I found it. The clerk said I was the third person to ask about it that day.”
This amazed me. There aren’t many books these days that impel readers to travel so far out of their way to find a book.
“It really got me,” she continued, “ you know, the stuff about bad bosses. Ugh, I have the worst boss, total micro-manager. It’s awful.”
“Sorry. Yeah, I know the type. Well,” pointing at the book, “I hope you enjoy it. I found it to be an extremely useful thing to read.”
I handed her my business card and told her if she liked this book, she might also like my website, and we shook hands and parted ways.
Kind of random, eh? But that’s New York for ya!
What This Means
This interaction answers a question that I’ve been wondering about for a little while: Do books still matter? And if so, how much, what with Hollywood, the internet, MTV, massive multiplayer online games, and the sixty bazillion cable channels available to distract us. Don’t we have enough stimulation?
I have come to believe that—far beyond the shadow of any doubt—books still retain an incredible magnitude of cultural, social, and intellectual power. That power may be overshadowed by the enormous appeal of all these other available options, but I can’t think of many other $10 purchases that a person would go such lengths to get. This nice woman behaved as though this book was more than a book, as though she was buying a complex computer system, or seeking a good medical surgeon—that’s the level of mental exertion she put into finding this book. What does this mean? That some books, many books, are still an incredible value, even for ten bucks, and that customers are willing to go to incredible distances to buy the ones that help them overcome difficulties, and that they remain the central delivery system for complex conceptual tools that readers lack and crave.
Take that, cable companies!
Posted by Rob at 09:18 PM | Comments (0)