Obladí obladá obladí da da
Freshly baked by back-to-back meetings in the beige desert boardroom that is my day job, I collapsed onto the couch—equal parts mogul teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and tired toddler whose tantrum ended before it could even begin—when Apple TV served me a drone-shot sermon on why Earth is an anomaly that defies belief… Continue reading The Complexity That Made Us Possible?
How to Know a Person by David Brooks succeeded my own effort written years earlier. That essay made a simple claim: that becoming acquainted with someone is an art. And that art, like so many others, is vanishing. I cannot say if Brooks took something from me — intellectual property infringement requires a showing that… Continue reading Bobos in Babel
On the Layers of Self and the Question of Destiny David Brooks, in How to Know a Person, offers us a useful architecture of the self: four distinct layers that together compose a human being. The Presented Self, which the world sees — the curated, optimized exterior. The Inner Self, where conscience, memory, and character… Continue reading A HOUSE WITH A ROOF (AND A BASEMENT)
Not because what is necessary shouldn’t be done - of course it should. But when it is, it is not needful, it is required. This morning my assistant put me in mind of these aberrant constructs when she messaged me: Good Morning SirReminder for your PWA Amicable Settlement Teams Meeting.Please note it has been preponed… Continue reading Let’s Not “Do The Needful”
Why every organization needs a resident historian—not just a marketing department I’ve been thinking a lot about organizational effectiveness lately. I’m working on a primer for innocent bystanders thrust into high-stakes managerial roles, as a prelude to something even more ambitious—one that concerns a titan of industry—and since then, everything around me seems to be… Continue reading Boards, Brands, and the Blind Spot for the Broader Context
I have Type 2 diabetes. It didn’t happen overnight. It began quietly: elevated liver enzymes, then cholesterol. Each problem had a fix. A pill. A specialist. Statins brought the cholesterol down—but, I later discovered, at the cost of insulin sensitivity. No one was managing the whole system. Each intervention made sense in isolation. But taken… Continue reading Not Everything Can Be KISS’d
At 5 in the afternoon above Dubai,the sun hovers at twenty-three degrees—a pale apricot smudge in a post-storm sandy haze,draping Bluewaters in a light that flatters ruin.I’m reclined—gently, necessarily—on a chaise longue angled for recovery.My neck, still nursing its grievancefrom a tumble in the waves,reminds me that a middle-aged manpays a price for youth’s joys.Hugo… Continue reading Azimuth 268º
Dear Massad Boulos, As you know, Lebanon elected a new President earlier this year after a two-year interregnum that saw the country sink even deeper into failed statehood. No sign so far that it will be surfacing any time soon under the new Aoun. Echoing the national despair, one MP cast a throwaway vote for… Continue reading MLGA
I never took an interest in London. Soaked in drizzle and beer for openers, boiled beef as an entrée, and constipation for dessert. Why bother? London, I figured, is what happens when an empire is forced into retirement and has to downsize - a damp city of souvenirs, visible only in the dim light reflected… Continue reading A New Deal with London
With the guardrails down and the bus dangerously tilting into the ravine on the turns, the talking heads upfront joined together to repeat the refrain "Shalom, he should just go home" on the daily news as the First Amendment was turned into an irrelevant detail. This post was supposed to be a follow-up to My… Continue reading Please stop.
SEÑOR - The Blog 