United Airlines allegedly broke a passenger’s guitar and refused to pay for the damage. Unfortunately, he was a professional musician who knows how to gain a following. Join the millions who have heard his song and seen his video on YouTube:
Posts Tagged ‘humor’
A thought on leadership
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
Team Blue Thunder, rally in progress
I’m coaching my son’s youth baseball team. I’ve found that leading a group of 11-year-old boys is pretty much the same as leading a group of adult professionals.
In both cases, the job involves:
- keeping them focused
- keeping them motivated
- removing roadblocks to allow them to remain productive
- assigning each individual a role that benefits the entire team while complementing that person’s skills, interests and style.
Finally, here’s a quote on leadership, with which I wholeheartedly agree, that’s attributed to the book, The Four Agreements: A practical guide to personal freedom:
“The primal responsibility of leadership is to prime good feeling in the people we lead.”
How does one do that other than by helping them fill a role they enjoy, and then helping them to stay motivated, focused and productive?
OK, there may be one difference between adults and kids: Adults aren’t as motivated by the promise of pretzels and a juice pouch.
‘The King of Pop is Dead’ social-media time trial
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
Who was first to report on Michael Jackson’s death?
It’s just after 9:30 p.m. EST on Thursday, June 25 — the day of Michael Jackson’s death.
The first tweet from my admittedly small ‘follow’ list came at 5:24 as a retweet from Daniel McCarthy, who I don’t actually know, but rather stumbled across him in a retweet from a former boss for whom I have a lot of respect. McCarthy’s tweet was a retweet of a source that claimed Michael Jackson died from a sleeping pill. Suicided, accidental overdose, adverse reaction?
C’mon, it’s 140 characters. Ambiguous to be sure. Call it an unfortunate aspect of the medium. Or the fog of war/celebrity reporting.
The next tweet with the news from my list came in 5:45 p.m. (+21 minutes from the first report/+19 minutes from the event) from TimAmikoff in Tehran, Iran (if I thought it was true, I’d ask if he doesn’t have anything else to do. And how did he end up on my follow list anyway?) TimAmikoff’s was a retweet from CNN Breaking News, linking to a CNN story online that cited the LA County Coronor as the source, with the death declared at 2:26 p.m. I’m considering that to be the original primary source. It said nothing about cause of death, other than a third-party quote from one of Jackson’s brothers that he had collapsed in his home. I’m inferring (because the full story was vague) the state times were local, which would be time of death of 5:26 p.m. EST — two minutes AFTER I received the very first tweet announcing his death.
Let’s say my computer clock is off two minutes. Practically a probability.
So while CNN’s story took about 29 minutes to make it’s way to my computer via Iran, the news was out to at least one source within a minute or so of Jackson’s declared death.
That’s the one I got from Daniel McArthy, who was retweeting Wierd News, which linked to a Top News Stories site owned by Global Associated News — which seems to be an empty logo used by Fake-a-wish.com — a spartan website unencumbered by “About us” links — that in its entirety seems to be a dynamic content generator about fake celebrity news. Seriously.
The story said Jackson had died from a sleeping pill (later elaborated to “cardiac arrest after consuming more than two-dozen sleeping pills.”
At the bottom of the Wierd News Page was this disclaimer: (this story was dynamically generated using a generic ‘template’ and is not factual. Any reference to specific individuals has been 100% fabricated by web site visitors who have created fake stories by entering a name into a blank ‘non-specific’ template for the purpose of entertainment. For sub-domain info and additional use restrictions: FakeAWish.com.)
Can it be a coincidence that FakeAWish would generate this story even as it was happening? Or is somebody sabotaging FakeAWish by placing real big breaking news on it — within seconds of it becoming available, and then updating it?
At 6:22 (+58), CNN Breaking News tweeted that Jackson was in a coma — +37 from first reporting he had died.
At 6:30 (+1:06) TimAmikoff cited the LA Times as confirming Jackson’s death. CNN Breaking News followed within a minute, confirming from multiple sources.
A 6:42 (+1:18) the Wall Street Journal tweeted that he had been rushed to the hospital.
At 8:37 (+2:53) The Onion tweeted “The last piece of Michael Jackson dies.”
What it all means is that I still don’t know where the news really comes from. Except I didn’t get it from any of this. I was busy elsewhere. When I looked, it was all there, preserved by my Tweetdeck utility. But I learned the whole thing at about 7:00 in a phone call from my brother-in-law.
I have just reached the point at which…
Wednesday, June 24th, 2009I have just reached the point at which … … as I’m sitting down at the computer to work, I would rather spend an extra 10 looking for my reading glasses than just gutting through the session by straining my eyes.
That’s got to be some kind of tipping point.
The difference between liberals and conservatives is … genetic?
Friday, May 29th, 2009Nicholas Kristoff writes in the New York Times that your political leaning isn’t your fault.
Liberals and conservatives not only think differently, he writes, they feel differently. Which means that when a person accuses you of a horrible misunderstanding about the way the world works, an argument doesn’t have to ensue.
First, you should know that this poor confrontational soul has been trained from the day he or she was born — and maybe even programmed in the womb — to disagree with you on pretty much anything that matters.
This is important to a whole bunch of folks, like those at Civilpolitics.org who seem to think that we ought to be able to discuss our differences without calling each other idiots and nitwits.
That’s just crazy talk.
We should care precisely because polite dialogue is a waste of time that we don’t have. Anyone who uses this knowledge to increase the amount of talk should be sent to Guantanamo. The rest of us will use this insight can be used to get right to the heart of the matter ASAP. We can finally settle the critical issues of our time: abortion, gay marriage, access to health care and whether the Constitution is a living, breathing document.
What we need to do is conduct more research into the workings of the political mind. This could get costly, so the government might need to subsidize it. But it would be one area of study that we can all agree is worth the price. Am I not right?
Soon we will know with certainty which end of the political spectrum is not a choice, but rather an unfortunate disability. Once we know that, it’s an easy step to an infrastructure of subsidized treatment centers offering therapy, behavior modification, enhanced cognition techniques and, eventually, carefully monitored release of individuals back into society.
Which side would get this assistance and care? Liberals or conservatives?
It’s obvious already. And if you have to ask, fill out the form below; your plastic bracelet will arrive in the mail in a few days.
With apologies to The New Yorker
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009From a New York Times wire story in The Plain Dealer:
This morning, at the American Museum of Natural History, researchers will unveil a 47-million-year-old fossil they say could revolutionize the understanding of human evolution at a ceremony.
A truly epochal event.
