Best Blogs 2008
December 10, 2008
- James occupied the office next to mine, his door already open when I arrived at school on Tuesday and Thursday mornings around 9.30. He would be sitting at his desk, his computer on, the screen full of emails. Or he would be sitting in his chair, his feet up, talking to somebody on the phone, loudly, about something important. Sometimes, students would be leaning against the outside rail, ...
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December 6, 2008
- Did you go all out to get Barack Obama elected president the way I did? Did you encounter racial prejudice the way I did? I was so encouraged by the ideas Barack Obama put forth and the change his policies represented, that I couldn’t do enough to help get him elected. I was happy to put energy, money, and shoe-leather, behind a candidate I could believe in. I invited ...
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December 5, 2008
- When I was a newspaper reporter in Derry, NH, I used to have the devil of a time writing the introductory paragraph to my news stories (these are commonly called ledes). These ledes have to sum up the story in two sentences as well as do it in a way that impels and compels the reader to read the second paragraph and then on through the story. The qualioty of a journalist and his/her writing is ...
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November 24, 2008
- Good morning. I appreciate the invitation to be with you this morning to discuss a topic near and dear to my heart: Leadership and the key role it plays in organizational transformation. As you heard from my introduction, I have been involved in leading government organizations for over forty years. For the most part, I think I have been moderately successful. In our short time we have ...
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October 30, 2008
- There’s been a lot of talk about “God’s will” and the upcoming vote on California’s Proposition 8. The latest to invoke God in trying to get the measure passed is Rick Warren, a televangelist and bestselling author. I’m an author too, so Warren’s words got my attention. They sent me on a mission to look for other times in history when arguments like this have been ...
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October 16, 2008
- MORAINE, Ohio, Oct, 15...Sixpack has been a proud name in the Ohio River valley for seven generations. But that will end today. Joe Sixpack VI, the great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of the original settler is changing his name. "We Sixpacks have been mocked and humiliated by the media and by unscrupulous politicians," he says. "I won't stand for it any ...
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October 3, 2008
- This grand declamation comes from the Swedish Academy a week before the Nobel Prize for Literature is announced. The organisation’s permanent secretary Horace Engdahl gave a couple of explanations that need to be examined: “Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can’t get away from the fact that Europe still is the centre of the literary world... not ...
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September 24, 2008
- The morning dawned chilly and as I stepped outside, a misty rain began to fall. Weather like this always makes me hungry and I wondered what I should eat for breakfast. The rain brought back memories, and I reflected on odd meals I've eaten in a long and often offbeat culinary career. Like the Japanese breakfast I once ordered in a Seattle hotel dining room---to the amused giggles of a bevy of ...
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September 13, 2008
- By Tim Wise For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, ...
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August 25, 2008
- I have a friend who’s a sales manager for a technology company. They have a small staff that designs technologically complex products that only geeks understand. But those products get sold to ordinary humans – small business owners mostly – so they have her to sell them.She says, “They’re all smarter than me!”They say, “She’s kind of slow.”I guess you can be a top sales person ...
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