Saturday, December 28, 2002
GOOD MANAGERS, SCARCE
Capable, qualified and confident mangers are hard to find these days.
At first, I thought, I was considering C-E-O types. But, I quickly found the real need to be in lesser management levels. Is that, perhaps, what the term “middle management” actually means when translated into work-day-routines. Lesser wheels are quite important, too..
I have known some good business managers in my time, and I have had my share, and more, of men and women who – while they held important places - were not capable of fullfilling even minimal duties of that office.
There are various ways in which a worker becomes a manager. There was a time, not too long ago, when all Junior had to do to become manager of Daddy's domain in business, industry or commerce was to be there. The success of such family ventures usually depended upon the presence of a third party, an often unseen presence; sometimes, unrewarded too... a silent third party who had the welfare of the company close to heart; someone who tended to all the essential affairs of the firm on Junior's behalf.
The executive breed usually made quite show of putting in sufficient time to gain printed proof of a business eduction from one of the nation's finest schools.. Such a diploma, suitably framed and displayed on his office wall, was throught to qualifiy any recipients for whatever management levels they chose to occupy. The system worked well as long as they could keep support personnel in place to really run the business.
In addition to such inherited leadership, there was, for a long time an honorary type of executive opportunity. All one had to do to qualify was to to amount to something in a totally different field – fly an ocean, win a sports event, swim the impossible stream, climb the highest mountain – and, as a sort of reward and specail recognition for having done so, one was granted the place of being an executive with an industrial firm in a totally unrelated field. The "name" assoiated with "fame" was supposed to engender new fields of business.
I actually worked in such a comic-opera settings for several years and I remember well some of the strange pitfalls it held.
Fortunately, such episodes lasted ,as a general, for just three years.
That, in my experience, was the average career life of most managers in larger firms. It took one full year to settle into the new job and to learn who willing, did what, when and why. It took a second year for him or her to realize that it was not going to work - none of the things planned were to get done. Then, it took a third year, or most of it, to find a new job somewhere – anywhere – which could serve as “an advancement” or, be cited in PR releases as being a “challenging change of pace."
This was just one of the in-depth causes of the virtual demise of American industry. We have been too long under temporary or transient management.
A.L.M. December 27, 2002 [c522wds]
Friday, December 27, 2002
UNITY, THE LACK OF...
We often show up short on unity.
Much talk and tons of print materials are available lauding the historical unities we do have as a nation. We think of ourselves as being the “United States of America” ...fifty states banded together as one nation, but the concept of individuality allowed each of those member states varies a great deal among the people who live in any any particular one of them.
There are still sectional differences which divide us in critical ways. They have always been here and we even went to the extreme of fighting a costly war attempting to solve some of those divisive elements.
And – we keep devising new ones as well
We instigated the current United Nations concept even though we did not exactly approve or join it's previous form - the League of Nations following World War I. We sponsored the development of each system – nurtured them in their formative years, – and found each ,in time, to be less than adequate as a means of establishing and maintaining a semblance of unity and peaceful living to which all men are said to aspire, even among the member nations.
Other factors mitigate against the formation of unifying associations, too.
Travel, as an example, has made it common for social groups of different types to intermingle and contend with each other all around the world, each, more often than not, favoring and working for their own advancement rather than anything of mutual value
` Communication, primarily of an intense computer-technical development, has brought many areas together while enabling each to be more independent of the other.
Even in our play and development of teams for sports undertakings we try to make sure ours is best. The competitive sense urges us to make comparisons and to correct any shortcoming to appear superior, for at time, at least. So much of the world, it seems, looks at Americans as rather willful individuals...even loners, at times, intent on going our particular way, but the phase we are in at this moment in these end days of the year 2002 , may prove something which has been established before. Study history and you will find that this seeming lack of unity is an illusion which is quickly overcome when the people realize they are faced with danger!
It has happened before. When we are convinced danger is upon us, we join together to eliminate the cause of that threat to our well-being.
A.L.M. December 25, 2002 [c426wds]
Thursday, December 26, 2002
DID YOU HEAR WHAT I HEARD?
Christmas music fades away quickly each year and it is not uncommon for us to find that we actually listened to very little of it during the rush of holiday events.
Officially, I suppose, Christmas music starts at about the same time the Thanksgiving Day turkey is being consumed. That's when radio promises Christmas music but much depends on economic factors as to how much time remains for Yuletide music.
Then, when it is available, we tend to slight ourselves by overlooking the vast treasury of good music which has come to us based on the finest qualities of the faith we profess.
The holiday theme fades with the old year and we are off on a path which offers us an amazing selection of many types of music from which we must choose our favorites.
The is much more to each of the varied types of music and we might, at first, be unaware of the values they hold for us. I have noticed a puzzled look of concern for my mental well-being. coupled with a shade of doubt and even anger, when I speak out in favor of a certain type of music, which has good reason for being what it is even though we do not select it as our favorite.
I cringe inwardly at times, listening to some music of our day, and yet I know that steady pulse of noise has meaning. I will concede that is no small or easy thing to do, this choosing from varied styles, because it is through our musical likes and dislikes - expressed so openly at times – that we, probably, show our worst thoughts of hatred, distrust, disrespect for the rights of others... so many negatives values, both in words spoken and printed. Too often the musical choices of others are purposely made to seem crude, jaundiced, reckless, worthless and a thing of revulsion, ridicule and rottenness.
Think back over the Christmas season just ending. To what specific styles of seasonal music did you hear?
It seems proper that we heard many traditional Christmas carols being sung. But, to some people, hymns are boring and do not convey the personal sentiment of their religious faith. Those people prefer listening to humorous parodies of older songs, or songs associated in some way,events of the holiday time or characters of the time. So many people are much more interested in “seeing Mama kissing Santa Claus:, “wanting two front teeth for Christmas”,or, among this year's sillier songs, the one about Grandmother being “run over by reindeer!”
To some, that is Christmas music is at its most enjoyable level. Others profess to want it a bit more formal: “Twelve Days of Christmas”, and that sort of Olde English treatment, and each year they do an annual recount as to the exact number of animals referred to in that song.*
There is also a group of higher-toned folks who think portions of Handel's “The Messiah”, and other works of that caliber, are proper. Fine! Go to it! But don't forbid albums of simple songs by Bing Crosby, Andy Williams, Perry Como, Tony Bennett and others – all, you see, from my generation. I, personally, would like to include and an album of holiday sounds by “Mannheim Steamroller”,as well as Carson LaRue singing her a capella favorites.
If music is “melody” to you, the choices you make will be lyrical in nature and have direct meaning. If music seems better with bit of bounce to it you may prefer instrumental records. And instrumenation will vary, as well,.from pipe organ to harmonic.ou my want an album by the Statler Brothers or group cconsist of a fidde.,guitar, madolin,ducemer playing ancinet lilts for The Old Sod
.
PIck and choose your musical favorites with absolute freedom to allow for change, too. Being loyal is one thing; being so narrow as to exclude other music of value is wasteful and wrong. Don't feel out of place or false to your assumed heritage, either.
Listen and learn at the level best suited to your current need. Play, sing or simply attend to music in praise and in gratitude.
A..L.M. December 23, 2002 [c 705wds] *31, I'm told
Wednesday, December 25, 2002
December 25, 2002
A B C D E F G
H I J K Andy Mc Caskey M
N O P Q R S T
U V W X Y Z
Tuesday, December 24, 2002
AMERICA’S FIRST CHRISTMAS CARD
The initial lines of the inscription read:
”A happy season is Christmas, a time of joy and goodwill to all people.”
It was December 22, 1982 when a small group of people in Wyoming Country, West Virginia watched the dawn's first rays of sunlight wash slowly across a black panel of rock on the face of a cliff to reveal the text of the first line inscribed there in the ancient Celtic language called Ogam.
They listened to a spoken translation of the aged text to be seen in those strange markings on stone. It is one of the strange petroglyphs to be viewed in sections of West Virginia along the Kentucky border.
Then, as the morning light crept cross the slab of rock the voice continued with the second line:
” A virgin was with child. God ordained her to conceive and be fruitful. Behold, a miracle!”
There was yet a third line to be read:
”She gave birth to a son in a cave. The name of the cave was the Cave of Bethlehem. His step-father gave him the name of Jesus, the Christ, Alpha and Omega. Festive season of prayer.”
Other translations of the text vary, of course, and are not so formal as this one by the authority on the subject, one Barry Fell who has written widely of the amazing discoveries. He and others who have studied these inscriptions, are confident they were the handiwork of visitors to the area from Ireland in the time of St. Brenan in the 6th or 7th Century A.D. Other studies point more definitely to an unknown Gnostic monk traveling with the Brenan party, who would have been aware of both use of the Irish “Iron” language and of the Christian traditions.
There are several other small examples of this type of work and the largest known Ogam inscription in the world - which we have talked about in these pages before - is to be found in nearby Logan County, West Virginia. It is called the”Horse Creek Petroglyph” and the story old on it details a large-scale buffalo hunt b primitive people. It is difficult to ascertain how many of these ancient markers might have been destroyed by strip mining operations in the area but there have been some such losses. A few have been moved to safer locations when discovered.
In addition to these strange Ogam language markers, and archaeologist name Robert Pyle, discovered in 1989, about thirty feet from a petroglyph called “Cook”, a burial place which has been proved to have been the final resting lace for some European. Both carbon-fourteen and DNA testings place the burial at around 700 A.D.
West Virginia - ”wild and wonderful”....in so many exciting ways!
A.L.M. December 22, 2002 [c454wds]
Monday, December 23, 2002
HOLIDAY HAPPENING
When one of the nation's largest firms cannot credit monthly payments for gasoline to the proper account, it should indicate that something is amiss within that organization.
And, when that firm, on the Sunday morning before Christmas , calls, not once, but twice by different annoymous persons – to harangue the client with threats of reporting “non-payment” to credit firms, it should suggest that changes are now past due in their methods of operation. Both call resulted from earlier calls the previous week alleging non-payment. A prompt visit to the local bank showed clearly that the questioned payment had been made and falsely credited to an account in Shawnee, Oklahoma instead of to ours in Virginia. Our local bank made copies of the check and of the billing and faxed them to the gasoline firm. Neither of our “Happy Holidays” callers Sunday had any information concerning any such clarification of the problem.
No wonder there is so much interest in the possible passage of legislation designed to curb the excesses of the Telemarketing field in general. The major gasoline companies, banks, and, oddly enough the multitudes of telephone firms appear to be the most bothersome users of such methods. The new legislation may not concern the phone companies,I understand because they operation under different set of rules than others. It will be unfair if such new legislation curbs the industry to the point of killing it.
Firms such as the automotive fuel collossus to whom I have been alluding, spend millions of dollars annually intended to better the public perception of the manner in which they claim to be doing business. Much of that public relations money is wasted, when they are rotting within.
Ours, I find, is not an isolated case. Check around, and you will find that scores of people you know have such “horror “ stories of their own to tell. It is not an uncommon experience.
I do not approve of the firm's repeated infringement on our family's Sabbath Day and, especially on a Sunday just prior to Chrismas Day. It was certainly not in keeping with the special meanings of the time to have grand choldren wondering why Grand Mother was near to tears talking with someone on the phone; why Grandpa was suddenly so grouchy, and why their own parents seemed so concerned by the calls.
Christmas stopped.
It seems to me the firm could have controlled the Scrooge-like impulses they seem to have for a few days, until, at least, they had the opportunity to look at the situation as it existed rather than some uninformed underlings imagined it to be.
The die has been cast.
Pay up. Get out.
And, never buy from that firm again.
A.L.M. December 22, 2002 [c464wds]
Sunday, December 22, 2002
FROM THE TOP!
When a orchestra conductor lifts his baton high; holds it motionless in the air, having tapped lightly on the edge of the stand in front of him, he is not required to tell his musicians that they are to start at the beginning. They do not have to be told. They know his intention and they are a part of it.
It becomes their reponsibility to perform to the utmost perfection of their capabilities.
If, however, they have been through the composition before and are to concentrate,now, on a specific portion of the orchestration, the conductor will specify when and where they are to begin to play.
Maestro George W. Bush, conducting the group of which we are members, has tapped the stand, he has indicated we are to undertake the reading of a complicated score with many subtle shades of meaning and intent. He has been listening to our individual attempts to gain control of the notes, and he has now alerted us to the fact that the performance is almost ready to start. He will indicate when we are to play.
Usually, the downbeat follows quickly. Almost, at once, you might say, but this has not been the case at our recent rehearsals. He has our attention. We have been alerted, but there is a tense delay. Why? Is something amiss?
It is not that the maestro is not acquainted with the score.
He has confidence in the quality and exactness of every stave before him. He has delayed the start, not because he doubts our readiness or capabilities. He has delayed the introduction because the audience is not yet prepared...those who are to be attentive, listen and participate in that which lies head of us all. They are not ready to share the projected composition. He deems it wise to wait.
Conducting a nation at war is a work of art demanding special skills. If the presentation is to succeed, much depends on the ability of those who hear it to comprehend ulterior meanings and to refrain from spoiling the essential unity of it all.
George W. Bush, is, even now, ready – even eager to go ahead. The international community for whom all of this war is to be undertaken, is not in full agreement as to where they are going to be seated. or if they are to be present at all!
He feels his musicians are prepared. He knows they are trained, capable and eager. He knows the limitations and advantage of the arena itself and he appreciates the value of proper timing.
Many factors go into the making of such a moment. One must be absolutely sure of intent and work with that objective in mind. Our maestro, is taking a seond look at the entire composition and gauging the capacity of the onlookers and listeners to appreciate what he is trying to accomplish.
At the moment, there is hesitation and uncertainty in various sections. He must wait until they are prepared, or until it become apparent some are not going to do so at all. This is a tense time. The entire world is awating the downward sweep of his arms.
A.L.M. December 21, 2002 [c540wds]
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