Priorities in Context

And then, at the bottom of the article, after I learned about the graphic details of my own sexual assault, the article listed his swimming times. She was found breathing, unresponsive with her underwear six inches away from her bare stomach curled in fetal position. By the way, he’s really good at swimming. Throw in my mile time if that’s what we’re doing. I’m good at cooking, put that in there, I think the end is where you list your extracurriculars to cancel out all the sickening things that’ve happened.

Why on earth would swim times matter?  Why would anything about the rapist matter?

Swim times are a measurement of performance, of individual, competitive success.  This is what we judge people by - their ability to perform, to compete, to get ahead of others.  

This is the kind of success we say matters.  It's the kind of success we encourage.  Work hard, train hard, fight hard, know what you want and get it.  Get to yes, always be closing.  If you're not tough enough, aggressive enough, then you are a failure.  No one wants to hire you.  No one wants to care about you.

It's the lesson everyone who puts people before profit gets told, again and again and again.  You don't make money because you don't demand it.  You're not selling yourself enough, you're not pushing hard enough.  

Your swimming times aren't fast enough for anyone to care about you, and that's all they care about - not what you do, what you're willing and able to do to succeed.

Of course, this doesn't mean rape.  Apples and oranges, right?  Rape might be about power and dominance, about aggressively asserting yourself over someone else and taking what you want, but that's not the self-first, sell-hard, always-be-closing lessons meant to be about.

Yet the swim times get mentioned, don't they?  They always do.

It's a bit like getting mad about war, but selling weapons anyway.  Clearly, the provision of weapons is in no way shape or form connected to the use of weapons, right?

UR

To this point Mark expressedconcern that CIC lacked transparency in these decisions and implemented the caps onsponsorship with little consultation with the individuals and groups the decisions would impact. 

Settlement services in Canada are great.  Just ask them.  The policy and plans that guide them are equally perfect - just ask the government.

The risk of this happening is clearly not evident in this.  That's stretching things.

Besides, everyone is doing research - the lay of the land is clear, thank you very much. Methodologies aren't broken, or people wouldn't keep using them.

To this point Mark expressed concern that CIC lacked transparency in these decisions and implemented the caps on sponsorship with little consultation with the individuals and groups the decisions would impact. 

Let Them Eat Condos!

The heads of National Bank of Canada and Bank of Nova Scotia said mortgage down-payment requirements should be boosted to tame the market, joining the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which said Wednesday measures should be taken to reduce the risk to financial system from household debt and rising prices.

Not too hard to read between the lines here.

More people are struggling to buy exorbitantly-priced homes.  The basic dream of settling in a house, having a family, having a garden or a garage to putter in - that's increasingly out of reach for many, especially younger professionals.

They want what their parents had, what their grandparents had, what they may have experienced in their youth - an owned home and the security and flexibility that comes with it.

There are less well-paying jobs, much less job-security, is getting harder to come by in Canada, especially in big cities like Toronto.  You ran hustle twice as hard, work twice as much as the previous generation and still fall behind the home-ownership dream.  

It's very frustrating.  

Especially when youth are told that they simply need to "get over" the fact that the world is different than it was for their parents, and that expectations about security and ownership and all of that need to adapt.  "Accept that you're going to get less for more," the line seems to be - "so we can reduce the risk to the financial system."

Which feels a bit like a pollster blaming the people for poor results, not their methodology.

Is it smart long-term strategy to make it harder for people to settle down and start making investments in their future - like houses, or cars, or kids, or their theoretical kids; education?  

Especially when the people making these tough choices on behalf of the under-resourced have no financial pressures of their own, because holding the levers of the wealth of others pays pretty decently?

Where are the commiserate pressure on employers, on VC, on grantors?  What's the lateral repercussion in terms of money spent, productivity decreased, innovation lost, health costs increased?

The pressures being placed on the "middle class" and the growing percentage of those below it doesn't make them more competitive - it makes them more frustrated, concerned, and irrational.

All of this is a very short-term strategy creating more problems than it is solving.  You can't reduce gains, increase pressures, increase time commitments, place dreams further out of reach or tell people to stop even hoping they can acquire what you have, because that isn't the way the world works.

There are clear consequences when you do.

I'd Tweak Warren's #9

Your next leader - and your team and your policy book - should be bursting with ideas, ideas, ideas. That is how you will defeat the Trudeau phenomenon: with smart ideas, not by making lame selfie jokes.

Ideas?  Absolutely.

From the leader, though?  From the backroom folk?  That's not really the conservative brand, is it? That brand is about avoiding the nanny state and giving agency to Canadians proper, isn't it?

Trudeau is a likeable leader, a strong presence, and - if the Tories frame him the right way - a bit of an autocrat.  

The way to counter this, carve out turf and actually do right by the country isn't to have a Britannica of ideas to sell the nation, but to develop a Wikiplatform where Canadians can express their own hopes and dreams, challenge each other's narratives, explore options and then map everything out to see where their are gaps to be addressed.

Happens to tie into one of the Harper government's narratives, too, and could help reframe some of Canada's concerns about that era.

Just sayin'...

God's Starship

There is a beautiful hadith sharrif saying "when my servant fixes what's between Me and him, I will fix everything between him and the rest of creation."

An observant Muslim friend of mine and I have an ongoing discussion about religion, traditions and why a God would have need of veneration.

I maintain that the rituals and practices of religions - everything from cleansing rituals to the giving of thanks to the following of commandments - are of clear benefit to humans.   

You clean before you eat so as not to get sick.  The giving of thanks is the earliest form of CBT; days of rest are mandated holidays where people can charge their batteries.  Commandments and such are like any law - designed for the good of the commons.  A driver may talk on his phone while driving and ignore a stop sign and kill a pedestrian, oops - if they aren't mindful.  And we do tend to be mindful of consequence.

It's not always easy for parents to explain the complex, long-term benefit (or harm-reduction) of some activities; ultimately, the best parents lead by example and nurture a relationship whereby the child, or the pupil, exchanges compliance for recognition.  The beneficial act is given to make the parent or teacher proud before it is recognized how that the act helps the learner grow into their own.

For their part, the parent, the teacher or the leader is the true servant, giving of themselves to an individual for something greater than themselves.

Moon shots bring people together - they are magnetic attractors, the visionaries behind them stones in the soup.  The best ones recognize that the leader and the vision are all really about just one thing - bringing people together on common ground, and providing them a direction.

God doesn't need homage.  Allah doesn't need a starship.  

Humans do, though - both as vessel for the journey and home for a community.

Therein lies the secret.

Sunlight fell upon the wall; the wall received a borrowed splendor. Why set your heart on a piece of earth, O simple one? Seek out the source which shines forever. 

- Rumi

Had Mark Steyn Lived in 1885...

... he probably would have written stuff like this.

The paranoid mind (and the seeker of attention) will always have zombies and conspiracies to rail against.  

 . . . It is a notorious fact that the Monarchs of Europe and the Pope of Rome are at this very moment plotting our destruction and threatening the extinction of our political, civil, and religious institutions. We have the best reasons for believing that corruption has found its way into our Executive Chamber, and that our Executive head is tainted with the infectious venom of Catholicism. . . . The Pope has recently sent his ambassador of state to this country on a secret commission, the effect of which is an extraordinary boldness of the Catholic church throughout the United States. . . . These minions of the Pope are boldly insulting our Senators; reprimanding our Statesmen; propagating the adulterous union of Church and State; abusing with foul calumny all governments but Catholic, and spewing out the bitterest execrations on all Protestantism. The Catholics in the United States receive from abroad more than $200,000 annually for the propagation of their creed. Add to this the vast revenues collected here. . . .

Leading on Inappropriate Touching

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, who raised concerns Tuesday about complaints from some of her female MPPs about “inappropriate touching” around the legislature, also refused to provide further details for privacy reasons.

The article itself is more about transparency and accountability - you can read it for Ferguson's take.

What I find myself most fascinated by is the culture, ethics and human economics around physical contact.  When is it good, when is it bad?  What are universal standards? What tips and tricks are there for quickly assessing individual contexts?

Good leaders do a lot of physical contact - the two-handed shake, the hand on the shoulder, and for good reason; that kind of contact, in most cases, produces oxytocin.  The laying on of hands actually makes a person's chemistry change for the better.  Many leaders, consciously or unconsciously, use physical contact as a way of creating a gravitational pull with their audience.  

It's a powerful communication tool; I recently met and chatted with an internationally recognized young leader in millennial entrepreneurship - a petite Asian woman by appearance, but a strong presence in any room.  The conversation involved a ton of contact - she literally put her hand on my chest when speaking about me and whatever impact I have, and held my hand when the person that introduced us talked about similarities between us and why we should have a follow-up chat (that never happened).  All this could have been inappropriate, and certainly would have been had I been the instigator, but in this case it was part of her power.  

Does this woman do the same thing when speaking with other women?  If there is a gender-based difference on her approach, does that imply some form of inappropriateness, or is an altered approach an acceptable thing?

I have two friends with anxiety order; one also has ADHD, the other has depression.  When the friend with ADHD has an anxiety attack, physical contact of any kind is a terrible idea; what is meant to be a gesture of affectionate assurance comes across as an assault, producing cortisol instead of oxytocin. With the other friend, a reassuring hug is exactly what she's looking for; the comfort reduces the discomfort and helps create the feeling that things will be okay.

Two different people, both women, completely different responses.

Then, there's introductions.  If I'm introducing a friend to a group, contact is almost always involved - but do I do it differently for different genders?  Do I put a hand on the shoulder for a guy, on the back for a gal?  Maybe.  Maybe it's instinctive, or maybe it's an underlying inappropriateness that I need to explore.

There can easily be a masking of intent, even internally; what we tell ourselves is our rationale and what our actual rationale are don't always align.  This is different from clear and deliberate inappropriate touching as an assertion of authority or simply copping a feel.

And as I read more and more stories about what women suffer through on a daily basis, I am recognizing a whole layer of societal behaviour that is as offensive as carding and as problematic as wheelchair-unfriendly societal infrastructure.

Having and enforcing a clear code of conduct is key; in such circumstances, it's better to err on the side of caution, maybe establish comfort zones with intentionality so everyone is on the same page.

At the same time, there's an incredible opportunity in all this for individuals to take a look at themselves, their intent and perceptions and explore more of this social-emotional stuff that we humans tend to do poorly.

It's new ground, though long overdue.