But Americans are also a funny bunch. A bit like the French. Just don't tell them. Or the French for that matter. Yes. These Americans have their own style. Maybe style isn't the right word. They have their own logic. The world looks a bit different through their lenses. They do things their way. The American way. They see things their way. They say things their way. And they have a different set of rules for themselves and for those who fall outside their borders. Not that they will acknowledge or know of those alleged countries outside the US. "I thought it was just a television show. It's not real. Not like Star Wars." Most of the time it is pretty funny. Sometimes not. Let's try to stick to the funny stuff.

[caption id="attachment_732" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Africa?"][/caption]

Take old man McCain for instance. He climbed into Russia for invading Georgia. It all went very well. McCain showing some backbone. And then he blew it with an Americanism. He said, "In the 21st nations don't invade other nations." WTF? Remember 2003? Iraq? Are you just visiting there? Please don't come over to my house for a visit please. Or at least check the guns, tanks and planes at the door please.

Now for the really funny stuff. And I mean it.

Have you been watching the Olympics? Been cool hey? But here's the thing. You'll have a slightly different view of the Olympics if you are from outside the US. Oh, I don't mean that they only show US participants over here. That I get. I am in America. It's cool. But the Olympic medal ranking... That's another story. You know what system they use in the rest world for the official Olympic ranking system? The country with the most gold medals are on top and the little country with the least is right down there at the bottom. Makes sense. Right? Oh? Not here though. Over here they have America on top. They are way behind the Chinese when it comes to gold medals but that doesn't matter. They argue that they have more of the other medals so they should be on top. And they'll stick it where the medals don't fit - just in case you wanna argue. American logic. Go figure.

And what's up with Fahrenheit? It doesn't make sense. You know there is no logic behind Fahrenheit right? Since when does water freeze at 32 degrees and boil at 212 degrees? You think there is logic behind that? Sorry to disappoint you. There isn't. Let me give you a quote on how Mister Fahrenheit found zero... "Zero point is determined by placing the thermometer in a mixture of ice, water, and ammonium chloride, a salt. This is a type of frigorific mixture. The mixture automatically stabilizes its temperature at 0 °F. He then put an alcohol or mercury thermometer into the mixture and let the liquid in the thermometer descend to its lowest point." WTF? Yeah... Right. What the heck is "frigorific?" Makes perfect sense. Like the World Series for American baseball teams... But then, Fahrenheit was German and I guess it was a German joke. And only Germans will get that. I mean really. They think the Hoff makes great music...

(Hum, Mister Celsius wasn't actually that much better when he started off. He had boiling at zero degrees and freezing at 100 degrees at first. He was Swedish.)

And what's up with the confusion between "d" and "t". Americans throw a "d" in when it is meant to be a "t". I have a permanent dig at my oldest daughter who keeps on telling me the "wada" is just great in the pond. What the hell is wada? New kind of fish? A luxury boat? Aah! Water. With a "t". "Dwo slices of damado on my hoddog please. No kedchup." Sounds like you are talking with a blocked noise. Here's a hanky. And no, you can't use it to cry in about getting your butt kicked at the Olympics. It could be worse. You could have a stupid President. Oops. Sorry. Didn't mean to rub it in.

And how's this "sue your ass off culture"? You heard about the woman who sued McDonald's because they didn't warn her that the coffee she just bought might be hot. And she won. Yes. She was from over here. But I got a few that might beat that one. And I am NOT joking.

A women from Dexas Texas won $80,000 after falling over a running toddler inside a furniture store. The owner was a bit surprised when he lost the case as it was her stupid kid that was running around and that she fell over.

A guy from LA won $74,000 when his neighbor ran over his hand with is car. The guy didn't see his neighbor behind the wheel. He was too busy trying to steal the hubcaps.

A guy broke into a house while the owners were away on holiday. He tried to leave via the garage. But couldn't open the door. And he accidentally locked the door to the house behind him. So he was stuck. For eight days. He sued the insurance company because of the mental anguish he suffered while being stuck in the garage and only being able to survive on some Pepsi he found in the garage. The jury gave him $500,000. Fair enough. I am a Coke man myself.

Another guy got $14,000 after his neighbor's dog bit him in the ass. The dog was chained in the neighbor's yard. The jury thought that the guy shouldn't get the full amount he asked for because just maybe the dog was provoked when the guy climbed over the fence and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun.

A woman from Philly won $113,000 after she slipped on cooldrink (soda) that was lying on the floor. How did it get there? Oh, it was the cooldrink she threw at her boyfriend 30 second earlier.

But the best is the woman who bought a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home from a football game, just after she hit the freeway, she set the cruise control at 70 miles per hour and got up and went to the back to make herself a sandwich. WTF? Apparently she was very surprised when the Winnebago left the road and crashed. She sued Winnebago for not telling her that she couldn't do this. I mean really. What else could "cruise control" stand for? She won $1,750,000 and a new Winnebago. Winnebago also changed their manual afterwards. I think instruction number one should read, "Are you American?"...

A last few things that you can only get in America:

You can get pizza delivered faster than an ambulance would get to your house.

Pharmacies (drugstores) make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

People order double cheese burgers, large fries, and... a diet Coke.

And last question. Why do hot dogs come in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight?

Only in America. Gotta love it.

I do.

_____________________________

Note: I did some research on these court cases and comments. Someone commented on how ridiculous they are. especially the woman who won the Winnebago case. His comment is one of the best I have ever seen. Here it is...

"I think I'll sue Hustler for giving my wrist carpal tunnel syndrome."

Republican John McCain has cut Democrat Barack Obama's nationwide lead in half, according to the latest CBS News/New York Times poll. Obama now has the support of 45 percent of registered voters, with John McCain closing in at 42 percent. The margin of error is three points.
Two weeks ago, Obama's lead over McCain was 45 percent to 39 percent. About one in four of each candidate’s supporters say they could change their minds before Election Day.

---

Read The Complete Poll:
The 2008 Campaign

---

Like the CBS News Poll completed earlier this month, each candidate is backed by more than three quarters of voters in his own party, with independents closely divided, narrowly favoring McCain.
McCain scores well on qualities related to experience and is seen as somewhat less likely to pander to his audience, but Obama is seen as more empathetic and is viewed as running a more positive campaign.

Click to Read.

Motorists heading through the Lehigh Valley from Allentown, Pa., earlier this year passed two giant billboards proclaiming: "Fast Heart Attack Care Saved My Husband's Life."

What the billboards didn't say was just how fast. It took 24 minutes for Richard Silverman's doctors at Lehigh Valley Hospital to clear a 100% blockage from his heart's most vital artery. That's a third of the 90-minute goal that hospitals strive for.

"Maybe five minutes more and I'd be gone," Silverman, 63, co-owner of Pro-dent, a dental laboratory in Allentown, says his doctor told him.

Doctors at Lehigh Valley are proud of their speed. It's one reason the hospital boasts the lowest heart attack death rate in the country, 11.6%, in a new government analysis obtained by USA TODAY. Among those at the other end of the spectrum is Virginia's Danville Regional Medical Center with death rates for heart attack of 19.6% and for heart failure of 15.5%.

Click to Read More.

(smirking)

The GOP has announced the "stars" of its convention. They have chosen them in an attempt to showcase their party's... uhh...

Diversity.

Huh.

Ok... well, I guess if a whole lotta old rich white guys... coupled with one old (and yes, rich) white lady thrown in the mix for good measure constitutes diversity then...

There you have it!

According to the Huffington Post, the GOP will host such "super-diverse" leaders as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rudy Giuliani, Joe Liebermann (wait- wasn't he on our side to begin with?) Bush Jr., Dick Cheney... and just cuz they really want to diversify... Laura Bush.

I'm sure she's there for reasons other than, "Hey- since my hubby's going to be there, I just came along for the ride".

Right...?

I mean, not like we're a nation of many races and ethnicities or anything...

But hey- if that smattering of folks doesn't accurately represent this country than I don't know what does!

Here's to diversity, as after all, ain't no party like the GOP party.

You're right- this isn't funny at all.

All steak and no sizzle!  Read about it here

Translation: If you are not qualified to do a certain job, as long as you are not white we will employ you and let you have a substandard performance in said job.

If it endangers or inconveniences others then so be it.  All that is important is that we worshipped at the altar of diversity

OK, the August topic. Last Saturday night there was a televised Civil Forum on the presidency held at a California megachurch.  Senators Obama and McCain were asked questions about their faith and beliefs, and how those beliefs would impact their policy decisions. It was an interesting discussion indeed, and you can check out the videos here.

Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren asked the questions, and in his introductory remarks, he said,

We [Saddleback Church] believe in the separation of church and state, but we do not believe in the separation of faith and politics. Faith is just a worldview, and everybody has some kind of worldview and it's important to know what [a person's worldview is].

So... what do you think about that? More specifically--

• Is separation of church and state important? Why or why not?
• What's the difference between separation of church and state and the separation of faith and politics? Is Warren right that one is good and the other bad? Or are they the same thing?
• If faith is worldview and everyone has a worldview, and our worldviews are so drastically different, how do we have a civil forum about the things that are important to us in, say, a presidential election? Was the Saddleback forum helpful at all, or hurtful for our public discourse?

Part of me gets a little scared bringing politics into Gray's--yes, newcomers, this is the first time we've touched on anything political. And this is not only a conversation about politics--it's one about politics and religion, at the same time, of all things. But I think we can rise to the challenge of civil conversation, even on this topic. Here are some things to keep in mind:

Gray's is about the big questions and how they impact real life. So, I'm more interested in talking about church/state, faith/politics than I am about the candidates of this election or the individual issues discussed during the forum. We'll need to bring in the the specifics of the forum as we talk about whether the forum enhances or hinders national discussion in a pluralistic society. Beyond the big questions of church/state, faith/politics, and what kinds of forums enhance the national conversation in a pluralistic society, there are so many divisive issues that we could talk about related to the election, the candidate's views, the specific topics discussed in the forums... and those topics can drag the conversation down. We're going to have to be very disciplined to stay on topic. The official "big questions" for this week will be challenging enough. So let's make an extra effort to stay on topic.

If you want to read some interesting perspectives on this topic, check out the site where I ripped off this month's question. There's some good stuff in there. Unlike Gray's, though, it's not exactly a conversation. It's a bunch of people talking. For the purposes of discussion, if you read some of those posts, I hope you don't walk away with your predjudices hardened and your ears a little more closed than they were before (an effect that website sometimes has on me). Rather, I hope the posts open your ears to the very different perspectives out there on the topic, so you're ready to challenge and be challenged by the folks around the table at Gray's.

See you there!

I am a person frequently lost in thoughts about generations past. All four of my grandparents were born in Europe. The collected stories and historical backdrop of my ancestors are part of the context in which I view America today. America is a nation of immigrants. But we are not a young country. The experiences in the many nations from which we once came are part of the vast pool of collective wisdom that has made this country great. My heart is with the battered Balkans, the birthplace of two of my grandparents. But the hard won wisdom of that tormented region stokes the fires of my gratitude to this country. One of the beauties of America is seeing those who once stood in battle against each other live together as common citizens. I once shopped at a news stand with a Hindu Indian owner and Indian Muslim employees. Everyone worked together to make sure that each employee could pray in the proper time according to his own tradition.

I have seen with my own eyes the seedling of peaceful coexistence being nurtured on American soil. Hope springs eternal that this tender sapling can be transplanted to distant shores not one but many times.

There are American values. There is an American system of government. And there is a body of common experience that defines us, much as every family has its shared memory. But to deprive our citizens of their own memories, to truncate the recollections of individual citizens would diminish the vast reservoir of collective experience that makes this country great and makes this country wise. There are names and lingering echoes of languages once dominant that reflect our past. The Russian names in Alaskan phone books, the African words remaining in some dialects of South Carolina and the Napoleonic legal code of Louisiana are a few of the many diverse brush strokes in the splendid and colourful landscape of our great country. The Cherokee alphabet and the Inuit language stand beside Mark Twain and Langston Hughes as tributaries to the common stream that is America.

A common language is needed to transcend our many differences. A system of law is indispensable to the cause of peace among the diverse strains within our nation. America has a duty to believe in its own preservation and ongoing perfection. Among its citizens, America must always come first. Our memories as individuals remain our gift to the nation, our contribution to the collective awareness.

The great American melting pot" is a metaphor that illuminates our condition as much as it blinds us. The salad with a common dressing and a mosaic in which different colour tiles are held together in a common picture also provide a framework in which to see ourselves. We must not become prisoners of a single metaphor. Our vast landscape must be viewed at different angles and different levels.  There are and shall be times to transcend our diversity and times to embrace it. The good of our country should always be our overriding interest. Our awareness as individuals should be in service to the nation.

E pluribus unum. Out of many, one. Small threads of copper wire are bound together into cable that carries powerful current. Then there is the bundle of arrows in our national emblem that can be broken one by one but find strength in the unity of their separate parts. These are also metaphors with which to view ourselves. E pluribus unum.Out of many, one. G-d bless America.

Posted by Magdeburger Joe

Following a summer test run, “The Wendy Williams Show” is poised to go national with the Fox Television Stations agreeing to launch the Debmar-Mercury-distributed series in mid-2009.

“Everything about the Wendy preview clicked for our stations, from conception to promotion to hitting the air,” said Frank Cicha, senior vice president of programming for Fox Television Stations. “It completely broke the mold. The show is now a proven winner, and we can’t wait to see it debut across the country next year.”

Fox’s owned and operated station group is comprised of 27 stations in 18 markets and covers nearly 37.34% of homes with television in the U.S.

“The Wendy Williams Show” will conclude its six-week preview this Friday. During the trial, it ran in New York (WNYW-TV), Los Angeles (KTTV-TV), Dallas (KDFW-TV) and Detroit (WJBK-TV).

Click to Read.

If you want to get a flavour of what Bill Strickland is about try these videos. There is only about 15 minutes worth in total.  And then please let me know what you think.

Bill talks about Frank Ross

Frank Lloyd Wright and the Power of Environment

'People are a function of their environment. You put people in a world class building and they behave like world class citizens. You put them in a prison and they behave like prisoners.'

The Culinary Programme at Manchester Bidwell

Dizzy Gillespie and all that jazz

Skoll, E-bay and Scaling Up

Bill talks about His Mission

A Wayne County Circuit Court judge ruled that embattled Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick can attend the Democratic National Convention in Denver despite having already spent time in jail for violating the travel restrictions placed on him by the court.
The Obama campaign, on the other hand, is hoping Kilpatrick will stay away. The mayor faces eight felony charges of conspiracy, perjury, obstruction of justice and misconduct in office over his testimony in a civil trial that revealed his affair with an employee as well as two felony counts of assault in a separate case.

Click to Read More.

Here is the site for more info:

http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/

It ain't easy.

When Whitireia Journalism School (in partnership with AUT, Canterbury Uni, Asia:NZ Foundation, the Human Rights Commission and the Ministry of Ethnic Affairs) launched the inaugural NZ Diversity Journalism Award earlier this year, we hoped to encourage news media to show how well, on occasion, diversity is reported.

My theory is the good work - and I see plenty of it - is ignored, while prominence is given by media watchers to the fallout from negative examples, such as the Clydesdale report debacle.

This has brutal irony, of course, given the media's natural attraction to reporting the negative: its own good work, when it happens in sensitive areas, goes under the radar.

An upshot, in my view, is editors grow sick of being hammered, and simply turn away from the condemnation offered by commentators, minority group leaders, academics, politicians and researchers.

We hoped, with this award (and accompanying workshop to be run by one of the world's leading authorities on reporting race and ethnicity, Arlene Morgan) they might take the chance to balance the books.

Some have, but only after an endless stream of reminders and much haranguing from me. As entries close this week, we have work from TV3, TV1, NZ Herald, Sunday Star-Times, Dominion Post, Dunedin Star,  the Listener, the Aucklander and others. Oddly, nothing yet from RadioNZ or Maori TV - or North & South.

In all, we've received about a dozen entries. Not much of a showing (in terms of numbers, not quality) from the outpourings of a $2billion industry feeling the effects of rapid diversification of the country's demographics.

However, I guess it's better than nothing (which is what we had two weeks ago), and hopefully we can do better next year.

The 10 best entrants will gather at the school on Monday, September 1, to participate in a workshop led by Arlene Morgan, who will deconstruct the work, as she and her colleagues at New York's Columbia Journalism School have done so successfully over the past nine years. The best entry will win its author Asia:NZ funding to work in Asia.

I thought about "Ten Years Gone" a lot over the weekend because I journeyed back to my hometown of Rockford, Illinois, to attend my 20-year high school reunion. Twenty years! Wow. In some ways they went by really fast. But if I'm honest about it, there were some really long days---long years---mixed in between my high school graduation and now. (For instance, I thought 1992 would never end.) Each season of life represents its own little eternity, I guess.

Anyway, it was good to see folks whom I hadn't seen for, like, 20 years. Old best friends, old girlfriends, old acquaintances I wish I'd gotten to know better back in the day. I'd never been to a class reunion before, so it was a somewhat surreal experience, like being handed a mirror where objects appear exactly as they look to the rest of the world. Seeing my peers from high school today gave me a glimpse of what I really look like. No longer can I carry on with the false notion that I still look like I did when I was 26. Finally, I understand why the twentysomething on the street addresses me as "Sir." Sometimes the truth hurts---as does my back and creaky knees. 

Actually, it was fun to see how we have all evolved and progressed over the years. We are now doctors, bankers, machinists, police officers, artists, sales execs, engineers, business analysts, editors, you name it. We have spouses and kids and mortgages. We really did grow up.

Sadly, at least two of our Class of '88 classmates had passed away. When you look at them in the yearbook, with those senior-year smiles, they seemed poised to live long, exciting lives. It's sobering to think that a few more of us will probably be missing by the 30-year reunion. But life goes on. 

Being apparently the only thing approximating a minister from my graduating class, I was given the honor of saying a prayer before the dinner. What a privilege! As I prayed, I was filled with joy and appreciation for each of the people in that room. I knew a few of the folks there from as far back as grade school and middle school. As I looked at them, some looking like more refined versions of their old high-school selves and others looking like totally different people, I was thankful for having had the chance to be touched by their lives. We were all so different, yet forever joined together by those exhilarating, intense, sometimes heartbreaking four years that we spent together at Auburn High two decades ago.

But does this rise in patriotism, assuming it exists, spur more xenophobia (distrust of outsiders)? Very similar to the assumption that in-group bonding and trust must come at the expense of out-group increased distrust. So many citizens and scholars assume some zero-sum relationship where bonding must be offset by less bridging. While we haven't done work on the Olympics, our general research of diversity and social capital shows that bonding and bridging are mildly positively related, not negatively related. In other words, those who trust or identify with Americans more doesn't necessarily entail a distrust or dislike of "outsiders".

Along these lines, I've been moved by images of pan-ethnic unity during the game (e.g., the Gerogian and the Russian pistol shooters who exchanged kisses after a match).

Some of the images are like the optical illusion of the outline of two faces and a vase. For example, the general embracing of the moving story of 21-year old first-time Olympic-gold US wrestler Henry Cejudo, the son of illegal immigrants who slept on the floor growing up and was proud enough to wrap himself in the US flag upon his victory; but even on this "feel good" story, there are rants of American nativists who want him deported). Nothing makes one more proud of that inclusive American spirit. (cue sarcastic music)

In the Michael Phelps relay team that had Cullen Jones, the African-American relay swimmer , or Raj Bhavsar (the Gujarati member of the surprisingly good American gymnastics team), is one impressed by the diversity, or by how largely white these teams are?

And are we more inclined during the Olympic games to feel our competitive edge on hyperdrive or reach out through common acts of kindness to help others? Let's hope the latter.

And in an interesting side note, the Washington Post reports that on a study that found bronze medalists were happier with their performance than silver medalists. A study found that "The silver medalists couldn't get the gold medalists out of their heads, whereas the bronze medalists compared themselves with athletes who didn't win anything." Silver medalists and those finishing fifth were, on average, equally happy. Brings to mind Dan Gilbert's talk on happiness.

The NY Times 36 Hours article series visited Minnesota's Twin Cities August 17th.

I'm not sure how many non-Minnesota readers I have out there, but I wanted to take a moment to supplement this article about the stuff there is to do in Minneapolis and St. Paul.  I would just like to clarify that it's not just giant cherries and posh night life.

A stereotype about giant cherries is probably a step up from the "hot-dish, snow, you betcha" one, but I think we can do better.  A friend from home (New York) said, "Let's face it.  It's all fly-over country."  Well, no, it's not that either.  I think what surprises people the most when I tell them about Minnesota is how many people don't just fly over it.

Minnesota has huge populations of immigrants, lately particularly from East Africa, Laos/Thailand, and increasingly Burma.  It doesn't really fit the generic stereotype of what Minnesota is like.  People I talk to from back home tend to be shocked that immigrants from such warm places would go to the desolate Midwestern tundra.  What they don't know is that Minnesota provides tons of support for immigrants and refugees, in part through state policies and programs, and in part through the extensive nonprofit sector we've got going here.

The presence of all of these people from all different places means that Minnesota, especially the Twin Cities metro, is a truly vibrant, diverse place.  We might have lost out on these newest members of our community if we didn't rise to the occasion and give them a hand.  I feel like nonprofits, by enabling people to stay here and get on their feet, have helped shape our fantastic cities in a profound way.  Very cool, very cool.

If you must fly over Minnesota, I suggest at least stopping by for some sambusa.

Initiative, creativity and passion are gifts.

They are benefactions that employees choose, day by day and moment by moment, to give or withhold.

They cannot be commanded.

Gary Hamel – The Future of Management

Nor can they be bought.

You can’t get these gifts from employees by challenging them to work harder.

Nor by exhorting them to 'beat the competition' or 'care for the customers'.

You will only get these gifts from employees when you give them a purpose that merits their best.