On leadership:
I hit the following poem from a (new-to-me) poet Krishin Rahi
in an unrelated academic weblog [see comments #7 and #8 on that blog]--
_______________________________________________
The villainy of our leaders
Or the leadership of the villains
Stretched the distance
Between the caravan and its destinationWe got those Captains
Who feigning the following of God
Lowered our life-boat
In the river of fire
--------------- Krishin Rahi
Sindhi poet Krishin Rahi (Translated Source: History of Sindhi Literature 1947-78: Popati R. Hiranandani; Anuradha Publications, Bombay, 1984; Page 218).
The text and the citation are provided in the link above, in comment #8.
A colleague to whom I sent this poetry responded--
Thank you. Very evocative poem.Not recognizing Sindhi reference, I googled it and discovered that Sindhi has been favored for literature and poetry because of its large vocabulary and number of sounds. Considering languages as conducive/not for writing in this way isn't something I've thought much about...
To me, the poem evokes the American (and even international) experience
with the leadership of the past decade.
Never in my life experience have we heard so much claimed religiosity
in political leadership. Today at water level it looks suspiciously smoky...
At Ball State University Wednesday 04 March 2009,
Thomas L. Friedman, “Hot, Flat, and Crowded”
Lecture at Ball State University
Friedman is here mainly presenting his book of the same title:
From the 17th section of my notes: "ET" = Energy Technology
17.3 ET is the next big thing; Jeff Immelt of GE says “if you want to be big, you’ve got to be big in something big”
17.4 “Green is the next great global industry” and will be the source of national power
17..5 “If you can name it, you can own it”
17.6 The enemies of ecology / green named it and won, reactionary language, antipatriotic, "vaguely European";
17.7 in face of those problems, “green is the new red, white and blue”
17.8 That’s why we need a global revolution
17.9 you don’t have a revolution where no on gets hurt; “everybody’s green?”
17.9.1 you’ll have a revolution when someone gets hurt; not physical; example—IT revolution;
“change or die” (ex: DEC, Burroughs, they died)
17.10 You’ll know the green revolution is done when the world “green” has gone
17.11 One word you must never use with “green revolution” and that’s “easy”