MEXICO CITY — President Felipe Calderon accepted the resignation Thursday of an attorney general known mainly for his weak image in a country fighting a drug war and nominated his top organized crime prosecutor as a successor, the first woman to hold the post if she is approved.
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Mexico’s attorney general quits, President Calderon nominates first woman for post
Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer.
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Syria’s ‘reformer’
By David Allen As I continue to explore how best to coach executives dealing with the slings and arrows of their outrageous fortunes, my solution du jour is simple: optimize how you deal with surprise. This holds true for C-level folks, their assistants, their companies, their kids, their housekeeper, and anyone else you’d like to throw into the equation. Not to belittle the recent tragic events in Japan with an obvious metaphor, but you can bet something is coming toward you, still unseen, that will shake whatever structures you have established in your psyche and your world — your priorities, projects, and plans. It will be input that must be incorporated into the totality of your life and work. It will cause you to have to reshuffle many of the meaningful components of your day-to-day experience, as well as triggering realizations of meaningfulness about which you were previously unaware. You will have to recalibrate your significances and form a new gestalt. You’ll need to get your new act together. Your take on this change can range from exhilaration to devastation. But no matter what emotion you have along that spectrum, there are two major ingredients for an optimal response: (1) actively focused engagement, and (2) having a clear deck. This is common knowledge and practice for good sailors. When I acquired my first boat, a veteran skipper told me something very useful. He said, “If someone on your boat is about to hurl, give them the helm!” Even better for equilibrium than just a visual focus on the horizon is to actually take command of the vessel. The driver in a car never gets carsick. Surprise will rock the boat, so as soon as you can, grab the wheel. A second factor, however, is equally critical for stability — no residue. If you’ve ever been on a sailboat in an unexpected squall, you’ll know that “ship shape” is not an idle phrase. One loose, unnecessary, or out-of-place piece of gear can ruin your day, if not your boat. Martial artists train to clear their mind. If you are jumped by four people in a dark alley, you don’t want a thousand unprocessed e-mails lurking in your psyche. When I’m not doing anything else, I’m cleaning up my backlog to zero — e-mails, paper, notes, thoughts — all the collected and self-generated inputs that demand attention. There’s a surprise coming toward me, too. David Allen is the author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity and other books, and Founder/CEO of the David Allen Company.
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Dealing With Bad Surprises
The U.S. has come under fire after announcing a pullback of strike aircraft when NATO takes command of Libyan operations. (March 31)
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U.S. withdrawing strike aircraft from Libya
The Washington Ballet will dance on the Turkish Riviera and bring a bit of Lady Gaga into the Kennedy Center in its 2011-12 season, the company has announced. Among the highlights are its first overseas tour in six years, a world-premiere production of “Alice (in Wonderland),” a program devoted to Twyla Tharp in honor of the choreographer’s 70th birthday and a run of “Nutcrackers” saluting the 50th anniversary of the company’s first production of the holiday staple.
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Washington Ballet to premiere new ‘Alice’ next season
I was prepared to meet Rep. Michele Bachmann’s media image — extreme and excitable. After all, if you knew the three-term congresswoman only from her duels with Chris Matthews or her firebrand speeches to the base, you would be convinced she is sort of an overcaffeinated Sarah Palin. But the comparison to another conservative woman is both unfair (Is Mike Pence compared to Jim DeMint?) and inapt. If you thought George W. Bush was “misunderestimated,” spend some time with Bachmann.
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Interview with Rep. Michele Bachmann (Part 1)
Post photographer Michael S. Williamson travels the country to meet people affected by the recession.
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Recession Road: Signs of hope
FULL REPORT | Looking back and ahead after chaotic quarter — not a bad thing for oil firms.
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Quarterly Investment Guide
Fans brave cold and rain at Nationals Park to savor their first peanuts and Cracker Jacks of the 2011 season. (March 31)
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Low temperatures, high spirits at Nats Opening Day
Just weeks after becoming President Obama’s top outside adviser on reducing joblessness, General Electric chief executive Jeff Immelt faced two major public relations crises.
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Immelt under heat while addressing GE taxes, nuclear scare
An expert advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that there was not enough scientific evidence linking artificial colors with hyperactivity to warrant a warning label or new restrictions on thousands of processed foods colored by chemicals.
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FDA panel rejects need for warnings on food coloring
The Pentagon’s top officials say nations other than the U.S. need to step up if Libya’s rebels want equipment and training, vowing that U.S. troops won’t get involved on the ground. (March 31)
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Pentagon calls for limited Libya rebel aid
Bronx Zoo Director Jim Breheny confirmed that the poisonous Egyptian cobra snake missing for seven days was found in the zoo’s reptile house. (March 31)
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Missing cobra found at Bronx Zoo
By Kentaro Toyama I go back and forth on whether the topic of virtue is worth a public airing . After all, much of it is obvious, it’s not new in and of itself, and it’s too easy to slip into glib, preachy generalizations. It was a challenge to keep things interesting for the last few days of guest blogging. I’m not sure I succeeded entirely, but some very kind feedback from readers has been helpful to keep me going. (This has been a great exercise for gaining some personal humility; I don’t know how people like Jim do this at high quality day after day!) Like everything else, there are cultural differences in what is considered worthwhile in the public sphere. Japan, for example, has a high tolerance for pushing virtue. You can see it in the small details. For example, it’s common to see traffic signs with sincere admonitions to show courtesy to other drivers or to keep the roads clean. The equivalent signage in the United States has to appeal instead to humor or threats: “Litter and it will hurt: $316 fine.” In a style of karate I used to practice, every class would end with a recitation of dojo principles. The first one was “Seek perfection of character.” That wouldn’t happen in a boxing studio. In India, virtues come up in discussions of spirituality. Newspapers with broad readership have daily columns dedicated to it [for example, at right], and the writers, regardless of their faith, draw from a variety of traditions to make their point: Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, or secular humanist. People also readily engage in the topic. Here, for example, is the opening line of a real email that I once received from a man with a degree in electrical engineering from one of the world-renowned Indian Institutes of Technology. It was sent out to a mailing list of people interested in environmental issues: Buddha, one day, was in deep thought about worldly activities and the ways of instilling goodness in human beings. If you’re anything like me, you suppressed a chuckle when you read this, or maybe you didn’t even bother to suppress. I certainly chortled. Goodness in human beings?! Was he for real? It’s not clear, though, why this elicits a laugh. Don’t we want goodness in human beings? Yet, something about the sheer earnestness collides with what must be an entrenched cynicism. I can think of at least three kinds of cynicism that apply. First, there’s what might be called biological cynicism — a belief that human nature is fixed or sufficiently difficult to change that the effort isn’t worthwhile. We can manipulate people’s behaviors, but we can’t expect people to change intrinsically. Biological cynicism is built into influential models of policy. For example, classical economics models people as selfish, rational agents and stresses the importance of incentives like money. Behavioral economics has cast doubt on the rational-agent model, and economists readily concede that money isn’t the only incentive — people are said to have different preferences — yet when policy-makers get down to business, money is the ultimate metric and often the favored instrument. For most people, though, money is neither the only concern nor the primary concern. The best evidence for this is economists themselves: Here are a set of smart people who are the world’s experts on money. If economists were exemplars of their own models, there shouldn’t be economists off of Wall Street. What’s more, preferences evolve, often accompanied by new virtues. Among economists I know who’ve held jobs in banking and finance, several have quit to pursue less lucrative careers, citing desires for more autonomy, intellectual reward, family time, or social impact, all of which reveal additional virtues beyond industriousness. Of course, it’s not just economists. People can and do change. Second, there’s a secular cynicism, the repulsion that some people have for anything that smells of religion. Virtue reeks of it. If you have a disinclination for organized religion, it doesn’t help that churchgoers embrace a rhetoric of virtues or that lists of virtues often include traits like chastity. Still, virtues can have value independent of a religious framework. A consequentialist definition specifically avoids any: virtues can be defined as character traits that lead to good consequences. God need not be involved, and virtues can be updated for the times. Instead of temperance, charity, and prudence, there’s self-control, compassion, and wisdom. Real virtues have a place regardless of faith. Third, there’s intellectual cynicism. Intellectual cynicism is hard to pinpoint, but I think it’s related to the high-school desire to be cool rather than good. The essence of cool is rebellion and subversion, and it’s difficult to be either through goodness. No one wants to be a Goody Two-Shoes. Intellectual cynicism might be the most destructive of the three forms of cynicism, because it doesn’t so much deny virtue or its possibility as much as to mock it. And mockery is a powerful social force. It’s probably why in spite of myself, I laughed at the email about instilling goodness, and why writing these posts has involved a cycle of cringing and revising. Cynicism feeds itself. If we don’t think greater virtue can be fostered, then we won’t try, and if we don’t try, the cynical side of us will be proven right. Is it worth trying to pick ourselves up out of the cynicism? America’s founding fathers were brilliant realists by all accounts, but they weren’t cynical, and they didn’t mock virtue. For example, in arguing for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, James Madison said, “Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks–no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.” (Recall Confucius ?) Benjamin Franklin lists thirteen virtues in his autobiography and goes on to describe a weekly report card of virtues he made to keep tabs on his progress [at left]. Nothing could be nerdier! Of course, we live in a different world with a different style. When I talk about the importance of human intent and capacity to people interested in technology and development, I’m often asked, “I believe your thesis, but what can we do about it, if technology isn’t the solution?” In the next post, I’ll suggest a few possibilities. Kentaro Toyama is working on a book tentatively titled A Different Kind of Growth: Wisdom in Global Development . Follow him on Twitter .
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Why Can’t We Talk About Virtue? Entrenched Cynicism
Mexico’s attorney general quits, President Calderon nominates first woman for post
Thursday, March 31st, 2011
