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Showing posts from January, 2011

The Playground and the End of Innocence

A recent reading presented a striking phrase. Moses was preparing the Israelites to go into Canaan, and he referred to “your children who do not know good from bad” ( Deuteronomy 1:39 ). Lots of people throughout history have tried to define this idea of when a child knows good from bad. Jews have bar mitzvahs for boys at age 13 and bat mitzvahs for girls at age 12  to announce that the child is now a son or daughter of the Torah. Some Christians have Confirmation classes about the same age in some traditions, while Roman Catholics confirm at the age of discretion, about age seven. Our church tradition is more of a sliding scale “age of accountability,” where each child is on more of a self-paced Montessori -like exploration until one day they awaken and know right from wrong. When this actually happens is not so apparent; well, at least until you take your children to the playground . Over the years, we often took our girls to playgrounds, and they never failed to go running toward

No Need to Arrive Two Hours Early Flying to Louisville

Three thirty flight. Didn't check departure terminal. Web site said A was for Continental Express . It is now two fifteen. Marcia lets me off at curb of Newark airport . Walk in and see line for check-in is all through the maze and down the corridor. Can't find self-service check-in kiosk. Gotta go to the bathroom BAD. Sign points downstairs. Can't think straight with full bladder. Ride down escalator and follow signs. Bathroom is farther away than expected. Go back upstairs at different escalator and see self-service check in. Get my boarding pass. Says "Gate C136." That's Terminal C. Yikes. Confirm with flight attendant. "Go downstairs to AirTrain and take it to Terminal C," she says. Of course I'm at wrong terminal. Two-thirty. Up the escalator with suitcase. Wait five minutes. AirTrain arrives. Get on with a chatty woman. "Don't your feet get cold wearing those shoes without socks?" she says to the young man with gray deck shoes

CEO Announces Kingdom of Darkness to Revise Strategy After Another Poor Quarterly Earnings Report

After several successive quarters of modest losses, Kingdom of Darkness (NYSE:KOD) Chairman and CEO Bill Z. Bub announced a two major new initiatives instituted across the enterprise aimed at increasing shareholder value. First, Bub announced the job title “manager” was reclassified from a salaried position to a combination salary and commission position. “Even though we had all of our managers read The Purpose Driven Life last year, we found that we still had to do something to fight the tendency of our middle management to be bloated and beaureaucratic, particular in the customer-facing portions of our business. By making sure they have some skin in the game with part of their salaries tied to performance, we believe our managers will become more productive. If not, we may have to bring in a consulting firm to help us streamine our processes.” Next, to make KOD more customer and family friendly, Bub indicated that they were eliminating the “demon” job title in favor of the friend