Notes of Concern…
…Jackson Blair
NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT?
As I write I have just read the following headlines on an online news service:
Iran test-fires short-range missiles...
'Could reach Israel'...
Revolutionary Guards begins war games...
Venezuela exploring uranium deposits with Russia...
When I was growing up, and throughout my years as a young adult, the world made regular attempts to encourage nuclear disarmament
The United States and the USSR worked to find ways to mutually lower the storehouse of nuclear weapons both nations possessed. And the nations with nuclear weapons worked very hard to make certain they did not proliferate, that other nations did not develop them.
It was pretty much agreed that nothing good could come from nuclear energy that was intended for wartime use. It was also agreed that many wonderful things could come from nuclear energy reserved for peacetime purposes. Therein was the problem.
The people who were against disarmament were concerned that we would be defenseless in a future encounter with a hostile nation that had nuclear weapons.
It was not popular to be against nuclear disarmament in those days.
Now we have by most accounts a nuclear capable Iran that is run by a nut case fanatic. We have a nuclear ambitious North Korea run by a similarly morally challenged dictator. Very recently we read in our newspapers that the third leg on the “outrageous” chair, Venezuela’s leader Hugo Chavez, had struck a deal to develop nuclear capability with the help of the Iranians and the Russians want to help the Iranians, the same Russians that used to be working with us to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
India has nuclear weapons and isn’t too fond of Pakistan. Pakistan is reported to have them, too, and wouldn’t mind rolling a few toward India if circumstances warranted. Everybody knows Iran wants to bomb Israel, all you have to do is read Ahmadinejad’s speeches in which he makes his intentions completely clear.
I think I will stop listing nations. It makes me uncomfortable.
These people hate us!
It might help if voters kept that in mind. Every time we select national leaders we need to understand clearly where they stand on our national defense.
Now after our efforts to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq made any such effort in another country the source of unending humor, we find the president announcing in Pittsburgh that not only do the Iranians have the capability to quickly develop nuclear bombs, they have been hiding their development efforts from the world in a secret cave.
No one is going to look for these weapons. The last leader that went looking for such weapons is widely considered to have been a fool. That was not lost on today’s leaders.
The United Nations has enacted so many sanctions against nations that do not play nice that they are pretty much out of ideas. There are not many more sanctions they can apply. They have used all the arrows in their quiver and may be considering adopting every mother’s favorite ploy: the “time out” punishment. In this approach, the UN can tell Ahmadinejad he has to take time out and site for a couple of weeks in a hotel in Jerusalem. Netanyahu will take his time out in Caracas. Hugo Chavez will spend his two weeks in Tehran. The Russian leader will spend his “time out” in Los Angeles.
During this time, the world will breath easily knowing that no nukes will be flying at those countries while they host the “time outs” of various leaders.
Mothers of the world have solved many problems. Maybe it is time to turn this one over to them
And as anyone who can read The Weekly Reader in grade school knows, the United Nations does not follow through on any of the penalties they threaten in these sanction decisions.
So here is the new world in which I find myself. Not one where the leaders of the U.S., Russia and China control the smaller countries in such a way that they can effectively make certain there is not a nuclear holocaust.
I live in a world where some of the craziest of the crazies not only have the weapons, and announce they have the weapons, and threaten to use the weapons, no threaten is not the verb, they promise they will use the weapons, and the world body designed to keep my world safe is totally impotent.
There will be different views on this.
My view is that the implosion of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the neutering of the United States Government as a result of the incursion into Iraq has opened Pandora’s box and we are marching steadily toward an abyss.
This nation must revisit the subject of what is required to protect the citizens from danger, internal and external, and take the action that is required to ensure that. The president took an oath to do that.
We live in a time when it is dangerous to trust the leaders of other lands, seriously dangerous to think naively about the intentions of other countries, and potentially fatal to be anything but vigilant.
If we fail to step up to the requirements of twenty first century life, our children will be living in a very different world from the one in which we grew up. And it will not be a pretty world. It will look a lot like what we see in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan on the news.
As Teddy Roosevelt so importantly warned, we can talk softly to power everywhere, but in the absence of a big stick no one is going to listen.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
CIVILITY
Notes of Concern…
...Jackson Blair
A Lack of Civility
This is a subject that has concerned me for some time. It has raised an ugly head again with the outburst of a South Carolina Congressman at President Barack Obama during the president’s speech to a joint session of Congress. As you know by now, he loudly said “that is a lie” in response to a statement made by the president.
Earlier, an official at The White House resigned because of the highly emotional and inflammatory remarks he had made, on many occasions and in many settings, over the years. He had signed a petition, which he later said he had not understood, asking for an investigation of the government relative to the planes that flew into the twin towers in New York. That was only one of his actions that raised questions as to his suitability to serve in the executive branch.
Then we were all treated to Serena Williams outburst on the courts of Ashe Stadium during the U.S. Open. Ms. Williams did not appreciate a call made by a line judge so she suggested she might like to stuff a tennis ball down the judge’s throat. Unfortunately for Ms. Williams, earlier in the match she had decided to do some damage to her tennis racket in a fit of anger and had received a warning. So this second offense cost her a chance to move on in the competition.
And finally Kanye West’s outburst at the music awards was witnessed through the medium of television all over the world.
I could probably fill up the paper with stories like these but let us look for a minute at just four incidents. We have an elected member of the U.S. Congress, a respected female athlete, a very successful musician and businessman, and a man appointed as an advisor to the president of the country. And all four behaved like undisciplined children.
The sadness in all of this is that we see it every day. We see it in the way someone speaks to the checkout clerk in the supermarket. We see it on television in the way people interact with one another. We see is in the way adult children treat their elderly parents. We see it when police officers use racial profiles, or teachers tell a student he is “dumb”.
When we go to the movie theater we see it in the vocabulary that defines a “hit” movie. There seems to be a corollary between the number of four letter words used to make the movie, the number of bloody and violent scenes and the number of Academy Awards a film receives.
When we were raising our children, one of the evaluations that occurred in preschool was “plays well with others.” You may remember that.
In America today not many people could get a high mark for “playing well with others.” We have ratcheted up our rhetoric and dumbed down our manners.
We need more civility in our common life.
We need to play better together.
It requires renewed effort from each of us.
...Jackson Blair
A Lack of Civility
This is a subject that has concerned me for some time. It has raised an ugly head again with the outburst of a South Carolina Congressman at President Barack Obama during the president’s speech to a joint session of Congress. As you know by now, he loudly said “that is a lie” in response to a statement made by the president.
Earlier, an official at The White House resigned because of the highly emotional and inflammatory remarks he had made, on many occasions and in many settings, over the years. He had signed a petition, which he later said he had not understood, asking for an investigation of the government relative to the planes that flew into the twin towers in New York. That was only one of his actions that raised questions as to his suitability to serve in the executive branch.
Then we were all treated to Serena Williams outburst on the courts of Ashe Stadium during the U.S. Open. Ms. Williams did not appreciate a call made by a line judge so she suggested she might like to stuff a tennis ball down the judge’s throat. Unfortunately for Ms. Williams, earlier in the match she had decided to do some damage to her tennis racket in a fit of anger and had received a warning. So this second offense cost her a chance to move on in the competition.
And finally Kanye West’s outburst at the music awards was witnessed through the medium of television all over the world.
I could probably fill up the paper with stories like these but let us look for a minute at just four incidents. We have an elected member of the U.S. Congress, a respected female athlete, a very successful musician and businessman, and a man appointed as an advisor to the president of the country. And all four behaved like undisciplined children.
The sadness in all of this is that we see it every day. We see it in the way someone speaks to the checkout clerk in the supermarket. We see it on television in the way people interact with one another. We see is in the way adult children treat their elderly parents. We see it when police officers use racial profiles, or teachers tell a student he is “dumb”.
When we go to the movie theater we see it in the vocabulary that defines a “hit” movie. There seems to be a corollary between the number of four letter words used to make the movie, the number of bloody and violent scenes and the number of Academy Awards a film receives.
When we were raising our children, one of the evaluations that occurred in preschool was “plays well with others.” You may remember that.
In America today not many people could get a high mark for “playing well with others.” We have ratcheted up our rhetoric and dumbed down our manners.
We need more civility in our common life.
We need to play better together.
It requires renewed effort from each of us.
Monday, September 21, 2009
THE DEATH OF PROMISE
Notes of Concern…
…..Jackson Blair
THE DEATH OF PROMISE
I watched the television with a knot in my stomach.
It showed surveillance camera footage of a happy and attractive young woman going to work in a laboratory building on the campus of one of the nation’s finest universities.
It wasn’t after dark. It wasn’t a holiday. It was just a normal day and the time on the camera read 10AM.
She walked with a happy sure step. After all, she was a young woman, capable and accomplished, soon to earn a PhD from Yale. She was engaged to a young man attending Columbia University in New York. In fact, in just a matter of days she would wed her young man.
The surveillance cameras did not get the chance to record her exit from the building. She never came out of that seemingly safe campus building, into which she walked in the broad daylight of a New Haven day, full of promise, excitement, and trying to get in a little last minute work.
We do not know what happened to her in that building. There were many others in the building. None of them admit to any knowledge of what happened to her, or even where she might have gone. All anyone knew was that she never went home.
All her fiancé knew was that on the day they were to be married he was told her body had been found. She had been strangled and stuffed into a wall in the basement of the building.
Gone was the hope, the excitement, the happiness and the promise.
In its place arrived fear, horror, death to dreams and a reminder that we are often not safe even in what we consider to be the safest of places.
It is every parent’s nightmare.
It is why we must be eternally vigilant not only for our own safety but for the safety of those we love and those with whom we work.
Yale is a sophisticated place. The building in which the woman worked could only be accessed with special swipe cards. Certain areas within the building could only be accessed with special swipe cards. Surveillance cameras were in place. People who worked there had photo ID’s.
To what end?
The fickle finger of fate pointed at young one young woman that awful day.
And now we will not know what she might have brought to the world around her, what accomplishment, what happiness, and what discovery.
All we know is that someone a lot less promising, a person with dark thoughts, someone who wanted to take something away, took the life of this beautiful young woman.
How terribly sad it is.
How awful things like this happen as often as they do.
Take care of yourself and those you love my friends. It can be dangerous “out there.”
…..Jackson Blair
THE DEATH OF PROMISE
I watched the television with a knot in my stomach.
It showed surveillance camera footage of a happy and attractive young woman going to work in a laboratory building on the campus of one of the nation’s finest universities.
It wasn’t after dark. It wasn’t a holiday. It was just a normal day and the time on the camera read 10AM.
She walked with a happy sure step. After all, she was a young woman, capable and accomplished, soon to earn a PhD from Yale. She was engaged to a young man attending Columbia University in New York. In fact, in just a matter of days she would wed her young man.
The surveillance cameras did not get the chance to record her exit from the building. She never came out of that seemingly safe campus building, into which she walked in the broad daylight of a New Haven day, full of promise, excitement, and trying to get in a little last minute work.
We do not know what happened to her in that building. There were many others in the building. None of them admit to any knowledge of what happened to her, or even where she might have gone. All anyone knew was that she never went home.
All her fiancé knew was that on the day they were to be married he was told her body had been found. She had been strangled and stuffed into a wall in the basement of the building.
Gone was the hope, the excitement, the happiness and the promise.
In its place arrived fear, horror, death to dreams and a reminder that we are often not safe even in what we consider to be the safest of places.
It is every parent’s nightmare.
It is why we must be eternally vigilant not only for our own safety but for the safety of those we love and those with whom we work.
Yale is a sophisticated place. The building in which the woman worked could only be accessed with special swipe cards. Certain areas within the building could only be accessed with special swipe cards. Surveillance cameras were in place. People who worked there had photo ID’s.
To what end?
The fickle finger of fate pointed at young one young woman that awful day.
And now we will not know what she might have brought to the world around her, what accomplishment, what happiness, and what discovery.
All we know is that someone a lot less promising, a person with dark thoughts, someone who wanted to take something away, took the life of this beautiful young woman.
How terribly sad it is.
How awful things like this happen as often as they do.
Take care of yourself and those you love my friends. It can be dangerous “out there.”
Sunday, September 13, 2009
SEXUAL ASSIGNMENT
Notes of Concern…
…Jackson Blair
SEXUAL ASSIGNMENT
Champion runner Caster Semenya from The Republic of South Africa is at the center of a gender controversy within the International Association of Athletics Federations.
Caster competes as a female athlete. She is very male in appearance and that caused demands for an investigation when she so completely defeated her opponents in competition.
It has been announced that tests show Caster to be a hermaphrodite, a person with sexual characteristics of both a male and a female. It is said she cannot have children, does not have a womb, and has internal male organs.
There are a lot of reasons people get upset about anything that smacks of cheating in the Olympics as well as in the International Association of Athletics Federations. I would count myself as one of them.
The Greeks saw sport as a pure thing. It was to be one person, unaided by drugs, competing simply with the gifts his body could put forward in the way of exercise and strategy and determination. It was all good. It was noble. It was a source of great pride for the individual and for the nation state.
Well, that does not accurately describe the Olympics of today or the other high level international competitions, like The World Athletics Championship in which Caster competed.
For years nations have taken young children from their homes and put them in special academies to “grow Olympians.” Other nations have aided and abetted questionable tactics employed by their Olympic teams.
Yet other nations actually punished Olympians if they did not perform adequately, most recently the infamous Hussein brothers in Iraq. The stories are many and they are all sordid.
It would be fair to assume that national pride has been the excuse for a great many changes in what the Greeks thought worthy of praise.
Countries regularly use what we would call “professional” talent when fielding some teams. “Amateur” is a very flexible designation these days in athletic speak!
So does Caster deserve to be thrown in with that group?
I think that remains to be seen, but I have some doubts.
When Caster was born in South Africa she faced many challenges, the least of which might have been whether she would ever compete in international athletic competition.
No one plucked her from her bassinette and sent her off to practice running for medals. She probably didn’t have a bassinette or any other western baby furniture.
That the doctors who treated her even knew she had internal male organs might be questioned. That she was treated by any doctor at birth is unlikely. Her delivery might well have been in the hands of a midwife.
The level of medical advice available to poor South Africans of Caster’s age was, at best, basic. MESAB (Medical Education for South African Blacks) is an organization that has for years tried to raise money to educate black doctors in South Africa, a place where 90% of the people were black but most of the doctors were white.
So Caster’s family saw female organs.
No doctor is reported to have discussed any ambivalence on that designation at the time.
Surprise. They raised her as a girl.
Certainly, as she aged it became obvious that she didn’t look very female. Nevertheless, she acted female, she saw herself as female, and she had no reason to believe she was not female.
Her birth situation brought her fame as an athlete. Her special combination of features, internal and external, made her very competitive against other girls. When she began to really excel in this arena, competitors began to question her right to be there.
At the time of writing this article, no credible charge has been leveled against anyone on the South African committee that they had any knowledge of her questionable body composition.
Perhaps it is fair to say that someone who has experienced this sort of birth confusion cannot be permitted to participate in international athletic games. There is no question she has an advantage over the female athletes and she is possibly not strong enough to compete against male athletes at this level.
However, is it not sad that this woman of Africa who went to the Games believing she was female and a pretty good athlete now stands unmasked before the world as neither female or male, that her family is ashamed and frightened, and that in a society that frowns on any sort of irregularity or deviation she is probably destined to live out her life as a bizarre twist of the natural order.
If she knew her sexuality when she entered the competition, then my concern is misplaced.
If the South African athletic committee knew or suspected, and did nothing to make a determination prior to the games, then my concern for what is happening to her is misplaced.
If she went to the games as an enthusiastic female member of the South African Athletic Team, and through the success of her athletic efforts she became a national story, the results of which were embarrassing and incredibly hurtful, then we should all be concerned as well as sympathetic.
The issue is not whether South Africa brings home a gold medal.
The issue is whether this young woman will suffer the rest of her life because of the insensitivity of the world and the fickleness of nature.
And the overriding issue for sport is whether some other young woman, who does not have a confused sexual identity, was robbed of her gold medal because of this tragedy.
This will not be seen as one of mankind’s finest hours.
…Jackson Blair
SEXUAL ASSIGNMENT
Champion runner Caster Semenya from The Republic of South Africa is at the center of a gender controversy within the International Association of Athletics Federations.
Caster competes as a female athlete. She is very male in appearance and that caused demands for an investigation when she so completely defeated her opponents in competition.
It has been announced that tests show Caster to be a hermaphrodite, a person with sexual characteristics of both a male and a female. It is said she cannot have children, does not have a womb, and has internal male organs.
There are a lot of reasons people get upset about anything that smacks of cheating in the Olympics as well as in the International Association of Athletics Federations. I would count myself as one of them.
The Greeks saw sport as a pure thing. It was to be one person, unaided by drugs, competing simply with the gifts his body could put forward in the way of exercise and strategy and determination. It was all good. It was noble. It was a source of great pride for the individual and for the nation state.
Well, that does not accurately describe the Olympics of today or the other high level international competitions, like The World Athletics Championship in which Caster competed.
For years nations have taken young children from their homes and put them in special academies to “grow Olympians.” Other nations have aided and abetted questionable tactics employed by their Olympic teams.
Yet other nations actually punished Olympians if they did not perform adequately, most recently the infamous Hussein brothers in Iraq. The stories are many and they are all sordid.
It would be fair to assume that national pride has been the excuse for a great many changes in what the Greeks thought worthy of praise.
Countries regularly use what we would call “professional” talent when fielding some teams. “Amateur” is a very flexible designation these days in athletic speak!
So does Caster deserve to be thrown in with that group?
I think that remains to be seen, but I have some doubts.
When Caster was born in South Africa she faced many challenges, the least of which might have been whether she would ever compete in international athletic competition.
No one plucked her from her bassinette and sent her off to practice running for medals. She probably didn’t have a bassinette or any other western baby furniture.
That the doctors who treated her even knew she had internal male organs might be questioned. That she was treated by any doctor at birth is unlikely. Her delivery might well have been in the hands of a midwife.
The level of medical advice available to poor South Africans of Caster’s age was, at best, basic. MESAB (Medical Education for South African Blacks) is an organization that has for years tried to raise money to educate black doctors in South Africa, a place where 90% of the people were black but most of the doctors were white.
So Caster’s family saw female organs.
No doctor is reported to have discussed any ambivalence on that designation at the time.
Surprise. They raised her as a girl.
Certainly, as she aged it became obvious that she didn’t look very female. Nevertheless, she acted female, she saw herself as female, and she had no reason to believe she was not female.
Her birth situation brought her fame as an athlete. Her special combination of features, internal and external, made her very competitive against other girls. When she began to really excel in this arena, competitors began to question her right to be there.
At the time of writing this article, no credible charge has been leveled against anyone on the South African committee that they had any knowledge of her questionable body composition.
Perhaps it is fair to say that someone who has experienced this sort of birth confusion cannot be permitted to participate in international athletic games. There is no question she has an advantage over the female athletes and she is possibly not strong enough to compete against male athletes at this level.
However, is it not sad that this woman of Africa who went to the Games believing she was female and a pretty good athlete now stands unmasked before the world as neither female or male, that her family is ashamed and frightened, and that in a society that frowns on any sort of irregularity or deviation she is probably destined to live out her life as a bizarre twist of the natural order.
If she knew her sexuality when she entered the competition, then my concern is misplaced.
If the South African athletic committee knew or suspected, and did nothing to make a determination prior to the games, then my concern for what is happening to her is misplaced.
If she went to the games as an enthusiastic female member of the South African Athletic Team, and through the success of her athletic efforts she became a national story, the results of which were embarrassing and incredibly hurtful, then we should all be concerned as well as sympathetic.
The issue is not whether South Africa brings home a gold medal.
The issue is whether this young woman will suffer the rest of her life because of the insensitivity of the world and the fickleness of nature.
And the overriding issue for sport is whether some other young woman, who does not have a confused sexual identity, was robbed of her gold medal because of this tragedy.
This will not be seen as one of mankind’s finest hours.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Keeping Up With Information
Notes of Concern…
…. Jackson Blair
KEEPING UP WITH NEW INFORMATION
As all the schools were opening these past few weeks, and I encountered students walking, driving or being driven to their schools, I could not help but think about how much they will learn and grow in the next nine months.
That got me to thinking about schools.
Many of us went to high school forty or fifty years ago. In order to dramatize my point, I want you to think back to your United States history classes.
You went to school for nine months. During that time you had a survey course on U.S. history somewhere along the line.
The current youngsters go to school for that same nine months. They encounter a survey course on U.S. history along the line.
But they are doing it forty or fifty years after some of you. And they are doing it in the same nine months! But they have 40-50 years more of history to cram into that nine months!
When I was in school we studied U.S. history up to the second World War. So I had nine months from the landing on Plymouth Rock to Harry Truman to learn U.S. history. Now we have added to that same course: the Korean conflict, the Vietnam War, planning and executing a landing on the moon, Desert Storm, the current Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts and so much more.
The current group of students learns not only about George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams and the founders, as well as all the presidents and vice presidents and political movements since 1776 until 1952, but they now study Eisenhower, J.F.Kennedy, L.B.Johnson, R.M.Nixon, G.R.Ford, J.E.Carter, R.W.Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, W.J.Clinton, G.W.Bush and B.H.Obama.
They undertake to study so much more than we faced, and to accomplish it in the same period of time.
Obviously, something has to give!
I don’t intend to even try to get into how much more science, math, music and other areas of study have increased in their amount of knowledge over this same time period and subsequently how much more there is for our children to learn.
I do remember reading once, and I wish I could remember where so I could cite it for you, that within ten years of graduating from some colleges and universities, in certain specific fields of study, the material is outdated in a decade. In other words, without continuing education and constant updating of knowledge, your college education could be of little help to you later in life.
Rapid advancements in technology as well as new ways to deliver information has given today’s students an incredible amount of information. It has also required that they become life long learners.
Every student needs to know how to learn because once he leaves the comfort of the classroom, he must continue learning through his adult life if he is to succeed.
The way certain surgeries were done twenty years ago is no longer applicable. If the doctor who did surgery that way has not kept up with advancements in his field, you certainly don’t want him as your surgeon.
The medicines a pharmacist might recommend for a specific ailment today would be very different from the recommendations he might have made a decade ago (right after he got out of the university!).
The fellow who could fix the Ford Fairlane or the Buick LeSabre down at your local garage had better have been going to school or reading up on the automotive manuals. The last time I took my car to the garage the mechanic hooked up a laptop, laid it on my fender, and got all the readings he needed to know what to do.
Life is very fast paced. It is no longer enough to have attended school and earned a degree or two. Unless you have a commitment to continue to learn, the world will be leaving you behind.
The best thing we can tell our children is to be inquisitive, to be flexible, to learn to love to read, and to always look for new ways to do things.
In fact, that is not such bad advice for the rest of us, too.
…. Jackson Blair
KEEPING UP WITH NEW INFORMATION
As all the schools were opening these past few weeks, and I encountered students walking, driving or being driven to their schools, I could not help but think about how much they will learn and grow in the next nine months.
That got me to thinking about schools.
Many of us went to high school forty or fifty years ago. In order to dramatize my point, I want you to think back to your United States history classes.
You went to school for nine months. During that time you had a survey course on U.S. history somewhere along the line.
The current youngsters go to school for that same nine months. They encounter a survey course on U.S. history along the line.
But they are doing it forty or fifty years after some of you. And they are doing it in the same nine months! But they have 40-50 years more of history to cram into that nine months!
When I was in school we studied U.S. history up to the second World War. So I had nine months from the landing on Plymouth Rock to Harry Truman to learn U.S. history. Now we have added to that same course: the Korean conflict, the Vietnam War, planning and executing a landing on the moon, Desert Storm, the current Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts and so much more.
The current group of students learns not only about George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams and the founders, as well as all the presidents and vice presidents and political movements since 1776 until 1952, but they now study Eisenhower, J.F.Kennedy, L.B.Johnson, R.M.Nixon, G.R.Ford, J.E.Carter, R.W.Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, W.J.Clinton, G.W.Bush and B.H.Obama.
They undertake to study so much more than we faced, and to accomplish it in the same period of time.
Obviously, something has to give!
I don’t intend to even try to get into how much more science, math, music and other areas of study have increased in their amount of knowledge over this same time period and subsequently how much more there is for our children to learn.
I do remember reading once, and I wish I could remember where so I could cite it for you, that within ten years of graduating from some colleges and universities, in certain specific fields of study, the material is outdated in a decade. In other words, without continuing education and constant updating of knowledge, your college education could be of little help to you later in life.
Rapid advancements in technology as well as new ways to deliver information has given today’s students an incredible amount of information. It has also required that they become life long learners.
Every student needs to know how to learn because once he leaves the comfort of the classroom, he must continue learning through his adult life if he is to succeed.
The way certain surgeries were done twenty years ago is no longer applicable. If the doctor who did surgery that way has not kept up with advancements in his field, you certainly don’t want him as your surgeon.
The medicines a pharmacist might recommend for a specific ailment today would be very different from the recommendations he might have made a decade ago (right after he got out of the university!).
The fellow who could fix the Ford Fairlane or the Buick LeSabre down at your local garage had better have been going to school or reading up on the automotive manuals. The last time I took my car to the garage the mechanic hooked up a laptop, laid it on my fender, and got all the readings he needed to know what to do.
Life is very fast paced. It is no longer enough to have attended school and earned a degree or two. Unless you have a commitment to continue to learn, the world will be leaving you behind.
The best thing we can tell our children is to be inquisitive, to be flexible, to learn to love to read, and to always look for new ways to do things.
In fact, that is not such bad advice for the rest of us, too.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
TRAVELERS' CHEQUES ! HIGHWAY ROBBERY !
Would you ever give your bank or a finance company money to use if they paid no interest to you for the use of your money?
Never? No way?
I hear a collective “No” coming from my readers.
But most of you do (or did)!
It happened when you were focused on something else and you were paying attention to the service you wanted. We all love something that is easy, completely safe, and helpful.
Would any of you give your money to a bank or finance company, interest free, and never ask for it back?
Some of you do (or did)!
Today’s column deals with a bitter pill, but perhaps it will go down easier if you know I was (but not now) right in there with you.
In my career I did a great deal of travel within the U.S. and around the world. When I was younger I was told never to carry cash. I was encouraged to buy Traveler’s Checks (or Cheques as they like to call them to make them sound more sophisticated.)
In this transaction you would go to a bank or finance company and you would buy checks issued by them. They were very official. You had to sign them in the presence of an official and then they would give you a little piece of paper that listed the serial numbers on your checks.
You were told to keep the serial listings separate from the actual checks. That way, if the checks were stolen all you had to do was call the bank for finance company and they would, without question, refund your money.
What a deal!!!
You envisioned yourself riding a gondola in Venice and some guy grabbing your wallet, or purse, and taking off with all your money.
Maybe you were walking on The Great Wall of China and your wallet fell out of your pocket! But, aha, you were smart so all you lost were your Travelers Checks.
You would call the 800 number and your money would be replaced.
You were able to summon these dreams about the Greek Isles, and other exotic locations because they were in all the advertisements on television, paid for by the Travelers Check issuing organizations.
Petty thieves, robbers and muggers beware! You cannot cash the checks you stole because you cannot duplicate the signature and you do not have the proper ID.
How could you lose?
You could travel with an air of invincibility. You would never be at risk. And, in a way, you were helping make a life of crime more difficult!
But friends, some would argue that the real robbers, muggers and petty thieves were those who were selling you the Travelers Checks.
Let us consider this scenario. You are going to Europe and you want to have about $5000 in cash for emergencies. You amble down to the appropriate seller and buy 10 Travelers Checks in $500 dominations. You sign them in front of the seller. You get the serial number slip and you get your checks in a nice little plastic wallet. Voila! Transaction complete. You thank the seller and you depart feeling very safe and secure.
Now this is what really happened. You gave the seller $5000 of your money. The seller gave you some nicely decorated pieces of paper not issued by the U.S. Government, but by the seller’s employer. They look official. They look legal. They look safe.
They are official, legal and safe. But only if used properly.
From the minute you left the seller, the seller’s company, at a profit, was now investing your money. They were lending it to others and getting paid for it.
No matter when you return from your vacation, and assuming you can find all those pieces of paper, and you go to the seller and ask for your money, they will happily let you sign each check and they will give you your money back. What they will not do is thank you for letting them make money on your money while you were away.
This is fine to a point. So you didn’t earn any interest while you traveled but you had the security of knowing should you be robbed, or simply foolish, your money would be there for you when you got back home.
Now readers, how many people who travel get robbed? What percent would you guess? Not very many people. So the seller who gave you the checks doesn’t have to pony up any money very often. And when they do, it is a very small percentage of what they made on all those free loans provided by travelers the world over.
And even when you get robbed, the travelers check company loses nothing. All you lost were pieces of paper. They simply give you your own money back, not a dime of their money.
When the thief tries to cash the travelers checks he stole from you the people he encounters simply refuse to pay because clearly it is not you, nor is it your signature.
It me repeat this important lesson: the company who sold you the checks, and to whom you gave an interest free loan, and who made money on your money while you were vacationing, cannot lose in this deal! Foolproof! Cunning! Brilliant!
The situation gets a little sticky when we remember that in the early years of issuing travelers checks, you actually did pay a small fee for your checks. In those days, everybody paid a fee for their checks and then loaned the seller their money for free. In those days, the sellers of the checks were really laughing all the way to the bank, or maybe they were the bank.
The customer paid them to take their money interest free.
I think it was about this time that old P.T. Barnum talked about “one being born every minute.”
Why am I writing about this. Well, I was one of those folks who returned from a trip and just kept some of his travelers’ checks for the next trip. Into the drawer with the passport they went and out they would come the next time I traveled.
It was simply easier than running to a seller every time I wanted to travel and going through the clerical stuff all over again.
As fate would have it, I often couldn’t find the travelers’ checks when I needed them and would buy others anyway. So over a period of decades a person could accumulate a number of unspent checks.
And don’t forget, in this scenario the organization that sold you the checks, anticipating using your money to make money for a week or two, has now had the use of your money for months, or years.
This practice, not limited to me, gave rise to the idea of Bank Holidays! Can you even envision how much money was rolling around in vaults that belonged to travelers who never claimed their cash?
One day I decided that since they had a record of every travelers’ check I ever bought because, remember, they were going to give me my money back, and that they had taken down my social security number when I bought the checks, I felt certain they had a computerized record of every single one of those babies I had purchased and could tell me which ones were still outstanding.
If they could identify which of my travelers checks were still outstanding, and if those checks had been therefore lost and never cashed, it should be a simple effort to now reimburse me for all the free money I gave them and never spent or asked for back. The important part of this idea is that I would be asking them to give me back the money that I gave them.
Nope.
The specific company I used wrote me a very fine letter saying they didn’t keep any information, especially not social security numbers (then why did they collect that information???) and unless I could actually produce the check there would be no refund because they simply had no way of knowing how much money I might have given them or how many checks I might have purchased.
Accounting 101! I buy their checks. They write down the numbers on the checks and they take my personal information. They take my social security number.
Accounting 102! I cash some of those checks on my trip. They pay those checks to whatever hotel or restaurant accepted them.
Accounting 103! How could they not know which ones were not cashed and have a record of who has them (ME) and how to find me?
Profit 101! If they hold me fully and solely responsible for producing those pieces of paper that I foolishly or accidentally have misplaced, they get to keep my money. Free.
Philosophy 101! Figure out how many million people bought travelers checks. Figure out how few had them stolen. Subtract out the folks who went right to the bank and cashed in their checks when they returned from their trip. You will still have a very huge number of people who either forgot about it, kept the checks for a future trip that never happened, or who have secured those safe pieces of paper away for the day the banks fail or the government falls (although one would wonder who would be redeeming travelers checks in that instance.)
Statistics indicate, reliably, that there are billions of dollars in play through the travel check business. Why do you suppose the finance companies did away with the fee for travelers checks?
Theology 101! Once you find out how many people are willing to give you their money for free,
why do anything to discourage them from doing so. So they got rid of the fees. There is plenty of profit to go around without charging fees that might discourage folks.
I am not discouraging anyone from using travelers’ checks.
I am encouraging everyone to cash in unused travelers checks immediately on return from vacation.
I am congratulating finance institutions on discovering this incredible source of profit.
Never? No way?
I hear a collective “No” coming from my readers.
But most of you do (or did)!
It happened when you were focused on something else and you were paying attention to the service you wanted. We all love something that is easy, completely safe, and helpful.
Would any of you give your money to a bank or finance company, interest free, and never ask for it back?
Some of you do (or did)!
Today’s column deals with a bitter pill, but perhaps it will go down easier if you know I was (but not now) right in there with you.
In my career I did a great deal of travel within the U.S. and around the world. When I was younger I was told never to carry cash. I was encouraged to buy Traveler’s Checks (or Cheques as they like to call them to make them sound more sophisticated.)
In this transaction you would go to a bank or finance company and you would buy checks issued by them. They were very official. You had to sign them in the presence of an official and then they would give you a little piece of paper that listed the serial numbers on your checks.
You were told to keep the serial listings separate from the actual checks. That way, if the checks were stolen all you had to do was call the bank for finance company and they would, without question, refund your money.
What a deal!!!
You envisioned yourself riding a gondola in Venice and some guy grabbing your wallet, or purse, and taking off with all your money.
Maybe you were walking on The Great Wall of China and your wallet fell out of your pocket! But, aha, you were smart so all you lost were your Travelers Checks.
You would call the 800 number and your money would be replaced.
You were able to summon these dreams about the Greek Isles, and other exotic locations because they were in all the advertisements on television, paid for by the Travelers Check issuing organizations.
Petty thieves, robbers and muggers beware! You cannot cash the checks you stole because you cannot duplicate the signature and you do not have the proper ID.
How could you lose?
You could travel with an air of invincibility. You would never be at risk. And, in a way, you were helping make a life of crime more difficult!
But friends, some would argue that the real robbers, muggers and petty thieves were those who were selling you the Travelers Checks.
Let us consider this scenario. You are going to Europe and you want to have about $5000 in cash for emergencies. You amble down to the appropriate seller and buy 10 Travelers Checks in $500 dominations. You sign them in front of the seller. You get the serial number slip and you get your checks in a nice little plastic wallet. Voila! Transaction complete. You thank the seller and you depart feeling very safe and secure.
Now this is what really happened. You gave the seller $5000 of your money. The seller gave you some nicely decorated pieces of paper not issued by the U.S. Government, but by the seller’s employer. They look official. They look legal. They look safe.
They are official, legal and safe. But only if used properly.
From the minute you left the seller, the seller’s company, at a profit, was now investing your money. They were lending it to others and getting paid for it.
No matter when you return from your vacation, and assuming you can find all those pieces of paper, and you go to the seller and ask for your money, they will happily let you sign each check and they will give you your money back. What they will not do is thank you for letting them make money on your money while you were away.
This is fine to a point. So you didn’t earn any interest while you traveled but you had the security of knowing should you be robbed, or simply foolish, your money would be there for you when you got back home.
Now readers, how many people who travel get robbed? What percent would you guess? Not very many people. So the seller who gave you the checks doesn’t have to pony up any money very often. And when they do, it is a very small percentage of what they made on all those free loans provided by travelers the world over.
And even when you get robbed, the travelers check company loses nothing. All you lost were pieces of paper. They simply give you your own money back, not a dime of their money.
When the thief tries to cash the travelers checks he stole from you the people he encounters simply refuse to pay because clearly it is not you, nor is it your signature.
It me repeat this important lesson: the company who sold you the checks, and to whom you gave an interest free loan, and who made money on your money while you were vacationing, cannot lose in this deal! Foolproof! Cunning! Brilliant!
The situation gets a little sticky when we remember that in the early years of issuing travelers checks, you actually did pay a small fee for your checks. In those days, everybody paid a fee for their checks and then loaned the seller their money for free. In those days, the sellers of the checks were really laughing all the way to the bank, or maybe they were the bank.
The customer paid them to take their money interest free.
I think it was about this time that old P.T. Barnum talked about “one being born every minute.”
Why am I writing about this. Well, I was one of those folks who returned from a trip and just kept some of his travelers’ checks for the next trip. Into the drawer with the passport they went and out they would come the next time I traveled.
It was simply easier than running to a seller every time I wanted to travel and going through the clerical stuff all over again.
As fate would have it, I often couldn’t find the travelers’ checks when I needed them and would buy others anyway. So over a period of decades a person could accumulate a number of unspent checks.
And don’t forget, in this scenario the organization that sold you the checks, anticipating using your money to make money for a week or two, has now had the use of your money for months, or years.
This practice, not limited to me, gave rise to the idea of Bank Holidays! Can you even envision how much money was rolling around in vaults that belonged to travelers who never claimed their cash?
One day I decided that since they had a record of every travelers’ check I ever bought because, remember, they were going to give me my money back, and that they had taken down my social security number when I bought the checks, I felt certain they had a computerized record of every single one of those babies I had purchased and could tell me which ones were still outstanding.
If they could identify which of my travelers checks were still outstanding, and if those checks had been therefore lost and never cashed, it should be a simple effort to now reimburse me for all the free money I gave them and never spent or asked for back. The important part of this idea is that I would be asking them to give me back the money that I gave them.
Nope.
The specific company I used wrote me a very fine letter saying they didn’t keep any information, especially not social security numbers (then why did they collect that information???) and unless I could actually produce the check there would be no refund because they simply had no way of knowing how much money I might have given them or how many checks I might have purchased.
Accounting 101! I buy their checks. They write down the numbers on the checks and they take my personal information. They take my social security number.
Accounting 102! I cash some of those checks on my trip. They pay those checks to whatever hotel or restaurant accepted them.
Accounting 103! How could they not know which ones were not cashed and have a record of who has them (ME) and how to find me?
Profit 101! If they hold me fully and solely responsible for producing those pieces of paper that I foolishly or accidentally have misplaced, they get to keep my money. Free.
Philosophy 101! Figure out how many million people bought travelers checks. Figure out how few had them stolen. Subtract out the folks who went right to the bank and cashed in their checks when they returned from their trip. You will still have a very huge number of people who either forgot about it, kept the checks for a future trip that never happened, or who have secured those safe pieces of paper away for the day the banks fail or the government falls (although one would wonder who would be redeeming travelers checks in that instance.)
Statistics indicate, reliably, that there are billions of dollars in play through the travel check business. Why do you suppose the finance companies did away with the fee for travelers checks?
Theology 101! Once you find out how many people are willing to give you their money for free,
why do anything to discourage them from doing so. So they got rid of the fees. There is plenty of profit to go around without charging fees that might discourage folks.
I am not discouraging anyone from using travelers’ checks.
I am encouraging everyone to cash in unused travelers checks immediately on return from vacation.
I am congratulating finance institutions on discovering this incredible source of profit.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)