While Bookjive’s commitment includes combating illiteracy, I missed to post a blog on this special date!
September 8 was announced as International Literacy Day by UNESCO to stress the importance of literacy all over the world as it improves individual development and reduce poverty.
Are you one of those who yawns at the site of any history book? How much do you really know about your country’s past? Do you know what happened before that placed your country in it’s current situation? What did your ancestor’s do? Basic questions about history but have you asked yourself - How much do you really know about your country?
I found this site that is really interesting - American Civic Literacy. The youth represents majority of US population and it’s really astounding that when it comes to American history, the literacy rate is way below 50% out of 100%.
In my own opinion, I think the fast movement of the technological world and the emergence of Web 2.0 stole almost everyone’s attention. Their interests are now more on improving technology for their own future instead of tracing their country’s founding principles and sacrifices. After all, creating their own mark today means contributing to their country’s history.
It’s raining once again and what are the most loved pastimes during days like this? Cuddling with one you love or holding a beautiful book! Well, cuddling is not a possibility at this point in time so I guess I’ll just make do with the other choice - keeping book as my company. Let’s see, there’s Danielle Steel and Sidney Sheldon for family and heart matters; Mitch Albom for perspectives and inspiration, Og Mandino, Stephen Covey. Tom Clancy and Dan Brown are also favorites… Hmmm… too many authors, too many books, so little time. The choices are definitely endless. Guess I’ll just grab something to eat first before I pick one by… I’ll eat first 
My word for the week is genetics (closely followed by scared silly, but that’s for later). Gregor Mendel spent years in meticulous research to provide the world with his theories on genetics, dominant and recessive genes and the consequences of genetic interplay when same mixes with same. I could have spent my whole life being resigned to mousy brown hair, muddy green eyes, and a short stature, the consequences of sharing DNA with parents who are tall, blond, and brown eyed. I am the youngest of five children, and while you can see a definitive family resemblance, my four older siblings are certainly my parents’ children. I have two theories on this. First, my Mom had too many martinis with the guy across the street, or more realistically, I was the last combination of two exceedingly tired parents and thus received the dregs of genetic material.
I stick by the latter because, of all my family, I seem to have inherited every genetically linked disease that ever poked its nasty little head into my family tree. The difficult part of accepting this is that each separate disease does not live comfortably with the others. As a rheumatoid arthritic, my joints are in a constant state of destruction and I must take drugs to counteract that destruction. These drugs suck the calcium from my system and thus aggravate my inherited tendency towards osteoporosis. Large amounts of calcium supplements aggravate my kidney’s inherited tendency towards kidney stones. Many episodes of passing these stones (and if you have never experienced that, you will never know what it feels like to be drawn and quartered, disemboweled, and burned at the stake!) necessitates the need for even more drugs that interfere with the properties of all the other drugs I must ingest. Being a diabetic just complicates the issue even further.
I spent a few days this week being evaluated for joint replacement. It is a remarkable experience having several therapists bend you, poke you, stretch you, and throw 30 pound medicine balls at you and have several doctors stand by to ask you “How much did that hurt? On a scale of 1 to 10?” Mmmmmm. I thought of several answers my mother would be shocked to hear. In the end, the evaluation was that I was in desperate need of joint replacement. After another few hours of having the procedures explained to me by the physicians and a few hours spent with a psychologist to ascertain whether or not I fully understood what was going to happen and how I felt about it, I settled into my 2 hour drive home with only one clear thought—“Yeah. Right.”
I am a fairly eclectic reader, but truly enjoy science fiction and am thrilled to pieces that this genre has become so popular in media during the last few decades. Many books and movies were written and made in the ‘pulp fiction’ days of the 1930’s through the 60’s although all were considered lowbrow. Even the original Star Trek, which lasted only 3 seasons, was considered unsophisticated and popular with only a few fanatics. Then came Star Wars—a big screen, big money, action-packed, sci-fi adventure comic book that took the world into the joys of a visually real future. From there, science fiction became the ‘in thing’ and has been able to hold its head up high through the continual production of high quality motion pictures (the Star Trek movies, the Star Wars movies, the Terminator movies) and novels that not only have been on the best selling lists, but have stayed there. (Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker series, Michael Crichton’s JurassicPark, Carl Sagan’s Contact).
I have a theory about this, too. My grandmother, born in 1898, used to brag that she was born when the horse and buggy was the norm and lived to see a man walk on the moon. Since I have been born…wow! How do you explain the tremendous leaps and bounds in technology in the last 40 years? When I was a kid we had portable record players and neat little cases for our 45’s. Today, I pop an almost indestructible plastic disc into a device attached to my belt to listen to music so clear and defined it is as if I was listening to it live. Computers, the internet, the space station, GPS devices, smart cars, microwaves, robotics, the list goes on. The interesting thing is, is that most of today’s technological wizardry had already been invented in the minds of the early sci-fi writers.
So, as I contemplate the amazing advances in science and, more particularly, the advances in medicine (they want to saw away a major part of my skeletal structure and replace it with a metal facsimile!), I am drawn to my lessons in science fiction. I am fully cognizant of how lucky I am to be able to benefit from the major advances already made—the thought of being a bedridden arthritic in the 1800’s, addicted to and eventually dying from overdoses of morphine is hard to contemplate—but my inner ‘scared silly because they want to do this for my own good’ reaction is definitely rearing its terrified head. What I really want is to have Dr. McCoy strap his device on my joint and non-invasively heal me. I want Dr. Beverly Crusher to tap into my obviously warped DNA and with a twitch of a button take away all the nasties. I even, in a perverse sort of way, want Data to tell me how lucky I am to be biological. I don’t think that technology is too far around the corner do you? I think I’ll wait.
I recently read Ram Charan’s Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform From Those Who Don’t, and although I am a total non-aficionado of business books in general, I found this one quite illuminating for many reasons. While it was very much directed towards high-level executives in charge of large, multi-faceted organizations, much of its information is adaptable to small, individually owned businesses, and interestingly enough, adaptable to facets of individual lives outside of the business mentality. Its points are clear common sense and provide pretty specific guidelines on how to live a life, not just run a business.
Charan’s precept in Know-How is to build leaders, specifically leaders of business who will successfully enhance the economic quality of capitalism and thereby enhance the quality of life for everybody. As America is presently struggling to keep from drowning in the domino effects of a falling housing market, it is easy to see that exceptional leaders are needed to maintain economic stability through successful, growing businesses that keep the dollar cycling through society.
It was through my eventual understanding of what Charan was trying to teach, that I was more than a little perceptive of John Dickerson’s recent article in Slate, “All the President’s Flunkies” (August 27, 2007). The article, as suggested by the title, covers Dickerson’s analysis of why President Bush seems to be losing his top-level aides. Charan fresh in mind, I began to correlate the 8 Skills of Know-How to our President—supposedly the Leader of our country. If one takes Charan’s wisdom to heart—and I do, for as in all of his books, it is broken down to basic common sense—one can totally fathom Dickerson’s thesis and recognize not only the practical value of the know-hows, but that Mr. Bush needs a hard lesson in nearly all of them.
Although Charan’s know-hows are all interrelated (each skill is a necessary ingredient to the mastery of all), his know-hows regarding people skills and social systems are the ones that come to mind. Charan states “Leaders often avoid conflict, hoping that a problem with one of their direct reports’ behavior will somehow resolve itself…The hard truth is that if you want to mold a team of leaders you must have the inner courage when an individual’s behavior is destroying the team to confront that person head on and say it isn’t acceptable and has to change.”
Dickerson counters this sage advice with, “As a broader management practice, though, Bush has made a fetish of loyalty even when unaccompanied by ability.”
Dickerson goes on to say, “Bush also feels the essence of virtue is resisting any public outcry. He does this for public as well as internal purposes. ‘A president has got to be the calcium in the backbone,’ Bush told author Bob Woodward. ‘If I weaken, the whole team weakens. If I’m doubtful, I can assure you there will be a lot of doubt.’”
Charan goes into great detail on the necessary psychological attributes of a great leader as well as the consequences of allowing the “dark side” of these attributes—over-confidence, narcissism, abuse of power, close-mindedness, or avoidance of reality—to cloud judgment or influence decision making. His 8 know-hows are like a progressive gym where one moves from one piece of equipment to another in order to strengthen individual parts of the body in order to strengthen the whole towards a healthy, robust body. It is not done in a single session and requires conscientious, consistent effort.
In looking at the political landscape against that of business, it makes me wonder how the concepts of team building, positioning, priorities, success, and leadership can be so different between the two.
The Da Vinci Code written by Dan Brown created so much talk that will leave one wondering what is in the book to merit such attention. Classified as mystery/detective novel, it touches sensitive topics like the Holy Grail legend, Mary Magdalene and her relationship with Jesus Christ, and Christianity as a whole. The novel was a hit in 2004 and said to have been translated into 44 languages, 60.5 million copies in print as of May 2006. Despite the sales, there are still many people who question the validity of what was written by Mr. Brown. In fact there are books that help crack The Da Vinci Code, books that aim to help readers separate facts from fiction. Now, 3 years after, the book continues to sell and still is a good topic for debate. Nice work, Mr. Brown!