Below is a message I received earlier today.
From: mseedwards@shaw.ca
Subject:
Date: June 12, 2009 4:54:10 PM PDT (CA)
To: WriteToMe@MattTodd.caYou Suck ….You act like a child that got no icecream ……………..i wish i never heard of you …………GO away…………………
signed ..happy you lost!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What ultimately determines rights and wrongs… all of our rules are a combination of law and the social ideal. And that’s always all over the map. Once upon a time, the law and social ideal said that blacks should be slaves and women shouldn’t vote.
– Ron MacLean
Quoted from The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos Video Podcast February 11 2009
You can’t do what I do if you’re worrying about how people view it… you know, people who don’t understand everything about what you’re doing; who don’t have as much access to the facts as you do. And so, from early on, I always said, particularly as it related to articles and commentary, don’t pay attention to the good because it’s never as good as they’ll say, and don’t pay attention to the bad because it’s never as bad. You have to do what you think is right. And that’s what you have to live with because you’re always going to have critics.
– Gary Bettman, NHL Commissioner
Quoted from The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos Video Podcast February 05 2009
CBC Doc Zone broadcasted a documentary on lying earlier this month. Below are excerpts from the last 5 minutes of “The Truth About Liars”. Lines that are not otherwise attributed are quotes from the narrator, Anne-Marie McDonald. The full video is embedded at the end of this post.
The secret of politics is this: tell people the lies that are consistent with their own self-deception [that is, the lies that people tell themselves]. If you can do that, you’re a successful politician. So, we’re not really that concerned about politicians lying to us. If we were, we would be horrified at every bit of political campaigning because it’s mostly all bullshit.
– David Livingstone Smith,
University of New England
The experts say our faith, our trust, that leaders are telling the truth has been eroding for years. Now it’s become commonplace to see our leaders in business, entertainment and sports face disgrace in front of the television cameras. And then, often, life seems to go on pretty much as it did before: our heros reduced and returned to us, our respect replaced by cynicism and satire. But is this spectacle changing how the rest of us behave? Experts say there is no evidence that we’re all lying and cheating more; it may just look that way because television and technology allow us to see it more, to catch our leaders in the act.
Finding the truth about liars begins with accepting some facts: We all lie; We’re going to have to continue lying if we’re going to get along. Read on »
Routine is God’s gift to the unimaginative.
Conversely, the artistically gifted tend to be restless, constantly seeking new form and structure in their work.
The following is a collection of excerpts from Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, pages 294 to 296.
The rational mind usually does not decide what emotions we “should” have. Instead, our fellings typcially come to us as a fait accompli. What the raiontal mind can ordinarily control is the course of those reactions. A few exceptions aside, we do not decide when to be made, sad, and so on.
A Symbolic, Childlike Reality
The logic of the emotional mind is associative; it takes elements that symbolize a reality, or trigger a memory of it, to be the same as that reality. That is why similes, metaphors, and images speak directly to the emotional mind, as do the arts.
If the emotional mind follows this logic and its rules, with one element standing for another, things need not necessarily be defined by their objective identity: what matters is how they are perceived; things are as they seem. What something reminds us of can be far more important than what it “is.” Indeed, in emotional life, identities can be like a hologram in the sense that a single part evokes a whole. As Seymour Epstein points out, while the rational mind makes logical connections between causes and effects, the emotional mind is indiscriminate, connecting things that merely have similar striking features. Read on »
Mastery in the emotional domain is especially difficult because skills need to be acquired when people are usually least able to take in new information and learn new habits of response – when they are upset. Coaching in these moments helps.
“Anyone, adult or fifth grader, needs some help being a self-observer when they’re so upset,” Jo-An Varga [Self Science teacher] points out. “Your heart is pounding, your hands are sweaty, you’re jittery, and you’re trying to listen clearly while keeping your own self-control to get through it without screaming, blaming or clamming up in defensiveness.”
– Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, pg 266
I was a players coach and it got me fired, but they’re the best. And if you don’t have the players going for you… as Napoleon said, if you don’t have morale, you’ve got nothing.
– Don Cherry
Quoted from The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos Video Podcast December 15 2008
George Stroumboulopoulos talking with Don Cherry:
GS: I heard you once say, nothing you say, you haven’t thought about. So, if you ever get fired because you say something, you know exactly when you’re crossing the line.
DC: Absolutely. I can’t say, “well, just slip of tongue” because when I say it, I mean it. And if I go, I go. But I can’t say, “well, gee, I didn’t mean that.” So, I know what I’m saying.
Quoted from The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos Video Podcast December 15 2008
Free market capitalism is as much a fantasy as Marxism. And it’s fascinating to talk to people who believe in free markets — it’s exactly like talking to a Marxist — because when everything’s screwed up, it’s because it wasn’t pure enough; The free markets were a disaster because they weren’t free enough.
– Larry Beinhart
Larry Beinhart is the author whose book became the movie Wag the Dog.
Quoted from The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos Video Podcast December 11 2008