House of Eratosthenes

You’re hired into a job, you are hired to be and not to do. If you’re fired, you’re fired for your failure to be and not to do. If not — when you get another executive in charge of the company, if you open your company’s web site and read his biography, you’ll probably read a great deal about what he is…not so much anymore about what he has done.

That was a long time ago. Since I wrote that, the nation has elected a black guy to be President of the United States, in fact anointed Him as some sort of Holy Savior, mostly because of His blackness — and seen how that doesn’t work for anybody in the long run. Then it re-elected Him. Would it do it third time if it could? Either answer would be speculation, doomed to never be anything more than speculation, unprovable, irrefutable. But, I’m thinking not. I’m seeing encouraging signs. Tiny ones, anecdotal ones. Listing them wouldn’t do any good. But they’re there. We seem to be going through a thaw, after a long winter. People are starting to figure out that virtuous acts have rewards, not-so-virtuous ones have consequences. People are realizing that what they do, matters. What others do, matters.

But then I see stuff like this…

According to a recent Gallup poll, Americans named Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton the “Most Admired Woman, 2015.”

Clinton has received the title 14 times in the past 14 years, 20 times overall, the most times an individual woman has been named most admired since Gallup began polling the open-ended question in 1948.

Because of what? Not anything she ever did. Even Hillary herself can’t name an accomplishment.

Well she’s far from the only one. A lot of public servants just hang around, making speeches now and then, launching into bizarre tangents of thought to try to steal credit whenever something good happens. It’s embarrassing to watch after awhile. You wish someone would ask something like “So what is it about you, specifically, that makes you so awesome?” One begins to suspect there’s no answer. After awhile it becomes hard to think otherwise. All these speeches, nothing about virtues? What would you like to pass on to the next generation? Your intellect? Patience? Persistence? What? They don’t say.

Image shamelessly swiped
from Gerard, who got it
from somebody else

They cherry pick statistics and then comment on something like “I presided over a three percent increase or decrease in whatever…” That’s what passes for doing, these days, in our highest echelons of power. Which means it reflects on us all. Nobody’s doing much of anything at all. “That happened on my watch!” scores the biggest bragging rights. It looks phony and fake, because it is. A real doer would have some passion about teaching what exactly he has done. He would say: No copyright here! Steal from me! I want everybody doing the same thing! It’s been so long since we’ve seen anyone say something like that, we’ve forgotten what it looks like. Oh yeah that’s right. The big-state libs do it all the time, I forgot. Raise taxes! Make the rich pay their fair share!

So allow me to self-correct: Our one example is just pure nonsense. Want to make the economy take off and really hit its stride? Put more burdens on it.

We seem to have forgotten: We’re not supposed to favor, or disfavor, demographic groups. Voting for a woman to be President just because she’s a woman, is just like voting for a black guy because He’s black. That’s wrong. We’re all supposed to have been in agreement, a long time ago, that that’s wrong. As 2015 retires though, we’re still waiting for our wise elders to let us know if it’s wrong or not.

If I could be allowed to dictate what gets fixed next, I would call that out as the one loose nut on the valve cover. Other ones are tight, but this one is so very loose. It’s wobbling. Such strangers we have become to the idea of anybody actually doing anything, we betray our own non-discrimination “principles” right in mid-sentence as we articulate them. We seem to have reserved all the meaningful decisions about hiring and promotion, for the bean-counters among us, who work long and hard about aggravating their own passions about counting the beans. Never has our obsession been keener, over what people are — and we can’t even agree about what they are. Nor shall we, so long as we are prohibited from siding with reality on the question…

In the latest, astonishing act of draconian political correctness, the NYC Commission on Human Rights have updated a law on “Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Expression” to threaten staggering financial penalties against property owners who “misgender” employees or tenants.

Incidents that are deemed “wilful and malicious” will see property owners face up to $250,000 in fines, while standard violations of the law will result in a $125,000 fine.

Meanwhile, we have other triggers in place in our grand bureaucracies, ready to fire as soon as we make up our minds on what a person is…while the question of what they do, continues to languish…

A woman who failed the Fire Department of New York’s running test six times will get a seventh opportunity to become a full-fledged member of the department, according to a published report.

The New York Post says that Wendy Tapia, 34, is among a group of EMTs promoted to probationary firefighters. The group will start an 18-week training academy Monday.

The Post reported that Tapia was allowed to conditionally graduate from the Fire Academy on May 17, 2013, despite being unable to run 1.5 miles in 12 minutes or less. At the time, she blamed her slow going on a foot injury.

After she was sworn in, the FDNY gave her five more chances to pass the test, but Tapia was unsuccessful in all five atempts. After her sixth failed attempt, in November 2013, Tapia resigned and returned to EMS never having worked a full-fledged shift.

FDNY members who spoke to the Post predict that Tapia will be allowed to pass the running test by FDNY brass, who fear a gender discrimination lawsuit.

“She’ll graduate, no question,” one FDNY member said. “The department doesn’t want another black eye.”

Perhaps I should add it to my list of suggested New Year’s resolutions (although bullet #5, I see, partially covers the concern): Definition about what people DO, over and above what people ARE. Appreciation for their positive contributions, excoriation for their negative impacts. We have a problem arising from this, which has to do with a shortage of shame. People do shameful things and there’s no shaming, because that has to do with what people do, and our obsession is with what they are.

It is almost as if…EXACTLY as if…the collective realization was one of, “nothing I do matters, so I may as well articulate socially attractive points of support for other appealing individuals and appealing groups of individuals, so that my standing becomes elevated.” And if ever the staple resources come up short and have to be rationed, those who have done the most preening will be the last ones to be ostracized.

Exactly the mindset embraced by rats, as they scramble around on a sinking ship.

Very well. We want to obsess over what people are, do we? Well we’re not rats. And we’re not on a sinking ship. We’re people, an intellectual species, a privileged (in a good way) and dignified species, and we should act like it. But I guess I’m just old fashioned like that…

Or…you just lie, and have an army of media and fanatic liberals agree with the most virulent lies you spit out. Had a whole crowd of them the other day praising the “truth” of Chris Rock bragging about Obama’s “6% unemployment, 2 dollar a gallon gas, and personally firing the shot that killed Bin Laden.”

They never bother to parse these statements, and screech “LIE” when the truth is revealed: Unemployment index changed and manipulated to reflect six months instead of actual time unemployed…gas WAS 2 a gallon until Obama and pal Chu decided we Americans needed to be punished. It’s only 2 bucks NOW because Dems are failing in the face of …ugh…Trump. And…yeah, he didn’t even use a gun, since guns are scary, he just spat the bullet that killed UbL… and the seas retreat at his very command don’t you know!
- P_Ang | 12/31/2015 @ 08:02
“She’ll graduate, no question,” one FDNY member said. “The department doesn’t want another black eye.”

That’s ocular injury of indeterminate color, comrade. Perhaps it is best for you to go to camp in order to refresh your education, da, comrade?
- AnonymousGuy | 01/01/2016 @ 06:44
Regarding the first set of points (be vs do): When Mark Hurd was CEO of HP, he made a comment that was videotaped (can’t find it unfortunately) which really stuck with me.

“There are three kinds of employees: Reporters, Managers and Leaders.”

“An employee comes in and says, ‘In Q1, sales went up, profits went down’ That’s a reporter.
Anyone can report facts, and these employees create some but not major value.”

“An employee comes in and says, ‘In Q1, sales went up, profits went down. In Q2, I made changes to address the profit reduction.’ That’s a manager; they’re helpful but not ideal.”

“An employee comes in and says, ‘In Q1, sales went up, but I noticed profits started to go down. I started an action to address this in Q1, here’s the plan, I’ve already done steps one and two and stemmed the profit downturn, and now need your funding/approval to continue this plan to increase profits in future quarters.’ That’s a LEADER, which is what we want more of.”

We seem to have quite a few politicians who fail to distinguish between these three items, and worse, claim credit for successes and downplay failures while basically being a reporter.

Regarding the FDNY section above; there are two positions a leader can take. You can either come from a position of strength, or come from a position of fear. Either one guides your responses on HOW you lead. It seems with the FDNY brass fearing a ‘gender discrimination lawsuit’ their leadership style is rather apparent.
- Wamphyr | 01/01/2016 @ 08:51

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Wednesday, December 30th, 2015