Eight time Emmy-award winning Showtime series Homeland concludes its 5th season tonight as it continues to tackle current real world issues, like ISIS’ proclamation of a world-wide caliphate that aims to “redraw the map” in the Middle-East, and ISIS’ attack on an innocent European city in the name if Jihad.
He said to them in effect:
“That’s Fine. You made your point. The thing is I can go home, you have to live with each other when I leave.”
Yes, they had been living in that same land for nigh 400 years: Fighting.
How was it working for them?
Not very well.
Both sides could protest the appointment of George as mediator, walk out with big fan fare. Heck, they could strut like battling Peacocks for another 400 years — pride a’ struting. Not listening and talking over each other. Power parading and violent protesting. George would just go home, where he belongs, back to America — just as my namesake ancestor had done about 300 years ago.
What goes up must come down
Spinnin’ wheel, got to go round
Talkin’ ’bout your troubles, it’s a cryin’ sin
Ride a painted pony, let the spinnin’ wheel spin
You got no money, you got no home
Spinnin’ wheel, all alone
Talkin’ ’bout your troubles and you, you never learn
Ride a painted pony, let the spinnin’ wheel turn
— Blood, Sweat, and Tears
Or — enough with the violence and the peacocking. The world is moving out, if their people can’t get down to business — the business of living, get with the business of dying.
If it’s peace you find in dying, when dying time is here,
— Laura Nyro
They had publically walked out on him. But George called them afterwards: he was still here, he would provide mediation between the two sides…
When he talked, people listened, including Warren Buffett. For he was very wise and successful in business and life.
And he was a mentor and beloved by many of his employees, especially Roberto and Muhtar.
He was all about his family, his employees, his community, and his alma mater.
And he was regarded as the Protector of the BRAND.
However, he made a mistake… So, they wrote letters to “THE SUPREME IDIOT”
He listened to his customers, even the one who addressed him as the Supreme Idiot.
The Wise learn from their mistake(s)…
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” spoken by Atticus Finch, in To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.
How do you “truly” climb into another’s skin and walk around? It is a hard thing to do, well. For that person may be a different kind of person from you, from a different time, and from a different place.
My avocation since I was a child was as a Viking bystander. My vocation lately has been as a Viking reader of books and people.
Three-time Best Drama Series Emmy nominee Downton Abbey premieres its fifth season in America tonight and has a fighting chance this year to take home the big prize. Wouldn’t it be loverly. The critically-acclaimed British period drama won Outstanding Miniseries or Movie in it’s first year (2011), but hasn’t won since it entered the big leagues (Best Drama Series). It will likely have stiff competition yet again this year including Mad Men, The Affair, Game of Thrones, The Good Wife, and House of Cards, though powerhouse Breaking Bad concluded and will be out of the race this year leaving the category wide open.
Keirsey Temperament Awards 2011
Keirsey Temperament Awards 2012
Keirsey Temperament Awards 2013
Each year an individual is awarded from each of the Four Temperaments: Artisan, Guardian, Idealist, and Rational. And we acknowledge this year’s passing of well known individuals who exhibited their Keirsey Temperament, In Memoriam.
The awards are given to individuals who are usually “famous” and have significantly impacted the world, as to illustrate and highlight the Four Temperaments. Keirsey Temperament Theory maintains all four Temperaments play important roles in society and we need all kinds of people to use their developed natural talents, to do the best at what they do best.
The selection is difficult, for sometimes Temperament is hidden because we are looking at these individuals from a far. Usually I don’t know the individuals personally, and only through the media am I familiar with these people. I am the judge and jury, with the suggestions from those are interested in Keirsey Temperament.
2014 Keirsey Temperament Awards
All that is Gold, does not glitter.
He wasn’t even from California.
But he was The Best of California’s Gold, for thirty years.
In Memoriam
He was the same on camera as off camera. He was a people person. “Huell Howser, who turned his folksy reporting style featuring an unrepentant Tennessee drawl and gee-whiz approach into television gold.”
Stephen Grover Cleveland [22nd and 24th President] was a man who knew how to say “no.” During his two terms in office he issued more than six hundred vetoes, four hundred and thirteen of them in his first term alone. This was more than the combined vetoes of all the twenty-one Presidents before him and more than any other President except Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Cleveland was quite proud of his record… [Presidential Temperament]
Continue reading For the Good of My Country
I have often reflected that the causes of success or failure of men depend upon their … character, and [are] not a matter of choice. – Niccolo Machiavelli
He was there, tall and imposing, and upright with his natural grace and nobility. In front of the his men, he naturally commanded attention, his speech had seemingly come to close.
But now he hesitated. He stopped. This was unusual for him.
They knew him so well. They had followed him, through thick and thin, for years. But they were angry. They wanted to revolt. They hadn’t been paid; they had listen to his prepared speech; they had heard similar excuses before. Most of them still not convinced. He knew this.
He was at loss to what to do.
In a last desperate act, he pulled a letter from his pocket. Something was wrong, however.
He tried to read the letter, stumbling with his words, then, hopelessly staring at it.
He hestitated again. He, again, reach to a pocket, pulling out a pair of eyeglasses.
“Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray, but almost blind, in the service of my country.”
Most had never seen these eyeglasses, something only General George Washington intimates had ever seen him wear. Humbled and embarrassed, many of the officers were now in tears. For, if the speech had not already destroyed the revolt, this act assured its demise. Washington left the meeting. The officers unanimously voted to wait for their overdue wages, and they would not “retire to some unsettled country” and leave Congress without an army.
“On other occasions he had been supported by the exertions of the army and the countenance of his friends,” said Captain Samuel Shaw, “but in this he stood single and alone.”
With that George Washington continued lead and help found the United States of America.
Leading Naturally.
The point of this story is that George Washington, could not help himself, but be himself, and be leader even at his weakest moment. His officers followed the man, George Washington, because of who he was. Continue reading Be Himself
You can’t find where his corporeal body is buried. And it certainly isn’t buried in Russia. He, personally, never stepped a foot in the Rus’ lands.
History is Baroque!
— Will and Ariel Durant
But what about his Zeitgeist?
Yesterday and Today?
“If we curse the past, if we blank it out of our memory as my father did, nothing will get better.
Our history is both cursed and magnificent. Just like the history of any state or people.
It is fitting Russia, the tragedies;
these contradictory strands of history are woven so tightly together.
— Boris Yeltzin
Zeitgeist (Zeit –Time, geist –Ghost)
It’s a tale of Black Gold.
Ah, but what kind of Black Gold are we talking about?
The Black Gold of the Earth: that Good Earth: Land and Power of Mother Russia.
The Black Gold of the Earth: that Good Earth: Oil and Gold of Mother Russia.
