DECISIONS AND EXPLOSIONS

Life is not fair.  It is merely interesting.  Accept that and your universe will begin to unfold splendidly.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

Here are two related anecdotes in support of this philosophy.

The Commander of the Canadian Forces in Korea during that conflict was Brigadier (later General) John D Rockingham.  To his fans, and there were many, he was referred to reverentially as "Rocky" and his troops were called "Rocky's Army".  To his numerous detractors he was known as J. Roaringham Frozenballs, the biggest self-adulating jackass ever to accept the Queen's shilling.  Polarizing, he was.

Long after Canada was done with Korea and I had begun my military career, Rocky was fond of making the rounds of military units to reconnect with "his boys", the still serving Korean vets, drink a lot of scotch and tell wondrous tales.  He happened upon my unit one night as we officers were having our monthly formal dinner.  In he came in scarlet jacket and three decks of medals, looking like an Hungarian Bandmaster or a refugee from a Village People concert.  He bellowed bonhomie.  He drank and told his stories.  Eventually, he cornered Lt. "Libby", an over-the-hill vet with his own impressive rack of decorations.  As Rocky soon discovered, Libby was a charter member of the "Frozenballs" contingent.  He called Rocky on his over the top stories, failed to laugh at his clumsy witticisms and finally wondered aloud about Rocky's acquaintance with the truth.  Rocky took a swing at him and missed.  Libby didn't miss.  Rocky ended up on his ass behind a couch.  The Rocky fans rushed to the aid of their comatose hero.  The Frozenballs gang locked Libby in a storage closet with some beers and a bucket to pee in.  Libby saw the wisdom in this - it is never a good idea to punch out a General, whatever the provocation.

Rocky awoke and couldn't remember who whacked him.  Libby remained incarcerated until Rocky departed.

This Libby saga actually goes somewhere - bear with me.

Libby thought that he would like to retire as a Captain or maybe a Major - better pension etc.  Accordingly, he kept trying (and failing) his written promotion exams.  Now, incoming mortar bombardments and small arms fire he could handle with aplomb but a written exam?  Pure terror time.  The last time he tried I was writing for the first time.  The big question in the three hour marathon (60% of the total marks) was to find and document an elegant solution to a complex, time sensitive tactical dilemma.  So, there is this bridge being defended by an armoured regiment while the tattered remains of an infantry battalion limps to safety across the wide river.  Approaching at speed is a Fantasian mechanized brigade intent on crossing the river to lay waste our crops and ravage our womenfolk.   The problem posed:  As commander of a smallish force of infantry, armour, demolitions guys and artillery on the safe side of the bridge, how do you get the retreating infantry and armour to safety and concurrently delay the Fantasian advance until heavy re-enforcements or a tactical nuke arrive to drive them back?

We were given lots of stuff to work with - maps, situation reports, intel on the Fantasian capabilities and equipment etc.  In the silence of the examination hall there was only the rattling of maps and the tap-tap of calculators as we estimated targets, calculated movement speed, inventoried demolition supplies and otherwise pondered myriad possibilities.  Libby fretted.  He sweated.  Threw pencils on the floor.  Took pee breaks.  Mumbled.  Then, the solution came to him.  He shattered the quiet of the hall with a roar,

"BLOW THE GODDAM BRIDGE!" 

 He then scribbled furiously in his exam booklet until the closing bell.

Those of us who passed, Libby among us discovered after a fruitless search for an "elegant" solution that there wasn't one to be had.  The good, or at least adequate course of action was to get some of the retreating troops to safety riding on tank decks then curse the gods and take out the bridge.  In an odd way, Libby's winning solution was like the one he chose when Rocky took a swing at him.  They both had serious down sides and ethical implications.  In short, they were just plain nasty decisions that in a just and fair world would not arise.  And both involved dropping pursuit of the perfect to achieve a good or at least the passable outcome.

Dilemmas like these abound in our personal and work lives.  Organizational leaders face them frequently and how they respond often predicts how well the whole organization does on its perilous pursuit for survival.  Two examples come to mind, both of them involving excellent social service enterprises.  

The first one is a multi-faceted not for profit shop serving a large urban community.  Its clients are individuals who for various reasons are homeless or hungry or unemployed or suffering mental health problems or are among the working poor or all of the above.  The organization's driving ethic is that of unconditional acceptance of and respect for all of the people it serves.  This ethic has worked wonders over the years because it gives its clients a place of safety, support and genuine encouragement.  In response, the clients find the resolve to tackle their grinding problems in creative ways and in many cases become productive, contributing citizens after years of fruitless wheel-spinning or worse.  It is not just a happy accident that the organization employs a number of former clients.

But all is not well in Camelot.  The grand and laudable ethic has become for some senior members of the organization an ideology that invites no questioning.  This rigidity has consequences, among them exhaustion and burnout among front line workers who feel that to give up on clients because of their intransigence, inability to accept a shred of personal responsibility or in some cases their malevolent and potentially dangerous behaviour is to break the faith or earn the disapproval of the leaders.  And so they invest huge gobs of time and psychic energy in these hard cases, often to the neglect of other clients.  Alternatively, they confront their hard cases and say, "Enough" - in effect, they throw a punch or, "blow the goddam bridge" but are then fearful that they will face censure for having done so.  Equally troubling, the organization's ideology subtly  but effectively inveighs against confrontation of any kind.  For some of the client hard cases that is received not as acceptance and respect but as license to do whatever they goddam well please.  And they do.  Finally, the unspoken injunction against confrontation constipates and distorts internal communication and applies a layer of misleading moral treacle to most internal discussions.  In short, folks learn that there are some things best not said.  In this organization, throwing a punch or "blowing the goddam bridge" is an absolute no-no.

The second organization serves similar clients but province-wide through a close affiliation of independent operations oriented to their local communities.  Their services are specialized but they work in close harmony with organizations like the one described above.  With their client first ethic and strong community orientation they value cooperation, trust and fair play.  No-one could accuse them of intransigence or militancy.  Their modest funding comes from a single provincial agency that traditionally was responsible for championing their work, getting maximum bucks together, distributing them fairly and thereafter auditing to ensure that they were being spent with caution and fiscal prudence.

Something changed over the years.  The funding organization through a succession of increasingly power hungry CEOs and increasingly compliant boards of directors began to meddle in operations under the guise of ensuring financial probity.  Demands for elaborate reports grew.  Cost-cutting directives flowed out to operations already on tight, controlled budgets.  Salaries for front liners went unchanged for years and they were skinny to begin with.  Meanwhile, the funding organization hired additional highly paid help and cranked up managerial salaries over the six figure level while crying poor.  At first, the community organizations responded in good faith by questioning some directives and offering creative solutions to the calls for economies and cost reductions.  Their responses went largely ignored and unanswered except for veiled and not so veiled threats about forced amalgamations, salary reductions and demands to find cheaper accommodation.  Their Association went to bat for them on a province-wide basis and came away with similar results.

Now, folks are getting seriously irritated and feeling threatened.  As much as they would rather tend to their clients and communities and as much as they favour conciliation over confrontation, they are coming to realize almost too late that there comes a time to throw a punch or "blow the goddam bridge". They desperately do not want to take the risk of losing but are accepting the need to confront and live with the marginally acceptable result they may achieve.

I believe that both of these fine organizations will survive and grow but I believe equally that both will need to suffer their palace revolts and redefine themselves in specific ways.  Both will have their equivalents of Libby's night in a storage closet with a bucket of pee for company.  Both will have to incorporate into their thinking and actions the ugly truth that life is not fair and that noble pursuit of ideal solutions without accepting the messy reality of confrontation and marginally OK results is ultimately an exercise in futility.

Organizational psychologist Douglas MacGregor once offered a subtle, insightful aphorism as a guide to effective managerial behaviour.  He declared simply that, "People will behave in about they way you expect them to."  He went on to caution that this was a guide and not an ideological absolute.  While most folks and organizations will respond to courteous, trusting behaviour by being trustworthy and respectful, some will not.  For that troublesome minority I suspect that MacGregor would agree that you have to throw a punch or blow the goddam bridge if you hope to survive with your integrity intact.

REQUIEM FOR A NEW FRIEND

Big, rude, cranky Robert died today.  He had lived for the past year in a splendid semi-hospice for street people where I work part time.  Robert was an "original" - one of the first three to move in around opening day.  His gloomy, whiskery picture hangs in the office and will remain.

I came to know Robert a little.  God, knows, he did not make that an easy task.  For months, I was the "nemesis on his premises", someone I must have wronged in a previous life for he reacted to me as if I had put X Lax in his coffee and nettles in his jock strap.  My friendly greetings were met with silence or a mumbled, "Fuck Off!"  Cheerful goodbyes produced, "Bout fukkin' time!"

Time passed and Robert acclimatized to me.  He discovered four things;

1. I could cook, make coffee and sort out his meds as well as the regular staff.
2. I was an easy mark for a ciggie or a Loonie for a lottery ticket.
3. When pushed to serious annoyance, I would get in his face and tell him to fuck off.
4. I was around to be helpful and enjoyed being so.

There came a turning point in our fractious relationship.  One evening, after a fuck you - fuck off exchange, Robert told me that he was going to the variety store for a lottery ticket and did I want anything? 

"Nope, but here's a fiver.  Get another ticket but the deal is, you win big, we split it."

Once he had finished his "Scratch & Lose" tickets, I brought him a cookie and a decaf as a consolation prize.  Minutes later, he shambled into the office where I was dozing in a chair and surprisingly, sat down.  He shyly offered me a rather decent Cuban cigar (which, for a heavy smoker and a guy who lived on pocket change was no small thing) and thanked me for the coffee.

For the first time I was able to look into his eyes and get a visceral impression of the man.  The sadness I saw behind his eyes brought me close to tears.  As he talked haltingly he gave clues about the profound hurt he carried, the losses, the fear of dying and the feeling that the world gave him lemons without ever showing how to make lemonade.  He did not say much - he was not given to introspection and was far from talkative - but he did make it clear that he valued friendship and was seeking mine.

I am too late to tell him that I would have been happy to be his friend.  I hope that he recognized that I saw who he was.

Robert was a big, handsome man with a good soul, sore wounded.  He was a man, a citizen, a Canadian and of this earth - not just on it for a while.  He lived his little life as best he could and saw his end with the usual terror followed by peace as he realized that he would no longer be.

Most of all, he was a new friend.  I mourn his passing.

THIS POST MAY GET ME IN TROUBLE

Iain Macdonald (Best Friend, Reverend, Mench, Political Pot Stirrer etc.) mentioned the iconic Joe Btfsplk in a recent Facebook comment.  Joe, he of permanent black cloud fame was the creation of satirist/cartoonist Al Kapp whose deliciously subversive humour was expressed through the long-running (1934 - 1977) comic strip, Li'l Abner.


As a teenager of my era I was a virginal, sexually clueless doofus with a permanent erection who wasn't sure why Marilyn Munroe pin-ups gave me such interesting feelings.  I was also a Lil Abner aficionado not least because of the scantily clad and voluptuous  women of Dogpatch.  I fell in love with two of them - Moonbeam McSwine and Stupifyin' Jones.  Both scared me as much as they appealed to my fermenting supply of unemployed hormones.  Looking back now on Kapp's feminine archetypes I realize that in the over-the-top physiques and behavioural extremes he gave his characters, he was describing personality types he encountered in the real world.  If this is so, I believe that we could invent a self-validating personality test using Kapp's lovelies.

Here is how the test might work.

Read the following character descriptions.

If you are female, determine which character's personality is most like yours.  Don't focus on your physical appearance or your persona - the way you want the world to see you.  Go instead to your witchy private place and consider how you really are or how you would like to be if you were free of societal pressures and expectations.  I will give you one bit of wiggle room here.  You may if necessary combine two archetypes and become for example a Moonbeam/Mammy Yokum.

If you are male, select the archetype that most closely epitomizes the personality of your ideal woman.  Never mind your cultivated image as upstanding citizen, responsible parent and moral paragon free of all impure thoughts.  And don't even think about how your mother would react to your selection.  You may have the same wiggle room and combine two archetypes.

Here are the characters,

Daisy Mae:  A Parton-esque long legged beauty of paralyzing innocence and indestructible good humour who yearned above all else to marry and raise lots of children.  She fancied Li'l Abner over all others but, unlike some of other characters described below she would not even think about grabbing the big dolt by the ear and hauling him to the hay loft for some advanced sex-ed.  Daisy Mae was a woman of infinite patience.  Her approach was to exude her doe-like charm toward Li'l Abner while ingratiating herself to Abner's Mammy, the ferocious Yokum clan matriarch.  This was a tough act for her in that she was a member of the hated Scragg family.  The Scraggs and the Yokums had been at war since Christ was a Lance Corporal.  It is fair to credit Daisy Mae with the virtues of determination,  courage and diplomatic skill.

Apassionata von Climax:  (How did Kapp get that name past the censor in those repressive times?)  Apassionata was a sophisticated, well-educated working woman from the Big City who visited Dogpatch and met Li'l Abner.  The result was electric.  The primitive, lizard part of her brain took over, screaming, "Breed with him!  Do it now!  Yes, here on the kitchen table and keep doing it until he is a slobbering wreckage!"  Her calculating logic was no match for her hormone explosion.  Never mind that Abner would not survive in her world any more than she could survive in Dogpatch.  She knew that but fell victim to the pernicious mythology embraced by all women that, "I can change him - he can learn some table manners and quit picking his nose and he will look splendid in a tux and and and..."  Apassionata never gave up trying.  She could never visit Dogpatch without being enveloped immediately in a damp fog of pure lust.  Clueless Abner found her fascinating but didn't know why.  He never responded to her obvious invitations.  As a result, poor Apassionata remained single and mostly alone.  No men in her world of power lunches, cocktail parties and avant-garde theatre could ever arouse her the way that Abner did.

Moonbeam McSwine:  In appearance and radiant sexuality, Moonbeam may well have been modeled on Jane Russell.  Her style of dress was haute Dogpatch - 85% skin to 15% strategically placed bits of cloth.  Every male in Dogpatch was acutely aware of her charms and at the same time frightened and repelled by her disinterest in personal hygiene, her choice of friends, unique living arrangements and especially her haughty disregard for the lot of them.  For her part, Moonbeam had looked over the gentlemen of Dogpatch and concluded that pigs made for better company in the sense that they were more intelligent, better behaved and more reliable.  Her whole persona seemed to boil down to, "If you are man enough, come closer and you may be rewarded but do not dare question my lifestyle.  I am WOMAN,  dirty feet, pigs and fragrance included."

Stupifyin' Jones:   She was so named because of her extraordinary beauty.  Men (and most women) were struck dumb and paralyzed by her appearance.  Poor Jones was unaware of her visual charms and was puzzled, no, saddened by the fact that no man ever approached her with friendly or lustful intent.  She thought of herself as OK looking and nice enough but would have laughed at any suggestion that she was possessed of ethereal beauty.  Poor Jones.  Men took one look at her and concluded that no-one that gorgeous could possibly be interested in them.  Accordingly, they escaped what they figured would be instant disappointment and embarrassment by avoiding and ignoring her.  (Guys: Did you ever work up the nerve to ask the Prom Queen or the Head Cheerleader on a date?  Thought so.)  And so, Stupifyin' Jones, possibly the best catch in Dogpatch struggled on in stoic resignation.

Mammy Yokum:  Mammy was no looker but when she spoke, folks listened.  As Li'l Abner's Mammy she was continuously engaged in cookin' up po'k chops 'n turnips for her ravenous clod of a son and his lazy no-count Pappy.  Seven meals of chops and turnips per day was standard in the Yokum household.  When not cooking she was washing, cleaning, forcing Pappy off his butt and out to work and nagging Li'l Abner about callin' Marryin' Sam and gettin' hitched up with Daisy Mae.  Beyond that, she was The one woman Dogpatch Dispute Resolution Committee (sweet reason followed if necessary by a devastating left hook), the Community Social Organizer and a Good Samaritan always happy to whomp up po'k chops and turnips for hungry folks.  She was in every way the precursor of the Super Mom currently either saluted and reviled across North America.  Nobody messed with Mammy, not even Earthquake McGoon despite his formidable bulk and reputation as "world's dirtiest rassler".

There are your personality types.  Pick one or any a combination of two - I dare you.  I also dare you to confess your selection in the Comments section below.  (Anonymous submissions are welcome and expected.)  As is the case with any self-validating personality inventory, there are no wrong and right answers.  And if you believe that, you never took a psych course and learned that psychologists lie a lot.

If I get enough comments and good reader advice I will attempt to construct some sort of a rating protocol for this.  It would likely take the form of,

If you are a stupifyin' Jones/Mammy Yokum combination, you see yourself as.... others see you as... and you would really prefer to be...
 
You can then inflict the test on your friends at the next wine enhanced party you attend.

Have fun!

OSAMA BIN LADEN. I Hear That He is Dead

Sometime in 2002 I attempted to start my own conspiracy theory - Canadian made - as to the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden.  The American wingnuts were having all of the fun and getting all of the press coverage, here and elsewhere.

My foray into that land of lunacy consisted of an e-mail blast (This was pre Facebook and Twitter) alleging breathlessly that the elusive terrorist capo had been smuggled into Canada by the Mossad and was living in Montreal east sans beard and robes.  My top secret sources advised that he was earning his keep by delivering bags of fresh bagels for a Jewish bakery.  He had taken the pseudonym "Ozzie Ben" and because of his daily labours was known on the Anglo street as Ozzie Bun Laden.  Further, Mossad had retained the services of a local Jewish biker gang called Hillel's Angels to provide him protection.

As a conspiracy generator I was a failure.  Not even the Toronto Sun bit on it.  The RCMP never called.  CSIS yawned.  The CIA did not bother to tap my 'phone let alone stuff me in a sack and Fedex me to Syria to answer some friendly questions about my sources.

I failed.  To console myself I did some solid research and wrote a long article about the historical context and longer term implications of the 911 attack on America and the rise of Al Qaeda.  It was well-received by all readers including the print media.  But no publication was prepared to print it because it ran so against the grain of the then prevailing public narrative.

I re-read the article today and am dismayed at how little we have learned over the past nine years.  Here, unedited is what I said in 2002.  I stand by it.  More, I recommend that you take the time to read it.

__________________________________________

THE WORLD OF OSAMA BIN LADEN

March, 2002

"Man would fain be great and sees that he is littls; would fain be happy and sees that he is miserable; would fain be perfect and sees that he is full of imperfections; would fain be the object of love and esteem of men and sees that his faults merit only their aversion and contempt.  The embarrassment wherein he finds himself produces in him the most unjust and criminal passions imaginable, for he conceives a mortal hatred against that truth which blames him and convinces him of his faults".

Pascal, Pencees

"...a mortal hatred against that truth..."  Bin Laden.  Jerry Falwell.  Arafat.  Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in some ways.  Even our own mostly harmless Canadian Prime Minister is, in minor and silly ways a sometime stranger to the truth.

Truth has gone begging.  In its place we have the cant of the Believers and the fierce mass movements they inspire.  Of these - and there are many about - Bin Laden's pan-Islamic fundamentalism has our exclusive attention, for obvious reasons.   We do not understand it.  Certainly, the Americans do not.  George Bush is at pains to declare that America's War is not against Islam but rather against an amorphous group called terrorists or madmen or Islamic fundamentalists.  Millions of Muslims worldwide would take issue with his claim..  For them, the war is religious and the President can think and say whatever he wants without changing that fact in the least.

Let us not adopt the ugly slur that most Muslims are terrorists or murderers prepared to strike down the infidels in the name of Allah.  Remember - Germans were by no means unanimous in the desire to destroy the Jews and "misfits" in order to create an Aryan heaven but the Holocaust occurred.  There is a parallel here which might help us understand and deal with the current terror walking the land.  The parallel lies within the nature of mass movements and mob psychology writ large.

The Bin Laden Movement - it is best to call it that - is not a social dysfunction exclusive to Muslims, or Arabs or any other ethnic, national or religious group.  We all have that capacity to go collectively mad and visit unspeakable acts on others.

The first step toward understanding the Bin Laden Movement, which has millions of supporters and apologists is available close to home among fundamentalist Christians.  There is an anti-abortion organization, one of many, called Pro Life Virginia - Army of God.  It is led by the charismatic and ferocious Reverend Donald Spitz.  To call him bellicose would be to understate his passion.  Spitz does not make apocalyptic statements from a cave somewhere in Afghanistan.  He is a thoroughly modern Believer with an elaborate website (www.armyofgod.com).  Read it - all of it.  From his perspective, he and his followers are engaged in a Holy War against the infidels, which to him are all those who provide abortions or submit to them or support, even through indifference those who do.  He proclaims a higher Biblical morality which permits he and his adherents the right to kill or counsel the killing of abortionists.  Army of God has its heroes and martyrs, these being people that we would call murderers, terrorists, psychopaths or all of the above.  Each martyr has an honoured place on the website rather in the manner of Palestinian suicide bomber photos on village walls.  Currently, first among martyrs is "Atomic Dog" who shot and killed Dr. Bernard Slepian in front of his family.

Spitz and others like him have formidable followings but most Americans, whatever they think about abortion, birth control or Biblical authority despise his bloody extremism.  Nor is the law amused.  Police and courts will act when Spitz terrorists resort to violence but US constitutional protections ensure that Army of God can de facto counsel criminal behaviour.

To understand Spitz and his Army of God is to understand Bin Laden et al in a more helpful way; in a way that might lead to action capable of countering the extraordinary danger he represents to Western democracies and the Arab/Muslim diaspora he presumes to speak for.

America's current initiatives seem to be yesterday's solutions to tomorrow's problems.  Bin Laden is the face and voice of a mass movement involving millions of people.  That movement has no geographic epicentre, headquarters or uniformed army - like the Army of God.  But it has soldiers willing to give their lives in the service of a higher moral calling as 911 demonstrated.  It follows that we need to speculate that the bombing/invasion of Afghanistan and supporting the rapacious Northern Alliance may do nothing more than replace one ugly dictatorship with another while turning an impoverished country into a major supplier of crushed stone.  An attack may also serve to strengthen Bin Laden's movement - hardly the avowed intention of the Bush Administration.

What is the genesis of the Army of God?  How does this vicious, vitriolic lot sustain itself, find funding and gather new adherents?  How does Bin Laden focus and fuel the anger and sometime zealotry of millions of Muslims - particularly Arab Muslims?  The answer to both questions may be the same.
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