It’s funny some times how things make you smile. What is actually said and your own memories pulled from the depths make a great cocktail …

I have a good friend in Atlanta in the banking business … he joked that he “had a good 3rd and 4th quarter but will (probably) be laid off by Spring. As a fall-back, he was considering “starting a goat farm up in Blue Ridge, Georgia.” He invited me to come down and join in the enterprise, which sounded wonderfully tempting on my first reading of his note. After further consideration and following a rush of blurred memories, I declined.

My encounters with goats are mixed at best and I think sum to the negative. Recently, however, I was down in St Kitts and had some slow bar-b-qued goat ribs that were great ... tiny but delicious! … That is not just the white rum talking, they were tasty and cheap ... Goats were running all over the island like cats...

That pleasure was heavily offset by the vague recollection of a week I spent one night at the then famous Cadillac Bar and Grill in Dallas. The evening’s entertainment focused on a multiple course dinner of Tequila … and several side dishes of cabrito … a word in Tex-ican meaning greasy roasted goat ... for a digestif, I took a late-night shower with my suit on ... way late the next day and as they say, the boy "looked real bad.”

On balance, I want nothing more to do with goats but I am sure, should it come to it, that his business will be a raging success without me ... Rock on, Brother ... Hold the Tequila but set aside a rib or two for me ...

Life 1.2 (Beta) Mother, Looking Back

God love her but my Mother has not known where anything was for 87 years ... How many hours of her life has she wasted looking for the scissors? ...

It is one of those things that shape you and make you ... it has forced me to change that life example and as a consequence I go nuts when I misplace the keys ... and so it goes ...

Bias!, Mine Is Better Than Yours ... Meritocracy Be Damned

Everyone is biased ... it is required to survive and the sum of our experiences ... it is our natural condition; a fundamental part of life and conveniently misunderstood by those that would manipulate the unthinking ... A sure sign that you are dealing with a liar ... or at least someone lying to himself ... is when he gives you his "unbiased opinion" ... What he is really saying is that my bias is better than yours ... I heard a sportscaster the other day talking about how few black coaches remain in NCAA football ... it has just fallen from 8 to 4 while 55% of all student athletes are black ... Meritocracy be damned! ... ESPN laments that "the numbers simply do not reflect the diversity of our student-athletes" ... what crap! ... The truth is that the black college athlete in America, as a group, are the best in the World ... gifted and equipped to compete at any level at almost anything ... they play and compete because they earned it ... earned it with hard work to develop a skill set beyond those athletes hoping for the same opportunity ... not because of the amount of melanin in their skin cells ...

One of the reasons sports in America is so loved it that it is one of the few places that is fair on the practice field ... if you are good, have heart and courage ... you get the job ... generally the best player at any position plays and color never enters into it ... Can you imagine how ridiculous it would be to propose that 60% of the NBA be Asian or Caucasian? ... just stupid and enormously unfair to those that have earned the right to play ...

As for coaches and fans ... ask 'em at Washington and Notre Dame or NFL Detroit ... They would hire somebody green if they could win ... or just be decent and competitive ... Leave it that way and keep this victimization and quota crap out of the sports discussion ... if its not color blind ... it is a manifestation of the true underlying racism that is so damaging to this society ... racism is a 100% proposition ... either all or none ... you can't be a racist when it serves your purpose ... the "Dream" was to be "judged (not) by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" ... it was a wonderful goal then and remains one now ...

Mystery Solved

"The best part about being my age is in knowing how my life worked out. Sure, there's a lot more living to go, but there isn't much doubt that I'll always be this (me).

Unless I go on a crime spree, in which case, I'll be that "stabbin guy" ... or something" ... Edited from the original Scott Adams quote

Life 1.2 (Beta) Continue With The Presentation

On two occasions during my life and my career I have given presentations to people that were asleep … I told myself I had no choice … the sleeper was not the issue … it was the other sad actors in this two part play that had lost their self respect that branded me …

I was a young department head and was asked to make a very critical oil and gas lending presentation to the President of a bank where I worked … I was joined by the division Vice President as I began my 7:30am analysis … almost immediately the President feel asleep … I stopped, looked at the VP and protested … “the guy is asleep … we should wake him up or leave” … The VP dropped his eyes but said, “continue with the presentation” and for the next hour or so I covered material that was vital to the understanding of risk the bank faced … this information was shared with a man that was unconscious … I should have stood up and walked out ... Maybe I would have lost that job but maybe I would have found out enought about myself so I would have acheived my dreams ...

A few years later I found myself in Washington, DC in the Office of Louisiana Representative and later Speaker of the House (for a few days), Bob Livingston. I had already made well-received presentations at the Executive Office Building adjoining the White House, one at the Organization of American States (OAS) and now was prepared to meet with a powerful Congressman from my home state. As my group was ushered into that impressive congressional office, we where greeted by Congressman Livingston and one of his senior aides. Following a few minutes of pleasantries, I began a discussion of a private bank proposal that hoped to solidify commercial, shipping and import/export ties with some Central and South American industrial interest. The plan outlined an offset to inroads made by aggressive Japanes parties and the Port of Miami. The Congressman dozed off within minutes … again, here I am … I looked to the aide and said something akin to “the guy is asleep … we should wake him up or we should leave” … The aide hissed, “continue with the presentation" … "I’ll tell him what he needs to know” and for the next hour or so I talked to an unconscious man while covering material that meant the world to me … and maybe could have been a critical commercial boost to a faltering business sector in New Orleans.

I know as humiliations go this ranks somewhere between a party foul and being slammed by a beautiful woman at a party but these were critical moments that defined and highlighted some aspects of life for me … So who sold out? Certainly, me. Certainly, the VP and the aide. I still do it and I tell myself I have no choice … no choice … what I do now is not the embarrassment and the humiliation of speaking to the unhearing but it’s the same and it sickens me just as it did in those old days gone by ... I do the inane because I think I have no choice and there is always some poor soul who will say the equivalent of “continue with the presentation.”

Life 1.2 (Beta) The Good, The Bad, And The Deeply Held

I was listening to “This American Life” with Ira Glass on Chicago Public Radio … a good story about attempts to unionize a chicken processing plant in a backwater town in North Carolina …The folks working there are in one of the most horrible jobs in America and are primarily immigrant workers who have few options … The story focused on bringing a priest, pastor or rabbi into the mix and trying to appeal to the owner’s conscience rather than burning the place down as they are now do in France and Greece… it didn’t work.

I don’t know if that is good or bad in the long run. To me, unions are like socialism … good idea but “the human nature” cannot resist the temptations of power and greed … both are destined for the most corrosive and corrupt evolution of any of society’s tools.

Another aspect of the story had more meaning for me. The workers were overwhelmed and many became despondent but one of the organizers was quoted as believing, “people are basically good which means (they are) always just a conversation away from a conversion (to good)…” It caught my ear and at first seemed a foolish, strange and an improbable definition of humanity.

I am respectfully non-religious and have always believed that a person’s personality was fundamentally set; fixed by the age of 4. If a person is a little co-dependent shit at 4, you can get fair odds that the person will be a little co-dependent shit at 24, for example. I, the science and years of experience are probably right about this fact more often than not.

However, there is more to the equation than the simple facts. While many points of religious doctrine are troubling it is obvious that deeply held religious beliefs allow for a hope that we are "just a conversation away from a conversion to good." Truth is not as important to me as the fact that the guy in that North Carolina backwater, heading in for another day in a hellish job, gets up in the morning, maybe every morning, thinking/believing that it may be possible. He may be happier than I am. I have to respect that.