Train happenings

Groundbreaking of Raleigh Union Station

Groundbreaking of Raleigh Union Station


I raced out of work Friday morning to see the groundbreaking of Raleigh’s new Union Station. Mayor McFarlane, Gov. McCrory, NCDOT Secretary Tata, Rep. David Price, and Federal DOT and Amtrak officials were there to break ground on this new multi-modal station. Looking around the crowd of spectators, many of whom were sweating under the strong sun, I wondered how many of them had ever actually ridden Amtrak. I’d bet the closest most have come is the hundred yards to the tracks where the NCDOT’s version of Amtrak, the Piedmont, was right then pulling into Raleigh.
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Text of Brian Dyson’s commencement speech at Georgia Tech, Sept 1991.

This is the full text of the speech given by Brian Dyson, former CEO of Coca-Cola Enterprises, at Georgia Tech’s 172nd commencement on September 6, 1991, as reported in the Georgia Tech Whistle faculty newspaper. See my previous post to learn how I tracked this down.

Coca-Cola CEO’s Secret Formula For Success: Vision, Confidence And Luck

(Brian G. Dyson. president and chief executive officer of Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. was the featured speaker at Georgia Tech’s 172nd commencement on Sept. 6.)

I think the ingredients for success, or as we would say at Coca-Cola. “the secret formula,” is a combination of three things: vision, knowing what you want to be when you grow up; confidence, knowing who you are; and luck, or what I would call being in the right place at the right time.

With those three ingredients and your Georgia Tech diploma, you have the formula for success. You have a first class education from a world class university, and I really congratulate you all on your achievement.
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Yes, Coca-Cola CEO Brian Dyson really did give that “five balls” speech

On social media, a friend forwarded what was called the “Shortest speech by CEO of Coca Cola…”
bryan-dyson-image-quote
It reads:

Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – Work, Family, Health, Friends and Spirit and you’re keeping all of these in the air.

You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four Balls – Family, Health, Friends and Spirit – are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for it.”

Work efficiently during office hours and leave on time. Give the required time to your family, friends & have proper rest

Value has a value only if its value is valued

While I’m not the first to cast doubt on this alleged speech, the quote sounded too cheesy to be true so I decided to study it a bit.
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Folks don’t appreciate this

I mostly agreed with this McLean’s story about America Dumbing Down, until the author quoted Susan Jacoby’s nitpicking the word “folks.”

By 2008, journalist Susan Jacoby was warning that the denseness—“a virulent mixture of anti-rationalism and low expectations”—was more of a permanent state. In her book, The Age of American Unreason, she posited that it trickled down from the top, fuelled by faux-populist politicians striving to make themselves sound approachable rather than smart. Their creeping tendency to refer to everyone—voters, experts, government officials—as “folks” is “symptomatic of a debasement of public speech inseparable from a more general erosion of American cultural standards,” she wrote. “Casual, colloquial language also conveys an implicit denial of the seriousness of whatever issue is being debated: talking about folks going off to war is the equivalent of describing rape victims as girls.”

Whoa. Talking about “folks” is like denigrating rape victims? Hyperbole much?

Obama can be “the most cerebral and eloquent American leader in a generation” and still say “folks” in a speech. Bill Clinton is brilliant and also … well, a “hayseed.” Can he not say “folks?”

There’s nothing wrong with the word “folks.” Unless you’re an elitist, that is.

via America dumbs down: a rising tide of anti-intellectual thinking.

The world of threats to the US is an illusion – Opinion – The Boston Globe

When Americans look out at the world, we see a swarm of threats. China seems resurgent and ambitious. Russia is aggressive. Iran menaces our allies. Middle East nations we once relied on are collapsing in flames. Latin American leaders sound steadily more anti-Yankee. Terror groups capture territory and commit horrific atrocities. We fight Ebola with one hand while fending off Central American children with the other.

In fact, this world of threats is an illusion. The United States has no potent enemies. We are not only safe, but safer than any big power has been in all of modern history.

via The world of threats to the US is an illusion – Opinion – The Boston Globe.

The “Entitlement Generation” : Anchor Mom

I had a few friends repost this on their Facebook pages, holding it up perhaps as an example of ideal parenting:

“If your parents had to use a wooden spoon on you, then they clearly didn’t know how to parent you.”

Yep. I got that email last night after I posted my blog. I honestly had to laugh. Here was a stranger criticizing my parents. I tend to think they did a pretty good job. They raised three, well-rounded children. One is a successful HR exec, one is a journalist and the other is a doctor. Clearly they did something right. 😉 And let’s be real for a minute, it wasn’t all about a wooden spoon. It was about manners and respect.

Put me in the camp of the person who told this woman “If your parents had to use a wooden spoon on you, then they clearly didn’t know how to parent you.”

There are better ways to earn respect than by beating your child. If you have to beat your child, you are doing it wrong. You. Are. Doing. It. Wrong.

You know, maybe if we stop teaching kids that might makes right and that violence is a legitimate solution to a problem, we would have fewer domestic abuse issues, murders, riots, and maybe even wars. Maybe adults could try acting like adults and work a little bit at the parenting thing, rather than striking out like a three-year-old would?

I don’t hit my kids, I’ve never hit my kids, and the thought of hitting my kids makes me sick. And you know what? They are awesome. They can be frustrating at times because they’re kids, but they respect me because I model the kind of behavior that I expect from them. If my kids make a mistake, they don’t feel the need to be deceitful in an effort to escape a beating. The lesson we teach is to own up to your mistakes and fix them. They claim both their successes and failures.

My ultimate job as a parent is to teach my kids how to interact with the adult world. If my friends or coworkers don’t do what I say, I don’t go punch them in the face. I talk with them and sort things out. This is what grown-ups do. This is how we solve problems.

I’m sick of corporal punishment apologists blaming the “sparing of the rod” for a kid’s issues. If a rod is all you’ve got in your parental toolbox, you’re a poor parent. And it’s not just your kid who will suffer.

via The “Entitlement Generation” : Anchor Mom.

David Simon: ‘There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show’ | US news | The Guardian

More of David Simon.

America is a country that is now utterly divided when it comes to its society, its economy, its politics. There are definitely two Americas. I live in one, on one block in Baltimore that is part of the viable America, the America that is connected to its own economy, where there is a plausible future for the people born into it. About 20 blocks away is another America entirely. It’s astonishing how little we have to do with each other, and yet we are living in such proximity.

There’s no barbed wire around West Baltimore or around East Baltimore, around Pimlico, the areas in my city that have been utterly divorced from the American experience that I know. But there might as well be. We’ve somehow managed to march on to two separate futures and I think you’re seeing this more and more in the west. I don’t think it’s unique to America.

via David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show' | US news | The Guardian.

David Simon on Baltimore’s Anguish | The Marshall Project

Great interview of David Simon on the Baltimore police situation.

David Simon is Baltimore’s best-known chronicler of life on the hard streets. He worked for The Baltimore Sun city desk for a dozen years, wrote “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets” (1991) and with former homicide detective Ed Burns co-wrote “The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood”(1997), which Simon adapted into an HBO miniseries. He is the creator, executive producer and head writer of the HBO television series “The Wire” (2002–2008). Simon is a member of The Marshall Project’s advisory board. He spoke with Bill Keller on Tuesday.

via David Simon on Baltimore’s Anguish | The Marshall Project.

Death dream

i-told-you-i-was-sick

I don’t normally post about my dreams but this one has been on my mind. An entry from my dream journal, dated 16 July 2013:

I dreamt that I had 1,346 more days to live. I would die of an expensive disease like cancer, one that would stretch the limits of my health insurance. It was all matter-of-fact. According to the calculator on timeanddate.com, 1,346 days from now is Thursday, 23 March 2017. Of course, I am not ready to die and almost certainly won’t be ready on 23 March 2017. Even so, it makes me consider how I might choose to spend these days if I know I only have x number left.

To add some detail, I was told in my dream by someone in authority that this was how many days I had left to live. It was simply explained to me that this was how it was going to be. This was my fate. And it did seem matter-of-fact, as if this was the plan I had agreed to all along. I recall not being particularly excited or concerned about the news.

And the way the data was presented in days rather than a date really stuck with me. It is a very unusual way of conveying that information, perhaps so that I would better remember it.

Dreams don’t always come true. I know this. This dream had a very sober reality that I can’t ignore, though. It is an important message to me.

So if it’s wrong, we will all have a good laugh. I will go ahead and pen a future blog entry, scheduled to post on 24 March 2017. With good fortune perhaps I will mock it along with everyone else. In the meantime, though, I am going to take in as much as I can in the 696 days I might have left.

Because you never knows when you might die. Or do you?

Charles Lane has taken vet fire before

Today’s opinion piece is not the first time Charles Lane has come under fire from veterans. Veteran blogger Jonn Lilyea took Lane apart after Lane took aim last year at TriCare, the veteran health care system:

So, this fairly disingenuous fellow, Charles Lane, writes in the Washington Post opinion section about how we veterans don’t deserve Tricare as it currently exists. Apparently, we shouldn’t expect the government to honor it’s promises after we’ve fulfilled our commitment;

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