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June 18, 2007

Comments

James Drogan

Eloquently said.

When Blair says "we" I assume, perhaps hope, he is all-inclusive. That we is more than the leadership of organizations, but includes the common man as well.

The concern I have is that the view of the common man is often and unreasonably shaped by the pundits. Why? Well, I hypothesize that it's because developing a world view of one's own is hard work.

In our world of always on, always connected, SMS, and sound bites, time has become a precious commodity. We seem to spend, or want to spend, less and less time at paying attention, listening, hearing, understanding, practicing tolerance, accepting and, ultimately, working in a more positive way for the common good.

These are, in my view, the actions necessary to develop a meaningful world view.

All of us, I believe, need to accept the responsibility of mentoring those who are following behind us on the need for and consequences of developing a world view. This is the special responsibility of parents and teachers.

Chris Ward

Tony Blair and David Cameron (leader of the UK's Loyal Opposition) are like Republicans and Democrats, or Microsoft and IBM.

Only one of each pair can be in power at a time.
Neither can buy out the other; the pair cannot join forces, or collude. They have to circle warily, represent their constituents, seek advantage where they can.

OS/2 has fallen to Linux (and POSIX standards). Microsoft Windows is hanging in there, just about.
Lotus SmartSuite has fallen to OpenOffice.org (and ISO26300). Microsoft Office is hanging in there, just about.

Lotus Notes is growing like Topsy and bringing in billions of dollars per year.

Same with sales of supercomputer chips for XBoxes. Cheap software, in the 21st century, is things like Age-of-Empires. Commercial home entertainment. Not really IBM's speciality, but Microsoft Ensemble Studios can do OK at it.

It might be a time for a shift in the balance of power, quite soon.

We can always hope !

Mark Cleverley

Irving,

Interesting. Three points came to mind.

(1) Blair has always looked for what he used to call the "third way" - between left and right. That kind of synthesis, it seems to me, is how he built his "world view", and it is probably not a bad way to do so. Remember he was excoriated for a while for abandoning the left in order to make his party electable. But he has always struck a chord as a "decent" man - whatever that may mean.

(2) Developing a world view - I wonder if that is something we actively do, or something we unconsciously do, or (sometimes) something other people do to us. Perhaps any or all of these, depending on who you are.

(3) It bothers me enormously that today we have huge amounts of information, all too easily available, the veracity and accuracy of which is moot. So, for example, a Lou Dobbs can present his spurious leprosy argument and it becomes part of the news "canon": unless and until you read the refutation, which may or may not be easy. When it was hard to publish and access - monks illuminating manuscripts, Caxton, etc - perhaps information had a better chance of reflecting reality. Does technology hold a promise of addressing this issue of what Stephen Colbert calls "truthiness"?

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