Posted on

The Rehearsal State: When Governance Becomes Performance

There is a scene in every disaster movie where the official steps to the podium, adjusts the microphone, and assures the public that resources are being mobilized, plans are being activated, and the full weight of the institution is being brought to bear. The audience in the theater knows the official is lying or incompetent or both. The audience at home, watching the real version of the same press conference after the real hurricane or the real chemical spill, has no such certainty. They take the performance at face value. They go to bed believing the plan exists.

Continue reading → The Rehearsal State: When Governance Becomes Performance

Posted on

The Risk of Erasing History with Ignorance

In the annals of time, history stands tall as an undying repository of deeds, triumphs, failures, and fables that have defined humanity’s trajectory. It is with a tinge of dismay, and a hint of alarming concern, that we discuss the burgeoning contempt for history against the people who dare not to know. We’re not just combating ignorance; we’re fighting an unfortunate relegation of the past to the inconsequential.

Continue reading → The Risk of Erasing History with Ignorance

Posted on

Toss Aways

There have always always been disposable people in a limited-use society, but it’s worse now. We, as a nation of lonesome people found alone in a decaying world, have become much more than merely disposable. We have become the toss aways. We have lost our value. We have forfeited the way forward. We find ourselves teetering on the precipice between the living, and the dismayed, and the balance of the affair solely belongs to us — the us of us.

Continue reading → Toss Aways

Posted on

Teddy Roosevelt and The Man in the Arena

On April 23, 1910, Teddy Roosevelt presented a spectacular speech at the Sorbonne in Paris, France.

The title of his argument was — “Citizenship in a Republic” — and here is the famous “Man in The Arena” excerpt:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Continue reading → Teddy Roosevelt and The Man in the Arena

Posted on

No Dice When it Comes to Elevator Etiquette

How we behave in empty spaces — and then how we behave in those same spaces when others join us — has always been a fascination of mine.  There’s an “Elevator Dice Theory” arguing that people fill up that confined space in a predictable pattern that models a die face.  One person stands in the center.  Two people take opposing corners.  Three people stand in a diagonal row, and so on.

Continue reading → No Dice When it Comes to Elevator Etiquette