Timothy Malia's Personal Blog

Iran Should Be Our Headlines, Detroit Bomber Secondary

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What's been the main news headline this weekend?

A terrorist attack aboard a flight approaching Detroit on Christmas Day by a man who tried to start a massive fire on a plane that may have killed a few hundred passengers, flight attendants and pilots.

I can not argue against that being a big news article. And, more importantly, we all need to consider how the security efforts in Nigeria and Amsterdam failed so miserably in stopping that maniac from getting on the flight with explosives.

But, should that story be the leading story? I don't think so.

Once again, in Tehran, Iran, just as six months ago during and after a presidential election, something special and horrible is happening. See this BBC report about it -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8432100.stm

There are protests by government opponents and massive conflicts with government forces. Iranian protesters are reported as killed by security forces, including the nephew of the opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who likely had the presidential election stolen from him back in June.

I blogged some about Iran back in June, and especially made references to Roger Cohen's NYTimes pieces about it.

http://timothymalia.posterous.com/iran-hopes-fears-great-journalism-article  linked to a Cohen piece and outlined the situation in Iran at the time of the elections.

http://timothymalia.posterous.com/a-journalists-actual-responsibility-personal  again linked to a Cohen piece about Iran just after his return to NY and his experience there, including the urge to bear witness to what he had seen and learned there.

http://timothymalia.posterous.com/great-use-of-statsprobability-evidence-that-i  linked to a report about a mathematical assessment of the Iranian election returns and how they basically prove that the numbers were manipulated. It was good demonstration on how probability and statistical analysis can help us better understand the world.

Beside my feeling that Cohen's reporting and fantastic writing back in June may be worthy of a Pulitzer, the more important issue is that something is brewing in Iran and we may be at an important moment in history. We hear often about the struggle to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. And that is reasonable.

But history long-term is shaped by ideas more than events in the short term. And right now, in Iran, new ideas may be taking hold, from within, and those are triggering new events.

Those events, and the related ideas, should be the main headlines for us this week. Period.

In the future, no one will recall the Detroit airplane bomb attempt, but they may be talking a lot about the protests in Tehran in June and December, 2009 that led to something big. Ideas tend to do that, and shape the lens used to view history.

Unfortunately, there is a news ban in Iran right now. So information is only trickling out. But anything that does, if verified and from a reasonable source, should be the big news. History continues to unfold and we should not be missing it.

-- Tim

Lady GaGa's Lessons for Business Start-Ups

I haven't been posting much to this personal blog. There have been many things I'd like to be posting about, but my priority has been my medical blog, Dr. Malia Reckons, and for about 2-3 months I had an especially busy autumn with a great deal of H1N1 influenza appointments mixed with the usual office work and chronic patient care.

But I think this is a good topic to touch on as it mixes real business thinking with pop culture.

Many of you who know me realize that I am quite impressed by the massively popular singer/song-writer Lady GaGa. I predict she will be a very popular performer for a very long time. I think she may well become the biggest star in the music world for the next few decades and will ultimately impress all ages of the population when she later broadens her style and song choices. My assessment is based on how she has a distinctive, and good, voice; is masterly in her stage presentation and dance style; maintains a slightly off-beat, bizarre personality that can keep her in the limelight; and, many may not know this, she writes her own songs and music, while often performing her own piano in performances -- she has talent!

But here is a new angle on Lady GaGa: she may be a gleaming example for what business startups need to do for success.

First, check her talent in this clip from 2005 during a talent show when she was a student at New York University (NYU).

Now see the two blog posts below which consider how Stefani Germanotta, a k a Lady GaGa, has done so much perfectly right for a start up, including her efforts for branding, marketing, high-quality product, etc.

http://www.leveragingideas.com/2009/12/27/startups-lady-gaga/

http://www.dailyspeculations.com/wordpress/?p=4249

This young women, Lady GaGa, has a head on her shoulders. A head that has a plan that is based on talent and a natural business acumen.

Anyone interested in business should make note of how she's working it. Lady GaGa has impressed me since last spring when I first saw her perform her song Poker Face during an appearance on American Idol, but I think each and every month since then, as I've learned a little more about her piece-by-piece, I have become even more impressed.

And I am becoming more and more certain she is a keeper and will be a part of the American culture for a very, very long time. Please remember my prediction when you are talking to your grandchildren in 2050 about what Lady GaGa was like as a new, up-and-coming star.

I hope everyone's holidays have been wonderful, and the new year finds you well.

--Tim

Apples, Immigrants and Border Patrols

My family and I went apple picking today, which is always fun. We look forward to fresh apples for a week or two. Plus, over the next couple days the dehydrator will add a sweet aroma to our home as my wife makes apple chips, a favorite snack.

Here in western New York, apples are big business. Some local farms have the U-Pick options like where we went today. Other moderate-sized farms sell to larger corporations and hope the season is good -- fickle weather can spoil a harvest some years for those small-business owners. And some large corporations have their own orchards and make the big-product apple items like apple sauce and the apples that go into other products.

But what we consumers often forget is that apples are picked by real people. People who are not paid much for a lot of hard work. They are working hard to pay bills and support their families, and they are not being violent or disruptive to our society. But, often, they are in the country illegally. And with their labor, and their paying back into local economies, many small, rural areas are supported by them during harvest season.

The NYTimes today posted an Editorial Notebook article about such workers, and a local town here in western New York, Sodus.   http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/opinion/20sun3.html

New York’s apple harvest needs 8,000 workers for eight weeks. No Americans will do the work, so it goes to Latino immigrants. Their lives are tuned to crops and seasons: oranges in Florida, melons in North Carolina, blueberries in Maine, then apples in New York.

It should work brilliantly. But ever since 9/11, more federal agents than ever roam the northern border, collecting non-terrorists. Farmers scramble for workers. Workers toil and cower. As they are taken away, an economy ebbs. Restaurants and shops worry about closing. It’s a slow disaster.

Sodus is a little east of Rochester, NY. It is known for its apple industry, its bay, and an awesome Mexican restaurant (it's authentic). And this time of year many of the workers around Sodus are foreign, some illegally here. Just last week a friend, a local dentist, mentioned working at the Sodus clinic seeing migrant workers. Back during my residency years I volunteered at migrant farmer health clinics near Sodus as well as west of Rochester in the Brockport area.

Most folks around here do not know just how many migrant workers, and illegal aliens, are the manpower for our local agricultural industry. Even today, when I am driving by farms in the region, I might glance and see a shed or trailer back behind trees or off the side of one of the fields, and I know there is a reasonable chance a good handful, or more, of men and women are calling it home during harvest season. Cramped quarters, uncomfortable, but it is home for them anyway when they get a rest from the toil.

The Editorial Notebook piece noted how the locals show support for the people who are there to work the orchards and support the local industry. The migrant workers, including the illegal aliens, are doing work few Americans are willing to step up and do. They are a necessary part of an economic system that is imperfect and, at times, harsh to people working primary jobs.

I was stirred to see the NYTimes piece refer to local residents supporting, even protecting, the migrants:

So Latino families can at least worship in peace, a few Sodus citizens stand weekly vigil outside Spanish Mass at the Church of the Epiphany, to keep the Border Patrol away....

...The families watched solemnly, unaccustomed to this odd but earnest activism, but welcoming the gesture of friendship. It was strange scene, but not as strange as a country fighting against itself, sorting through its humans, checking for ones to toss out, like apples with spots.

I remember the months before September 11, 2001 when there were three primary news issues: an aide to a California US Representative was missing, there were lots of shark attacks, and President Bush felt one of the most important international issues was establishing a worker program with Mexico and he was meeting with Mexican president Vicente Fox. Remember those mild first eight months of Bush's term? There was a whole different mood in the air than today.

Now the border patrol worries for terrorists. But, while they do that important work, they may be affecting the lives of hard workers who are helping their families and helping a lot of Americans keep their industry thriving, or, at least keeping an industry from dying.

When you eat a store-bought apple, or have any kind of product with apples in it, please pause and remember who helped get it to you. There is a chance he or she is in jail, being deported or working in another part of the country on another farm, hoping not to be picked up.

They are people too, and, for their efforts, deserve at least our appreciation.

--Timothy Malia

Baseball in Iraq and Rachel Maddow

I think I have found something we can all agree on for Iraq!

Just saw on Rachel Maddow's show that they, along with the McLatchy news organization, triggered an outpouring of support for the Iraqi national baseball team simply by reporting a few weeks ago that the team lacked equipment and supplies. Once the ball got rolling, an outpouring of support, spear-headed by a few groups, led to the good news now that uniforms and equipment are on the way.

So, let us all, lefties, righties, indies and libertars*, pause and agree that this is good news about the American public helping another group in Iraq so they can learn about and enjoy our national pastime.

The clip from Rachel Maddow's show is below.

Play Ball!

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(*) I apologize. I tried to think of a cute word for libertarians but could not think of anything more than "libertars," which I think is lame. Again, sorry for nothing better.

I Am a Proud Latino Today (and Maybe Wise Too!): Sotomayor Takes the Oath

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via google.com

If you know me, you know I look like my familial background, Irish. But, if you know me well, you also know that I live in a family of color. My wife is from Bolivia, and I have been asked if my children, though naturally born to us, were adopted. In my life I have grown and part of me is now Latino because of how I have been shaped by my visits to Bolivia and my love for my wife, daughter and son.

My experiences have changed my understanding of what "we" can mean, and I have come to understand that my children, due to their light brown skin, will face challenges I never needed to consider as a pale-skinned American male.

Today my Latino heart beats with pride because Sonia Sotomayor took her oath of office. She is pictured above, along with her mother and brother, as Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath during her ceremony at the Supreme Court. And with that I am ever more hopeful for our nation and my own children's future.

Justice Sotomayor is just the third woman ever on the Supreme Court but she is the first Latino justice. I am moved by her being chosen and confirmed. Beyond affirming her 17 years as a federal judge and experience as a lawyer and prosecutor before that, this affirms again that anyone, including my own Latin-American daughter and son, can rise to the highest levels of his or her field. Her success, earned through naturally-endowed ability and long-time hard work, is something we all should admire.

And today we should all celebrate her oath and the promise of opportunity it represents for every child in America.

I love this country.

Women at Risk: considering Bob Herbert's column

Life in the United States is mind-bogglingly violent. But we should take particular notice of the staggering amounts of violence brought down on the nation’s women and girls each and every day for no other reason than who they are. They are attacked because they are female.

A girl or woman somewhere in the U.S. is sexually assaulted every couple of minutes or so. The number of seriously battered wives and girlfriends is far beyond the ability of any agency to count.

Bob Herbert, via nytimes.com

Juxtaposition makes contrasts more apparent. And so I offer this post about violence against women in our nation while also planning to post about the newest Supreme Court justice taking her oath today.

Violence against women, of course, is a problem worldwide, but this week's attack at an aerobics class by a troubled man who documented his ideas and plans online points again to the USA's record of being the most violent western, first-world nation. And that violence too often is against women.

Bob Herbert, an Op-Ed columnist for the NY Times, wrote a stirring piece today related to this issue. It is worth a read and thoughtful discussion. The piece can be found here http://tinyurl.com/mvok7l

Why are there so many misogynists? Why are so many lives scarred by physical and sexual violence against women? Sadly, as a family physician, I do not believe I have ever had a week when some issue related to domestic violence, childhood abuse or outright rape did not come to the surface or relate to health issues being addressed by female patients. Often it weighs heavy on my heart and colors grey how I see my world long after the day is done. It is profoundly sad.

I am not sure what can be done to lessen the frequency of violence against women throughout our society. But I suggest we start by watching for signs of it in our lives -- TV, movies, news reports, casual comments people say in passing -- and discussing with our children, and even our friends. Perhaps they will be more aware and empowered to take on the issue in the future. If circumstances require, we must muster the strength to step in and address acute issues, something that we humans often are not very good at. Yet in the meantime we also need the fortitude to step up and speak against the signs of the chronic, simmering mysogyny weaving through the fabric of our society.

Today this is my small gesture to try to bear witness to the issue. Bob Herbert writes eloquently, and bravely as an American male, to call us to the facts that lie before us. Is there the same kind of outrage for the killing and wounding of these women that there would have been if the victims were of a particular social or cultural group? And, if not, why do we as a society not see that there is a problem and we should keep working to lessen the misogyny and violence against women that is floating through many parts of our communities.

I pray that in some way this little blog post helps in this cause.


Yesterday "Plastics," Today "Statistics": Career & Education Choices

Perhaps you have seen the classic movie scene from The Graduate when the main character, Ben, during his college graduation party, is pulled aside and advised by a family friend to consider "one word" which, famously, was "plastics." It is a great movie, made over 40 years ago at a time that US manufacturing and business were at the center of the world's economy.
I'm reminded of it by an article in the NY Times entitled: For Today's Graduate, Just One Word: Statistics, which can be read in full here -- http://tinyurl.com/me37eh
First, take a look at the movie scene. It's a classic --
And now let's consider the new word and how things are changing. The NYTimes article describes a young woman who studied anthropology/archeology at Harvard. She speaks of working with data from field work and how that led her to working in statistics where she is now evaluating data to make Google an ever-better search engine. Such data on the internet, and likely throughout every major business field is growing immensely. According to the article the "digital data surge" will be increasing five-times more in the next 3 years -- that is beyond my comprehension. The author writes:
Yet data is merely the raw material of knowledge. “We’re rapidly entering a world where everything can be monitored and measured,” said Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist and director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Digital Business. “But the big problem is going to be the ability of humans to use, analyze and make sense of the data.”
So what does this mean for us and education? I think it once again strikes to the core of education and the need for liberal arts where students must think in all areas of knowledge and learning: the soft science of fields like anthropology and history, the hard sciences like chemistry and biology, mathematics and in literature/English/composition so information that is evaluated can be communicated and understood in the larger context of our lives.

It is no longer about entering a field or a certain market like "plastics." Today, and from now on, the business world and economy will be more plastic itself. Minds must be prepared to work in new and different ways as the years pass. Students should not be prepared to succeed in the world of just today. They must be educated to be more likely to succeed in the world of tomorrow, 20-30 years from now, when they are at the peak of their careers.

We must be able "to use, analyze and make sense of the data" that will be coming our way. Learning in our schools, from elementary through college, needs to remain broad so our young, the leaders of tomorrow, can do that well. Liberal Arts will remain relevant so such a goal can be attained.

What do you think?

The final 5% solution

Just had a thought and there might be some power in it.

What keeps us from reaching our full potential is the final 5% in anything and everything we do.

I'm putting this out there to consider and will develop the idea more later, but for now will leave it at that.

How does that strike you?

What does the statement make you think about?

Consider your "final 5%."  Any ideas to share on how to get past it and reach your full potential?

--Tim

In Defense of Palin and Sanford -- Considering Stanley Fish's commentary

So what’s the bottom line story? Simple. Sanford is in love. Palin is in pain. Sometimes what it seems to be is what it is.
via fish.blogs.nytimes.com

Another coffee break reading to write about. Stanley Fish today wrote a wonderful piece about Governors Sanford and Palin. The full article is here --
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/in-defense-of-palin-and-sanford/

I have long felt that Stanley Fish would be a fantastic mentor to have in my life. Not just intelligent, he regularly shows in his writing other fine qualities: maturity, self-awareness, respect for the lives and views of others. He often can point to inadequacy of other people or their views, but he is never mean-spirited or incoherent in his reasoning. And, of course, he writes beautifully.

His writing represents many qualities I wish to obtain. Perhaps in my coming years I will enjoy his attributes. My fingers are crossed.

In the meantime, however, I struggle with my sarcasm and my judgmental manner sprinkled in life and thoughts. And, in politics, those weaknesses regularly shine through.

So, today Stanley Fish again holds up a mirror so I can see my flaws in how I approached the recent events in the lives of Governors Sanford and Palin.

He never suggests that I might be mistaken, including how the Palin speech was rambling or how Sanford shared too much personal information. No, but he did help me see that perhaps, just perhaps, my measure of the whole, my larger perspective of Mr. Sanford and Mrs. Palin, outside of politics and government, was limited and that the lives of those two people were sad and stressful. He helps me see how their apparent communication fumbling may represent their honesty more than incoherent thinking.

As he so often does, Stanley Fish relates the governors' stories to great literature, and again demonstrates how a liberal education, including literature, helps one understand, or frame, the world about us.

Seeing Mr. Fish's perspective, today I will step back and try not to run to judgment. Perhaps my opinions and suspicions are right. Or perhaps they are wrong. But, either way, I will try to see the lives of our national and world leaders in a broader frame that will allow them to speak from the heart about personal issues and manage their lives with logic and reason tied to their own soul. I will try to presume the positive and I will wish them well.

I can only hope the same would be offered me.