You Say "Piyush" and I Say "Bobby"

...
Self-thinking-&-earnest, ripe-to-lobby, "pole turtle" Piyush, Beltway Bobby!
Let's call the whole thing... worthwhile because we both don't spell "potato" the way Dan Quayle did!


I'm rather intrigued and thrilled by Bobby Jindal's delivering of the Republican response last night to President Obama's address.

His emergence is a reflection that there are some smarts within the Republican party. I hope he'll be modern and good for American politics. And I hope he doesn't disappoint by going the way of Sarah Palin.

Some time ago, an analyst writing for Hyphen Magazine fingered him as a rising star, but this analyst expressed concern that Jindal's political career might be limited by unwillingness to get slimy or play amongst some inner circles of "good ol' boys".

So far--including based on what I saw of him working for Louisiana in the past couple years--I really like him. His voice is beneficial for America.


I do have a concern that arises from my time spent in east Africa. There, some tension and ambivalence exists toward people of south Asian descent. However grounded-in-fact or unfounded it might be, average black citizens (not necessarily those ones with the best education or access to information) regard Indians as people who are corrupt and/or exploitative.

So I'm thinking that while it would not be bad to see a 2012 election competition between Barack Obama and Bobby Jindal (assuming he continues to check out practically clean between now and then), I can just see the average black citizens in Africa again seeing it as "the Indian man versus the black man". ... Well, that would be another "opportunity" (as we veterans of business situations with crisis understand the term) for the world to move forward.

In Memorium Austin Crisologo

Austin,

Hope that you are well. There are others who knew you more than I did, yet even I find that your departure leaves a gaping hole. We miss you.

 -Mike

"Austin is survived by his loving wife, Cat, for whom a memorial fund has been established to help through this most difficult of times." If you wish to contribute to this fund and need further assistance for how to do so, please contact me or stefwong-at-yahoo.

Can You See This?

I'm an aficiondo of web browsing (not unlike many other people). I've used--not all the functions of, but extensively--in order of date of my first introduction to them: Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, Firebird, Safari, Opera, Mozilla Firefox 2, Google Chrome, amongst others.

I don't understand why (in my ranking of web browsers) Microsoft Internet Explorer is last place.

Quickly writing down two reasons for my saying so about IE:

• cannot drag a link to an existing browser tab
• IE 6 and IE 7 run slower than current versions of Firefox or Opera--even though IE comes from the same company as the operating system on which I'm running it during these comparisons. Maybe the injunctions from Microsoft antitrust cases have had actual effects...
  

And let me note that while at one time I hated Microsoft for killing Netscape, I'm well past that. Today I greatly appreciate many things about Microsoft. I am inspired by what Bill Gates and founders created in Microsoft and also by what Gates has done in his life, and I have a number of other esteemed friends who are or have been associated with Microsoft.

So this posting is not made from a "religious" position. I am writing as a personal appeal to the IE team: get something out there that we can be proud of. Until then, I am going to be using IE as a last resort.


But in limited application, I can live with Internet Explorer. After all, it does at least display this blog =).

Disclaimers and Discourse

Remember in the early days of blogs, or even of personal homepages, when often they were just stream-of-thought transcripts? Privately I derided those a bit. Well, I caution you now upfront that I can foresee this blog's acting that way.

Being that this blog is going to be a reflection of things about which I care and get an intense thought, it will be focused on policy, systems, cultures, accessible technology, American football, common sayings, management, advertisements, debts, enterprise, entertainers, role of customer service, avoidable stupidity, transportation, education. Which seems to mean it's focused on nothing.

I hope you can nevertheless derive some enjoyment or other value from it. Thank you for visiting.

† The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the organizations that employ me or have me as a member.