Monthly Archives: May 2005

Making ‘Sense’ of Health Care Costs and Other Complex Challenges

Posted on May 31, 2005 by Dave Pollard

When does the pursuit of ‘best practices’ make sense, and when do we need to apply less precise but more effective approaches instead? This week’s New Yorker has another interesting column by James Surowiecki, entitled Local Knowledge, which laments the … Continue reading →

Posted in Working Smarter | 4 Comments

The Ten Best Games for Friday Night Poker

Posted on May 30, 2005 by Dave Pollard

Ten interesting variants for your neighbourhood poker get-togethers. Turn on your TV and you’d think the only way to play poker is the boring Texas Hold ‘Em game. The big money tournaments have spurred an enormous growth in neighbourhood poker … Continue reading →

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‘Skeptical Environmentalists’ and the Passion for Junk Science

Posted on May 29, 2005 by Dave Pollard

How the ‘science’ behind ‘skeptical environmentalists’ denial of global warming can be traced to a typo, the rantings of an architect, and the conspiracy theories of Lyndon Larouche. I‘ve written before about our propensity and desire to be seduced by … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works | 4 Comments

This Week’s Essential Reading

Posted on May 28, 2005 by Dave Pollard

My usual Saturday round-up of interesting and compelling articles from elsewhere that I’ve stumbled upon over the past week, this time with a decidedly political flavour: UK MP George Galloway Rips Congress: Read the full transcript of the remarks by … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works | 4 Comments

More on Lakoff vs. LappÈ

Posted on May 27, 2005 by Dave Pollard

The Idea: The only way to prevent extremists from holding nations hostage to their emotions is to devolve power so that no one wields enough of it to exploit it the way untrammeled tyrants and fanatics inevitably do if they … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works | 3 Comments

Learning About Dying

Posted on May 26, 2005 by Dave Pollard

The Idea: Governments and organized religion exploit our ignorance and fear of death, to everyone’s disadvantage. It’s time we faced down the exploiters and faced up to death’s simple truths. Nowhere is our modern society’s squeamishness about telling the truth … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works | 10 Comments

Imagining Your Organization’s Future: Finding the Intersection

Posted on May 25, 2005 by Dave Pollard

Organizations tend to be, or become, innovative for one of two reasons: Either it’s their culture (the style of the people the organization attracts, or at least that of its leaders), or it’s forced by a crisis to innovate or … Continue reading →

Posted in Working Smarter | 5 Comments

On Dress Codes and Uniforms

Posted on May 24, 2005 by Dave Pollard

At a recent poker night with a bunch of jeans-clad parents (age 35 to 55) I heard the following comments: “I like uniforms for school kids because it removes the competition over dress and makes it easier to get them … Continue reading →

Posted in How the World Really Works | 33 Comments

Shades of Seabiscuit: The Heroic Story of Afleet Alex

Posted on May 23, 2005 by Dave Pollard

An astonishing story had its fourth chapter written Saturday. In case you haven’t been following, here’s the tale so far: The little colt Afleet Alex was not expected to survive his first few days. As his trainer Tim Ritchey recalls: … Continue reading →

Posted in Our Culture / Ourselves | 1 Comment

gregor’s story

Posted on May 22, 2005 by Dave Pollard

so the eight of us — we call ourselves the pod — our self-selected learning group of members of alathea community aged from thirteen to seventeen years, decided to walk over to the falls of the raven as we walked … Continue reading →

Posted in Creative Works | 5 Comments