“It begun in good faith by decent people out of fateful misunderstandings, American overconfidence and Cold War miscalculations.”
There is a lot to unpack from this statement in Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s new documentary, The Vietnam War.
While it was written to summarize the origins of one of the most divisive periods in our country’s history, it could just as easily be applied to other past and future conflicts.…
The fire broke out in the early morning. It traveled quickly through the walls of the white house on the corner lot. The 69 year-old Ralph Waldo Emerson rushed out of his home calling for help.
Townspeople throughout Concord came running to his aid. They included Louisa May Alcott, who with her sisters, were armed with baskets to rescue the books in his library.
On a recent tour, one of the historians pointed out a common feature of his home and others at the time. …
| This is the question posed by legendary music producer Jimmy Iovine during the spectacular HBO docu-series, The Defiant Ones, chronicling the parallel journeys of his life and Dr. Dre’s and how together they made music history. His answer to this question is “focus”. Without blinders horses would look to their left and right distracting them from their pursuit of victory. This six hours series is a testament to how focus and hard work can help overcome extraordinary life challenges. |
In 1943, off the coast of North Africa, my grandfather, Burton Poucher was one of 1,149 U.S. soldiers who were killed aboard the HMT Rohna.
The ship was sunk by a newly designed remote control German glider bomb – a precursor to today’s “smart” missiles. It was the largest single loss of life in the sea during the war.
Prior to shipping off, Burton was stationed in Indiana for training.…
Over the next two months, approximately 3 million young adults will graduate and enter the job market. About half will graduate from college and the other half will graduate from high school with no plans for higher education.
Despite the differences in career paths and future opportunities, how they find that next job is likely to be similar. According to this study, 80% of people will find a job through someone they know.…
I have been fortunate in my life to amass quite the motley crew of old friends. They have shaped and changed me in ways it is hard to capture. I suspect I am not alone. Studies have shown that our friends affect everything from the choices we make to the financial risks we take and from the weight we gain to how long we live.
By sheer numbers alone, from middle school through the time we have children, we are constantly under the influence of our friends. Spending…
Imagine you are giving an acceptance speech for a major award, like the Oscars. Who would you thank? God? Your Mom? Your agent? Would the press write articles about how your hard work allowed you to overcome some struggle in your life to reach this pinnacle?
If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is. It is a familiar script on how we tell our stories about becoming successful (hard work) and who, if anyone, we have to thank for it (the usual suspects).…
The factors that contribute to our success work in concert, not isolation.
Our health impacts our ability to learn. Our ability to learn impacts our health. A single traumatic event from our childhood can have lifelong consequences.
When we don’t connect the dots, we draw incomplete pictures that make little sense. This fosters multiple bureaucratic systems working in silos and frustrating systems that add to core problems instead of solving them.…
While we may feel like we are “masters of our own universe,” most of us have a galaxy of friends and connections that impact our lives in a variety of ways. We call them our social networks.
There is the obvious way. We reach out to those we know for help. We have a legal question, so we ask a friend who is a lawyer. Our car has an issue, so we reach out to someone with mechanical experience.…
That was the term used to describe Commissioner Scott Semple of the Connecticut Department of Corrections as he was introduced to a gathering at the Vera Institute of Justice.
In discussing his work to create a healthier and more humane corrections system, Mr. Semple lamented that people who work in corrections seldom get to see the success of their work.
After all, success is when someone doesn’t come back to prison — and goes on to live a happy life as a productive member of the community.…
