:Forest Folk

The Pope has made a statement that religion and science are compatible, although history has not shown that to be the case in over 2000 years. If the Pope is serious then we must have some reassurances of this, otherwise move over because the we are in an era of discovery and the forward progression of mankind is moving forward with or without religions ability to keep up.

If the large religions of the world do not start now and modify themselves at a faster rate, they will soon lose the faith of their followers as their doctrines fail to correspond to the actual observations of researchers and scientists as we move forward. In the days of Copernicus it may have been easy to keep some population bases in the dark by refusing to listen to reason. But this is a different era, one filled with rapid-fire communication, where each discovery is spread worldwide within hours of its findings.

Who knows the Pope maybe right, maybe they can pull this off and keep their religion in tact; but it will take a new strategic plan and a dumping of any literal interpretation of their literary works. The dog and pony show of Pope Mobiles and “B-Movie” wardrobes and gowns with fancy ceremonies and holly Nabisco crackers, well that simply is not going to cut it on the road ahead.

So, dear Pope, you will need to walk the talk otherwise, you will be selling all that real estate and stolen art from years gone by to pay the costs of the Catholic Church. Consider all this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

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The Crippled Bird

I

And Zaneta heard the wind shifting outside

the car window, then I parked the car

We stood outside the car and talked

as if it was a birdcage.

She was a crippled bird, slow she

was to learn, as many heard, as if her mind

Was in a box utterly locked

for her mind skipped, like lifting fog,

Slow to gradually, went her childhood

she,

In her fading voice: “O why has God

made me like this?”

(I listened carefully)

“They all laugh at me, Sue, Sarah, Billy too.”

“Zaneta, Zaneta!”

Said Zaneta, her hands shaking like a thin

paper-wall, next to a moving train

(kids can be cruel).

It was like an earthquake, inside my head

“Zaneta” I said…

She moaned to see what I would say,

I felt the earth had swallowed

My little girl up. “I don’t know why God

makes things the way He does,

(Zaneta was in a trance), perhaps it’s

According to His plan, His habit,”

I said, “perhaps He has greater visions

for you, but it was not by chance.

It will have to be you who will rise above

the melted candle.”

II

O swiftness was not her beauty,

But breath of air, and bravery was in her veins.

The doctors all said she’d never read

Quite opposite, she was like granite.

She was in the dark, and chose the light

And day after day, year after year

She read bible verse, syllable by syllable

Stanza by stanza, cradled in her hands

The scriptures (hard to understand)

But she read them, found hope, and

Slid on passion to learn, all because

Of one day of counsel.

From half-scornful pity to its burial.

III

She as one, had rebuilt the bridges

The one her shame, in silent secrecy, could

Never meet in the light of a room

Now it slipped through the room of night

And wrecked everything in sight, like a storm

And some how landed on the fifth-moon,

The one only in dreams.

IV

She kept secret her perplexed fear,

Of being backwards (slow) and no

I mean no one knew the difference.

No longer a prisoner with an inescapable fate,

The root in her body was nourished:

Death had entered and left.

#1193 [2/9/2006]

Notes: this is a hard and emotional poem to read. Not hard in reading, but hard in being able to read it emotionally. It is funny, children that is: Dennis has a son who is (as he says)’Too smart for his own good,’ one that is very slow, his daughter, and one who he claims is average, like him. And he could never put these words to the poem in their proper place about his daughter who now is 27-years old, although he had the words, he did not have the style it needed. Now he does. I do believe Robinson Jeffers helped him out with the style. It is a lovely poem. Rosa

In Spanish
Translated by Nancy Penaloza

El Pajarillo Lisiado

I

Y Zaneta escuch el cambio del viento afuera

De la ventana del coche, luego yo lo estacioné
Nos paramos fuera del coche y hablamos

Como si esta fuera una jaula.
Ella era como una pajarita lisiada, lenta para

Aprender era ella, como muchos escucharon,- como si su mente
Estuviera en una caja-completamente bloqueada

Para su mente pasada por alto, como niebla disipada,
Lenta poco a poco, fue a su niez

Ella,
En su voz atenuada; “Oh, porque Dios

Me hizo como esto”?

(Yo escuche cuidadosamente)

“Todos ellos se ren de mi, Sue, Sarah, Billy también”.

“Zaneta, Zaneta”!.
Dijo Zaneta, sus manos sacudiendo como una delgada

Pared de papel, cerca de un tren en movimiento
(Los muchachos pueden ser crueles).

Fue como un terremoto, dentro de mi cabeza

“Zaneta” yo dije..
Ella gema para ver lo que yo dira,

Yo sent que la tierra se haba tragado
A mi pequea nia. “yo no se porque Dios

Hace las cosas de la forma que lo hace”,
(Zaneta estaba en un trance), talvez esto es
De acuerdo a su plan, su habito”,

Dije, “Talvez él tiene las visones mas grandes

Para ti, pero no era por casualidad.
Tendras que ser tu quien se eleve sobre

La vela fundida”.

II

Oh, La rapidez no era su belleza,
Pero el aliento de aire, y el valor estaban en sus venas.

Todos los médicos dijeron que ella nunca leera
Todo lo contrario, ella estaba como el granito.
Ella estaba en la oscuridad, y escogi la luz
Y da tras da, ao tras ao

Ella ley versos de la Biblia, slaba por slaba

Estancia por estancia, sosteniendo en sus manos

Las escrituras (Difcil para entender)

Pero ella los ley, encontr la esperanza, y

Desliz en la pasin para aprender, todo a causa
De un da del consejo.
De la compasin medio-despreciativo para su entierro.

III

Ella como uno, haba reedificado los puentes
El nico su vergenza, en silencioso secreto, jams
Encontrara en la luz de un cuarto
Ahora esto resbal por el cuarto de noche
Y destruy todo a la vista, como una tempestad
Y algo como aterrizado sobre la quinta-luna,
El nico slo en sueos.

IV

Ella mantuvo secreto su temor perplejo,
De ser al revés (floja) y ninguno
Yo creo que nadie supo la diferencia.
No ms que un preso con un destino ineludible,
La raz en su cuerpo estaba alimentada:

La Muerte haba entrado y sali.

#1193 [2/9/2006]

See Dennis’ web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com see his new poetry books at http://www.bn.com [Poems out of Minnesota]or http://www.amazon.com

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I witnessed some interesting behaviour from one of our premier management schools this summer. A behaviour that I have since discovered is not uncommon.

This summer I met the PA of an emminent professor at a business school.

I had met her on several occassions before and knew her to be a bright chatty woman who always enjoyed passing the time of day.

On this occassion when I asked her how her week was going she looked at me and I could see that she wanted to smile but the muscles in her face would not work and after a few twitches she gave up trying and looked back at the ground.

I asked her what was the matter and she told me that her department was undergoing change.

I asked her what that actually meant.

She told me that a “Change Manager” had appeared in the department and everybody was waiting to see who got the sack.

This was a woman, who is normally a capable and confident administrator, had been reduced to a nervous wreck because she perceived that an anonymous arbiter had been brought in to decide her future.

This was her reaction to the presence of a “Change Manager” based on her perception that change meant people being sacked.

How close was this perception to reality?

I met my PA again a month later and the way that she and her colleagues had been treated made me spit.

She had got over her first shock and was now extremely angry with the college authorities.

30 senior PA’s were now involved.

It seems that the chancellor and his senior team had announced the changes then brought in a consultant to ratify them.

The situation for the PA’s was that they had been told that their fates would be announced in six weeks.

They had no idea how many jobs would be left after six weeks but were told that nobody would be made redundant, alternative employment would be found.

The perception of the PA’s was that their managers had already decided how many would be let go and were only spinning it out under the guise of “Managed Change” because they wanted to pretend that the decision was part of a reasoned process and not the arbitrary wielding of a financial axe by the accountant.

It was awful to watch the diabolical way a centre for excellence was treating its own staff, and still had the temerity to continue to hold itself up as an example to whom we should look for learned guidance.

“What thickness is the ivory on their tower that prevents them seeing the consequences of their actions?”

My initial question was whether this girls perception of change was shared by others.

It seems that it is.

I spoke to my PA friend again last month and they were still telling her to wait while the decision was made about her future.

She could not endure the stress any longer and started to look for alternative employment.

As she said, she loved the job that she used to have,

The authorities had through their actions caused her to lose trust in them and come to hate the job that was now causing her so much stress.

She could not consider continuing to work for them even if they announced tomorrow that her job was safe because she could not continue to work for, or trust, people who had caused her so much pain.

This behaviour from a respected university that is held up as a centre of management excellence is, in its personal effect on these individuals, appalling.

It is interesting to note that the bosses of all the PA’s affected had by this time been asked to reapply for their jobs too.

The PA that I know told me that her boss has started to look for work elsewhere for the same reasons as she had.

Last week I met the PA again and she told me that both she and her boss had found new jobs, still working together, at a neighbouring school.

It does not have the same reputation but that is a situation that neither of them thinks will last for very long.

Having spent long hours discussing how diabolical the action of the college was the PA’s had come to realise that what was apparently just another example of Crass bad management was in actual fact best practice.

As a centre of management excellence one of the techniques that was advocated to avoid making redundancy payments when you need to get rid of people is too make the workplace so stressful that they choose to leave.

The favourite technique for doing this is to make people reapply for their own jobs.

I am happy to report in this instance that the management school were well and truly stuffed.

My PA, and a number of others who had all found alternative employment, accidentally neglected to tell the college that they had found alternative employment.

The result was that the college, when nobody left voluntarily, were forced to announce the redundancies.
Every single person made redundant took their payment then walked straight into a new job that they had already accepted.

The college still had to make redundancy payments to the people it had always intended laying off but in addition it also had the expense of recruiting new staff to fill all the other posts of the people who had left because of the shoddy way the college had treated their staff.

What goes around, comes around.

Score one for the good guys.

Peter A Hunter
Author of “Breaking the Mould”
http://www.breakingthemould.co.uk

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