J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.

http://webonly.harvardmagazine.com/159-Rowling.mp3 
(Right Click, Save Target As) 32MB

Text of speech here:

http://harvardmagazine.com/go/jkrowling.html

Excerpt:

“Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way.  I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me… So rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people's minds, imagine themselves into other people's places.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

What is more, those who choose not to empathize may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy. One of the many things I learned was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people's lives simply by existing.”

This is a must-hear podcast.

http://wordforword.publicradio.org/programs/2008/05/30/  or
download MP3 (Right Click, Save Target As)

Link to Newsweek article if you want to read rather than listen.

I haven’t read the book yet but it is definitely on my list. It was reviewed in the New York Times:

The New New World
By Josef Joffe
May 11, 2008
In this examination of power, Fareed Zakaria focuses not so much on the decline of America, but on the rise of China and India.

Excerpt:
“We are living through the third great power shift in modern history. The first was the rise of the Western world, around the 15th century. It produced the world as we know it now—science and technology, commerce and capitalism, the industrial and agricultural revolutions. The second shift (19th century) was the rise of the United States. Once it industrialized, it soon became the most powerful nation in the world, stronger than any likely combination of other nations.  The third great power shift of the modern age— This will not be a world defined by the decline of America but rather the rise of everyone else.

A series of positive trends over the last 20 years have created an international climate of unprecedented peace and prosperity.

I know. That's not the world that people perceive. We are told that we live in dark, dangerous times. Terrorism, rogue states, nuclear proliferation, financial panics, recession, outsourcing, and illegal immigrants all loom large in the national discourse.

Looking at the evidence, [scholars claim] that we are probably living "in the most peaceful time of our species' existence."

Why does it not feel that way? Why do we think we live in scary times? Part of the problem is that as violence has been ebbing, information has been exploding... Today any bomb that goes off, any rocket that is fired, any death that results, is documented by someone, somewhere and ricochets instantly across the world. "That could have been me," you think. Actually, your chances of being killed in a terrorist attack are tiny—for an American, smaller than drowning in your bathtub. But it doesn't feel like that.”

Thomas Friedman:  “We don’t just need the first black president. We need the first green president. We don’t just need the first woman president. We need the first environmental president. We don’t just need a president who has been toughened by years as a prisoner of war but a president who is tough enough to level with the American people about the profound economic, geopolitical and climate threats posed by our addiction to oil — and to offer a real plan to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.”

“Equally important, presidential candidates need to help Americans understand that green is not about cutting back. It’s about creating a new cornucopia of abundance for the next generation by inventing a whole new industry. It’s about getting our best brains out of hedge funds and into innovations that will not only give us the clean-power industrial assets to preserve our American dream but also give us the technologies that billions of others need to realize their own dreams without destroying the planet.”

Full article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15green.t.html

Related blog: http://www.improvize.com/blog/_archives/2008/7/20/3801794.html

A very insightful report in the NY Times about disaffected youth in Egypt:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/world/middleeast/17youth.html

From The Atlantic magazine, the most revealing geopolitical account of the Middle East I’ve read. 
After Iraq: A report from the new Middle East—and a glimpse of its possible future by Jeffrey Goldberg

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200801/goldberg-mideast

Excerpts:

It was Winston Churchill who, in the aftermath of World War I, roped together three provinces of the defeated and dissolved Ottoman Empire, adopted the name Iraq, and bequeathed it to a luckless branch of the Hashemite tribe of west Arabia. Churchill would eventually call the forced inclusion of the Kurds in Iraq one of his worst mistakes—but by then, there was nothing he could do about it.

The Iraq War has begun to produce "wholesale change"—but "it won't be the one envisioned by the administration." An independent Kurdistan would be just the start… "It's not a question about how America wants the map to look; it's a question of how the map is going to look, whether we like it or not."

While the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone—from cultural stagnation through scandalous inequality to deadly religious extremism—the greatest taboo in striving to understand the region's comprehensive failure isn't Islam but the awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries worshipped by our own diplomats.

A senior Israeli security official, whispered, "He wants Jordan to be more democratic… Would you rather have a stable monarch who is secular and who has a good intelligence service on your eastern border, or would you rather have a state run by Hamas? That's what he would get if there were no more monarchy in Jordan."

"The PC way of looking at the 21st century is that non-state actors—al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, general chaos—have replaced states as the key players in the Middle East. But states are more resilient than that." He added that a newfound fear of instability might even buttress existing states.

While it would seem eminently vulnerable to the chaos, Jordan is, in fact, almost tranquil… in part because most of its people want quiet, even if that means forgoing all the features of Western democracy.

In the years since his Iraq project fell into disrepair, President Bush has acted like a realist while speaking like a utopian neoconservative. He has touted the virtues of democracy to the very people subjugated by pro-American dictators. The problem is that Iraq has already proven—and Iran continues to prove—that Americans cannot make Middle Easterners do what is in America's best interest.

"I fear that the surge has just provided a break for Sunnis and Shias to better position themselves for further conflict when American forces are drawn down. There's no indication yet that the Shias are prepared to share power or that the Sunnis are prepared to live as a minority under Shia majoritarian rule."

Thanks to my brother in law, Raj, and the recommendation of a friend, Jim, who also visits Ottawa for the holidays, I am now the proud owner of a Garmin Global Positioning System (GPS) Receiver. For some reason, I always assumed they were:

• expensive to acquire (based on options at the car dealership)
• entailed subscription fees (?)
• difficult to use (squinting at friend's mobile phones rigged to GPS)

As it turns out, the technology has really matured:

• cheap: $250
• no on-going fees
• easy and fun to use

The model I chose is the Garmin Nuvi 250 which has a detailed database for all of North America including points of interest, restaurants, etc.

We've been using it for a couple of days and I highly recommend this for anyone. Goodbye paper maps!

You can even use it as a photo viewer using the SD memory card slot. What's nice is that even though it recommends a route to your destination, it quickly adjusts when you are "off course" or allows you to insert a "via point" to take you to an intermediate destination first. Most important though is the touchscreen interface and logical menus that allow you to set your destination very quickly.

Sean Carroll (University of Wisconsin) provides a captivating and enlightening account of the latest findings in evolutionary developmental biology ("evo devo").  It explains how genetics really works to turn DNA into the visible traits and physical forms of living things.  The book is a must-read for anyone who is "interested in the origins of complexity".  Have you have ever wondered why there are so many similarities between us and other animals or why in the midst of multitudes, there are so few, common patterns (e.g. two eyes, five fingers, etc.)?  This is the place to start.

Here is a bit of what I grasped from his richly exampled book.

All creatures begin as a single cell that divides and differentiates.  As this embryonic development gets underway, chemical markers identify the location of the cell in 3 dimensions much like a globe: longitude, latitude, and altitude.  Each cell knows where it is relative to the others--its global position.

There are regulatory genes that, based on the cell's position, trigger a cascading series of cell development.  These regulatory genes are ancient and nearly identical in all animals.  At the very onset, the embryo divides into a "head" and "tail", and into "topside" and "bottomside", and "left and right".  Within the "tail" section, cells further subdivide into segments.  The future site of arms and legs are marked very early, when the embryo just looks like a blob.  Later these marked cells trigger growth of limbs, which involve their own cascading sequence of genetic triggers.

The key things to note:  The foundational genes that organize the body pattern is the same or similar in almost all animals, especially vertebrates.  These body patterns begin forming in the first few hours of embryo formation.  Therefore these common basic genes are shared across an incredibly vast variety of creatures large and small.  Thus it is no coincidence that we have so much in common with even a fruit fly.

In fact, the same proteins involved in the production of a fruit fly's eyes are used in the formation of our eyes; the same proteins, if disrupted, cause birth defects in humans.  The underlying chemical system is the same in all living things.  This is to be expected given that we know that DNA is shared by all living things.  But what this means is that not only is nature using the same "paper and pencil" but is using the same drawings as a starting point, and "simply" embellishing the drawings with more and more layers and details, or sometimes stretching or repeating patterns to suit a different need.

When atoms were first proved to exist (a mere century ago), they were thought to be made only of electrons and protons. That explained a lot, but it did not quite square with other observations. Then, in 1932, James Chadwick discovered the neutron. Suddenly everything made sense-so much sense that it took only another 13 years to build an atomic bomb.

It is probably no exaggeration to say that biology is now undergoing its "neutron moment". For more than half a century the fundamental story of living things has been a tale of the interplay between genes, in the form of DNA, and proteins, which the genes encode and which do the donkey work of keeping living organisms living. The past couple of years, however, have seen the rise and rise of a third type of molecule, called RNA.

http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?story_id=9339752&fsrc=RSS

Philosophers of science love this sort of thing. They refer to it as a paradigm shift. Living through such a shift is confusing for the scientists involved, and this one is no exception. But when it is over, it is likely to have changed people's views about how cells regulate themselves, how life becomes more complex, how certain mysterious diseases develop and even how the process of evolution operates.

Another consequence of RNA's rise to prominence is that researchers have a new source of ideas about how diseases might one day be treated.  The main hunt for new drugs centres on a technology called RNA interference, or RNAi.

Army Doctor Sudip Bose is now living in Chicago, back in the ER at Christ Medical Center.  However he finds that the lessons learned on the front lines of Iraq are always there to guide him.  I had an opportunity to talk with him.

Here is what he said. (Click for MP3)

 (Note: Background Music by Chris Hyatt, a member of the Dean Moriarty Jazz Band)

“It’s hard to appreciate the Earth when you’re down right upon it because it’s so huge. It gives you in an instant, just at a position 240,000 miles away from it, (an idea of) how insignificant we are, how fragile we are, and how fortunate we are to have a body that will allow us to enjoy the sky and the trees and the water ... It’s something that many people take for granted when they’re born and they grow up within the environment. But they don’t realize what they have. And I didn’t till I left it.”
—Jim Lovell, Apollo 8 and 13.

“...From up there, it looks finite and it looks fragile and it really looks like just a tiny little place on which we live in a vast expanse of space.”
—Winston Scott, two-time shuttle astronaut

“I left Earth three times. I found no place else to go. Please take care of Spaceship Earth.”
—Wally Schirra, who flew around Earth on Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions in the 1960s.

Article on MSNBC

EXCERPTS from Clinton’s speech at TED:

We live in a world that is inter-dependent but insufficient.

• It is profoundly unequal.
• It is unstable because of the threats of war, disease, etc.
• It is unsustainable because of climate change, resource depletion and species destruction.

I hope for integrated communities:

• Broadly shared opportunities
• Shared sense of responsibility
• A sense of belonging

The central psychological plague of this century is that people think they have more differences than in common.

We have to build systems.  In the absence of systems that function, we would not be able to achieve anything.  Think about it.  However many obstacles you have faced, at critical junctures, you always knew there was a predictable connection between the effort you exerted and the result you achieved.  In a world with no systems, in chaos, everything becomes a struggle and this predictability is not there.

Sir Ken Robinson speaks at the TED conference. This is a humorous and provocative talk.  Check it out: Link to Site

Every eduation system has the same hierarchy.  Everywhere, no matter where you go, at the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and at the bottom are the arts.  And within the arts, art and music are normally given the higher status than drama and dance.  No one teaches dance every day to children the way we teach mathematics…  [The way we teach suggests we think] our bodies are only a form of transport for our heads.

All public education systems around the world came into being to meet the needs of industrialization.  So you are steered benignly away as a child from subjects on the grounds you would never get a job doing that…  Now profoundly mistaken…  Many brilliant, creative people think they are not, because the thing they were good at wasn’t valued or was stigmatized.  We can’t go on that way.

Viktor Frankl is a renowned psychologist and survivor of Nazi concentration camps.  His book, “Man’s Search for Meaning”, sold two million copies.  In it, he expounded “Logotherapy”.

Logotherapy in a Nutshell (Quotes)
Striving to find a meaning in one's life is the primary motivational force in man, not a "secondary rationalization" of instinctual drives (Freudian theory).  That is why man is even ready to suffer on the condition that his suffering has a meaning.

People have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning.

Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.  These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these are things which cannot inspire envy.

What man needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.  Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment.  Everyone's task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it.

In the same way fear brings to pass what one is afraid of, likewise a forced intention makes impossible what one forcibly wishes.  Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue from the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation.

The more one forgets himself - by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love - the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.

Humor is another of the soul's weapons in the fight for self-preservation. It is well known that humor more than anything else in the human makeup, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves…  Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

The true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world of experience rather than within man's own psyche as though it were a closed system. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct... Taking the responsibility to fulfill the tasks which life constantly sets for each individual.

Book by Francis Fukuyama | Excerpt:

The satisfaction we derive from being connected to others in the workplace grows out of a fundamental human desire for recognition. As I argued in The End of History and the Last Man, every human being seeks to have his or her dignity recognized (i.e., evaluated at its proper worth) by other human beings. Indeed, this drive is so deep and fundamental that it is one of the chief motors of the entire human historical process. In earlier periods, this desire for recognition played itself out in the military arena as kings and princes fought bloody battles with one another for primacy. In modern times, this struggle for recognition has shifted from the military to the economic realm, where it has the socially beneficial effect of creating rather than destroying wealth. Beyond subsistence levels, economic activity is frequently undertaken for the sake of recognition rather than merely as a means of satisfying natural material needs. The latter are, as Adam Smith pointed out, few in number and relatively easily satisfied. Work and money are much more important as sources of identity, status, and dignity, whether one has created a multinational media empire or been promoted to foreman. This kind of recognition cannot be achieved by individuals; it can come about only in a social context.

See also Fukuyama in the NY Times

A recent study shows that philanthropy, while inherently satisfying, taps a uniquely human faculty to make difficult moral choices.

Excerpt from The Economist:

The Joy of Giving (October 12, 2006)

Researchers at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Maryland, wanted to find the neural basis for unselfish acts. They used a standard technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging, which can map the activity of the various parts of the brain.

The subjects of the study were each given $128 and told that they could donate anonymously to any of a range of potentially controversial charities. These embraced a wide range of causes, including support for abortion, euthanasia and sex equality, and opposition to the death penalty, nuclear power and war.

They found that the part of the brain that was active when a person donated happened to be the brain's reward centre—the mesolimbic pathway, responsible for doling out the dopamine-mediated euphoria associated with sex, money, food and drugs. Thus the warm glow that accompanies charitable giving has a physiological basis.

Donating also engaged the part of the brain that plays a role in the bonding behaviour between mother and child, and in romantic love. This involves oxytocin, a hormone that increases trust and co-operation.

A third part of the brain, which lies just behind the forehead and thought to be unique to humans, was involved in the complex, costly decisions when self-interest and moral beliefs were in conflict. Giving may make all sorts of animals feel good, but grappling with this particular sort of dilemma would appear to rely on a uniquely human part of the brain.

Full Story in the Economist

“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”
Mahatma Gandhi

“One hundred years ago Mohandas Gandhi began the movement that would transform him into a Great Soul-the Mahatma. He had been living in South Africa for 13 years when the government proposed a law that would effectively reduce Indians to criminal status. On September 11th, 1906 he convened a meeting at the Empire Theatre in Johannesburg to mobilize his community to oppose the racially degrading legislation.  That September 11th, more than 3000 people solemnly pledged to disobey the proposed law, without the use of violence, despite the consequences.  With that pledge, Gandhi and his fellow Indians began the nonviolent revolution that would defeat an empire and give birth to the world’s largest democracy.”

Read More from the Nonviolent Peaceforce organization

A brief history of September 11, 1906: Birth of the Satyagraha Movement (PDF)

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?”
Mahatma Gandhi

In a classic marketing book, Al Ries explains “Positioning: the battle for your mind”.  In the first two pages of the book, I have more clearly understood than ever before the last six years of messages coming from Washington.  Do the following sound familiar:

“In our overcommunicated society, we oversimplify because that’s the only way to cope.”

“Since so little of your message is going to get through anyway, you concentrate on the perceptions of the prospect, not the reality of the product.”

An editor of The Economist in the 1950s once advised his journalists to “simplify, then exaggerate”. This formula is almost second nature for newspaper columnists and can make for excellent reading, but lousy guide for policy decisions.