Colbert: When you see or hear things that are bad are going on in your church, you get up and you walk out! That’s what Catholics like me, and Papa Bear [his nickname for Bill O’Reilly] and Sean Hannity understand. You leave that church!
Unless it’s, you know, widespread decades-long rumours of sexual abuse. In that case, you gotta give it time. The church has its own processes; we don’t understand it!
The point is, all any Catholic pundits and Catholic politicans who may be criticizing Obama are saying is: “Do as we say, not as we didn’t”.
Update, May 13, 2008: The original video got yanked, but I’ve posted another copy in its place.
Here’s a great video that’s making the internet rounds: right-wing attack dog Bill O’Reilly, losing his cool and turning into an eight-year-old upon encountering the phrase “play us out”, a term that anyone who’s been in a TV studio at least a couple of times has encountered. Be warned, he bursts into a potty-mouthed temper tantrum and lets fly with the f-word:
This is from his days on the television news tabloid program Inside Edition, which he hosted from 1989 to 1995. I remember thinking that Inside Edition was about as trashy as television got, but that was well before The O’Reilly Factor.
Dutch blogger George Maschke reminds us that although our gas prices may seem high here in North America (it’s about CDN$1.23 / litre in Accordion City) — high enough that Republican presidential candidate John McCain has suggested a gas tax holiday — they’d be considered a king-sized bargain in the Netherlands. He took this photo of the price sign at his neighbourhood gas station in The Hague on Saturday, May 10th; note that they’re in Euro per litre:
Photo by George Maschke.
George did a little math and converted the Dutch prices so that they’d be expressed in U.S. dollars per gallon; I simply did the Euro-to-Canadian dollar conversions to get the prices in terms of Canadian dollars per litre. The results of our calculations appear in the table below:
The question remains: did they have to mimic it so closely? You might as well put up a sign that says: “Toronto: We’re too dumb to come up with our own identity, so we’ll settle for being the dollar store version of New York City.”
Most career writers when they want to simplify a message use a fable, with a few illustrations that show the key perspectives. The fable is clearly secondary to the details.
In The Adventures of Johnny Bunko, the story is more interesting than the advice. Having read a lot of Mr. Pink’s writing, I thought I knew what he would probably advise. But I didn’t realize that he would make the story so interesting, and that the manga format would add so much power to the story telling. Nice work!
What’s the advice? Let me rephrase to make it clearer to you:
Don’t be rigid about planning out each step well in advance . . . it’s not possible to do.
Build on what you’re good at (Peter Drucker originated that one) and avoid relying on what you aren’t good at.
Focus on what you can do for others (start with the boss) rather than what’s in it for you (you can read more about this in How to Be a Star at Work).
Keep at it. Practice makes perfect.
Take on big challenges and learn from them.
Make a difference.
I think I’ll pick up this book — it’s pretty cheap, and I’d like to see how Daniel Pink uses the manga format to advantage.
More Advice from Daniel Pink
Here are some video clips featuring Daniel Pink some pretty interesting giving career advice…
Abundance, Asia and Automation
Pink says that the really useful skills are those that are hard to outsource, hard to automate and that serves a need that goes beyond functional. And those skills are the right-brain ones — the ones often derided as “soft skills”.
Help! My Resume Has Too Many Jobs!
Don’t worry if your resume looks like it has too many jobs on it — the world of work today doesn’t give out prizes for lifetime service. These days, it’s about whether you can solve their problems.
Exercise Creativity at Your Job
The old adage applies: “It’s often better to ask for forgiveness than permission.” And from my own experience, I can tell you that he’s right.
Choosing a Major
Follow your interests — don’t choose a major based on what kind of job you think you’ll get after you graduate. The job market is likely to change! Follow your passion instead. You should also work on your “high concept” and “high touch” skills.
