January 2004 Archives

Oh, man. What a day.

Emotional roller coaster.

Some good news and some bad news, good news first:

I'm going to Edinburgh and I'll be working for ThruPoint. Still. My resignation was refused. This is a good thing.

The bad news is that it will take longer for me to get there than I had originally thought, perhaps as long as a month.

Now on to the meat of the discussion.

Dissent is an important part of consensus building and an integral part of any consultation practice. What has marred the modern political landscape in the US in since the 1988 presidential election is that rhetoric has given way to ad hominem invective. Dissent is part of an intellectual process, not an automatic naysaying of the proclamations of an "opponent," arguments from certain members of Monty Python notwithstanding. Modern political discourse takes the form of statements and counterstatements between camps that maintain a posture of diametric opposition even on matters about which they actually agree. This isn't really dissent, but a kind of mental wrestling that benefits only the combatants, and only when they "win." More below.

Also:This past January 9th marked the two year anniversary of when Carol Forbes and I went on our first date. This coming January 26th markes the date that I'll be moving back to Edinburgh, a place that I've come to think of as home more than here in Alexandria, VA or Mentor, OH, where our parents live.