Iraq - food for thought from one classmate / New books / Wallmart foundation

It is still cold, my window is still broken. Tomorrowt we will have snow storm here in Boston. It will be fun. Fortunately I can stay inside in the afternoon, when the storm hits.

Iraq - food for thought from one classmate

Kevin gave a short presentation about his time as captain of US army in Bagdad. His company was in charge of reconstruction of the broken infrastructure. in 16 months they managed to repair 25 schoold, some universities, several hospitals, some pumping station, and something else. Kevin's talk reinforced my understanding that most of the US troops are doing a good job in Iraq and that the problems is in somewhere up in the chain of command. I am not sure how much I may repeat what Kevin told us, but it was pretty interesting indeed.

Our cohort/class is really interesting. We have several guys from US army, one from Indian army, one from Greek army, one from Singapore army. Then we have persons from defense industry, automotives, aerospace, non profit, software, and I have not even been ableto talk to everyone. It really seems that there is lot to learn from classmates. It is going to be pretty interesting to learn all new things and points of view.

New books

I have tried to enforce a quota of 1 book per week. Today I failed. I bought The road since structure, Philosophical Essays, 1970-1993, with an Autobiographical Interviewand The Future of Work: How the New Order of Business Will Shape Your Organization, Your Management Style and Your Life. Both of them are definitely worth reading. I am especially interested in the Structure-book, and I have to find time to read at least the interview of Kuhn.

Wallmart foundation

Wallmart foundation advertises itself on the public radio. They say that they are giving back to the community. Well, that is rather fair: according to some studies, Wallmart pays so low salaries, that the community has to give income subsidies of $2000 per each Wallmart employee per year. And since Wallmart has more than 1 million employees in USA (or something like that), there is some giving back to do just to pay back those subsidies. Interesting country: state is supporting crocery-stores! Somehow I remember that this happened in some communist countries earlier. But I may be confused.

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs January 2005".