"I should have prepared an adequate disaster manual and raised awareness among teachers about the level of danger." These words were part of the apology issued by Kashiba Teruyuki, principal of a Japanese elementary school that suffered the deaths of 74 students and 10 teachers during last year's tsunami. Only 34 students survived. The apology came after […]
A friend and I were discussing how the focus in schools on 18th and 19th century US history results in students knowing little or nothing about US history after World War II. Couple this with the lack of civics courses that provide a basic understanding of how government works and its no surprise that the average […]
When was the last time you said, "no" to a client or superior? It's not an easy thing to do but sometimes it's absolutely essential. We're often a victim of our own success and our clients and superiors think we can do it all. Sometimes we even encourage that attitude because it boosts our own ego. […]
As a consultant, one of the things I tend to look for when evaluating a client's program is something psychologist call "cognitive dissonance". Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort caused by holding two conflicting cognitions (ideas, values, beliefs, etc.). In simpler terms, it's the internal conflict you feel when you're told to do one thing but […]
Last week I received an angry email from a colleague who objected to one of my recent articles and demanded to be removed from my email list. In honoring his request, I noted that he had never even read the article to which he was objecting. He had made an assumption about the content and […]
Like many of you, I've been wading through the recently issued National Preparedness Goal. From my somewhat cynical perspective, I think it's going to pretty much put a final nail in the coffin of the Comprehensive Emergency Management model that has guided our programs since 1978. Instead of the four phase model of mitigation, preparedness, […]
As promised, here are my thoughts on the UC Davis pepper spray incident. Let me preface my remarks by saying that I am reacting solely to what I see in the video and am not privy to any other facts, so it is not my intent to second-guess the officers on the scene. There's enough […]
In my recent article on the power of visual images I discussed the image of a UC Davis campus police officer using pepper spray on student demonstrators. One of the points in my article is that visual images lack context and that we are moved by the image because we don't always know what occurred before […]