Hasta La Gadget!

Author’s note: I read this letter as part of a sermon I preached at Montclair Presbyterian Church in Oakland, California on August 28, 2016.

Dear Whoever Is In Charge:

I hope you will forgive me for not addressing you by name. I mean no disrespect by my general salutation. It’s just that I am writing to you on matters of war and peace and the wellbeing of God’s children, and when it comes to such matters, I really don’t know who is in charge.

I’m not ignorant: I still remember most of what I learned in my civics class at Mendocino High School (Hail to the fighting Cardinals), and in the more than three decades since I sat in that class, doing my level best to overcome the hormonally-driven, angst-inducing fog of adolescence, I have improved on my knowledge of how our Government works, mostly because I am curious about such things, and because I enjoy the process of learning.

I try also to be a worthy observer of current events, and as such, when it comes to matters of war and peace, I’m not sure I can say with any certainty that I know who is calling the shots. I trust that our President is a good man, yet with some regularity, he authorizes drone strikes that have killed a disturbing number of civilians. From where I sit these drone strikes go against the general character of our Commander in Chief. I confess I hold members of the legislative branch in lower esteem than I do our President, but still — people go into various kinds of public service because they want to make the world a better place, and I trust this is true for an overwhelming majority of our nation’s senators and representatives. Yet the legislative branch, if anything, seems to want even more warfare then currently we are waging. When I’m honest it seems to me as if our political leaders are like boats which have lost both rudder and keel; they are blown sideways by winds and currents and they are powerless to change course.

It would be easy to blame our military for our ongoing warfare, but I am a pastor who has had the privilege of hearing the stories of members of the military, often as they are making deathbed confessions, preparing to meet their maker with a clean conscience. I understand that no one knows the horrors of war more than do members of the military, and I know that military personnel often are the last people to want a war to happen.

Perhaps the problem is the so-called “military-industrial complex.” Certainly war is a racket. Whenever there is a war a few people make a lot of money, and we live in a country where money tends to call the shots, but in our society money only exerts power when politicians are corrupt, which may be the case in our country today, but my observation of current events leads me to believe that no one is in charge of the American War Machine. Everything we are doing seems to be reactive rather than proactive. If there is an intelligent design to our military strategy, I don’t know about it. As far as I can tell, we’re just killing civilians or we’re not using our influence to stop the slaughter of innocence, without any coherent military or political objectives.

All of which is a long way of saying I don’t know who you are when I address this letter to whomever is in charge. And whoever you are, I wish you were here to listen to this letter as I read it to the members and friends of my congregation in the context of Christian worship. Our congregation is a lovely group of folks who worship in a beautiful place, along the banks of Temescal creek in the hills above Oakland, California. Usually we worship I the morning inside a truly remarkable a-framed sanctuary, but today we are worshiping outside in the afternoon, in our church’s courtyard. We are surrounded by the beauty of redwoods and live Oak; there are birds singing, and after our worship we will be eating dinner together in the fading light of an August evening. Even as I speak these words, the congregation can smell the pulled pork that in short order will fill our bellies, and there is a joyful impatience among us. I wish you could share the beauty of this evening with us, in part because I suspect going to church might be a new experience for you.

I don’t mean to sound judgmental when I suggest the experience of worship might be a new thing for you. I say this not because I am a guilt-mongering, Bible-thumping, Calvinist preacher man, I base my suggestion that Church might be a new thing for you because when I look at the world you have created, at the pain you have inflicted, at the blood you have shed, and the lives you have destroyed, I have to conclude that you do not go to church — at least you don’t go to a church that takes seriously the Biblical vision of a Kingdom of God in which swords are beat into ploughshares or spears into pruning hooks. You don’t attend a church that longs for a day when God’s children will study war no more. Which is to say — and I’m going to sound judgmental again here — if you go to church, you would do well to expand your ecclesiastical horizons (which is a fancy way of saying, get thee to a new church).

I’m not suggesting that you have to go out and join one of the traditionally pacifist religious traditions. Even though I don’t know who you are, I still have a hard time imagining you farming with the Amish or going door to door with the Jehovah’s Witnesses; and for your style there may be too many vegans among the Quakers. I get it.

Mostly I’d recommend you attend any church that values tradition and learning and that promotes a rational faith. Which is to say, I’d love for you to attend just about any mainline Protestant or Roman Catholic Church and listen to what those churches and their traditions have to say about the morality of warfare.

Most Western Christians subscribe to some version of the Just War theory, and there are different expressions of Just War theory, but every expression of the Just War theory I know about includes the following elements:

1. A just war must have a just cause: usually this means the war must be waged in defense of one’s country or in defense of a vulnerable population somewhere else. Waging war to secure a supply for oil doesn’t count.
2. A just war must have a just motivation: no fair coming up with a just cause when your motivation is unjust. So, for example, even if you are fighting the evil of ISIS, the war isn’t just if what you really want is to preserve a supply of oil.
3. Just wars must be waged by legitimate authorities: arming a surrogate army of unaffiliated rebels to fight wars on your behalf in places like Nicaragua or Syria is unjust.
4. Just wars are waged in such a way that civilians and civilian infrastructure are spared and protected: the fact that there are more refugees in the world today than at any time since World War II is clear evidence that modern military modalities are not just.
5. Just wars are waged proportionally: Gandhi once warned that “and eye for an eye” leaves the whole world blind, and that may be true, but the goal of modern warfare is not eye for eye and tooth for tooth, it’s more like a village for an eye, and a city for a tooth; or, if you prefer actual numbers, it’s nearly a million civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan for 4,000 victims of a particularly horrific terrorist attack fifteen years ago.

Now, Whoever Is In Charge, let me lay down a challenge. Name one war that you have waged or that currently you are waging which conforms to the commonly accepted principles of Just war. Go back as far as you want. World War II? Forget about it. In that war you had just cause and just motivation; the war was waged by legitimate authorities, but if it’s going to be just, a war must comply with all of the conditions set forth in a just war. I would direct your attention to the charred remains of Dresden and Nagasaki as a reminder that even in that so-called “Good War” you targeted civilians and your conduct was not proportional.

Now, you may be of the opinion that the Just War Theory is outmoded, that it is unrealistic; if that’s so, I disagree with you, but I’m happy to shift focus to the simplest and most commonly held rule for ethics, the Golden Rule: “do unto others what you would have them to unto you,” or “love your neighbor as yourself.” To disagree with this guideline is to put yourself at odds with every religious and secular system of ethics I know about.

So, people in charge, whoever you are, if you won’t go to church, I ask you, at the very least, to turn from your work of waging war for just a moment. Be human. Perhaps you have parents who are getting old. Do you want them to spend their last years on earth as refugees? Maybe you have children. Do you wan them to be ripped from your life by bombs dropped from remote-control aircraft? Maybe you live in a vibrant neighborhood with lots of great restaurants and galleries and bookstores, and places to buy vinyl records for that great collection of jazz you’ve been working on since your youth. Would you like the community you call home to be reduced to gravel and smoke by the power of thousands of tons of explosives?

Of course not, but this is exactly what you are doing — either directly or complicity — to other people’s parents and children and neighborhoods, and you do it with alarming regularity. Now, I know you think you are engaging in this destruction with good reasons. There be terrorists, or communists, or enemies who hate us and want us dead. And you may be right, but let me ask you this: is there anything our government could do that would be so horrendous as to justify sending your elderly parents out to wander as refugees in the heat of summer and the cold of winter until they die an uncomfortable and undignified death? Can any terrorist plot hatched by your neighbors ever be so heinous as to merit the death of your children? Could the people in your neighborhood ever hold political views so dangerous as to necessitate the destruction of your home place?

I rather doubt you have answered in the affirmative to any of the questions in the last paragraph, and if I’m correct, then you have an ethical problem on your hands. If displacement, murder and destruction would never be justified in your family or in your community, then they cannot be justified in the families and in the communities of other people, even if they live in far-off places and speak unfamiliar languages, and eat bizarre food, and pray facing holy cities that are not your own.

This letter is getting long, so I’ll stop here, by inviting further conversation. I don’t know who you are, but if you’ve read this letter you know who I am. Feel free to contact me. It would be an honor to buy you a beer and to help you think through how you can work to put an end to war.

I remain,

Yours Sincerely,

The Rev. Ben Daniel
Montclair Presbyterian Church
Oakland, CA

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

OK, it is what you think.

HuffPost Comedy held its weekly hashtag game on Tuesday, this time adding some not-so-much-needed chum to the waters of this election season. 

Check out some of the very best offerings for #ClickbaitTheElection!

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Credit

Car accidents are unfortunately very common in the United States and the majority of these road crashes are caused by human error. While some are relatively minor, thousands of lives are taken every year by these horrible car crashes. Because your life can be at risk if you drive in an unsafe manner, it is so important to drive carefully and follow all traffic laws.

However, just because you are careful does not mean that you can assure that all other drivers on the road will do the same thing. If you are in a car crash, it may not be your fault, and you should not be held responsible for the damages caused by the ignorance or mistakes of other drivers. In such cases, you should consider protecting yourself by filing a car accident claim. There are so many damages, pains and frustrations that may arise as a result of a car accident, and it’s best to guard your life above all.

Below are the most common causes of car accidents in the United States. Read carefully to find out what actions you can start taking today to prevent them

1. Distracted Driving
Distracted driving becomes a larger threat every year and has been the leading cause of car accidents for the past decades. Please pay attention to the road while you are driving. That means no calls, no texting, no eating, no reading, no grooming or application of makeup, and talking while behind the wheel.

2. Drunk Driving
Drunk driving is one of the most dangerous causes of accidents in the U.S. and is the most deadly. If you have had anything to drink, take a taxi or give your keys to a sober friend. It is not worth the risk.

3. Speeding
Although it can be tempting to push the speed limit when you are running late, speeding is the second most common cause of accidents, so you should resist the urge and stay within the legal limits.

4. Reckless Driving
Changing lanes too quickly, speeding well over the limit, and acting aggressive on the roads can lead to horrible accidents. It is important to take your time and remain calm while driving to avoid needless accidents caused by simple carelessness.

5. Rain
While you can’t always avoid driving in the rain, the slippery, treacherous road conditions caused by heavy rains should be avoided when at all possible. If visibility is too low to drive or the roads seem particularly slick, you should pull over and wait until the storm passes.

6. Running Red Lights
It may seem obvious, but it bears repeating. Red always means stop. Even if it seems like no other cars are coming, you can cause a serious accident by running a red light and you will be breaking the law. We’ve heard several excuses from busy entrepreneurs trying to run through red lights while thinking about work, from those legal contracts to investor relations, and at the same time literally trying to answer to work emails. Understand that life is more important than all these issues combined and it’s best to be safe than sorry.

7. Night Driving
Lack of visibility makes hazards more difficult to see at night. Make sure that you are extra alert on the road at night, and use your full lights when on an abandoned road without streetlights.

8. Design Defects
Sometimes accidents are caused by flaws in the car itself. While you cannot always avoid this, make sure to take note of any recalls in the news and take your car in for regular maintenance.

9. Tailgating
There is never an excuse to get too close to the car in front of you, no matter how frustratingly slow they seem to be going. Keep a safe distance from other cars so that you will have time to react to sudden turns or uses of brakes.

10. Wrong-Way Driving/ Improper Turns
Everyone makes mistakes, but lapses in judgement while driving a car can cause horrible accidents. Be aware of street signs warning of one-way streets or other irregularities, especially in unfamiliar areas.

When people don’t get in the proper lane to make a turn, use signals properly, or follow traffic signals, accidents happen. Always look out for traffic signs and obey the proper right-of-way when you make a turn.

10. Teenage Drivers
Teens don’t have the experience to know what to do in unsafe conditions and that naïveté causes accidents. If you have teenagers, make sure that they have had a defensive driving course, do not permit cell phone use while driving, and limit the passengers they can take with them in the car.

11. Drugs:
While alcohol is the culprit we usually associate with DUIs, drugs, including marijuana, prescription pills and other illegal drugs also cause terrible accidents. Never drive if you are under the influence of any drug, prescribed or not.

12. Potholes:
Potholes are very frustrating for drivers because sometimes they can’t be avoided. Try to drive around potholes to avoid damaging your car, when you can, but do not swerve into another lane if cars are coming. Despite the fact that there are some laws that could work in your favor, don’t take chances, especially with the heartbreaking car accident statistics from previous cases.

13. Tire Blowouts
If you get a flat while driving, it can cause you to swerve unexpectedly. Try to stay calm and keep control of the wheel while pulling over as soon as it is safe. Call for help if you cannot change the tire yourself safely.

14. Animal Crossings
Anyone who has ever heard someone tell about hitting a deer knows that this is a big danger. For this reason, take extra caution when you see an animal crossing sign and always use your high beams when travelling in rural, woody areas where wild animals are common.

15. Construction Sites
Sometimes the way a construction zone is set up can be confusing. Follow the cones as well as possible and be aware of other drivers who may be confused. It is especially important to drive slowly in these areas to avoid even the smallest accidents from occuring.

Before you drive, think about how wonderful life is, your loved ones (even if you’ve sorted your estate planning), your business and the other great dreams you still have to achieve in life. Be proactive by taking precaution and removing all forms of distractions that might hinder your focus along the way. Life is worth living!

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

We have always been taught the golden rule since we could understand words and concepts. For those of you who aren’t quite sure what I am talking about it is this: Treat others the way you would want them to treat you. This is a great value to have growing up because it teaches us empathy. It enables us to put ourselves into someone else’s ‘shoes’ and try to imagine what the other person may be feeling in any given situation. I teach my own children this as well. It helps them see how others may feel in many different scenarios. The world could use more empathy. However, this doesn’t seem to work in marriages.

I have seen so many times a spouse trying to get their partner to understand how they feel by giving examples, such as: “This may help you get how I feel… say you were trying to tell me about your day and I just looked at the TV and didn’t pay close attention, wouldn’t that make you angry?” The other person’s response is usually something like, “First of all, I don’t usually do that. When you are telling me something I can also have the TV on and still listen to you.” This is not what the person wanted to hear. They want their spouse to say back something like, “It makes total sense to me why you would be angry with me, I would hate if you did that to me, so I won’t do that to you anymore.” Ahhhh… the angels sing and life and love go back to being perfect…. Oh, wait, that isn’t how marriage goes!
So, when we don’t get the most amazing, understanding and empathetic response we want, what do we do? We have to do something different in the first place. The fact is we can’t expect the other person to WANT or NEED to be treated the way WE DO. Time and time again, I have witnessed couples try so hard to help their spouse ‘get it’ by explaining to them the golden rule. Time and time again, they are disappointed and feel more frustrated than they did in the beginning. When I see this frustration cycle starting to build, I try to stop the partner that is giving the golden rule examples and help the spouse that isn’t “getting it” to just hear the person’s feelings and their unmet need. Your spouse may not want or need to be loved the same way you do.

What your spouse needs may be different than what you need. That is OK, it doesn’t make it wrong or bad, it is just different. The sooner you can figure this out and begin treating your spouse in that way, the better things will be. You need to become an expert on your spouse. No one else should know them better than you. You need to use this knowledge of your spouse to the relationship’s advantage not detriment. It is much easier for the couple in my example to just keep doing what they were doing, no one has to change then. Sometimes couples think, ‘over time they will get used to it, or this is just how I am- I can watch TV and listen at the same time.’ What usually happens over time is that both partners get so frustrated, hurt and emotionally distant that a negative spin starts in the marriage. This can cause either frequent arguing about minor infractions or one or both people quit asking for what they need which leads them farther away emotionally from their spouse.

So, to avoid all the unnecessary arguing and to create more connection, we have to start treating our spouse the way they need to be treated and filled up with love. Dr. Gary Chapman wrote a book called The Five Love Languages. He describes how relationships seem to go well in the beginning, but a couple years into it, things sometimes start to go downhill, why is that? He describes in the book how on our wedding day we feel ‘filled up’ with love. The person has been meeting our love language, treating us the way we want to be treated and filling us up with love. The Five Love Languages are Physical Touch, Acts of Service, Words of Affirmation, Receiving Gifts and Quality Time. These are the different ways we show people we love them. Quite often, we try to speak our language of love to the other person. Often, we don’t speak the same language, so we aren’t able to be ‘filled-up’ by the way we are trying to show love to one another. As you can see, all the languages are good and positive, but we feel loved at different levels by each one of them.

When we don’t know what our spouses love language is we start speaking our language to them. For example: If one spouses love language is Words of Affirmation, they will be the one that writes little notes to their spouse and put them in their lunch or suitcase before a trip. They are trying to give their spouse a hint… pssst… I would like you to do that for me. We are not that smart. We don’t get these hints. The spouse that gets the note might think, ‘that was nice, but man I sure wish she/he would have helped me with the laundry last night’… (their love language might be Acts of Service). When we know what our spouses love language is, then we need to go out of our way and by choice choose to meet their need in the way or language they will feel loved.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

I have been studying, practicing, and speaking about transformational leadership and feminist leadership theory for the better part of fifteen years. Over that time period, much has changed in the way we work and with the tools we use to engage the workforce. Sadly, what hasn’t changed is the role, representation, and perception of women in the workforce, namely as executives and innovators. That is, until now.
This week at the SAP SuccessConnect event, human resources leaders, the very leaders responsible for people strategy, are coming together to talk about how to use technology to harness the best talent, not just a portion of the population. One of the key components relies on eradicating bias in order to create a culture of inclusion in which everyone can thrive. While this sounds like old news, the fact of the matter is that leaders have a long way to go when it comes to creating gender equitable business environments.

The leadership status quo
Admit it. When someone talks about a captain of industry or a wunderkind start-up CEO who is changing the landscape of business, the image that pops into mind probably looks like something like Matt Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs – not Sheryl Sandberg or Arianna Huffington. This month, Inc. Magazine published its annual list of top 500 Fasted Growing Businesses. Globalization Partners, a professional services company that helps American businesses expand internationally by providing local specialized human resources, was ranked number six. What got them on the top 10 was extraordinary growth (16,197%) in three years. Yet, the media hype has been focused on the fact that the leadership team is all women. “If we were an all-male founding team, no one would mention it,” says Nicole Sahin, CEO and Founder of Globalization Partners.
Listening to her founding team share stories of how they established and grew their business so quickly and without the help of venture or angel or venture capital investors, it was clear that much of the media missed the point of the story: what it takes to create something from nothing, something that is a market-maker and sets a new standard for leading stakeholders to a new way of working among us. The way Globalization Partners is being led and managed will change the landscape of what leaders and employees of both genders expect from the entrepreneur experience and from corporate life.

Changing the face of leadership
The rapid pace of innovation required by global companies like Globalization Partners requires leadership styles often displayed and associated with female leaders. Of course, being a woman isn’t enough. Changing the way leaders structure and run their businesses is at the core of the new face of leadership. The future of leadership styles should be less about being male or female and more focused on the traits. Through six intentional and inter-related practices, Sahin and her team have created a new leadership paradigm whereby both male and female gender traits can thrive.

• Inclusive culture drives, versus supports, the company’s mission, vision, values from the get-go. Globalization Partners services over 100 customers by providing highly skilled employees in over 150 countries. On behalf of their customers, Sahin and her team have created strategic relationships with business partners who reflect the diverse populations in each of the countries in which they operate. Moving beyond diversity, Sahin is steadfast on role-modeling and enabling a culture where inclusion is expected, not just accepted. She personally builds relationships with everyone in her business from the first day of hire. She actively seeks out diverse opinions and encourages innovation that can only come from differing perspectives. The leadership team understands that simply having an open-door policy is not enough; they often act on suggestions.

• Strategic goals are as much about purpose as they are about profit. Sahin’s team acknowledges the transactional nature of their business; they hire local employees for American companies who want to set up shop without having to wait long periods of time to work through red tape. They take this work very seriously and work to innovate the platform and ecosystem that is critical to scale while considering the human element. Yet, when they think about the core of their work, a greater, more meaningful calling quickly surfaces. “Through global commerce comes peace,” says Sahin. The leadership team is intentional in building a global business as an opportunity for people to create meaningful relationships across cultural and geographic boundaries. “It’s hard to go to war against your teammate or someone you value who works for you,” says Nancy Cremins, General Counsel at the firm.

• Being brave and informed enough to take unconventional risks in order to grow a business. Female business leaders are often portrayed as risk averse. With the acknowledgement that investment decisions made early in the company’s life may not scale at this growth stage, Sahin made the exceptional decision to stop accepting new clients for a few months so that she and her team could evaluate business operations. They reworked much of their operating model and structure. Given the company’s growth, it’s a risky decision that clearly paid off.

• Retaining top talent requires focusing on the whole person, not just the one who works in your business. In Silicon Valley, free food and foosball tables may be the glue that keeps men and women, who are able to work day-and-night in cult-like atmospheres, engaged on the cool work happening inside of the world’s most innovative companies. While the work might be amazing, the approach doesn’t leave much room for a full life. Sahin’s workforce is 75% women, a number she wants to shift closer to 50% as they grow. Her people strategies are focused on work-life Integration. Sure, there are long days when you are building a high-growth business in a 24-hour global work environment. Yet, her model is showing that people can have fully integrated lives and realize huge success. When she talks about her staff, the focus is on the whole person, not just the employee she sees at the office. The flexible hours, generous family leave and re-entry approaches where new parents come back to work without missing opportunities for growth and advancement are just a start. When thinking about her human resource policies and practices, Sahin and her team always think about the employees’ lives inside and outside of their business.

• CEO decisions are based on relational assessments versus strictly linear. While the majority of start-up founders are practically brainwashed to adopt the Lean Start-Up method, Sahin spent a year building her business by travelling the world. She acknowledges that this is not an experience that everyone can afford financially or in the amount of time they have. Like anyone, she employed the tools and resources she had and used them to create the business she knew her clients needed. Sahin learned local business approaches, listened to functional experts and local views as she formed her perspective on how to create just the right business model for success.

• Investing in the future means investing in people. I almost fell off my chair when Sahin told me that she has paid sabbatical written into human resources policies. The sabbatical includes fully paid world travel for employees and their families after five years of service. This new form of leadership understands that in order for your employees to be fully engaged, you have to do more than offer development programs that benefit the business. You need to be willing to invest in what they care about, including seeing the world with their families on the company dime. “Traveling around the world with my husband, meeting people who were so different from me, changed my life. I want my employees to be able to experience that too, with their families,” says Sahin.

If there’s one thing to take away from the way in which Globalization Partners is growing it is that it’s time to change the narrative about women entrepreneurs and corporate executives. We need to move away from the female leadership narrative as a phenomenon and replace it with one that acknowledges the need to include feminist leadership traits as a way forward for innovation. Indeed, Sahin and her team are a new breed of leadership. It’s about time.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.