It was evident from the start that Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was a dutiful daughter.
In Albert, King George VI‘s, reign characterized by war, social change and the beginnings of the dissolution of the British Empire, he was a successful king who raised the prestige of the monarchy, after he was propelled into the limelight, that he did not seek. He left his daughter Elizabeth, a stable throne and diamond studded Crown, but also a world heating up with a Cold War.
Family, country, and duty is of prime importance to the Guardians.
It was evident from the start that Elizabeth Alexandra Mary was a dutiful daughter.
On her 21st birthday, before she was Queen, she had decided to pledge to do her duty: “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.”
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
In fact, he lost partially because of his efforts in behalf the nation. However, it hasn’t been widely recognized that the most impactful, beneficial, and long lasting effect of his decision, wasn’t the decision that he is known for, reviled for, and awarded for.
“Then, what the hell is the presidency for!” “I have the power, now, and I intend to use it.”
— Lyndon Baines Johnson
Politics is War.
HBO premiered the movie “All the Way” on May 21. It is great film where Four Temperaments are clearly shown in action.
“November 22, 1963: John F. Kennedy was dead in Dallas, killed by an assassin. Jacqueline Kennedy, her clothes still spattered with her husband’s blood, stood beside Vice-President Lyndon Baines Johnson as Johnson took the presidential oath of office. Camelot was suddenly and shockingly gone. In the passage of a few jolting hours, King Arthur had been replaced by the crude, graceless, but equally energetic Lyndon Johnson, a professional politician from Texas.” [Presidential Temperament]
“A corporation is a living organism; it has to continue to shed its skin. Methods have to change. Focus has to change. Values have to change. The sum total of those changes is transformation.” — Andy Grove
In Memoriam: Andy Grove
2 September 1936 – 21 March 2016
Andy Grove was noted for making sure that important details were never missed. Having a strategic vision helps in recognizing the important factors.
He had survived by getting things right in the long term and transforming himself.
“By the time I was twenty, I had lived through a Hungarian Fascist dictatorship, German military occupation, the Nazis’ “Final Solution,” the siege of Budapest by the Soviet Red Army, a period of chaotic democracy in the years immediately after the war, a variety of repressive Communist regimes, and a popular uprising that was put down at gunpoint. . . [where] many young people were killed; countless others were interned. Some two hundred thousand Hungarians escaped to the West. I was one of them.“
Even though he arrived in the United States with little money and not knowing English, Grove retained a “passion for learning.” He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the City College of New York in 1960, followed by a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1963.
“Probably no one person has had a greater influence in shaping Intel, Silicon Valley, and all we think about today in the technology world than Andy Grove.” — Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware
Both sides could protest the appointment of George as mediator, walk out with big fan fare. Heck, they could strut like battling Peacocks for another 400 years — pride a’ struting. Not listening and talking over each other. Power parading and violent protesting. George would just go home, where he belongs, back to America — just as my namesake ancestor had done about 300 years ago.
What goes up must come down
Spinnin’ wheel, got to go round
Talkin’ ’bout your troubles, it’s a cryin’ sin
Ride a painted pony, let the spinnin’ wheel spin
You got no money, you got no home
Spinnin’ wheel, all alone Talkin’ ’bout your troubles and you, you never learn
Ride a painted pony, let the spinnin’ wheel turn
— Blood, Sweat, and Tears
Or — enough with the violence and the peacocking. The world is moving out, if their people can’t get down to business — the business of living, get with the business of dying.
If it’s peace you find in dying, when dying time is here,
— Laura Nyro
They had publically walked out on him. But George called them afterwards: he was still here, he would provide mediation between the two sides…
“WHEN I BEGAN THE NEGOTIATIONS IN NORTHERN IRELAND I WAS THE CHAIRMAN BY THE REQUEST OF THE BRITISH AND IRISH GOVERNMENT. IT WAS QUITE VOCAL OPPOSITION TO MY SERVING IN THAT POSITION BY SEVERAL OF THE PARTIES WHO WALKED OUT WHEN I CAME IN TO TAKE THE CHAIRMAN’S SEAT. IT WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND WE HAD A VERY CONTROVERSIAL AND STORMY BEGINNING. I CALLED A MEETING FOR LATER THAT DAY AND AFTER THE MEETING FINISHED I TELEPHONED THE LEADERS OF THE PARTIES WHO HAD WALKED OUT OF THE TALKS. I SAID LOOK, YOU MADE YOUR POINT. ALL KINDS OF PUBLICITY, YELLING AT ME AND SO FORTH. WHY DON’T YOU GUYS COME BACK NOW.”
Highly cooperative themselves, Providers are skilled in maintaining teamwork among their helpers, and are also tireless in their attention to the details of furnishing goods and services. Wherever they go, Providers happily give their time and energy to make sure that the needs of others are met, and that social functions are a success. [Please Understand Me II]
George John Mitchell, Jr. (born August 20, 1933) is an American lawyer, businessman and politician. A Democrat, Mitchell served as a United States Senator from Maine from 1980 to 1995 and as Senate Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995.
Since retiring from the Senate, Mitchell has taken up a variety of positions in politics and business. He has taken a leading role in negotiations for peace in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, being specifically appointed United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland (1995–2001) by President Clinton and as United States Special Envoy for Middle East Peace (2009–2011) by President Obama. He was a primary architect of the 1996 Mitchell Principles and the 1998 Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, and was the main investigator in two “Mitchell Reports”, one on the Arab–Israeli conflict (2001) and one on the use of performance enhancing drugs in baseball (2007)
The Troubles, called by locals of Northern Ireland, were brought to an uneasy end by a peace process that included the declaration of ceasefires by most paramilitary organisations, the complete decommissioning of the IRA’s weapons, the reform of the police, and the corresponding withdrawal of the British Army from the streets and sensitive border areas such as South Armagh and Fermanagh, as agreed by the signatories to the Belfast Agreement. The agreement reiterated the long-held British position, which successive Irish governments have not fully acknowledged, that Northern Ireland would remain within the United Kingdom, unless a majority of Northern Irish vote otherwise.
The British government recognised for the first time the principle that the people of the island of Ireland as a whole have the right, without any outside interference, to solve the issues between North and South by mutual consent. The latter statement was key to winning support for the agreement from both nationalists and republicans. It also established a devolved power-sharing government within Northern Ireland (which was suspended from 14 October 2002 until 8 May 2007), wherein the government must consist of both unionist and nationalist parties.
Although the number of active participants was relatively small, the Troubles touched the lives of many in Northern Ireland on a daily basis, sometimes spreading into England, the Republic of Ireland, and, occasionally, parts of mainland Europe.
The Disputes in the Middle East continue. Nobody has been able to mediate a peace in that region, including George, despite his yeoman efforts. It will probably another hundred years before all the power parties exhaust themselves and their victims.
Guardians pride themselves on being dependable, helpful, and hard-working. Family is everything.
“From my parents, I learned a very strong work ethic, and all of my brothers and sisters all worked from the earliest days of life right through to the present time.”
George Mitchell was born in Waterville, Maine. His father, George John Mitchell, Sr. (born Joseph Kilroy), was of ethnic Irish descent but was adopted by a Lebanese family when he was orphaned.Mitchell’s father was a janitor at Colby College in Waterville, where Mitchell was raised. Mitchell’s mother, Mary (née Saad), who emigrated to the United States in 1920 from Bkassine, Lebanon, at the age of eighteen.
George talked about his mother’s experience.
“… USUALLY AROUND THE KITCHEN TABLE, WE TALK ABOUT LEBANON OFTEN WITH MIST IN HER EYES. IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL AND THE AIR IS CLEAR.
AND AFTER ARRIVING IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE AGE OF 18 YEARS OLD, SHE RETURNED TO LEBANON ONLY ONCE LATE IN HER LIFE AFTER HER FATHER DIED. SHE RETURNED TO THE VILLAGE WHERE SHE GREW UP WITH FRIENDS IN THE HOUSE IN WHICH SHE HAD BEEN RAISED. AND THAT IS WHERE MY MOTHER STOOD AND PAUSED AND WITH THE GREAT EMOTION AND SAID THEY SHOULD SEE AMERICA. AND IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL. THE AIR IS PURE IN THE AIR IS PURE, THE AIR IS GOOD.
OH, AMERICA, MY AMERICA.
SHE HAD LITTLE FORMAL EDUCATION, SHE COULD NOT WRITE ENGLISH, SHE SPOKE WITH AN ACCENT AND SHE WORKED IN A TEXTILE MILL. SHE WAS GENEROUS AND LOVING AND STRONG AND WISE. AND SHE UNDERSTOOD CLEARLY THE MEANING OF AMERICA.
AND TO ME, NO ONE HAS EVER SAID IT BETTER. OH, AMERICA, MY AMERICA.”
“I am a dreamer and having a dream is sometimes challenging, but I never look at a situation as too difficult.”
— Sister Rosemary
“She is an extremely affable and compassionate personality who will go out of her way to help no matter what. She radiates with energy and iron determination.”
Northern Uganda had suffered from civil unrest since the early 1980s. Hundreds of people were killed in the rebellion against the Ugandan government, and an estimated 400-thousand people were left homeless. Uganda’s military battled the two main rebel groups, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). Thousands of children fell victim to the war, abducted by both the LRA and the ADF to serve as fighters, porters, and in the case of girls, fighters and sex slaves.
“We can still walk in hope.” -Sister Rosemary
Observing her as a child, her family always knew she would be a leader of children when she became a adult.
Mary’s “little lambs” were medical researchers that she herded together: adults who were driven to find a cure for cancer, even as the children were suffering and dying: by the thousands. It was a dilemma: how to cure childhood leukemia, where the medical doctors could do nothing — they didn’t understand what cancer was. Experimenting on children with a cocktail of toxic chemicals was heart rendering, such that the original doctor who opened the door to that reasearch method, couldn’t do it.
I cannot make one child suffer and die, to save two others.
— Sidney Farber
Robert Mosessaid about Mary: that she had it all—intelligence, vision, generosity, charm, kindness.
Neen Hunt added this: “she also had courage, passion, and indefatigable energy, and the heart and will to apply her gifts and talents to reduce suffering from disease for people all over the world.”
“The strength of our nation depends on the health of our people. We must once again place the priority on research. It’s good for trade, good for jobs, and vital for all Americans. Medical research is our hope for our children and for the building of a healthy America.”
Mary was strategic… For that vision was for the future…
Ma Yunapplied to study at Harvard 10 times and was rejected each time.
Yun had to deal with rejection many times in his life: born during Mao’s Cultural Revolution when schools and businesses were being destroyed, such that formal education and trade was at a low in China during Yun‘s youth.
He failed the entry exams for colleges in China several times and was also rejected for many jobs in China, including one at Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Despite this, at an early age, Yun had developed a desire to learn English, so he rode his bike for 45 minutes each morning in order to go to a nearby hotel and converse with foreigners. He would guide them around the city for free in order to practice and improve his English. Later in his youth, although he failed the entrance exam twice, he attended Hangzhou Teacher’s Institute and graduated in 1988 with a bachelor’s degree in English.
Yun — his English name, Jack — Jack Ma started an e-commerce company in his apartment in 1999….
The Blog of David Mark Keirsey 