Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Birthday

Well I turned 43 yesterday.
My eyesight is fading, my back/neck is messed up so I guess age is catching up to me. Its strange how I Can "GO, GO,GO!" when I'm on the road crossing multiple time zones in a week and spending as little as 24 hours per city before moving on to the next meeting/dinner/airport.
These past couple of days I've had little to do and have done little more than sleep. I did spend one afternoon drinking beer in the sun on Queen street in Toronto with an old pal- jeeze Donald that almost killed me!.
I guess the message is when you slow down, you really SLOW down.
I'd resolved to mark this birthday with some sort of review of past mistakes and form a plan to avoid them in the future. I do that every year without any disernable impact. I didn't do that this year. I tend to be impulsive. Its a strength and weakness. I believe recent history's mistakes are just bad luck rather than "mens rea" (I'm sure the spelling is wrong). I guess the point is that I'm just going to resolve to continuing to attempt to exert influence on things rather than be buffeted by circumstance.
At the risk of straying into self-help speak, I believe its more important to try and do something rather than wring your hands and give in to fate. Mistakes will continue to be part of the landscape.
Sermon over.
This time next month I'll be in Seoul and China and back on the treadmill.
Before that I'll be back in Toronto this weekend, with friends, old and new! It doesn't look like I'll make NYC this trip, but should get over in early August on my way to Asia as I have taken over the United Nations business for the company.
I wonder if Kofi will remember me? I met him once along with his son at a reception before the oil for food/Iraq/Scandal. He was quite a nice chap though he had no idea who I was (come to think of it I was an interloper/gatecrasher at the party). I won't be dealing with him anyway.......
I've updated this entry and corrected a few mistakes on the original post. I'll take some pics in Toronto and update next week sometime.
One year older and none the wiser!
Hope all of you are well!
T

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday Terry!
Mine is coming up in a couple of weeks...
{kisses}

Anonymous said...

he lives!

distantcolors said...

happy birthday :)

Anonymous said...

Good resolutions Terry... trying to avoid past mistakes is healthy!

Do not get anywhere near Beirut please!!!

Happy Birthday to you...

Terry said...

The shocking thing is my guys were in Beirut not 1 month ago. I was there about a year ago. I'm feeling really sorry for the people of that city. They had just shrugged off Syrian shackles and are now feeling a rather heavy hand.
Wish them luck.
T

Anonymous said...

I wish luck to all of those inocent civilians, to all of those who live in fear because of the stupidity of others...

Israel is in the wrong, simple as that. It's a case of double standards. Margaret Beckett described the capture of Israeli soldiers, suggesting that it was an "inexcusable provocation". Right, so the capture of thousands of Palestinian/Lebanese civilians...that's not provocative?

I thought that the US vetoed an end to the violence in Gaza was, quite frankly, absurd. It not only rubber stamps Israeli activities as a whole, but prevents the majority from acting as they would wish. We all know that the Europeans arent going to act unilaterally, too many brain cells and too much prudence for that to happen. It's a shame really, immorality has all the guns.

Israel's behaving rather imprudently. Lebanon has been roped in, Syria will probably follow. Irans getting edgy, and Egypt has voiced concerns about the welfare of Palestinians in Gaza. Of course, these protestations were summarily ignored by the Israeli government. Thought that the death of TWO Israeli women gave the world more reason to be upset than the deaths of hundreds of Arab civilians, but oh well. If Egypt, Syria and Iran fall into conflict with Israel then the Zionists are finished. They're not as mighty (in relation to their neighbours) as they once were; Egypt and Iran are protected by powerful militaries that are pretty sharp by European, let alone Middle Eastern, standards.

All this happens because Israel is a bully that can rise above the rules. People are dying en mass, and they're obsessed with a handful of soldiers who happened to have been captured in response to the illegal imprisonment of thousands of Arabs. The hypocrisy.

Unless Israel stops making a mockery of the International Community/the Arab world, we're looking at full-scale regional war. Except this time, the Israelis would lose. Badly.

"Single-mindedness is all very well in cows or baboons; in an animal claiming to belong to the same species as Shakespeare it is simply disgraceful." Aldous Huxley

Thoughts?