Watching Spike Lee's If God is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise

According to Governor Blanco of Louisiana, Mississippi had 25% of damage from Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana had 75% of the damage.

Yet, President Bush's FEMA administration granted 50% of federal funds to each state rather than granting funds proportionally.

President Bush, a Republican; Governor Blanco, a Democrat.... guess what party the governor of Mississippi belongs to?

I wonder what Obama would have done....


 Spike Lee's HBO Special - If God is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise

What is my sentence?

In his book, Drive, Daniel Pink tells us that "the secret to high performance and satisfaction—at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world."


In Part Three of that book, he writes about two questions that we can ask ourselves as a source of motivation and purpose (see page 154).

1. What is my sentence?
2. Was I better today than yesterday?

How on earth can I sum up what I am all about. I am a parent, a manager, an economist, a learner, a volunteer, an analyst, a sister, a colleague and more. How can I get it all into one sentence? ..... well let me see... it goes something like this:

"An effective leader, empowering people and processes to be their very best"

Was I better today than yesterday? Yes.

 I peacefully parented, respectfully reviewed work, I patiently led new managers, and I was attentive to my health and well-being....


more to come.

Life Half Full?

I have finally reached that point in life… the place I really, really am not ready to be. It is that time in life where it begins to feel as though more of my living is behind me than in front of me…. The half-way point. I know I really do not know where the half-way point is, but then again I have cheated myself out of about 20 years so half won’t feel like half whenever it does actually come. I am 43 years old and very proud of my age and my accomplishments. I have felt fulfilled in my living and glad for all my blessings.

I do have regrets. None of which are significant enough for me to want “do overs”.

The only trouble I have comes when I am around the twenty-something crowd…. Then I get a bit weird. When I am with that age group, I am reminded of myself when I was twenty and boy was I dumb. I was young, ignorant and blissful. Life held every promise, I had every option, and my choices were all my own. Win or lose, rise and fly, do or die, Pam called the shots and Pam was in control. And only Pam suffered the consequences of Pam’s choices.



God is my source and my protector as was the case back then…. It’s just that twenty years ago I had no idea how much protection I was enjoying. Now, I am wiser and less ignorant. I control so very little it is quite pitiful. My commitments dictate my choices and my values run the show.

So when I listen to the plans and dreams, hopes and schemes of today’s twenty-somethings, when I listen to the optimism, the faith, the aspiration, I am moved. I think of their aspiration and feel inspired. I think of my ambition and feel driven. My optimism has turned to pessimism, my faith to despair as I wonder if I will “make it” succeed at these efforts and endeavors I have chosen.

I am a mother. And that changed everything for me. Maybe I take myself too seriously, maybe not. But there is so much less in my life that I do for me… I use my job to fulfill a sense of vocation and purpose… but I keep that job to pay for the life I want to live as a solo parent. My volunteer time is spent investing in the church and the school that help me grow my child. I invest heavily because these are my pseudo-parenting partners in lieu of a husband or my son’s father. My dad used to be my parenting partner, helping me raise my son. He is no longer here. I no longer have his help. I miss him.

I do as much as I can in all the places that I can because I care about doing a good job. I care deeply about being a good mother. I enjoy being good at my job, but failure to be a good mother has a higher “at-stakeness”. A life is on the line… literally. Yes, I sound dramatic. And yes, I believe I am right.

Lives are on the line every day as parents fail to parent their own children and leave the duties and responsibilities to others. The costs of failure to parent keep soaring and the costs are born by us all. We pay every day in the social and emotional costs that accompany the killings and beatings and violence that is our every day norm in urban America. We pay every day as we grow number and less sensitive to those people, the ones who are not my problem, but are my community. We pay every day in lost productivity and human capital growth as our urban Americas sink further and further behind growing more illiterate by the hour. And when my son grows up and is a black male who is educated, enlightened, unimprisoned, and employed, I cannot help but wonder…. What statistic will he be? one in one hundred? one in one thousand? One in two thousand?

So, yes, my life may be about half over. But my parenting career is not even half begun. I have a long haul and sometimes the load sure feels heavy. But every day, I know I am closer and closer to creating a life lived powerfully, productively, powerfully, and prosperously … a life that is my son’s because of the way I have paved.

I am forty-something and I thank God for each and every minute I have lived and for each one I might have left.

Them Down There in the Treme

So I have been watching the HBO miniseries Treme and I have been fascinated by the perspective on the post-Katrina New Orleans that the show provides. Clearly, the show is only a snippet and it is fiction. Nonetheless, I found it interesting to think about the damage done and the recovery process from the viewpoint of the types of people that the characters represent.

First, I learned that Treme is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city, and early in the city's history was the main neighborhood of free people of color. It is reported that the neighborhood was and is an important center of the city's African-American and Créole culture, especially the modern brass band tradition.

Viewers of the HBO program get a good look at the landscape, the interior of houses and businesses, and the exterior buildings, houses, streets, and land areas. The sense of the damage, the amount of problems encountered as people attempt rebuilding, and the simple things like water in the gas line that will not power the cooking stoves on the restaurant of one character.

I can see the livelihoods that derived from a tourism industry devastated and decimated but not completely deterred.... the musicians, the chefs, the hotel staff, and more.  The neighborhoods that look desolate, isolated, and damaged.  The houses that are no longer homes.

My heart broke as the lawyer and the sister searched for the missing brother while the mother, older, less in control of her faculties, held vigil. All three hoping, searching, slaving through a bureaucracy that encouraged all the wrong behavior and provided no incentive for integrity and valor. Yet they found a little along the way. In the end, the viewer gets a clear sense of what happens in a moment when the world as someone knows it is literally washed away. And we get to feel, only barely, what it feels like to be someone, like the college professor-husband-to-the-lawyer, who knew his government had been failing his community for years.  Not enough of the right people put the appropriate degree of attention on the problems to solve them before catastrophe took those problems away and replaced them with new, bigger ones.

Treme is a beautiful creation and I am glad to have seen the program in all its beauty and grace amid debris and desolation... with all its hope and faith in the face of loss and mourning.

Visit: HBO's Treme Website  and The Times-Picayune HBO Treme website


The one thing that stood out in my mind Sunday after Sunday as I watched was the awareness of them and their plight. "Boy, they sure have a mess to recover from." "Man, what a trauma that was that happened to them." "They sure had a great place down there." "I wonder how they are doing."

I, sitting in the comfort of my Washington DC residence, wondered about them and felt very little connection to the post-Katrina New Orleans of 2010. Before this HBO special, that community and its devastation had been off my radar for quite a while. Have I done enough? Yes, I sent charitable gifts.... in 2005 and 2006. But what about 2009 and 2010? Who needs my help now? Have I done enough? I am not situated to travel there and spend my tourist dollars just yet, but when I can, will I go? Will I remember?

And then I wondered, when the next drama hits DC, if my neighborhood is torn apart, will I wonder then, if I had done enough for "them down there."

Then I listen to the stories about the oil spill and how business and tourism in the region are experiencing even more hardship. Am I doing enough now? What else should I be doing?

My First Fatherless Father's Day

Someone at church wished me happy father's day yesterday. I smiled. She knew my father had passed. She was acknowledging him and my loss in such a warm and loving way my heart just warmed over and swelled. She said it in a way that let me know, she knew he was still with me, fathering me, even if his body was no longer here.  It was the kindest, gentlest gesture and it made my day.

I had been afraid to go to church.

It was men's day and I did not really want to have my attention on dad... I thought I would be too caught up in feelings of mourning. I thought that I would see all of the dads, hear the message about fathers, and then feel devastated at losing mine.

But then again, church is not supposed to be about me!

Welcome to Northeastern Presbyterian Church

I am Pam Jackson, Phil Jackson’s second favorite daughter.

Alicia Keys singing about the Streets of New York

Alicia Keys sings that New York's streets "will make you feel brand new and inspire you." It is the "concrete jungle where dreams are made up There is nothing you can't do now that you are in New York."


I believe her. The music, the beats, Jay-z... all make me feel empowered and moved deep in my soul. It is the kind of song I would play very loudly on the car radio while driving on the freeway (at high speeds) with all the windows down at dusk. The kind of song that makes me feel free and hopeful with a full rich life ahead of me.


The song reminds me that life can be simple and joyful. Just show up and let life in New York move me.


Today is the last day of school for my soon-to-be-done-with-first-grade son. I feel emotional, sad that time has flown by, glad because he is doing so well.  As I listen now, to Alicia, I notice my dreams are less about me and more for him, more about his life than my own.


Don't get me wrong.... I have more to do and big dreams for myself.  But at this stage of my life, I dream of the world that my son will live in. And my focus of attention is on making the way for him to live the life he wants to live.... and making a way so that his community, his country, is as good or better than the one we have now.


I feel less of the inspiration of Alicia's Streets of New York and more of the drudgery of my work to make life all better. There are moments of inspiration. But I contrast those with the life I lived when I was twenty and most of that time was spent feeling inspired and invincible. 


"Where did it all go?" I ask the rhetorical question knowing the answer. It is all still there. I am just too serious about it all. The problems I have taken on are bigger and more complex... the consequences more severe. I am less mindful than I ought to be about the work to do to make my dreams come true. I focus more on what I have yet to do than on what I have done. I celebrate less and plan more. Oh, the adult life is a challenge. This parenting thing really can be fun and joyful but I have work to do on that front.


Maybe it is simpler yet... I am in DC not New York. Oops, better head north and have some fun!

Food from others

I am reading Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a professor at Harvard Business School and an author.

15 Steps for Successful Strategic Alliances (and Marriages)
http://blogs.hbr.org/kanter/2010/06/15-steps-for-successful-strate.html?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a38:g4:r2:c0.000000:b0:z6

She has developed a 15-step guide to ensuring success as every stage of the relationship, from courtship to ongoing success. Her advice:
1. Be open to romance, but court carefully. At the beginning of new relationships, selective perceptions reinforce dreams, not dangers. Potential partners see in the other what they want to see, believing what they want to believe. Hopes, dreams, and visions should be balanced by reality checks.

2. Know yourself. Build your strengths. An organization seeking partners should identify assets that have value to partners and strengthen them. Networks of the weak do not survive. The best alliances join strength to strength.

3. Seek compatibility in values. In rapidly changing environments, compatibility in values, philosophy and goals is more important than specific features of an immediate business deal. The basis for collaboration must be more enduring, and there must be a foundation for mutual trust to help weather inevitable changes or problems.

4. Treat the 'extended family' respectfully. Include other partners and stakeholders. Rapport between leaders of partner organizations is not enough. Other people and organizations who are the 'relatives' in each organizations' extended family must also be won over.

5. Put the lawyers in their place. Leader-to-leader relationships are important. Partnerships and network formation shouldn't be turned over to third-party professionals, such as staff analysts, lawyers, consultants, or deal-brokers.

6. Vow to work together until business conditions do us part. Commit to a first project, to exploring growth in the relationship, to monitor change, and to remain friends if changing conditions require a graceful exit.

7. But don't count on the contract. Formal agreements can't anticipate everything, and interpretations of the agreement vary — even within the same organization.

8. So keep communicating, face-to-face. Matters are more easily sorted out when partners' leaders keep talking long after their initial deal-making and dedicate people to watch over the relationship — a partner or alliance 'ambassador' (the equivalent of key account managers).

9. Spread involvement. Create more ties for more people. Alliances begin with a few direct connections among top leaders. As projects unfold, more people at more levels must get involved, and they need to feel connected, too — that they know their counterparts in their partner organization. The more people feel included, the more they have a chance to see the others face-to-face and come to know them, the easier it will be to implement partnership activities.

10. Build organizational bridges — formal structures. Active collaboration occurs when organizations develop structures, processes, and skills for bridging organizational and interpersonal differences and getting value from the relationship. Bridges include formal governance (a partnership board), joint project teams, and alliance ambassadors.

11. Respect differences. Alliances, partnerships, and networks are most helpful when they involve differences — when partners give each other something they do not already have. But differences in "specialty" desired by partners are accompanied by more "inconvenient" differences in behavioral style, motives and goals, operating methods, or cultural assumptions. Respect is essential. Time must be invested in understanding differences and transcending them.

12. Teach partners. Learn from partners. People from across the partnership network must become teachers as well as learners. Often the ultimate value of a partnership is the new knowledge and skill it brings. Organizations that derive greater value from their alliances tend to have greater communication internally, share more information, and promote an atmosphere of learning.

13. Be prepared to change yourself. Partners must be willing to be influenced by one another. To make linkages possible requires operating compatibilities, project by project and sometimes even in a larger sense. This can mean learning the other's language and style or inventing a new one; changing to the other's system or creating a joint one.

14. Help everyone win. Mutuality is the hallmark of organizational collaboration. Balancing benefits so that each partner gets something of equivalent value can be hard to do in the short run, but it is essential in the long run. The best alliances try to maximize the value of the whole relationship, which then makes it more valuable to each partner.

15. Get closer, change course, or exit gracefully. Like living systems, relationships evolve. Change should be expected. But the best guarantee that organizations will be closer in the future is success in what they try to achieve today. Success strengthens relationships.