Carly Fiorina at the KSG

I've attended two talks over the past two days at KSG.

Yesterday's talk was by Richard Holbrooke, former US Asst Secretary of State and Former US ambassador to the UN. He was talking on the topic, "Fighting the War on Terror: A Short-Term Vision for a Long-Term Conflict?". It was an interesting talk - he was attacking the semantics of "War on Terror" - terror is a tactic and not any individual, who exactly is the war on? Of course he is a Democrat. Lawrence Summers (Treasury Secretary under Clinton, also former President of Harvard) was in the audience and he exchanged pleasantries with Holbrooke. And whilst we are talking about Harvard big names, I suppose I should add that last Friday Amartya Sen was walking through the KSG Courtyard.

Anyway, let me get to the true subject of my post - the talk by Carly Fiorina, which was this evening. Now I must admit I had pretty high expectations. Carly has a reputation for being a good speaker. And she has just published her book and is promoting it (she was signing copies after the event at the COOP). So I expected a few excerpts (of the more exciting points).

So the session starts off with what was a pretty fawning introduction (Carly said thank you for a very "generous" introduction), and if that was not bad enough it was long-winded as well so we cringed through this lengthy speech.

Carly focused her own comments on leadership - business is about the people, so you have to address people issues in leadership and managing change - and uttered truisms about how people are people wherever they are. She alluded to her own departure from the Board but sort of slipped around what happened. Difficult for people who weren't following the fortunes of HP or didn't skim through her book prior to the talk (which I did) to work out what was going on. I can look at it charitably and say that she didn't want to bad-mouth people in public, but I can also say that she wanted to increase the incentive for people to buy the book! And although her book is titled "Tough Choices" she didn't actually tell us about any of these choices except that it was her decision to say openly, despite the bad press it would attract, that she was fired from HP rather than that she had decided to step down.

I suppose my takeaways are as follows:

• Change - it's a slow process, especially in large organisations. Individuals don't like change - it's great in theory, but should preferrably happen to someone else. So needs patience and discipline. Changing during bad times is even worse - more difficult for people to stay the course and easier for them to lose faith in the leader.
• Importance of processes to appraise and enhance the performance of Board members.

She spoke for only about 20 minutes and then there was some Q&A. The two hosts on stage monopolised the Q&A for about half an hour. Unfortunately the fawning host asked some fawning questions. Whilst the other gentleman asked better questions, I must say the student questions were excellent! One asked Carly to respond to unfavourable reviews of her book (in The Economist and Financial Times) which questioned her leadership but she chickened out! and said that everyone is entitled to their opinion. Another asked her to talk about what she felt her weakness was and how she addressed that. She said that her weakness was that she didn't know anything about technology and therefore it was important to have people around her who were good at technology, that it is about being aware of your weakness and having the humility to acknowledge and address it. Again, I see this as a cop-out because I thought that the question pertained to a personal weakness rather than a knowledge gap. (Oh, and she didn't answer the question on whether she intended to run for public office!).

I personally respect Carly and what she has achieved and I do think (from the little I know) that she was hard done by her Board. And maybe after having high expectations it would have been a let-down in any case. So it is a bit of a pity because I do think she had an opportunity to gain supporters (esp if she wanted to run for public office) this evening and it ended up being a bit of a "poor me" session.

An afternoon with JFK

This morning, we went to a new church - Sacred Heart of Jesus, on 6th Street about 15-20 minutes walk away from our hotel. So near and we did not know about it till now!

It is a lovely church - all stark stone outside and very warm and welcoming on the inside. The wall behind the alter is painted a warm crimson colour and this contrasts with the white alter piece.

It was also a most amusing mass. First of all, it was a memorial mass for St Hedwig. Yes, St Hedwig, wife, mother, queen and saint. Who is she, you may ask. As did we. So here's a link to St Hedwig. Her statue in the church was restored by the Polish Veterans' Association and re-dedicated at the mass, and there was a relic of the Saint available for veneration after the mass. The presiding priest is a round, tubby, Friar Tuck-like priest. He has an Irishman's gift of the gab and he showed it in his lengthy, "informal" prayers of intercession. He prayed for ill members of the parish, the two young men who were coming back from Iraq, and so on and so forth. He also speaks fairly quickly - rushed through the Nicean Creed really quickly. In his sermon, he highlighted the generosity of St Hedwig - she endowed monastries and things like that. He linked this up with a request to the congregation to be generous in their offerings....

(Incidentally I have a feeling that Sacred Heart was merged with St Hedwig's Parish, which is why there were also references to how St Hedwig parishoners lost their parish).

In the afternoon, I went to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. We went through the museum which is really a multi-media exhibition on JFK's Presidency. It featured a lot of his speeches - he is such a good orator. It also showed a little about his legacy, including of course the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard... It was a strangely moving visit. There was an exhibition room featuring the role of Robert Kennedy as Attorney-General - looks as though his contribution to JFK's short Presidency was substantial. The Kennedys are a truly tragic family. Anyway, I bought replica JFK campaign badges for my room mate and myself. Now I have a JFK badge and a Mao badge, haha!

The Freedom Trail

Last weekend, I went to Lexington and Concord and found out what happened to set off the American Revolution there. This weekend, I walked the Freedom Trail in Boston which tells what set the stage for Revolution and ended off with a visit to the Old North Church. The belfry of the Old North Church was used to signal to Paul Revere and other messengers that the British were moving off by sea ("one if by land, two if by sea"). So in a sense I've travelled through the Revolution story in reverse!

Anyway, it was a pleasant walk through Boston - the first long walk I've actually had here (excluding through Copley Square last week). We started off at the State House, and then went on to the Park Street Church, the Granary Burying Ground, the King's Chapel and Burying Ground, the Old South Meeting House, Faneuil Hall, etc (in total, the trail includes 4 churches/meeting houses and 3 graveyards! Does this reflect the strong Puritan and religious tendencies of the revolutionaries or is it just that what was said in a church was regarded as "sacred"?). We ended off, as I mentioned with a stop at Paul Revere's house and the North End church.

What was a little surprising was that the Old State House actually seems to have a T stop in it! Here is a building which was the seat of the British colonial government, and subsequently became the seat of the state government. The Declaration of Independence was read from the balcony in the front of the building (can see it in the picture). It may now be a museum etc but I wonder that the city planners could not find a more appropriate place to locate the subway stop.

Viva Italia (Part 2)

Today I did the Freedom Trail (which I will talk about more in my next post). We ended at Paul Revere's House and the Old North Church, which was also in the North End, on either side of the street we had dinner at last night. It was nice to see the North End in daylight, for the very first time. So here is the "Connah Store" - for viewing pleasure.

We also did what we left out yesterday, which was go to "Mike's Pastry" to eat 'cannoli's, which are cream/mousse filled tubes which can be chocolate coated or dipped or just plain. I've never seen cannolis before in Italy so it is either a south Italian pastry, or I did not go to enough pastry shops in Italy. Suffice to say that they are very rich and gooey and sinful. It was good on the first bite but I got a little "jelak" about two-thirds of the way through. We also had the best coffee - a cappuccino - that I have had in the US. Foamy milk-topped coffee, with cinnamon, nutmeg and cocoa sprinkled on top with a sugar-tipped stirrer. Bellissima!

Viva Italia

The World Cup came to Boston's North End the other week. Unfortunately, it was only a replica - and when the Italian fans found out they were not pleased.

The Italian identity of the North End is strong indeed. Restaurants, gelataria, and pastry shops line the streets. Above us - banners supporting an Italian-American for political office, and banners supporting the Italian football team. In the "Connah Shop", there were T-shirts supporting the World Cup Champions, and with little slogans saying "France Sucks" and "Yankees Suck". Yankees being, of course, the NY baseball team. The chap standing at the entrance to one of the restaurants also looked a little mafia-like, but I suppose that is a wicked stereotype on my part. There's also a Catholic church - St Leonard's on the street.

We were in the North End for dinner - the second time I've been here, but the first time on a Friday night and it was crowded! We went into a few restaurants but there was no place for anyone without a reservation. Finally we went into the "Florentine". We opened the menu and someone goes, "they have a Machiavelli pasta"! Need I add that we are all reading Machiavelli now for our ethics class. So two of my classmates had his pasta, and flung around a few quotations ("it is better to be feared than loved") for good measure. I just had a tagliatelle with seafood. We are not getting much else except chicken, meatballs, sausages, and vegetables at our dinner buffets so every time I go out for dinner I look for some variety.

I personally preferred Bricco, the restaurant we went to on our last outing to the North End to the Florentine. The menu was more interesting and the cooking better overall (I also thought my seafood could be a little fresher). When we went there (must be around a month ago) it was also a lot warmer. The restaurants have large windows which are opened up in warm weather - they were all closed today. Temperatures are starting to fall.

To end off an Italian post on food, it seems appropriate to say a bit about Fig's pizza. Fig's is the budget restaurant of a celebrity chef, Todd English. He is also the owner of a far more expensive and upmarket restaurant, "Olives". Fig's is a small little restaurant on Charles Street. They don't take reservations but you can call ahead to put yourself on the waiting list. So when you actually get there your waiting time is reduced. The pizza is huge! It comes on a rectangular tray (and in our case was flopping off the tray) and is put on a little stand in front of you so the pizza is elevated to just below your face. My room-mate and I had a half-and-half pizza, half figs and prosciutto and half steak and onion rings. We managed to eat about half and took the other half back. Refer my last post on where the left overs ended up.

Ciao!

Dinner Time

There are two good things about our hotel.

First, it not only provides breakfast, it provides dinner. Second, it is possible to take food upstairs to eat. So we hoard food in times of plenty and cook it in times of famine (also known as the weekends, when the dinner reception is not available).

Let me say that the dinner food is not remarkable. Except for the main dish, it is exactly the same every night:

• chips with salsa
• green salad (with vinegar and olive oil on the side, also croutons)
• mixed salad - raw califlower, broccoli, capsicum, baby carrots.
• main dish - could be meatballs, sausage with peppers, tacos, soup, baked potatoes, etc. Comes with bread or rice.
• fruit - green apples, or red apples
• chocolate cake or carrot cake.

We are plenty tired of this menu. But it is amazing how much food ends up in our rooms. So last Friday evening, when we had a pot luck dinner, it ended up something like this:

• fried vegetables I (from the buffet)
• fried vegetables II (someone bought Chinese lettuce and so this dish was actually made up of "original" ingredients)
• cucumber and green apple in vinegar (the cucumber was actually bought)
• red chicken curry (the chicken was from "fajitas night" and the baby carrots in the curry from the buffet)
• fried rice (all ingredients from the buffet)
• Fig pizza (I must admit this was from my doggie bag - went out for dinner the previous Wednesday)
• bread with cheese topping (this was freshly purchased)
• fruit salad with yoghurt dressing

The cooking was quite tasty but it was a little sad eating the same food ... albeit presented in different ways. But the company was good and my classmate hosting us had a tablecloth (!) plus classical music playing in the background (she turned her radio on loudly). So it was a lot more classy, so to speak, than our dining hall.

Breaking News

I was just leaving KSG when I caught a glimpse (in the plasma TV in one of the building lobby areas) of a breaking news report on a small plane crashing into a building in NY city.

My first reaction was of course, shock and a certain sense of deja vu. My second - that I have 8 classmates in New York, 6 of whom stay in the Upper East Side where the plane crashed.

Got back to my room and apparently the plane was flown by a NY Yankees pitcher, Cory Lidle. So it appears there is no connection with terrorism. I also sent out an email to check on the safety of my classmates. It crossed with another email from one of my NYC classmates saying:

My God, thank you very much. A small aircraft crashed a high building near our street today, it is just sited in 524 East, 72th street. And we are living in 301 East, 96th street,East.
Hope my God going on protecting us.

It was good to hear from him. Of course as a member of the Communist Party he is not supposed to believe in God but one should not quibble about such things at times like these. Especially since today's gospel is on the "Our Father" (Lk 11:1-4) so indeed the Lord has protected them.