Eideard

Like many of my colleagues in Silicon Valley, I was having a fantastic day today. It is crisp in the shade, warm in the sun. The skies are a magical blue with puffy clouds floating like dreams. And when all seemed to be going well, an email in my inbox — without as much as the new message sound — arrived: Letter from Steve Jobs. It was as if the inbox was observing the solemnnity of the occasion. It is an end of an era.

The first thought that ran through my head was about Steve’s health, and I thought to myself that this cannot be good. I don’t care about him being the CEO or head of Apple. What I really do care about is his health. He wouldn’t be making this decision unless things were pretty dire.

It is incredibly hard for me to write right now. To me, like many of you, it is an incredibly emotional moment. I cannot look at Twitter, and through the mist in my eyes, I am having a tough time focusing on the screen of this computer. I cannot hear the sounds of the street or the ring of my phone. The second hand on my watch moves slowly, ever so slowly. I want to wake up and find it was all a nightmare.

And while I wish for him to have more time with his family, I am also being very selfish. I will miss the thespian who made inanimate objects like a computer become a thing to behold. A few years ago, I compared Steve to Howard Hughes using the line, “Some men dream the future. He built it…”

Jobs (and by extension, Apple) has taught me (and I am sure others) a big lesson: If you want to change something, you have to be patient and take the long view. If Apple and Steve’s incredible comeback teaches us something, it’s that when you are right and the world doesn’t see it that way, you just have to be patient and wait for the world to change its mind.

Today, we are living in a world that’s about taking short-term decisions: CEOs who pray to at the altar of the devil called quarterly earnings, companies that react to rivals, politicians who are only worried about the coming election cycle and leaders who are in for the near-term gain.

And then there are Steve and Apple: a leader and a company not afraid to take the long view, patiently building the way to the future envisioned for the company. Not afraid to invent the future and to be wrong. And almost always willing to do one small thing — cannibalize itself. Under Steve, Apple was happy to see the iPhone kill the iPod and iPad kill the MacBook. He understands that you don’t walk into the future by looking back. If you do, you trip over yourself and break your nose.

Thanks, Steve.

Thank you, Om, for bringing insight and understanding to sadness. Thanks for opening the door to the future – that seemed like it was ready to be shuttered by the naysayers who never believed in anything enough to fight for it with their whole being.

Click the link in the post and read the whole letter. I’ve posted about half of it here.

He does the tears as well as anyone in Congress

Christian von Boetticher, 40, the successful state legislator at the top of the Christian Democratic Union’s ticket in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, resigned as head of the party there during a tearful news conference on Sunday. He admitted to the affair with a 16-year-old girl, which was legal under German law, and to making a misjudgment, but insisted that he had nothing to be ashamed of because it was “a very unusual love.”

It is also an unusual scandal — not only because of the girl’s age, which was at the border of permissible and punishable, but also because of the role played by the social networking site.

In some ways, the fact of her youth was less strange to conservative voters and colleagues “than that a grown man with more important things to do would spend so much time playing around on this network with nothing better to do than trade messages with a young girl,” said Rudolf Kötter, director of the Center for Advanced Ethics and Science Communications at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.

Long before news of the affair became public, colleagues expressed concerns that Mr. Boetticher dallied on the site too much, sharing information about his social life in status updates the party might have preferred remained private.

He posted about polo parties and expensive bottles of Brunello di Montalcino wine he had just opened. Der Spiegel magazine reported that he had skipped a political discussion to watch a lunar eclipse, then posted about it on his wall…

According to Mr. Boetticher, the girl’s parents as well as his friends knew about the relationship. The girl, now 17, who has not been named, defended her former lover in newspaper interviews…But she probably also embarrassed him as she described the hundreds of Facebook and text messages he sent her before that first meeting, not to mention the fact that they spent two straight days in the Steigenberger Hotel in Düsseldorf, having sex the first time they met face to face…

In the Berliner Zeitung, the columnist Jutta Kramm expressed surprise that Mr. Boetticher thought it necessary to step down over the affair, which she described as a very American phenomenon. American morals are often viewed with indulgent condescension here in Germany, where nude sunbathing and explicit sexual scenes on public television are widely considered normal.

“Extramarital affairs, illegitimate children, first and second wives or husbands, libidinous escapades or particular sexual preferences indeed may provide fodder for rumors and offer excellent material for gossip and scandal but they have almost never been a reason to resign,” Ms. Kramm wrote.

Perhaps Christian conservatives in Germany are making ready to imitate their distant cousins in the United States. Would you be surprised if our conservatives’ holier-than-thou hypocrisy became an export commodity?

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt resigned his post and turned over all power to the military on Friday, ending his nearly 30 years of autocratic rule and bowing to a historic popular uprising that has transformed politics in Egypt and around the Arab world…

The streets of Cairo exploded in shouts of “God is Great” moments after Mr. Mubarak’s vice president and longtime intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, announced during evening prayers that Mr. Mubarak had passed all authority to a council of military leaders…

Even before he had finished speaking, protesters began hugging and cheering, shouting “Egypt is free!” and “You’re an Egyptian, lift your head”…

The departure of the 82-year-old Mr. Mubarak, at least initially to his coastal resort home in Sharm el-Sheik, was a pivotal turn in a three-week revolt that has upended one of the Arab’s world’s most enduring dictatorships. The popular protest, peaceful and resilient despite numerous effort by Mr. Mubarak’s legendary security apparatus to suppress it, ultimately deposed an ally of the United States who has been instrumental in implementing American policy in the region for decades…

Shortly before the announcement of Mr. Mubarak’s departure, the military issued a communiqué pledging to carry out a variety of constitutional reforms in a statement remarkable for its commanding tone. The military’s statement alluded to the delegation of power to Mr. Suleiman and it suggested that the military would supervise implementation of the reforms…

State radio reported that Naguib Sawiris, a wealthy and widely respected businessman, has agreed to act as a mediator between the opposition and the authorities in carrying through the political reforms, a development that was cheered by protesters.

Read the rest of this entry »

Johnson and wife in better days

Alan Johnson’s former police bodyguard is facing disciplinary proceedings over allegations that he had an affair with the former shadow chancellor’s wife.

Mr Johnson announced his resignation after less than four months in the job, saying he was finding it “difficult to cope” with his personal crisis while carrying out his front bench duties…

Scotland Yard has confirmed that a police protection officer has been suspended and the case has been referred to its Directorate of Professional Standards over the allegations…

The officer is understood to be Paul Rice, a bodyguard that had protected Mr Johnson and his wife Laura…

Announcing his decision, Mr Johnson wrote to Mr Miliband saying: “I have decided to resign from the shadow cabinet for personal reasons to do with my family…

Scotland Yard reportedly began disciplinary proceedings yesterday after learning of the alleged affair with Mr Rice, a detective constable who had been the MP’s protection officer when he was Home Secretary.

Oops. Pretty heavy redefinition of the word “bodyguard”.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

The head of Germany’s 25 million Protestants resigned on Wednesday after police stopped her for driving while under the influence of alcohol just four months after becoming the third woman to head a major Christian Church.

Known as the “pop bishop,” 51-year-old Margot Kaessmann is a regular on television talk shows and had been a controversial choice as head of Germany’s EKD, the main association of Protestant churches, because she is a divorced mother of four.

Betraying no emotion, Kaessmann told reporters she had made a grave mistake which she deeply regretted…

With immediate effect, she would give up her role as leader of the EKD, an umbrella group of 22 Lutheran, Reformed and United Churches, and as Lutheran bishop of Hanover, she said.

State prosecutors in the northern city of Hanover had said on Monday Kaessmann was under investigation and could lose her driver’s license for a year after police stopped her for shooting a red light on Saturday night.

She was found to have a blood-alcohol level that was more than three times the legal limit, the prosecutors said.

I wonder if we’d get a similar decision from the heads of American religious assemblies? Or would they follow the accepted pattern of shedding a few tears on TV – presume forgiveness from their invisible spirit – and carry on as if nothing unusual had occurred?