An insightful read:
Seven steps to remarkable customer service
I’d argue there are applications well beyond the software industry, or even anywhere you might imagine getting a tech support line.
An enlightening Article in First Things discussing Cardinal Newman’s homilies, with a particular focus on Lent.
A choice quote:
So what is it about religion that makes it so irksome? Here we get to one of the most significant motifs of Newman’s sermons. Resistance to religion is based on an ineluctable fact of human psychology to which he returns again and again: No one sins without making some excuse to himself for sinning. This excuse-mongering is one of his main targets in the Lenten sermons. In a droll observation, he calls excuse-making the “second sin†of both Adam and Eve—Original Sin immediately followed, so to speak, by Original Excuse. In a passage not without its element of dry wit, he dissects the pathetic expedient to which Adam and Eve felt driven:
The original excuse offered by them after sinning was that they were not really free, that they had acted under a constraining influence, the subtlety of the tempter. . . . And this has been the course of lawless pride ever since: to lead us, first, to exult in our uncontrollable liberty of will and conduct; then, when we have ruined ourselves, to plead that we are the slaves of necessity.
I can imagine these lines drawing a wry smile from Newman’s flock—at least until he drove home the conclusion. For him the psychology of sin and its attendant need to claim victimhood (“I’m depraved on account I’m deprived!â€) is simply too ingrained, too much a part of what sin is all about, for us not to feel vexed when reminders come of the opposite reality, which it is precisely the office of religion to provide: “Accordingly, it has always been the office of Religion to protest against the sophistry of Satan, and to preserve the memory of those truths which the unbelieving heart corrupts: both the freedom and the responsibility of man, the sovereignty of the Creator, the supremacy of the law of conscience as His representative within us, and the irrelevancy of external circumstances in the judgment which is ultimately to be made upon our conduct and character.â€
Reading the entire article is well worth it.
Ave Maria School of Law in Ann Arbor … is over.
Today, at an official meeting, Dean Dobranski announced that Ave Maria School of Law would be moving to Florida.
Sadly, simultaneous with this announcement, an e-mail arrived in my inbox — a professor announcing his resignation. I can only hope and pray that this is not the first of many.
I am greatly saddened by this news, as I had such high hopes for this law school, and now I am filled with trepidation at the potential for a faculty exodus. I can only fervently pray that God guide the school through this passage, and that the best may come to pass. Hail Mary … pray for us now, and at the hour of our death. With God’s blessing, this will not be the end, but a new beginning…
Bush has proved himself a conservative. Of course, along the way, he has also proved himself hapless. The problem isn’t his lack of conservatism. The problem is his lack of competence.
. . .
Where Clinton seemed a man of enormous political competence and no principle, Bush has been a man of principle and very little political competence.
from First Things
Steve Jobs’ Thoughts on Music, specifically in reference to DRM (Digital Rights Management, or Digital Restrictions Management, depending on your perspective) music files. It’s a good read, as is the Economists’ analysis of the essay.
I found this article an interesting and insightful read, discussing Pope Benedict’s upcoming book on Christ:
Spero News: The Christ of Benedict XVI
A colleague at law school was kind enough to send me this link, and I find it interesting enough reading that I recommend it as a good read:
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