We need to learn quickly to keep up with the massive change around us so we don't get run over. We need to outrun change.
A while back my wife and I vacationed in San Diego. I learned a lot of new things in Old Town. That is a state park where many buildings have been renovated to reflect life as it was from 1810 through 1870.
I read a delightful, short history of Old Town titled San Diego’s Beginnings.
One of many fascinating things is the long list of outside pressures that forced massive change on the residents of Old Town.
Since I am even less trendy than John Bredehoft, I wasn’t aware of this funny line that is making the rounds until he called attention to it in his post, 430 BC and 2012 AD – remarkable parallels, or coincidence?
Greece is collapsing,
Iranians are getting aggressive
& Rome is in disarray.
Welcome back to 430 BC!
Continue reading “The more things change, the more they stay the same as 2,442 years ago”
J., an anonymous blogger at AidSpeak, has a post talking through the tensions of military people taking on humanitarian work, which puts them into the place where civilian aid workers have been for a long time – Humanitarian Space (the final frontier).
Having uniformed, armed soldiers doing the same thing that aid workers do blurs the distinction between those whose primary job is building things up (aid workers) and those whose primary job is blowing things up (soldiers).
That creates confusion for everyone involved especially those on the receiving end of humanitarian aid who watched things get blown up.
J.’s post is dealing with the realization that various militaries probably won’t be dropping their humanitarian aid work anytime soon. That means it will be important for the aid community to figure out how to work with and deal with the military community.
Continue reading “Grappling with change – another sector talks about their environment”