Quality of Light....Summer

Did you ever notice the quality of blue...
In the sky for me and you....

When you rise, when you surmise...
The early evening is alive....with something new...

I think the difference is there...
These days and in betweens...
With the what, who, when and where....
In our bones and in our genes....

See it now...
Take a second and notice that every day the shade of blue...
Gets deeper for me and you...

It is summer!

Creating Distance

Do you realize why we do this....create distance even with those whom we love deepest on this planet?
Because..
    ...we fear being close because maybe we cannot handle it...or maybe they cannot...
    ...we fear hurting the other if we gesture love but cannot fulfill their hopes and dreams...
    ...we fear being hurt ourselves....
    ...we are not sure of ourselves and our future...
    ...we fear being totally honest....because we might be wrong what we think...
    ...we fear total trust and surrender....it makes us look weak, when we think we should look strong.

When we truly say, "I love you"...it surrenders all.
There is no more fear....

In this cold, digitally pure and so politically correct world....
If it came to a moment of our death or life...on a given morning or evening...
....or an accident that brought the screeching halt to our life....
.....in those icy cold, super hot moments....we sometimes can be frigidly cold or dazzlingly hot....
.......and surrender to total honesty...ultimate honesty and say....

.....something from our soul that may be heard forever....
........for us and for those whom we care most deeply about....

We live in our memory for the golden moments with those we love...
Those are the times of our Ship of Friends....

Yet we have every day here and now...every moment and with each one that escapes to the clock...
.....and the calendar....we are lost...

So, tomorrow, I vow, to not create distance, but to create the opposite....
....how I can do that in this world....will be a gift I ask for each day.....

It must be my actions, not thoughts, my touch, not my wish for touch...
...It is in creating space and close, warm space that I must do and share with...
.....those who have been given to me and those who stand out and wish to join.....
......the Ship of Friends.....all we ever have and had here with us....

I create distance with my environment...with my hands and heart, I make distance...
...become nothing.

June...Welcome to Winter! Taste the Warm Wind...

It was almost two years ago.  I wrote about "psychological geography"...
It had been my first time in Australia...Sydney...five days, five nights, then back.
It was nice weather in Sydney in Winter...crystal clear, warm in winter...their "winter"..
Then the long, long flight home back to California and the summer sun...
I can taste that moment again...no jet lag...sitting at my home....
In Southern California, with the warm, sweet wind of the summer night, it seemed...
So far away the day before in Sydney "winter"....the Australian sun was so warm...

Flying back into California summer was like crawling into a warm bed....
After a long, wonderful day in the great outdoors....

We are never far away.
Yet sometimes the farther away we are, sometimes, yes, some times...
It is home so sweet, and home where we are....
Sometimes so far away....sometimes as near as the warm wind.
When I go there in my memory,  I can taste the wind.

Part of History

Unification is the theme.

I lived in Germany through that history...No one expected it would happen or how..

Yet it did...

Students sit side by side....from cultures.....from all over the world...

Global ties for sure,...

It is what we are doing everyday.......

Just a Personal Update...for Friends

I am taking a little time out from soulful writing, maybe you have noticed!

But, I want to say several things to my true friends out there and those whom I have yet to meet but may like what I write.

Thank you, friends, maybe my mates on "The Ship of Friends",  for tuning in to my writing these two years.  It will not stop, just I am taking a short pause.

The book is now out in print and we are working on the second edition, "The Ship of Friends"....

Maybe, it is more powerful than the last one, "The Four Great Flashes of Life"....

The same people and spirit of love powered me through this one as fiercely as the last...

The really cool thing about Amazon is that you can get the book really fast (just type in my name and the title) and cheaply for $9.99 per copy.  BUT, if you and I know each other, just let me know and I will send you a complimentary copy!

This past essay or two, I really got back into myself as a social commentator.  I guess I will always be able to bring up the spirit of JFK as if he were alive today, that real.  You see, I was just 14 through 17 for those years of our lives when he was what all of us wanted and needed as a hero, a President, a voice for our generation, whatever politics we ended up with.  It was a real time, a real feeling, a real American leader we nearly all believed in.  Then it was gone.  Robert tried to carry that same torch. I saw him in person at Penn, one month before he was taken away from us.

We are all touched by heroes, some time sooner or later.  On the political playing field, on the gridiron, the stadium field, the Olympic stand, or in other powerful places and times...with children, these heroes show their love....thanks to Jacques Lowe, Kennedy photographer, for this picture of JFK and his young daughter and Jackie....

I am taking my breath and happy to share this new book with friends....
At my time of life, passion is a true gift, and keeps me going....
Passion starts when we are young with inspiration....
JFK did that for me and for millions of people who still remember those days...
They are all around us....
Let me know what you think...your message is for me priceless....

Mike

The Largest Gift….The Greatest Theft

Last year, I wrote a book for the young company presidents of the future….our business students of today.  In this book, I discussed how business schools, particularly East Coast US big name schools became hatching grounds for the most elegant hybrid and nefarious financial models….ideas and values and techniques which led up to and fed the Wall Street crises of the last several years.  Yes, that is it, the last several years…it was not just one year, and it is not over by a long shot.

Just this evening, May 10, 2011, on CBS News, the lead financial story focused on Mr. Perlman, an infamous hedge fund trader who is reported to have personally made out in the billions, not millions or hundreds of millions but billions on the Wall Street crash of Main Street.  The game goes on.  The names unfurl.  The tales balloon, even as most of us thought and hoped it was over.  No, the gaming goes on, and where is the SEC?  Has “insider trading” become the acceptable norm?

I remember when JFK was President.  Executives were hauled in from famous companies for “price fixing”.  Maybe it was the last big bust of business that we will ever see. It was on black and white TV.  There they were in shame.  Executives…for price fixing.  We have come a long way into the elixir of high level education and sophisticated business….the only lines of executives we see on TV is at the NFL box or at the teller’s window of investment banking.

An Ivy League institution made history today in announcing the largest ever gift to medical schools in US history.  $225 Million.  Very nice.  Congratulations to that family and to that medical school.  Seems small to be the largest gift in US history.  Compared to billions.

Apples and oranges?  All from the same orchard.  It is the fruit of this nation.  It is what we permit to be eaten and shared.  Large gifts….large thefts….we permit and seem to celebrate it all.

Thefts and gifts.  Maybe everything is connected, or is it?  One thing is for sure.  The picking of fruit is long underway and not all of it is fresh or delivered to market.  When a gift of this size is announced as the largest gift in US history to medical schools, and CBS news announces the same day that an individual hedge fund manager made billions, is there something wrong with this picture?

Business schools.  What are we saying about this?  I am, for one, not praising or adoring that hedge fund manager.  I am happy about that medical school and its relatively small gift in the scheme of things.  US history?  I suppose we are all taking that course….ongoing.

JFK….what would you have to say about this all today?  Thanks for what you tried to say.  I heard it then.  I hear it now.  I am not alone.

The Sunny Place Where Shady People Live....Let's stop the Abuse! Check the Senate Hearing on Higher Education

Dear Friends,
This beautiful city San Diego has been the home to a disproportionate percentage of financial appearing felons and shady deal makers.  Ponzi appearing schemes in finance have been a local culture over the years and now higher education is following suit with its own version of the same....

There is a behemoth for profit _____University here headquartered in San Diego which is under deep scrutiny by the US Senate Education Committee, under Senator Tom Harkin's leadership.  The CEO of this organization calling itself a university took home $20 million, 20 times that of  Harvard's. President.   Mostly the source is federal money, i.e.. taxpayers' support.

To what extent is such borderline educational trickery invading the whole higher education industry?  Well, it may just be a national scam of proportions.  The US Senate Education Committee is moving forward and will bring it all out into the sunshine from the shade.

There are two other smaller institutions in San Diego, both for profit institutions, which enroll hundreds maybe thousands of foreign students, skirting the law.  It is possible to "buy an I-20," the document that is the on-ramp to the student visa, for about $300 per month.  These students sign up for classes which may or may not meet.  Many of the students work illegally and just do not study.  They make a mockery of the good schools where students abide by the rules and the regulations.

Maybe about 1000 international students are at the bottom of the educational hierarchy in this beautiful city, seeking their living in marginal jobs while they pay a few hundred dollars per month to be able to be "a student in good standing".  In Pleasanton, California last month, March, 2011, an entire bogus school was busted by the feds and many students were taken to the airports in shackles...many of the 1000 students scrambled to find other real schools...There was a nationwide federal alert about these students. 

But, in San Diego, folks and friends, we have two bogus schools operating here and now in downtown and old town ...does anyone care...the State, INS, SEVIS, ICE, Accreditation?  It is a sham.  When we as a real school conduct our affairs with good practices and tradition, we see these several schools continue to enroll the students who want cheap schedules and false programs, i.e., non existing real programs that look like the real thing.  We follow standards to a T, and watch these violators in broad daylight and sunshine!

Who allows shady places where abuse of students and this gray-market student system can flourish....?  Is this the San Diego we wish to show to the nation and to our families and children.  Why have we not seen the FBI, SEVIS, INS, ICE, the State of California jump in to close them down?  Is someone saying that this is not good for the city and sitting on this?  Is the system itself able to defend itself with executive bullies or bullied up business models?

Imagine if you witnessed a thief trying to steal your own or your neighbor's car.  You watch.... What will you do?  Will you just say, let him deal with it, its not my problem....OR, will you care to jump in to stop this?
So, there are foreign owned "schools" which are modified diploma mills and safe harbors for international students wanting to work, not study, in the US economy.  They operate in sunny daylight in San Diego......and another in North County selling degrees in Vietnam with no US approval to do so. 
We care.  I care very much about this and the abuse we see.  I care that our public enforcers are not doing the job.  By not doing so, the authorities are actually encouraging more abuse.

California was a place at one time where there was a chaos of higher education and nearly no regulation.  Distance education muddies the water.  We are back almost to where we started .

What is needed is a hard and tough conclusion to this Senate Investigation.  Harkin needs to push for serious reform and overhaul regional and national accreditation systems that have no current similarity or uniformity.  No one is talking about the ultimate elephant in the room, a single federal accreditation system.  It would be a tsunami of jobs and egos and turf that would be swept away in a true investigation....

Will the Harkin LEADERSHIP TEAM BE ABLE TO CARRY REFORM ALL THE WAY?  It may.  But, it may not because it may be buried by other news items.  Senator Harkin's work must not be lost in the Washington shuffle.....

Accreditation is the next behemoth in the room to fix.  There are such disparities across the various systems.

Why has not the system been cleaned of violators.  Banks would be so cleaned.....power plants would be so cleaned....Higher Education is untouchable....even with foreign owners with contempt, shady practices will flourish where shady people are.  Even in beautiful cities.

So, until the students and families just get wise and wake up, they will blindly pay and subject  themselves to a series of bogus places and shady faces who will look down and never be proud in the true sun....

Dr. Mike McManus, Ph.D.
President
California International Business University