MFA-MBA: An Ethical Dilemma

When a literary-type enrolls in an executive MBA program, an evaluative eye naturally remains open. I may be doing my best to learn, but a part of my brain remains open, judging, assessing, characterizing what is happening around me. And though the seriousness of it, the workload and the nature of what we're doing, consumes my energy, I still want to write about it.

Here, I am faced with a dilemma that is at least ethical, but goes beyond that. Writing publicly about my experience in the EMBA program is tricky. I think the blog is the perfect forum because it allows me to debate things openly. Not only do I want to write about my experience, but I also want to get into what is being covered in the courses. As well as what is going on in the real world.

My instinct for self-preservation tells me this is risky. Writing critically about the program, the faculty, or other students might get in trouble. It's not as if my name isn't all over this blog. If I fail to mention the name of the college, or the name of any other student or professor that at least might help me avoid any pesky Google searches.

So, I'll tread lightly, I suppose.

What I'm Thankful For...

New Yorker Fiction: “Ghosts” by Edwidge Dandicat

Edwidge Danticat’s story “Ghosts” in the Nov. 24 edition of the New Yorker focuses on a young man living in Haiti among slums and gangsters. Danticat’s style is more reportage than description. Told in third person, the story avoids delving too deep in the mind of the protagonist, Pascal, or giving us any real description of setting. We are given facts, some thoughts, and little else.

The story does, though, go deep. Pascal, a young man trying to find his way and avoid the lifestyle that surrounds him, falls into the fantasies that trap many of us. Dreaming of hosting his own radio show, he imagines,

It would be controversial at first, but soon people would tune in by the thousands. A kind of sick voyeurism would keep them listening, daily, weekly, monthly, however often he was on. People would rearrange their schedules around it. They wouldn’t be able to stop discussing it.

The fact-based style doesn’t illuminate or excite. The reader may be interested in finding out what happens, but he isn’t captivated. Only near the end does Danticat open the story up some, stepping away from the action, to go deeper, with Pascal again fantasizing about, this time, a new radio program:
He would open with a discussion of how many people in Bel Air had lost limbs. Then he would go from limbs to souls, to the number of people who had lost family—siblings, parents, children—and friends. These were the real ghosts, he would say, the phantom limbs, phantom minds, phantom loves that haunt us, because they were used, then abandoned, because they were desolate, because they were violent, because they were merciless, because they were out of choices, because they did not want to be driven away, because they were poor.

“Ghosts” tells of a life, a world about which I know nothing, which I can hardly understand. It does come close to helping me comprehend the problem.

WSJ Editorial Throws Cold Water on Geithner Nomination

After the Dow rallied nearly 500 points on Friday after the leak that President-elect Obama would nominate Timothy Geithner to be the new Treasury Secretary, the Wall Street Journal editorial board has decided take an ideological view of the choice. Instead of providing the reliable, business-centric view of the economy and Obama's choice, the Wall Street Journal seemed to think it should contradict the market, who obviously approved of the choice (as I write this Monday morning, the market is up another 170 points).

Demonstrating the skewed take on the current situation, the editorial reads, "The uncertainty over Obama's team and its direction has itself been fueling the lack of confidence, so we're glad to see the President-elect getting on with the show." Undoubtedly, a period of transition affects confidence, but when the current administration decides to sit on the sidelines during a crisis, it hardly helps anything.

I expect to disagree with the WSJ editors when it comes to politics, but it is disappointing to see the editors' political ideology to interfere with their ability to see things clearly and offer the proper reassuring opinion necessary in the current economic situation.

How does it sound? President-Elect Obama

On November 4, 2008, Barack Obama was elected as the next President of the United States. I am, of course, pleased that the man I backed from the beginning actually won the election (that hasn't happened in many, many years), but while watching him come out to deliver his victory speech I was proud of our country. Much has been made in the last few days about the significance of his race, but it does say something to me personally about who we are that the majority of us voted for him. During the primaries, realizing that I really like Obama, I thought to myself that he never had a chance. "He's a black guy with a funny name; what chance does he have?" Yet, here we are.

I could talk too about what this means politically, what it tells me, but there are a hundred journalists out there slicing up the data and making pronouncements about the state of the country. It is different, for me, to feel that a majority of people have come around to my point of view.

And what a weight is lifted, having the election behind us. I didn't realize how much stress the whole thing was causing. Now we get to get on to real policy issues, the meat of the matter. This, really, is what I like. I could even go on about the decision Obama has made in the last few days and the implication of them, but there are others out there, who watch this even closer than I do, who could do a better job of it. All I should say here is that I'm pleased and proud about how the whole thing has worked out.