ideas

Insightful comments on the web are often few and far between. But I found one yesterday afternoon on one of Heather Mallick's columns, via cbc.ca:

Canada is the product of an arranged marriage that has been difficult. As such, young Canada is leery of simplistic window dressing, which explains why we've never strutted ourselves across any stage or blared our own horn or imagined that the "Canadian Way" should work for everyone else.

Canada is young, but by no means the adolescent nation that the USA is. Their flag waving, hand-on-heart patriotism is actually a cover-up for a very basic insecurity and rather unfortunate split personality that vacillates and lurches between isolationism and economic imperialism.

Canada doesn't want to have "dates". Canada wants to adopt. Canada lives in a very large house, has lots of room, and is looking for children who will not trash the house, or tear it down, but who will respect the rules, help mow the lawn, and take the garbage out.

More here: cbc.ca

Happy Canada day

Lisa sent me this link yesterday evening after reading about my upcoming trip to Uganda:

'Lure of big paycheck tugs at grads considering public service' - NYTimes

As Adam M. Guren, a new Harvard graduate who will be pursuing his doctorate in economics, put it, “A lot of students have been asking the question: ‘We came to Harvard as freshmen to change the world, and we’re leaving to become investment bankers — why is this?’ ”

This is precisely what I was thinking when McKinsey came to recruit at McGill earlier in the year. I watched their presentation, with some distrust, and asked the panel how they felt working for a company which is known not to discriminate when working with particularly nasty clients. The panelists, mostly fresh recruits, kept stressing the financial benefits and prestige...

I left before the complementary wine & cheese.

Great article though, it captures a very important trend.