wishing there was another way

I hope no one is expecting anything of substance today (though recent history certainly wouldnt make that a reasonable expectation, now, would it?). There wont be. My brain, after a week of vacation, a week of the whole family being home, and a weekend of somekind of intestinal virus, has simply shut down. Sadly, the following is the closest to a fully formed post that has managed to get out of my skull.

The other day I read this book, one that my wife had been reading (she laughed so much reading it, I couldnt resist). It was a story of a young lawyer in a large, prestigious London law firm who discovers that she's made a mistake that lost a client £50 million. She panics, jumps on a train, and through a series of events ends up on the country-house doorstep of a wealthy couple, mistakenly taken for their latest applicant for housekeeper. Though she knows nothing about housekeeping, she takes the job and frivolous hilarity ensues, blah blah blah.
Jump to the end, and she's been exonerated of the mistake (a frame-job) and offered a full partnership in the law firm. But she's learned to love her new life, and it's low-stress ways, and is torn between remaining a small-town house-keeper and going back to being a no-life, high-powered city attorney. And that's where I got irritated.

What is it with people, anyway. Why does everything have to be black or white? Are you a Republican or a Democrat? Are you a liberal or a conservative? Are you Saved or do you hate Jesus? With Us or Against Us? Red State or Blue State? Good or Evil?
Labor / Management?
North / South?
Gay/ Straight?
Dog / Cat?
Munsters / Addams Family?
Puh-tay-toe / Puh-tah-toe?

The other day, my daughter asked me, "Daddy, if you had to choose, which would you pick, to freeze to death or to burn to death?" Leaving off the question of just where such a question would come from for a 9-year old girl, I told her, "Neither, I would choose not to die." This answer, of course, frustrated the hell out of her, and we spent several minutes arguing about false choices, something I'm not sure I was getting through to her.

But I hope I did, because this is exactly the kind of thing that drives me crazy.

Here's an idea: Here in the U.S., we've lost our world domination in the manufacturing sector. We appear to be losing the race in the Sciences. And we all know the story of our lost Service Sector jobs. Maybe we need to cultivate a new specialty, a new road to world influence.

My idea? We develop a knack for coming up with a Third Way.

Imagine, taking the "liberal" penchant for "valuing" the point of view of the other person to a new place. A place where one can listen to the opinions of both sides, weigh them, and then say something along the lines of, "Well, you've both got some very good points, but obviously, you cant both have all that you want. but how about if we do this thing here, that neither of you seem to have thought of, and maybe everyone can go away reasonably happy.
Now, some might say that this was a little something once called "leadership", but, quite frankly, when I look around the world, I dont see much of it in evidence anywhere. And look, we live in the Age of Consultants, so why not take advantage of that. A little bit of training, a little bit of clever marketing, and a little bit of grey-area thinking, and we could be firmly back in the driver's seat almost as soon as the cumulative effects of Dubya's disasterous foriegn policies knock us out.

Oh, in case you're wondering, the unmentioned Third Way in the book: Why couldnt she simply have become a simple village lawyer?
Duh.