We will survive this; Washington Post, August 1, 2017

Garrison Keillor, Washington Post; We will survive this

[Kip Currier: Interesting insights from Garrison Keillor about taking a long-view of life, as well as voicing a carpe diem gratitude--embodied in the perfect imperfections of an heirloom tomato.

I first learned about "heirloom tomatoes" from a 2015 radio episode of The Splendid Table (Thanks, National Public Radio!), featuring tomato expert Craig LeHoullier. 

[Aside: Great quote by The Splendid Table host Lynne Rosetto Kasper, after LeHoullier notes that tomatoes are "very perishable": 

"But I think some of the best things in life have to be fragile. We appreciate them more."]

Soonafter, I tried my first heirlooms from the incredible year-round open-air Freshfarm DuPont Circle Market in Washington, D.C.: it was love at first bite.

A week ago I picked up these beauties in DuPont for a killer (Fair Use-transformed!) Caprese Salad:

"It’s a privilege to know people over the course of a lifetime and to reconnoiter and hear about the ordinary goodness of life. By 75, some of our class have gotten whacked hard. And the casualty rate does keep climbing. And yet life is good. These people are America as I know it. Family, work, a sense of humor, gratitude to God for our daily bread and loyalty to the tribe.

If the gentleman stands in the bow and fires his peashooter at the storm, if he appoints a gorilla as head of communications, if he tweets that henceforth no transcendentalist shall be allowed in the armed forces, nonetheless life goes on.

He fulfills an important role of celebs: giving millions of people the chance to feel superior to him. The gloomy face and the antique adolescent hair, the mannequin wife and the clueless children of privilege, the sheer pointlessness of flying around in a 747 to say inane things to crowds of people — it’s cheap entertainment for us, and in the end it simply doesn’t matter."

Corner Office: To Stay Great, Never Forget Your Basics; New York Times, 12/17/11

Adam Bryant, Corner Office, New York Times; Interview with Geoffrey Canada, president and C.E.O. of the nonprofit Harlem Children’s Zone: To Stay Great, Never Forget Your Basics:

"Q. A lot of managers go out of their way to avoid having difficult conversations. Your thoughts?

A. I call them adult conversations. People don’t want to have these conversations. They will avoid them. I am often asking people: Do you need help with having these conversations? So you’re going to talk to that person. What are you going to say to them? How are you going to say it?

It’s something that most of us aren’t trained to do. I used to think it was particularly true in a not-for-profit business, because people who come to work at a not-for-profit want to help people, so it’s harder for them to make these tough calls. But the more I have seen people in for-profits, I think they’re even worse at it.

I’m just stunned sometimes with how unwilling people are to bring somebody in the office and just say to them: “Look, you’re a good person. You know I like you. I like your family. This job is not really working out, and I’m going to have to let you go.” And so they will put people in another position, where they don’t really add to the bottom line, so they don’t have to deal with firing them. We don’t have the luxury of being able to do that. I mean, we don’t have positions that we can just sort of stuff you in."