Yes Virginia, There Is A United Nations

I spent this past Tuesday through Thursday at a lake resort in northern Minnesota as part of our company's annual strategic planning off-site session. You'll be glad to know that we do plan to continue to grow the business and increase mindshare among our global sales force (if you have no idea of what I speak consider yourself lucky).

On the way up to the meetings, I took the most direct route. But on the way back, I elected to spend a little time on the back roads and enjoy the scenery, curving one-lane tracks, and small towns that you don't experience on the main bi-ways.

This also provided me a chance to listen to a wide variety of talk radio. One of the more interesting discussions that I can across was a National Public Radio show that focused on the possible successors to Kofi Annan as Secretary General of the United Nations. I found the background of the election process and the political maneuvering going on behind the scenes among the various nations to be quite fascinating. In a purely academic sense for the most part.

While I think it probably would be good to have the the gal from Latvia (a new 'do might be in order) take the reins, the truth of the matter is that I really am not all that concerned with who leads the U.N. I have no expectations of the organization and no hope that it will prove to be any more useful in the future than it has in the past. A little less corruption would be nice I suppose.

I quickly discovered that my cynical attitude towards the U.N. is not widely shared among NPR listeners. I was amazed by the number of callers (all no doubt holding a political philosophy to the left of my own) who apparently have pinned their future hopes for world peace on the next leader of the U.N. Some thought a Muslim would do the trick, others opined that if we only had a women in charge the nations of the world would be holding hands and singing Kumbaya in no time. People who actually believe the UN is relevant? How quaint.

In another radio related matter, there's finally some good news to pass on regarding AM1500's lineup:

In the last segment of their program on Tuesday, September 5, Ron Rosenbaum and Mark O'Connell announced that they have agreed to part ways with AM1500 KSTP.

At long last, the much-deserving pair of oxen have been gored.